“Not one of the six Democrats granted access to what amounts to 99.9 percent of volume II of the Mueller report, which details the president’s behavior as it relates to obstruction of justice, have taken the opportunity to examine it,” writes National Review’s Jack Crowe. But according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), there’s a “constitutional crisis” after President Donald Trump, at the request of the Justice Department, asserted executive privilege to protect Attorney General William Barr from being held in contempt of Congress. Undeterred, Democrats maintained their vacuous assertion that Barr is hiding something and voted to hold him in contempt anyway.
Spare us the hand-wringing over constitutional fidelity and the Rule of Law. This is nothing more than pure Democrat political theater meant to advance their manufactured faux scandal. Nadler peddles a myth when claiming that Barr is “not being truthful with Congress.” How has Barr not been truthful? In fact, the AG went above and beyond the requirements of law in order to get as much of Robert Mueller’s report to the American public as is legally possible. Anyone can get a copy, and key Democrats even have access to all but a few lines of redacted material.
But that’s not enough for Democrats. Their demand is that Barr break the law by presenting the report fully un-redacted. As Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation explains, “Unless Congress’s request for Rule 6(e) grand jury material falls squarely into one of the statutory or court-created exceptions, the attorney general — any attorney general — is prohibited from disclosing that material to Congress. And the congressional request doesn’t fit any of the exceptions.”
Why are Democrats making this demand?
1 comment:
The "executive privilege" is being used in a way that it has never been before, and it's a MAJOR stretch.
The Supreme Court ruled that Presidents have such privilege with their close staff members, attorneys, etc... to ensure a reasonable confidence that conversations are kept private, that these conversations can't be compelled to be exposed.
However, an investigation report... specifically investigating the President himself doesn't really fall into the category of "executive privilege". As a conservative, I am always bothered when the boundries of power are blurred and pushed further. I don't think the President has the legal standing to claim such a thing.
It matters not... him doing so will cause a legal challenge which will get mired in the courts, effectively stalling the exposure of the report anyway.
However, expanding the power of government isn't a very, Conservative, thing to do...
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