Tony Snow on Executive Privilege, circa 1999

For your information. This was written in September 1999, but apparently the Bush personnel people didn't see this when they hired Snow.

No sooner did he dodge conviction in Congress, for example, than he boasted to Dan Rather that by saving his presidency, he defended the Constitution....

Clinton and his lawyers have invoked executive privilege to dodge responsibility for L'Affair Lewinsky, Whitewater, the China scandals and more. His Justice (sic) Department has spent more time prosecuting Kenneth Starr than tracking down enemies of the state. This week, that very Justice (sic, again) Department relocated a troublesome Waco prosecutor and told FBI agents to stonewall Congress about Clinton's decision to free 11 terrorists belonging to the Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN.

What does Snow say about executive privilege today? And what happens with this endless ping-pong in which a Democratic Congress takes on a Republican president and vice versa, going back to the Andrew Johnson administration (if not before)?

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