Of course they are

I don't know how long it will delay the testimony, but I imagine that's all it can do.  Trump is no longer the executive.   Also, there is no executive privilege claim in matters of crime or corruption.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02/14/2023:

He's using the fact that he was president of the Senate on January 6 and should be excused on grounds of the Congressional "speech and debate" clause.  Bullshit.  The only speech he was required to make on January 6 was the one he did, in which he simply confirmed the electoral count.  

FURTHER UPDATE 02/14/2023:

Not just that, but his unseriousness as a truth seeker.  And value as a human being.

UPDATE 02/15/2023:

[Pence will] argue that because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, the subpoena would violate the protections afforded legislative officials under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. It may be just the argument Pence needs — not to successfully avoid providing evidence against Donald Trump so much as to emulate his former boss’ success in running out the clock.

This ground is much less plowed than the executive privilege argument commentators have been expecting Pence to raise.

[...]

Moreover, federal courts in Washington have made quick work of the executive privilege arguments in recent cases involving former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, and the Supreme Court has not reviewed their decisions. So an executive privilege argument might cause only a short delay in enforcement of the subpoena.

[...]

The contours of the speech or debate clause, which protects members of Congress from being questioned about what they say in the course of legislative proceedings, are underexplored and murky. That means the courts are likely to at least request briefing and argument and produce original constitutional analysis.

[...]

What is settled is that the speech or debate clause protects only “legislative speech” or “legislative acts.” [...] It would clearly prohibit, for example, arresting a legislator during a floor debate. On the other extreme, however, it clearly doesn’t prohibit prosecuting a legislator who takes a bribe or otherwise engages in criminal activity.

It’s hard to imagine a less “legislative” and more “executive” function of the vice president than the one-on-one conversations between Pence and Trump that are the linchpin of what the special counsel is seeking. The vice president may wear two constitutional hats, but that doesn’t mean he can put them on simultaneously. And for the purposes of the case Smith is developing, Pence was firmly in his executive branch role.p

[...]

[Another] problem here for Pence [...] is that he is no longer a legislative official. The subpoena was served on him as a private citizen.

Bottom line: Pence’s gambit should fail, but it probably won’t do so as quickly as a straight executive privilege argument. That means it could prolong the case into the heart of the 2024 presidential campaign. In that event, Smith might be forced into a choice between forgoing Pence’s testimony or conducting the first-ever prosecution of a former president in the middle of a campaign in which he is the front-runner for a major party’s nomination.

[...]

The former vice president could likely provide devastating evidence against his former boss that could help secure federal charges against Trump and make his own path to the presidency more feasible. But with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley jumping into the race Tuesday and other Republicans poised to follow suit, Pence appears to have concluded that he still needs to tow Trump’s barge lest he completely lose the 32% or so of the electorate that is inexhaustibly faithful to Trump.

[...]

As ever, Trump and his former cohorts are taking the Justice Department, the courts and the country into new and scarcely ponderable territory — and giving rise to seemingly endless delays in holding the former president to account.

  LA Times

I've only read that Trump is expected to join the fight on executive privilege claims, but not that he has actually done so.

UPDATE :02/15/2023 01:28 pm:

He still has a Secret Service detail, so it's not that he's afraid for his personal safety.  He doesn't want to turn off ALL MAGA voters.  But, honestly, does he truly think he can get any of them anyway?  They were ready to hang him.

Closer and closer

The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to force the top two lawyers from Donald Trump’s White House counsel’s office to testify about their conversations with the former President

[...]

Trump and his allies have used claims of confidentiality – both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege - with mixed results in multiple legal quagmires that surround the former President. Those include the January 6 federal criminal investigation, the Mar-a-Lago documents federal criminal investigation, Georgia’s Fulton County investigation of election meddling, and the House select committee probe of January 6 as well. Some of the privilege arguments Trump has raised have never been settled in federal court, and some of the fights could lead to the Supreme Court.

[...]

The move to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin just last week is part of a set of secret court proceedings. Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying before a criminal grand jury about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.

But the Justice Department successfully secured answers from top vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short over the past three weeks in significant court victories that could make it more likely the criminal investigation reaches further into Trump’s inner circle.

[...]

[T]he Justice Department won a trial-level judge’s order at the end of September that said Jacob and Short must testify in response to certain questions over which Trump’s team had tried to claim presidential and attorney-client confidentiality.

[...]

Cipollone’s and Philbin’s roles as White House lawyers raise complicated legal questions about whether Trump can claim confidentiality over the legal advice they gave him, as well as whether a former president can assert executive privilege to hold off criminal investigators.

[...]

All four men have been willing to be as cooperative as the law demands, leaving Trump’s team to handle the fight over certain details in the investigation

[...]

The sealed court case, stemming from the grand jury’s work, had been before the chief judge of the DC District Court, Beryl Howell. Howell refused to put on hold Jacob and Short’s testimony while Trump’s team appealed.

[...]

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering legal arguments from Trump’s defense lawyers and the Justice Department over his ability to make executive and attorney-client privilege claims.

  CNN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Update on March Short visit to the Grand Jury

In a sealed decision that could clear the way for other top Trump White House officials to answer questions before a grand jury, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that former Pence chief of staff Marc Short probably possessed information important to the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that was not available from other sources, one of those people said.

Trump appealed, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to postpone Short’s appearance while the litigation continues, the people said, signaling that attempts by Trump to invoke executive privilege to preserve the confidentiality of presidential decision-making were not likely to prevail.

[...]

Grand jury matters are typically secret, but The Washington Post has reported that prosecutors are working with grand jurors and looking extensively at the actions of Trump and his advisers in the period between the November 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021. Short’s case came to light on Sept. 22 after Trump attorneys M. Evan Corcoran, Timothy C. Parlatore and Rowley were seen at federal court in Washington when there were no publicly scheduled matters, along with a lead Jan. 6 federal prosecutor, Thomas Windom.

According to people familiar with the matter, Short had appeared before a grand jury in downtown Washington in July, but declined to answer certain questions after Flood argued the communications of top White House advisers are protected — and presented written documentation from Trump’s lawyers that they were asserting executive privilege.

[...]

Short and Windom were spotted at court again on Thursday, as was former Trump national security and defense aide Kash Patel.

The executive privilege battle caps the latest high-stakes confrontation between the Justice Department and Trump.

[...]

Other senior Trump White House officials could also be affected by the outcome of the court ruling involving Short. Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Pat Philbin appeared before the Jan. 6 grand jury in early September, spending about four hours behind closed doors with grand jurors. It is not known if they declined to answer any questions citing a Trump invocation of privilege, or if prosecutors have objected.

  WaPo

Trump's judge does him a solid (again)

She is either incompetent or corrupt.  Or both.

The DOJ gave her an out, and she didn't take it.  Apparently she also thinks those documents are in effect Trump's and not the current government's.

The appeal will be to the 11th Circuit which has 11 judges, 6 of whom were appointed by Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

More questions about Judge Cannon's ruling

A legal reading of current law:

The power was granted to the judge by herself.  So if nobody challenges it, the power remains.

Yes.  Yes it is.

Precedent from the Nixon tapes case:

So, even though it will delay indictment of Trump, I believe the DOJ has an obligation to appeal Cannon's faulty ruling in order to re-assert and reconfirm the validity or not of prior presidents' claims against a current executive.  

"She" being the incompetent Trump judge (redundant, I know) Aileen Cannon.

And then, there's yet another angle for DOJ action now...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Earlier post here.

UPDATE 9/8:

What cooperation?

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has abruptly ended his cooperation with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 assault on the United States Capitol by supporters of the former president, his lawyer said.

Lawyer George Terwilliger said in a letter on Tuesday that a deposition would be “untenable” for his client.

He said the congressional panel probing the Capitol riot “has no intention of respecting boundaries” concerning questions that Trump has claimed are off-limits due to “executive privilege”.

  alJazeera

Because Trump has no executive privilege, asshat. He's not the executive. Biden holds that position now.

He had initially snubbed a subpoena to testify before the House of Representatives panel, setting up possible contempt charges, before reaching an agreement on sharing information with investigators last month.

Terwilliger said Meadows’s change of mind came after he learned during the weekend that the committee had “issued wide-ranging subpoenas for information from a third party communications provider”.

[...]

The reversal came as Meadows has been receiving attention for a new book, released on Tuesday, which revealed that Trump received a positive COVID-19 test before a presidential debate and was far sicker than the White House revealed at the time.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

He'll go all the way

And he'll expect the Supreme Court to rule in his favor. Maybe he shouldn't have bad-mouthed them.

A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to block Jan. 6 investigators from accessing White House records related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, determining that he has no authority to overrule President Joe Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege and release the materials to Congress.

“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her ruling.

Trump immediately appealed the decision.

[...]

The documents Trump is seeking to block from investigators include files drawn from former chief of staff Mark Meadows, adviser Stephen Miller and White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin, as well as call and visitor logs.

[...]

Trump sued the Jan. 6 committee and the National Archives, saying that as a former president, he still has the right to assert executive privilege over the records — even if Biden disagreed. That power, Trump argued, is rooted in a Richard M. Nixon-era Supreme Court ruling that found former presidents retain a “residual” interest in the confidentiality of their own White House records.

  Politico

As I've said before, even if there are communications he's allowed to block, there's no way call and visitor logs can be considered privileged.

Chutkan began her ruling with a recitation of Trump’s months-long effort to sow distrust in the election results, as well as his attempt to call supporters to Washington to pressure lawmakers to refuse to certify his defeat to Joe Biden.

[...]

Chutkan said the Nixon precedent fails to help Trump’s case. In that instance, the current president — the only sitting “executive” — had not weighed in on Nixon’s effort to shield his records. In this case, Biden had already agreed to provide the documents to the Jan. 6 committee, waiving confidentiality concerns as a result of the “unprecedented” nature of the attack on Congress.

“At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President. And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight, Chutkan wrote, citing the Nixon-era ruling.

Chutkan also rejected Trump’s proposal that she review every document on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it should be withheld from Jan. 6 investigators.

“The court … is not best situated to determine executive branch interests, and declines to intrude upon the executive function in this manner,” Chutkan wrote. “It must presume that the incumbent is best suited to make those decisions on behalf of the executive branch.”

[...]

There was one modest victory for Trump in the ruling: Chutkan agreed with Justice Department lawyers that some of the records sought by the committee — like polling data — would not be considered “presidential records” and, therefore, shouldn’t be produced by the National Archives. The judge added that “personal papers or communications” also fall within that category. The committee could try to subpoena those sorts of records directly from Trump, but thus far has not taken that step.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Regarding Bolton's claims

We may find out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He doesn't know how government works - Part whatever

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Important court hearing today

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What the rest of the world already knew

Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns but has not invoked executive privilege. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has instead denied the returns by arguing there is no legislative purpose for demanding them.

But according to [a confidential Internal Revenue Service legal] memo, which has not been previously reported, the disclosure of tax returns to the committee “is mandatory, requiring the Secretary to disclose returns, and return information, requested by the tax-writing Chairs.”

The 10-page document says the law “does not allow the Secretary to exercise discretion in disclosing the information provided the statutory conditions are met” and directly rejects the reason Mnuchin has cited for withholding the information.

[...]

The IRS said the memo, titled “Congressional Access to Returns and Return Information,” was a draft document written by a lawyer in the Office of Chief Counsel and did not represent the agency’s “official position.” The memo is stamped “DRAFT,” it is not signed, and it does not reference Trump.

[...]

[The memo states] that the “only basis the agency’s refusal to comply with a committee’s subpoena would be the invocation of the doctrine of executive privilege.”

  WaPo

How would executive privilege apply?

Executive privilege is sometimes divided into two types, each with its own justification. The first [is] sometimes referred to as “presidential communications privilege,”

[...]

In United States v. Nixon, the most high-profile executive privilege case ever decided by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Warren Burger (writing for a unanimous Court) concluded that there is a “presumptive privilege for Presidential communications” that is “fundamental to the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution.”

  Vox

Nope. His tax reeturns are not presidential communications.

The other type of executive privilege, referred to by Judge Patricia Wald of the DC Circuit in an important 1997 case as “deliberative process privilege,” comes [...] from the common-law notion that government officials should be free to privately deliberate before deciding on a particular course of action.

This privilege is both broader in applicability than the presidential communications privilege — since it can apply to conversations within the executive branch that don’t involve the president directly — and more limited in its strength. It only applies to documents and discussions when a decision was being made.

Nope. Not tax returns.

I don't get it.

Step one in holding Bill Barr accountable; Trump claims executive privilege

The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to recommend the House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over Robert S. Mueller III’s unredacted report, hours after President Trump asserted executive privilege to shield the full report and underlying evidence from public view.

  NYT

He doesn't want you to see the report that fully exonerates him.

The Justice Department decried it as an unnecessary and overwrought reaction designed to stoke a fight.

Refusing to cooperate with Congress might have been the initial blow in that fight.

Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, responded, “The accommodation process between coequal branches of government is supposed to be a two-way street. Unfortunately, the only side who has made accommodations is the attorney general, who made extraordinary efforts to provide Congress and the public with information about the Special Counsel’s work.”

Yes, Kerri, we all - including Rober Mueller - saw how extraordinary his efforts were.

The executive privilege assertion was Mr. Trump’s first use of the secrecy powers as president. The Justice Department described it as “protective” to allow Mr. Trump time to fully review the materials to make a final privilege determination. But the [...] the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, indicated that no change of heart was coming.

[...]

“Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands.”

She added that “faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the attorney general’s request, the president has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege.”

Another stalling tactic.

Mr. Trump’s invoking of privilege for the first time as president could tie up the material in court and significantly complicate Democrats’ efforts to call other witnesses. Mr. Nadler said Wednesday it could delay a potential hearing with Mr. Mueller himself in the Judiciary Committee.

And it could also limit testimony by Donald F. McGahn II, a former White House counsel and key witness in the special counsel’s investigation, scheduled under subpoena for May 21.

[...]

Complying with the subpoena, Mr. Boyd wrote, would require the department to violate “the law, court rules, and court orders” as well as grand jury secrecy rules. Republicans in the Judiciary Committee hearing room returned to that point again and again as they accused Democrats of putting Mr. Barr in an untenable situation of choosing between their subpoena and the law.

Democrats said they did not expect Mr. Barr to break the law and unilaterally release grand jury secrets. Rather, they said they had repeatedly asked him to join the committee in petitioning a judge to unseal material for the grand jury for committee use. He refused.

[...]

If the full House follows the committee’s recommendation, it would be only the second time in American history that the nation’s top law enforcement official is found to be in contempt of Congress.

[...]

House Republicans did it for the first time in 2012, when they held Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt in connection with requests for information about the botched “Fast and Furious” gun trafficking investigation. Republicans frequently cited that case on Wednesday in an effort to paint Democrats as unreasonable and impatient. They had waited hundreds of days before escalating their fight over documents to a contempt citation, they said. Democrats waited just a few weeks in the case of Mr. Barr.

[...]

The example is a potentially cautionary one for both sides. Despite President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege over the material in questions, House lawmakers ultimately prevailed in court, forcing the administration to hand over the evidence. But the process took years to play out and could have taken longer if the Obama administration had appealed a court’s decision.

[...]

While defying a congressional subpoena is technically a misdemeanor crime, it is up to the Justice Department to decide whether or not to prosecute.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



The latter, I'm sure.

Trump plan: Run out the clock on 2020

(And let Russia help.)

Another good reason to pack the courts.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.