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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 01/30/2009 : 00:00:44
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So, how long does executive privilege last? According to the outgoing Bush administration, forever! No, he didn't issue a pardon for people like Carl Rove, just immunity. Forever!!!
Bush lawyer directs Rove not to talk to Congress—once again
Just four days before he left office, President Bush instructed former White House aide Karl Rove to refuse to cooperate with future congressional inquiries into alleged misconduct during his administration.
On Jan. 16, 2009, then White House Counsel Fred Fieldingsent a letter (.pdf) to Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin. The message: should his client receive any future subpoenas, Rove "should not appear before Congress" or turn over any documents relating to his time in the White House. The letter told Rove that President Bush was continuing to assert executive privilege over any testimony by Rove—even after he leaves office.
A nearly identical letter (.pdf) was also sent by Fielding the day before to a lawyer for former White House counsel Harriet Miers, instructing her not to appear for a scheduled deposition with the House Judiciary Committee. That letter reasserted the White House position that Miers has "absolute immunity" from testifying before Congress about anything she did while she worked at the White House—a far-reaching claim that is being vigorously disputed by lawyers for the House of Representatives in court.
The letters set the stage for what is likely to be a highly contentious legal and political battle over an unresolved issue: whether a former president can assert "executive privilege"—and therefore prevent his aides from testifying before Congress—even after his term has expired… |
Bolding is mine.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 01/30/2009 : 00:26:30 [Permalink]
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This is one of the reasons why no one gives a fuck what congress says or does.
They have the power, constitutionally, to compel testimony under oath from anyone. The fact that the democrats have rolled over on this issue for years tells me that they will continue to do so.
Why? Because some of them are likely implicated in Bush's bullshit. They don't want Bush admin people testifying under oath, and the continued claim of executive privilege gives them all a free pass.
Fucking useless, the lot of them.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 00:28:48 [Permalink]
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| Well, actually, it looks like this is up to the justice department and the courts. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 00:30:43 [Permalink]
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Nope, I don't expect that to hold water in court. Cute delaying tactic, though.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 05:33:51 [Permalink]
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Now that the Bush Administration no longer controls the Justice Department, if Rove or Miers disregards a Congressional subpoena, they should be put in jail until they comply. Simple. That's where Rove belongs anyway.
However, I don't see the Democrats doing that. So far there has been little discussion I'm aware of about bringing the criminals of the Bush Administration to justice. Yeah yeah, it's devisive, the country has bigger problems, water under the bridge, blah blah. If something severe isn't done to these criminals, the next time conservatives take office, they'll do it again. |
-Chaloobi
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 09:15:56 [Permalink]
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| I don't expect politicians to do it. But wouldn't an inquiry only require a small number of person pushing it? |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 10:16:11 [Permalink]
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| WE need a new class of reporters not unlike Jack Anderson or Edward R. Murrow to tear their asses up, instead of the soothing salve worthless media we've had the past...how many years? |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 12:09:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Now that the Bush Administration no longer controls the Justice Department, if Rove or Miers disregards a Congressional subpoena, they should be put in jail until they comply. Simple. That's where Rove belongs anyway.
However, I don't see the Democrats doing that. So far there has been little discussion I'm aware of about bringing the criminals of the Bush Administration to justice. Yeah yeah, it's devisive, the country has bigger problems, water under the bridge, blah blah. If something severe isn't done to these criminals, the next time conservatives take office, they'll do it again.
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There is a bigger issue than bringing Rove and the others to justice. This is about executive privilege. My guess is that the new justice department will not accept the extent of privilege that Bush and his lawyers are attempting, and will argue that the constitution provides no such immunity for the staff of ex presidents. In the end, I think Rove will have to testify before congress, or be held in contempt of congress, and without Bush's protection, he would go to jail for that.
What blows my mind, and the reason for the OP is the sheer chutzpa of Bush and his lawyers for even making the attempt to extend executive privilege beyond his term. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 12:30:18 [Permalink]
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Well, executive privilege does not extend to criminal matters.
The fact that it has been used, for years now, to avoid answering questions in criminal investigations (this justice department inquiry IS a criminal matter) is the real problem Kil.
That, and the fact that the dems have basically let them get away with it.
Why would they? Unless they also have something to hide?
I expect Rove et al to continue to exert executive priv, and get away with it. They will never be required to answer questions under oath.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 12:31:30 [Permalink]
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Forgot to add:
.... because the congressional dems are useless, spineless, waste of space assholes.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 12:40:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Well, executive privilege does not extend to criminal matters.
I expect Rove et al to continue to exert executive priv, and get away with it. They will never be required to answer questions under oath.
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Wanna bet? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 12:54:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Forgot to add:
.... because the congressional dems are useless, spineless, waste of space assholes.
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Agree. But maybe, as the Republicans continue to destroy themselves, they'll grow some balls. Fat chnce, probably.
Maybe we'll luck out and Rove will go deer hunting with drunken Cheney, making the whole question moot. |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 18:42:25 [Permalink]
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hehe If Rove were ever alone in the woods with old Dicky, I'd bet a "hunting accident" would happen to Rove. Keep the fat little prick from ever talking.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2009 : 07:08:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Originally posted by chaloobi
Now that the Bush Administration no longer controls the Justice Department, if Rove or Miers disregards a Congressional subpoena, they should be put in jail until they comply. Simple. That's where Rove belongs anyway.
However, I don't see the Democrats doing that. So far there has been little discussion I'm aware of about bringing the criminals of the Bush Administration to justice. Yeah yeah, it's devisive, the country has bigger problems, water under the bridge, blah blah. If something severe isn't done to these criminals, the next time conservatives take office, they'll do it again.
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There is a bigger issue than bringing Rove and the others to justice. This is about executive privilege. My guess is that the new justice department will not accept the extent of privilege that Bush and his lawyers are attempting, and will argue that the constitution provides no such immunity for the staff of ex presidents. In the end, I think Rove will have to testify before congress, or be held in contempt of congress, and without Bush's protection, he would go to jail for that.
What blows my mind, and the reason for the OP is the sheer chutzpa of Bush and his lawyers for even making the attempt to extend executive privilege beyond his term.
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It speaks to Bush's character. He's not this guy that did what he had to do in trying times, made mistakes, broke the law, but did it because he loves his country, felt this was his duty, and damn the consequences. No. He's a guy that jumped to quick ideologically based decisions without much thought during trying times, made a lot of extreme fuck ups as a direct result, and to the very end has taken previously unimaginable steps to dodge any kind of accountability. What an asshole. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 01/31/2009 07:09:59 |
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Immunity for Karl Rove? Forever???
