Liberal Forum

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 11:23 am » wrote:

Misty » 21 Jan 2020 1:20 pm » wrote:Once again you ignore the fact that Sniffles has NEVER invoked Executive Privilege.

Yeah, no, That's a brazen lie.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/co ... t-inquiry/

Here's another:

https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-executive ... n-19266894

The Trump White House has a long record of using claims of executive privilege to evade congressional questioning. Most recently, on Oct. 14, the administration attempted to use executive privilege to limit the testimony of Fiona Hill, former Trump aide on European and Russian affairs, who was called to speak with House impeachment investigators about the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

Here's another:

https://qz.com/1733405/executive-privil ... t-inquiry/

If you want 30 more, please signify.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 11:45 am » wrote:...
The WH has made a blanket claim of 'absolute immunity' ...

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Misty » 22 Jan 2020 1:47 pm » wrote:

DC sues Trump inaugural committee, alleging abuse of funds.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia is suing President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and two companies that control the Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital, accusing them of throwing parties for the Trump family with nonprofit funds, and overpaying for event space at the hotel.

The district's attorney general, Karl Racine, said the inaugural committee had been “blatantly and unlawfully abusing nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family.”

The lawsuit, announced Wednesday, alleges that the committee abused nonprofit funds and coordinated with the Trump family to “grossly overpay for event space” in the hotel.

The committee has maintained that its finances were independently audited, and that all money was spent in accordance with the law.

It was the latest allegation that Trump and his family have used public and nonprofit funds spent at Trump-owned properties to enrich themselves — part of the peril of Trump not fully withdrawing from his businesses while he is president.

Trump has maintained ownership but turned the reins over to his adult sons, who have bristled at the charge that they are profiting off their father's presidency.

The suit alleges the committee coordinated with the hotel’s management and members of Trump’s family to arrange the events and that committee staffers knew they were paying prices that were “grossly above market rate" but didn't consider less expensive alternatives.

The committee raised an unprecedented $107 million to host events celebrating Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.

But the committee's spending has drawn mounting scrutiny.

“District law requires nonprofits to use their funds for their stated public purpose, not to benefit private individuals or companies,” Racine said.

“In this case, we are seeking to recover the nonprofit funds that were improperly funneled directly to the Trump family business.”

Misty » 22 Jan 2020 8:27 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 11:45 am » wrote: Okay, after a quick look over all of your links I see that they are talking about the possibility of the WH invoking EP, but none of them seem to say they have actually done it.

The Trump White House has a long record of using claims of executive privilege to evade congressional questioning. Most recently, on Oct. 14, the administration attempted to use executive privilege to limit the testimony of Fiona Hill, former Trump aide on European and Russian affairs, who was called to speak with House impeachment investigators about the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:00 pm » wrote:Perhaps you and I have a different understanding of word meanings.
Does this reportage which I provided you in the link you responded to, and quoted for you in the post you responded to, mention executive privilege, in your opinion?

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 11:48 am » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 11:45 am » wrote:...The WH has made a blanket claim of 'absolute immunity' ...
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

No, no - you corrected yourself. The WH claimed executive privilege, and now ya know.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:01 pm » wrote: On whom did they claim Executive Privilege?
Link?

If the administration continues to invoke the policy to evade the impeachment inquiry, a committee in the House or Senate can vote to hold the president in contempt of Congress, and then take the case to court in order to seek a judge’s ruling to force compliance.

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:04 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:01 pm » wrote: On whom did they claim Executive Privilege?
Link?

Fiona Hill. Steve Bannon - same link I gave you. With the relevant quote.

https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-executive ... n-19266894

The White House tried to limit what Fiona Hill, who until August served as President Donald Trump's top Russia analyst, could say to Congress in its impeachment inquiry, correspondence between her lawyers and a White House deputy counsel shows.

The letters, obtained by NBC News, illustrate that while the White House did not try to block Hill from testifying, it did tell Hill’s lawyers about four areas that could potentially fall under executive privilege.
[....]
Hill’s lawyers wrote back to the White House on Sunday, presenting their argument for why executive privilege did not apply, based in part on the fact that some of the information has already come into the public sphere and thus is no longer confidential, the correspondence shows.

Hill’s lawyers also made a legal argument that executive privilege disappears when there’s reason to believe there was government misconduct. Hill’s lawyers asked the White House to weigh in further, according to the correspondence.
[....]
The White House did not tell Hill not to testify, but reminded her in the emailed letter Monday morning that "it is incumbent on Dr. Hill and you, as her counsel, to guard against unauthorized disclosure.

To be clear, Dr. Hill is not authorized to reveal or release any classified information or any information subject to executive privilege."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump- ... d_ms_tw_ma

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:13 pm » wrote: You need to read your own link again.

They warned Fiona Hill not to testify about anything that could be subject to EP, but they never actually invoked it.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:13 pm » wrote: They warned Fiona Hill not to testify about anything that could be subject to EP, but they never actually invoked it.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:01 pm » wrote: It does mention it, but I don't see where they actually invoked it.
I did watch the House impeachment hearings from beginning to end.

On whom did they claim Executive Privilege?
Link?

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:04 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:01 pm » wrote:On whom did they claim Executive Privilege?
Link?

Fiona Hill. Steve Bannon - same link I gave you. With the relevant quote.

https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-executive ... n-19266894

The same link lays out the house's remedy, if they feel EP is being over-used:

If the administration continues to invoke the policy to evade the impeachment inquiry, a committee in the House or Senate can vote to hold the president in contempt of Congress, and then take the case to court in order to seek a judge’s ruling to force compliance.

I see no mention of using it as grounds for impeachment. Do you?

On July 30, the final day of its impeachment debate, Article III, charging Nixon with contempt of Congress for his defiance of eight Judiciary Committee subpoenas, issued during April, May and June 1974, was introduced by Robert McClory, and was approved by a narrow 21–17 margin.

The president's refusal to comply with federal court and congressional subpoenas had been included among the various charges of abuses of authority in the initial version of Article II, but was absent from substitute.

Proponents argued that Nixon's consistent "stonewalling" constituted an impeachable offence as it threatened to diminish the House's constitutional impeachment power.

McClory argued that the claim of executive privilege "has no place in an impeachment inquiry."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeach ... hard_Nixon

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:22 pm » wrote:
It was good enough to use against Nixon.

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:21 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:01 pm » wrote:It does mention it, but I don't see where they actually invoked it.
I did watch the House impeachment hearings from beginning to end.
On whom did they claim Executive Privilege?
Link?

I linked it already. Telling his minion not to testify on the ground of executive privilege is how it is invoked.

What Is the Process for Asserting Executive Privilege?

Lots of questions have been raised about why certain executive branch officials testifying in recent weeks didn’t answer certain questions.

The process through which the executive branch has considered and addressed executive privilege assertions in the past provides important context.

Understanding how the executive branch decides whether to assert executive privilege begins with understanding how the executive branch approaches congressional oversight requests.

From the executive branch’s perspective, a request (or subpoena) from Congress seeking information that implicates executive branch confidentiality interests (i.e., interests that could potentially be protected by a formal invocation of executive privilege) kicks off a back-and-forth process under which each branch is constitutionally obligated to negotiate in good faith, articulate with particularity their legitimate institutional needs and interests, and weigh the legitimate needs and interests of the other branch.

This is all an effort to reach an accommodation that meets Congress’s legitimate, articulated needs in a way that protects, to the fullest extent possible, important executive branch confidentiality interests.

The executive branch refers to this back-and-forth negotiation as the accommodation process; members of Congress who would like immediate access to the information may be more likely to see it as stonewalling, slow-walking, or obstruction.

This approach to accommodation mirrors the D.C. Circuit’s 1977 direction that, when confronting an inter-branch dispute regarding access to information, “each branch should take cognizance of an implicit constitutional mandate to seek optimal accommodation through a realistic evaluation of the needs of the conflicting branches in the particular fact situation.”

Thus in 1981 the Attorney General described the accommodation process as “not simply an exchange of concessions or a test of political strength” but rather as “an obligation of each branch to make a principled effort to acknowledge, and if possible to meet, the legitimate needs of the other branch.”

Congress has recently approached its subpoenas for executive branch information from an orientation that more closely resembles civil discovery, taking the position that once a subpoena has been issued, the executive branch has an obligation to respond or assert a valid legal basis for not responding by the return date for the subpoena.

By contrast, it is only when this accommodation process has been exhausted and an impasse has been reached that the executive branch typically evaluates whether the president should formally invoke executive privilege.

From the executive branch perspective, flat insistence that an agency must comply with a subpoena by the return date reflects Congress’s failure to engage in good faith in the constitutionally-mandated accommodation process, because it does not seek to understand and accommodate a co-equal branch’s legitimate interests.

This is important because although in civil discovery, a neutral judge is available to mediate disputes between parties, in disputes between Congress and the executive branch, there typically is no judge — indeed, each branch of government often asserts its constitutional right to be the judge of the matter.

The process by which an assertion is made is governed by a 1982 memorandum issued by President Reagan that remains in effect.

The Reagan memo directs the head of an agency that receives a congressional request that raises “a substantial question of executive privilege” to consult with the attorney general and the White House counsel.

If negotiations reach a standstill and these officials conclude that the circumstances warrant invocation of executive privilege, they prepare materials for the White House counsel to present the issue to the president for his or her decision.

Traditionally, this presentation involves a memorandum from the head of the agency that received the congressional request explaining the information sought by Congress, why the information is privileged, and the efforts that the agency has made to date to accommodate the congressional request; a memorandum from the attorney general evaluating the legal basis for a privilege assertion over the requested information, including whether the qualified privilege might be overcome in the balancing of interests and needs; and the White House counsel’s recommendation to the president.

Pending the president’s decision, the agency is directed to ask Congress to hold the request in abeyance, and to explain that this is simply to protect the president’s ability to assert the privilege and does not itself constitute a claim of privilege.

Once the president has formally invoked executive privilege, it is the Department of Justice’s position that officials acting based on that assertion of privilege cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.

This framework fits most naturally with requests for documents: the information sought is known and can be reviewed for how it comports with the legal requirements for asserting executive privilege.

Because documents are within the agency’s possession and control, the agency generally has control of the timing of any disclosure or decision to invoke privilege.

To avoid exposing agency heads to the risk of contempt, the executive branch generally seeks to ensure that any decision regarding whether to invoke the privilege is made before a contempt vote is held.

Fitting this framework to the context of congressional testimony is more complicated, because witnesses do not generally know the questions in advance and it is more difficult to determine whether and when a true impasse in the accommodation process is reached.

The approach taken by administration witnesses to recent questions about their conversations with the President highlight this challenge.

The point at which testifying executive branch officials would be exposed to a risk of contempt is most analogous to the point of impasse for document requests.

Committee rules typically provide that a witness giving compelled testimony cannot be held in contempt for declining to answer a question unless the committee has rejected the proffered reason and afforded the witness a second opportunity to answer. (This is why Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service's 2013 political targeting controversy, was called back to invoke the Fifth Amendment a second time before the House of Representatives found her in contempt.)

Presumably, at least once this stage is reached, there is a clear impasse (and the testifying official would likely want the protection of an assertion of executive privilege before continuing to refuse to answer).

This stage has not been reached for Sessions, Coats, and Rogers.

To start, these administration witnesses were likely appearing voluntarily rather than pursuant to a subpoena.

It is unclear that a witness voluntarily providing testimony can be held in contempt for simply declining to answer a question.

At a minimum, the questioning has not reached a point where the executive branch would traditionally consider invoking executive privilege because it is not clear that the accommodation process has reached an impasse.

Although from a congressional perspective the witnesses could readily have anticipated questions about their conversations with the President and the refusal to answer is frustrating, it is not surprising from an executive branch perspective that the witnesses were not prepared to either assert or waive any privileges with respect to the conversations at this early point.

There has not been a process of back-and-forth negotiations that the executive branch would normally view as a necessary predicate to deciding whether to formally invoke executive privilege.

In preserving the opportunity for the president to determine whether to invoke the privilege, the witnesses’ responses were also consistent with the approach outlined in the Reagan memo, which directs officials to request Congress hold requests in abeyance while the President is evaluating whether to invoke the privilege, and with OLC advice suggesting that the Constitution requires that the president be afforded an adequate opportunity to come to a decision whether to invoke executive privilege.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/primer-exec ... -oversight

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:25 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:22 pm » wrote:It was good enough to use against Nixon.

In the rough draft - not in the one that replaced it. Neither were submitted to the Senate, so no - it was not used against Nixon.
Nixon was not impeached.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:42 pm » wrote: Only because he resigned, but the Articles of Impeachment were drawn up, and Contempt of Congress was one of them.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:40 pm » wrote: I don't think it's that simple.
There is a whole process they must go through.

The Trump White House has a long record of using claims of executive privilege to evade congressional questioning. Most recently, on Oct. 14, the administration attempted to use executive privilege to limit the testimony of Fiona Hill,

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:51 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:40 pm » wrote:I don't think it's that simple.
There is a whole process they must go through.

Why did Anita Hill's attorneys object to Trump invoking EP?

Can you explain what this - from the link I have provided twice - says?

The Trump White House has a long record of using claims of executive privilege to evade congressional questioning. Most recently, on Oct. 14, the administration attempted to use executive privilege to limit the testimony of Fiona Hill,

Cannonpointer » 23 Jan 2020 12:48 pm » wrote:You and I are not arguing the CORRECTNESS of Trump's position. We are arguing the fact that you misstated it. You claimed he never invoked EP.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 12:00 pm » wrote:Clem, who never misses one of my posts, seems to have completely overlooked this one:

Misty » 22 Jan 2020 1:47 pm » wrote:

DC sues Trump inaugural committee, alleging abuse of funds.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia is suing President Donald Trump's inaugural committee and two companies that control the Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital, accusing them of throwing parties for the Trump family with nonprofit funds, and overpaying for event space at the hotel.

The district's attorney general, Karl Racine, said the inaugural committee had been “blatantly and unlawfully abusing nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family.”

The lawsuit, announced Wednesday, alleges that the committee abused nonprofit funds and coordinated with the Trump family to “grossly overpay for event space” in the hotel.

The committee has maintained that its finances were independently audited, and that all money was spent in accordance with the law.

It was the latest allegation that Trump and his family have used public and nonprofit funds spent at Trump-owned properties to enrich themselves — part of the peril of Trump not fully withdrawing from his businesses while he is president.

Trump has maintained ownership but turned the reins over to his adult sons, who have bristled at the charge that they are profiting off their father's presidency.

The suit alleges the committee coordinated with the hotel’s management and members of Trump’s family to arrange the events and that committee staffers knew they were paying prices that were “grossly above market rate" but didn't consider less expensive alternatives.

The committee raised an unprecedented $107 million to host events celebrating Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.

But the committee's spending has drawn mounting scrutiny.

“District law requires nonprofits to use their funds for their stated public purpose, not to benefit private individuals or companies,” Racine said.

“In this case, we are seeking to recover the nonprofit funds that were improperly funneled directly to the Trump family business.”

And this one:

Misty » 22 Jan 2020 8:27 pm » wrote:

He normally replies to every single one of my posts.
I guess those two were inconvenient for him.

Even the forum's biggest liar and propaganda artist couldn't come up with any **** excuses for Trump once again getting caught abusing a non-profit, and for FOX News TRUMP TV keeping their viewers uninformed.

Misty » 23 Jan 2020 1:57 pm » wrote:CRICKETS