The privilege serves as a powerful protection against compelled disclosures of internal, confidential executive branch communications — whether in response to court orders, congressional subpoenas or both.
..Executive privilege is an important shield to protect the president’s power. It is not a sword
.. So where a current or former government employee wants to cooperate and turn over the requested information, the privilege itself won’t — and can’t — stop him or her.
.. Federal law proscribes certain unauthorized disclosures, including of “information relating to the national defense” or information that has pecuniary value to the United States.
.. No one is making an argument that the material in Comey’s memos was classified, or that information about a conversation could have the kind of monetary value required to trigger the federal conversion statute.
.. But it’s also worth stressing that Trump would not have had a valid basis for invoking executive privilege in any event. From his own public statements and tweets about his conversations with Comey, Trump has almost certainly waived any potential privilege claim, since he has acknowledged both the existence and substance of the discussions.
.. And even if the president has not waived the privilege here, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon that “The President’s broad interest in confidentiality of communications will not be vitiated by disclosure of a limited number of conversations preliminarily shown to have some bearing on the pending criminal cases.”
.. none of this means that Comey acted “appropriately” in orchestrating the leak of his memos. Not for the first time, it appears that Comey took it upon himself to breach important norms governing the conduct of senior law enforcement officials
Team Trump’s official response to the Comey testimony — now, with context
Note the wording that Kasowitz uses: “selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications.” He’s conflating “selective” with “illegal” and “classified” with “privileged.” Comey’s was a selective leak of privileged conversation — not anything illegal. He’s lumping in Comey with those who leaked classified information, for rhetorical effect.
.. Kasowitz here makes it seem as though Comey leaked information about his conversations back in March, before he was fired — but appears to be referring to Comey describing those conversations with friends. That, too, is not illegal.
.. The net effect of this focus on leaks is, of course, to undermine Comey’s testimony.
.. The use of “was not” is important here. Comey did testify that, as of the day he was fired one month ago Friday, Trump was not personally under investigation
.. Comey also indicated that he didn’t say that publicly because that status might change.
.. Finally, it did “leak” that Trump wasn’t under investigation — Trump said it himself, publicly, in the letter firing Comey.
Marc Kasowitz, ‘Toughest of the Tough Guys,’ Stands Beside Trump
He is, for lack of a better comparison, the Donald Trump of lawyering.
.. A walk through Mr. Kasowitz’s office at Kasowitz Benson Torres in Midtown shows magazine covers and framed pictures of him. He’s quick to tell you about his latest accomplishment and never shies from publicity. The first paragraph of the online biography on his firm’s website, before mentioning any of his work, cites the dozens of media outlets that have written about him, and how they have described him as the “toughest lawyer on Wall Street,” an “uberlitigator” and “the toughest of the tough guys.”
.. In case you didn’t get the message, he likes a good fight, the nastier the better.
.. Mr. Kasowitz was largely responsible for helping Liggett settle the huge class action suits it faced over the health impact of tobacco
.. Mr. Kasowitz’s firm was on the other side of Mr. Icahn in a dispute over casinos. The client? Mr. Trump, along with his daughter Ivanka.
.. Mr. Kasowitz recently added Sberbank, a Russian state-controlled bank, as a client in a case that accused it of conspiring to take over a Russian granite company — and asserting that the conspiracy involved lieutenants of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The complaint called it a “textbook case of Russian corporate raiding.”
The big question in Washington is whether Mr. Kasowitz, who is not a criminal lawyer or a political hand, is the right person to be at Mr. Trump’s side. Some of Mr. Trump’s friends and advisers have privately raised questions about his hiring.
.. he does know about Mr. Trump — and he does know about the news media and the 24-hour news cycle.
.. He’s currently representing Bill O’Reilly
.. Mr. Kasowitz sent a letter to the paper threatening to sue over the publication of accusations from two women that Mr. Trump sexually harassed them.
.. Mr. Kasowitz’s law partner, David M. Friedman, was Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel.
.. And another of Mr. Kasowitz’s partners — one of his newest — is Joseph I. Lieberman
.. “I don’t read much. Mostly I read contracts, but usually my lawyers do most of the work.”