Another “Massacre” Coming Up?
posted by Frank Pasquale
In 1973’s Saturday Night Massacre, President Nixon and higher-ups at the Justice Department clashed over whether Nixon could fire a special prosecutor investigating executive scandals. Via the ACS Blog, it looks like these issues are going to come up again, as Congress is charging former administration officials with contempt for failure to testify:
“A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case,” said a senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. . . . [Mark J.] Rozell, [a] George Mason professor and authority on executive privilege, said the administration’s stance “is almost Nixonian in its scope and breadth of interpreting its power. Congress has no recourse at all, in the president’s view. . . . It’s allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers.”
Once again, a fictionalized satire from The Onion appears more prophetic than funny.
UPDATE: As of 5PM, 338 blogs have linked to the Post story; Memeorandum has a good compilation of legal and other sites (to see them, scroll down the page, put your cursor next to the green Discussion heading and click the plus sign when it appears.).
July 20, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Posted in: Constitutional Law
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