Page 38 - Client Privilege News Today

Half that executive privilege is an option on the table. in recent days nadler and the o doj have tried to come to an agreement to proceed. >> but the white house is going to -- the white house will intervene if they feel some of those documents are protected by privilege, correct? >> certainly, if they do. but, lets go back to the beginning here. we produced 1.4 million pieces of paper as part of the original investigation that lasted 22 months and has cost taxpayer dollars somewhere north of $...

Question to you. a lot of the analysis was that mueller always intended for congress to be the arbiter. do you think he could have predicted the situation that mike schmidt just detailed, that they got a report and no one to bring it to life? no witnesses? >> definitely. a big part of mikes reporting is he chose not to pursue john dowd, which would be the obvious move. he said it was because of attorney/client privilege. we have again mueller using markey of queensbury rules going up against a u...

President, then we have a national security issue or maybe a national security issue. i dont know. we need some kind of a heads-up. protecting all interests if we can without you having to give up any confidential information. >> bill: that is john dowd. he no longer works on behalf of the president. the line is there we need some kind of heads-up. what is happening here? is something going on? >> i dont take it nearly as nefarious as some people. there were part of a joint defense agreement, mu...

Report was he had no way of knowing whether or not the president was the one who asked attorney dowd his private counsel to reach out to flynn and he said issues of attorney general client privilege prevented him from that. i think because mueller has decided he cant breach attorney-client privilege there is nothing that will legally implicate the president. >> its not physical but hard to find it ethically responsible to have the attorney for the president remind michael flynns attorney general...

There is no reason not to provide those to this committee. so chairman schiff didnt actually say -- he said we may take an enforcement action. what youre seeing broadly, and what judy was describing is a very deliberate and careful way forward on all these committees. remember, the president said hes not cooperating in any way, shape, or form. the only constitutional reason why somebody cant be forced to testify in front of the congress is the 5th amendment right not to incriminate yourself. it ...

There is no reason not to provide those to this committee. so chairman schiff didnt actually say -- he said we may take an enforcement action. what youre seeing more broadly, and what judy was describing, is a very deliberate and careful way forward on all these committees. remember, the president said im not cooperating at all in any way, shape, or form. that is an impossible position for the president to be in. it is congress, article one in the constitution. the only constitutional reason why...

Most in that almost everything we do is behind closed doors. its in a classified environment. things like sources and methods of intelligence, things that might otherwise be embarrassing, there is no reason not to provide those to this committee. so chairman schiff didnt actually say -- he said we may take an enforcement action. what youre seeing broadly, and what judy was describing is a very deliberate and careful way forward on all these committees. remember, the president said hes not cooper...

Defense agreement, which happens automatically when someone is cooperating which by this point they well knew that flynn was cooperating, once the joint defense agreement goes away, theres no basis for him to be sharing for flynns lawyer to be sharing information anymore with trumps lawyer. i mean, its not only that he cant.an he shouldnt be, right? because now we have attorney/client privilege be basically in effect again. thats how it sort of comes back to cloak the communications. so i mean, ...

Mueller asked donald trump at least on paper? >> i cannot discuss that with you at this point. that would be not appropriate for me to do. we did answer a series of questions in writing that they asked for and the president did respond to those. >> if congress continues this and at some point tries to talk to you or talk to anybody involved in this investigation, how do you expect to handle those requests? >> im the presidents lawyer. communications that i have are attorney/client privilege. >> ...

To not talk about this in public. >> if you dont testify, it doesnt matter what privilege you waive or not. theres no forum where the president is going to be confronted with, will you waive attorney/client privilege. mueller is not interviewing him. he is the only one doing it. i just think the president has a lot more running room in this area than we give him credit for. >> i dont disagree. we do see the president asserting these various legal defenses as a reason for not engaging with these ...