Posted by The Justice Department sent a letter yesterday to the House Judiciary Committee that made the administration’s position official: a U.S. attorney will not enforce a citation of contempt, should it pass the House.
Or as the letter (you can read it here), sent to the committee yesterday by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski, put it:
“As it considers the contempt resolutions, we think it is important that the Committee appreciate fully the longstanding Department of Justice position, articulated during Administrations of both parties, that “the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the President or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege.”
That last quote is indeed from a 1995 opinion from Clinton’s Justice Department, which The Washington Post reported on this weekend. As the Clinton-era DoJ officials behind that memo told the Post, they didn’t think that Congress could force the U.S. attorney to prosecute, but did think that the president’s assertion of executive privilege should be heard in court.
Of course, the committee chose to press on with the contempt citation anyway, forcing the issue, and the clash will likely nevertheless land in court.
Note: As we’ve noted earlier, whatever the DoJ has said about it, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Taylor (or someone in his office if he’s forced to recuse himself), will still have to make the ultimate determination as to whether to enforce the contempt citation.
***KUDOS TO READER ANNA WHO POSTED THIS: Congress needs to pass *laws* about executive privilege. A lot of what’s being argued over are DoJ opinions, which have never been adjudicated in actual courts, and are issued by a Department which, according to this line of thinking, exists only to exercise the President’s perogative. That’s a dangerous combination, but it can be reined in with a few choice amendments to the next appropriations bill or something. This business of letting the DoJ protect the President from Congress under the auspices of not allowing the enforcement of proceedings is dishonest and needs to stop, I don’t care which party is in office.
