The Showdown Begins
The House Judiciary Committee has voted to cite Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for contempt of Congress. If passed by the whole House, they will face prosecution for their refusal to testify before Congress. If they contest the charges, the only grounds they have is that they were shielded by executive privilege. There is no other possible defense; to do otherwise would require that they admit guilt and go to jail as soon as they can be sentenced.
This means the likely complete destruction of 218 years of Presidents asserting something that has come to be called executive privilege took a step forward today. The reason it is likely to be destroyed is there is absolutely no reference to it in the Constitution...indeed, there is nothing in the Constitution from which a lawyer hopelessly lost in opium dreams could fantasize such a privilege. The concept of executive privilege has survived all this time precisely because it has never been tested. Whenever a court battle has neared in the past, the White House has blinked, and found a compromise the Congress could live with.
But this administration has claimed that executive privilege applies to maintaining the confidences of not just employees of the President, but ex-employees. This is silly by any standard; the White House has not even bothered to come up with a legal justification for it, because, well, they can’t think of one. It isn't quite too late; there is still time for the President to not be responsible for the greatest blow to Presidential power in two centuries.
But if not...well, what’s going on isn’t a showdown between Congress and the President. It’s between the President and the Constitution, and it’s one he’s bound to lose.
