The Politics of Executive Privilege

Released in a year in which the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a major case involving the assertion of executive privilege (in the case of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force) , this work counterintuitively argues that the decisive battleground for deciding issues of executive privilege is not the courts, but politics. For Fisher (Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers at the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress) "the determination of lawmakers to use the coercive tools available to them and political calculations by the executive branch whether a continued standoff risks heavy and intolerable losses for the President" is much more important to the settling of executive privilege disputes. After reviewing the constitutional principles, she presents chapters that examine, in turn, the various coercive tools available to the legislative branch, including House resolutions of inquiry, the "Seven Member Rule," investigations conducted by the General Accounting Office, and requests to White House aides to testify. The final chapter examines executive claims of national security. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)