Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing the information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. However,the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers,derived from the supremacy of each branch in its area of constitutional activity.
John Wesley Dean III is an American attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence,which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore,Maryland. After his plea,he was disbarred.
John Andrew Boehner is a retired American politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party,he served 13 terms as the U.S. representative for Ohio's 8th congressional district from 1991 to 2015. The district included several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton.
Robert William Ney is an American politician from Ohio. A Republican,Ney represented Ohio's 18th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 until November 3,2006,when he resigned. Ney's resignation took place after he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. Before he pleaded guilty,Ney was identified in the guilty pleas of Jack Abramoff,former Tom DeLay deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy,former DeLay press secretary Michael Scanlon and former Ney chief of staff Neil Volz for receiving lavish gifts in exchange for political favors.
The Ohio Republican Party is the Ohio affiliate of the Republican Party. It was founded in Columbus,Ohio,in 1854. It is currently the state's favored party,controlling the majority of Ohio's U.S. House seats,one of its two U.S. Senate seats,the governorship,and has supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature.
Stephen Lee Johnson is an American politician who served as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President George W. Bush during the second term of his administration. He has received the Presidential Rank Award,the highest award that can be given to a civilian federal employee.
Jack Allan Abramoff is an American lobbyist,businessman,film producer,writer,and convicted felon. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation led by Earl Devaney that resulted in his conviction and 21 other people either pleading guilty or being found guilty,including White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian,U.S. Representative Bob Ney,and nine other lobbyists and congressional aides.
Joseph Whitehouse Hagin II is an American political aide who served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018,a role he also served in for President George W. Bush from 2001 until July 2008. In September 2008,he was interim CEO of Jet Support Services Inc. Joe Hagin co-founded Command Consulting Group in April 2009.
David Hossein Safavian is an American former lawyer who worked as a congressional aide,lobbyist,and later as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration. A Republican,he served as Chief of Staff of the United States General Services Administration (GSA). He is a figure in the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal,having worked with the lobbyist on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw account. After serving with Abramoff as a lobbyist,in 1997 Safavian co-founded lobbying firm Janus-Merritt Strategies with Republican activist Grover Norquist.
Susan Bonzon Ralston,is public relations and business consultant. Ralston was formerly Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and a deputy to Karl Rove,the Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor at the White House,from 2001 until her resignation in 2006 after being linked to Jack Abramoff's lobbying.
Joel David Kaplan is an American political advisor and former lobbyist working as Facebook's vice president of global public policy. Previously,he served eight years in the George W. Bush administration. After leaving the Bush administration,he was a lobbyist for energy companies.
Counselor to the President is a title used by high-ranking political advisors to the president of the United States and senior members of the White House Office.
On December 7,2006,the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice ordered the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States attorneys. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees,under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
During the 2007 Congressional investigation of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys,it was discovered that administration officials had been using a private Internet domain,called gwb43.com,owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee,for various official communications. The domain name is an abbreviation for "George W. Bush,43rd" President of the United States. The use of this email domain became public when it was discovered that Scott Jennings,the White House's deputy director of political affairs,was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas. Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com and rnchq.org. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Over 5 million emails may have been lost. Greg Palast claims to have come up with 500 of the Karl Rove emails,leading to damaging allegations. In 2009,it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been lost.
A detailed chronology of events in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
Karl Christian Rove is an American Republican political consultant,policy advisor,and lobbyist. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation on August 31,2007. He has also headed the Office of Political Affairs,the Office of Public Liaison,and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Casino Jack is a 2010 comedy-drama thriller film directed by George Hickenlooper and starring Kevin Spacey. The film focuses on the career of Washington,D.C. lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff,who was involved in a massive corruption scandal that led to his conviction as well as the conviction of two White House officials,Rep. Bob Ney,and nine other lobbyists and congressional staffers. Abramoff was convicted of fraud,conspiracy and tax evasion in 2006,and of trading expensive gifts,meals and vacations for political favors. Abramoff served three and a half years of a six-year sentence in federal prison,and was then assigned to a halfway house. He was released on December 3,2010.
Johnny DeStefano is an American political advisor who served as Assistant to President Donald Trump and Counselor to the President from 2017 to May 2019. He previously oversaw the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs,White House Presidential Personnel Office,Office of Political Affairs,and Office of Public Liaison. DeStefano entered the Trump administration as Director of Presidential Personnel. After leaving the White House,DeStefano was appointed an adviser to the e-cigarette company Juul.
The Afghanistan War Commission is a bipartisan task force set up to study the entirety of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. This commission was formally authorized as part of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.
Sarah Anne Matthews is an American political aide who served as the deputy press secretary for the Donald Trump administration.
