Here's Why Snowden Plea Negotiations Are Going Nowhere

[struggle4progress]

11. You have misunderstood the Congressional immunity

Only politics prevents Senators and Representatives from discussing matters, classified by the Executive, on the floor: from a legal perspective, they are quite free to discuss such matters on the floor

But the Executive and the Legislative are separate branches of government

Thus the Executive makes some information only conditionally available to the Legislative branch and subject to certain negotiated conditions: if the Legislative branch, or certain members of it, fail to honor these conditions, the Executive might respond by withholding future information. The Legislative, in such a situation, is not completely without recourse, as it certainly has the power in retaliation to withhold certain funding from the Executive, and in cases of apparent gross criminality might further persuade the Judicial to issue subpoenas against the Executive, but in most cases the Judicial will be extraordinarily reluctant to intervene in political disputes between the other branches