Washington Post: Trump Claims Of Executive Privilege Are Him Action About The Law Or Something

These types of claim only applied from January 20th, 2001 to January 19th, 2009 and January 20th, 2017 through now. There was a big black hole of coverage during eight years

Trump’s claims of executive immunity lead to criticism he is acting above the law

In a series of legal maneuvers that have defied Congress, drawn rebukes from federal judges and tested the country’s foundational system of checks and balances, President Trump has made an expansive declaration of presidential impunity that would essentially place him beyond the reach of the law.

Both in courts and before Congress, Trump’s legal teams are simultaneously arguing that the president can’t be investigated or indicted by prosecutors because Congress has the sole responsibility for holding presidents accountable, and that the House’s impeachment inquiry is an unconstitutional effort that the White House can ignore.

“We have a president who simply doesn’t believe that Congress is a coequal branch of government,” said Elliot Williams, who helped run the Justice Department’s legislative affairs office during the Obama administration. “That’s a huge departure from anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”

The broad legal effort escalated on Tuesday when the White House counsel sent a letter to House Democratic leaders dismissing Congress’s impeachment inquiry as “illegitimate” and stating that the entire executive branch would refuse to cooperate with it. (snip)

Citing executive privilege, the Trump administration has blocked several officials from testifying before Congress or handing over documents in recent months. In a dramatic move Tuesday, the White House blocked House investigators from deposing Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, just hours before he was set to testify as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his office by pushing Ukraine to investigate his political rival.

It should be noted that this is in the straight news section, on the front page, not in the opinion section as you probably guess. Anyhow, consider the amount of executive privilege claimed by Barack Obama during the Operation Fast and Furious probe, for which we still haven’t gotten all the information. Heck, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress over this. Then there was the IRS targeting scandal, Hillary Clinton’s server issue, Benghazi, and all the money and removal of sanctions regarding Iran.

Seriously, executive privilege has been used quite a bit. Bill Clinton used it during the Monica Lewinsky impeachment issue quite a bit. The media was not quite sure what was going on there, either. Other presidents have used it, as well.

By defying the impeachment inquiry, Trump has essentially set off a constitutional power struggle between the legislative and the executive branches.

After 2010, Obama’s entire legacy is based on executive privilege and executive actions. Oh, right, 2009-2016 doesn’t exist. My bad.