Page 3 - Deliberative Process Privilege News Today

By trying to find the facts involved. and when you cancel hearings, when you fail to look at facts and the evidence, it does impact on the credibility of that investigation. >> people are wondering why did those public hearings that have been announced for a while, why were they suddenly cancelled. in letters published, there secretary, the justice department wrote to the law firm rep zebti representing sally yates. let me read a couple sentences from that letter. ms. yates seeks authorization t...

Process. who is going to win this executive privilege under the second provision? >> you know its interesting, gregg, because the president asserted deliberative process privilege, but as chairman issa has pointed out, congressman issa and the committee has pointed out its really what easy certificating is the presidential communications privilege, direct discussions, research done for the president. that is different than what happened here. people who are lower ranking executive branch officia...

And there is an allegation that if you are looking into misconduct by the agency that is asserting the privilege here, that would be misconduct by the d.o.j., that the law is pretty well settled that the privilege is at its weakest and may not apply at all. is that also correct? >> that is correct. the deliberative process privilege is a lower threshold its a qualified privilege. government wrongdoing is one of the what is to do it. there is an open question here. is the government wrongdoing a ...

Withholding. thats something issas wanted. >> well, this whole blanket assertion of privilege that the government makes here is completely unprecedent inside this context. the deliberative process privilege protects only the deliberative materials in the communications and doesnt protect any underlying facts. so theyre supposed to have done redactions and produced the nonprivileged materials already in those documents. and what the president has done here is probably without reviewing the docume...

At that. megyn: so, jay christian adams, welcome back to the program. i want to ask you, the doj can come out and say -- well, president obama has to assert it. that doesnt mean they had communications with president obama. theyre saying we can do it as an administrative agency, we can assert this privilege even if we didnt talk to president obama, and i think we all agree that is true. they can assert this deliberative process privilege, but as shannons pointing out, its not an absolute privile...

Conceded anything. now we have 1,000 documents in question. i think holders position -- i totally disagree with jay that this is badly lawyered. badly lawyered by the committee asking for things they shouldnt have gotten. but holder saying i will make an accommodation to you. the privilege will be the deliberative process privilege. ill make a concession to you that other administrations have not made concessions on if we can have an agreement the contempt citation is taken off the table. its po...

If she testifies some of the things she said could be, quote, covered by the presidential communications privilege, and possibly the deliberative process privilege. said she then needed to check with the white house. can you translate that and is that a normal message from the department of justice to deliver in a situation like this is this. >> its normal, almost certainly true, because any acting attorney general is going to know things or have worked directly with the white house about things...

The different angles of the russian story, its worth saying that chairman nunes and jim comey and director schiff say theres no evidence that president obama ordered wiretapping at trump tower. john roberts is live on the north lawn. john? >> we have the letters here. le begin on march 14 when devin nunes and adam schiff sent a letter to sally yates asking her to appear before a committee hearing which would be tentatively scheduled today to discuss russian cyber activities directed against the ...