Several legal pundits are saying former presidents can't invoke executive privilege. That's not true [View all]

[StarfishSaver]

Last edited Fri Sep 24, 2021, 10:50 PM - Edit history (2)

The Supreme Court has explicitly held that former presidents can indeed exert executive privilege.

"It is argued, such claims may be asserted only by incumbents who are presently responsible to the American people for their action. We reject the argument that only an incumbent President may assert such claims, and hold that appellant, as a former President, may also be heard to assert them ...

"The confidentiality necessary to this exchange cannot be measured by the few months or years between the submission of the information and the end of the President's tenure; the privilege is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the Republic. Therefore the privilege survives the individual President's tenure."

---Justice Brennan, writing for the majority in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/433/425/#tab-opinion-1952361

It doesn't get any clearer than that.

Executive privilege can be invoked either by a current president for communications between him and his aides or for communications by former presidents during their tenure in office. Former presidents can invoke the privilege for communications during their time as president.

The current president's declination to invoke the privilege would surely carry great weight with the courts because they are responsible for the country. But a former president has a right to invoke the privilege, even if the court doesn't accept it. And it's not necessarily a sure thing that the privilege doesn't exist if the current president chooses not to invoke it.

For example, imagine if Trump and his henchmen, including various U.S. Attorneys, Republican Senators and Members of Congress had decided to really go after President Obama and subpoenaed his Chief of Staff, Cabinet Secretaries (including Hillary Clinton) and other staffers, demanding that they testify about all of their deliberations on various matters.

Surely, former President Obama could have invoked executive privilege, while the Trump White House probably would have declined to do so. I doubt any court in that situation would rule that Obama could not invoke the privilege or that those communications weren't privileged and forced Obama's staff and appointees to testify because Trump's views controlled.