hiding by using this privilege. gregg: sure. so we have to beg the question, what is he hiding now? and also is he really fulfilling the campaign promise having coequal branch and having a transparent government. gregg: hold the thought. on the left-hand side of the screen, representative clay. we ll go back into the committee as it warrants. gretchen and juan will stick around. we ll squeeze in a quick break here but a fast-changing series of events on capitol hill and the white house as the president of the united states invokes executive privilege to protect documents of his attorney general. we ll be right back. i m a home in a high-risk flood area. it doesn t look risky. i mean, phil, does this look risky to you? nancy? fred? no. well it is. in a high-risk area, there s a 1-in-4 chance homes like us will flood. i m glad i got flood insurance. fred, you should look into it.
bret, i would like to broaden out the conversation in anticipation of what we might hear over the next several hours of coverage and next several days of this story. our very own judge napolitano, charles krauthamer brought up this is constitutionally significant. we could see a real challenge to the constitution. even a constitutional crisis. what do we mean when we hear that? what should we know and are we really at this point with this story? reporter: clearly this is verging on the battle between the executive branch and legislate tiff branch here. once you exert executive privilege, it is a conditional privilege and it could be challenged in the supreme court to test whether it should be implicated in this use asserted in this case but once the president does that, invokes that, it indicates the executive branch is directly involved. the white house is somehow directly involved. it doesn t usually cover
committee, the reason as to why that privilege is being used now is not clear at this time. as we mentioned there has been some speculation, only speculation, at this point, it may be because the president was briefed on the program. but as ed henry points out, it doesn t have to be the president. it can be top advisors. it can be top officials. back in february, congressman jason chaffetz asked attorney general holder specifically about who knew about fast and furious . take a listen. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. attorney general for being here. i had an opportunity in the judiciary committee to ask you questions on december 8th of 2011. i had asked you if you spoken to president clinton, president obama, or secretary clinton or secretary napolitano. you said that you had not spoken to either of those three about fast and furious . is that still true today? well, with regard to secretary napolitano, yes. secretary clinton. yes. i m sorry, secretary clinton, you have
the conservatives who are looking to make an issue in an election year. look at timing of this. gregg: i m not sure the white house explanation we re getting through our two correspondents we talked to today makes a lot of sense relative to the request by congress. they re saying, well we did have discussions about how to politically handle the fallout of fast and furious . that is unrelated to the documents being sought over at justice, rich. so why would i invoke a protection, a flat-out protection for that? it seems a pretty weak claim the strongest claim obviously is deliberations directly involving the president. this is at an agency level. any agency could really claim this sort of privilege over their deliberative process over anything at any time. so the committee will vote to hold them in contempt. i believe the house will vote to hold them in contempt. then it goes to a u.s. attorney and that will probably not go anywhere. gregg: in other words, it could be, sort of a subt
members of the his administration. the supreme court decided that the public interest in getting the truth was more important than the president s privilege. the court said there is valued need for protection of communication between high government officials and those who advise and sis them in the performance of their duties. this is the first time president obama exerted executive privilege as has been stated today. according to the white house, jenna, the since the reagan administration invoked 25 times. three times by president reagan, one by the first president bush, 14 times by president clinton, six times during the presidency of george w. bush. and now of course once by president obama. back to you. jenna: important perspective for us today. rick, thank you. gregg: an astonishing and maybe very troubling turn of events happening in washington today over the last hour hour, 1/2. the president invoking executive privilege to try to protect long-sought documents from his attorney