President Nixon Executive Privilege Essay

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Executive privilege is the president’s implied power to refuse to disclose information related to national security or confidential conversations with the judiciary or Congress. The intent of this power is to protect the overall security of the country, but in reality, it is used to protect the president from confronting the mistakes he and his employees made, and trying to keep the public in the dark about what is really happening in the White House. Clandestine activities of the president(s) and secrets about their agendas have repeatedly been responded to with the use of executive privilege. Executive privilege fails to hold the president accountable for his political mistakes and misconduct in the Watergate scandal, the release of the Pentagon …show more content…

When an FBI investigation was launched, it was revealed that Nixon kept recordings of his conversations. According to the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, “Throughout the inquiry, President Nixon rebuffed the committee’s requests for access to information. Claiming a constitutional separation of powers, he refused to allow his aides to testify. Senator Ervin insisted that executive privilege could not be extended to cover criminal behavior and he threatened to authorize the sergeant at arms to arrest White House aides who refused to testify.” The FBI ordered him to turn over the tapes, but Nixon refused, stating that it was his executive privilege. According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "The claim that intelligence activities must be protected does not need to be legitimate for it to interfere with investigations or prosecutions. Nor is it necessary that the intelligence community make the claim. A prime example of these two possibilities is the Watergate case." Nixon’s use of executive privilege in the Watergate scandal demonstrates how presidential powers are used for selfish …show more content…

These guns were supposed to be tracked and lead the government to the heads of gangs and cartels, but instead, they couldn't be found. Two of these guns were found to have killed a US Border Control agent. This is called “gun-walking”, and according to Dan Robinson from Johns Hopkins University, “‘Gun-walking,' as it is known, is prohibited under Department of Justice rules, but was used on a trial basis during the administration of former President George W. Bush.” Because of this immense failure, an eighteen month long investigation was launched in which 7,600 pages of documents detailing the operation were subpoenaed. President Obama used his executive privilege to stop the turnover of these records. “As part of an investigation into the operation, the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed in March 2011 all ATF and Justice Department communications and documents referring to or related to Operation Fast and Furious. Obama invoked executive privilege over the disputed documents, marking the first such assertion of his

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