Wouldn't this be a test of Lieberman's loyalty to the Democratic Party?

I'm not much of an expert on executive privilege, and my sense in any case is that the way Bush has exercised it bears little resemblance to the actual law, but if it's at all analogous to attorney-client privilege, then the privilege would belong to the executive branch, not the individual officeholder. I.e., the Obama administration could waive it.

Um, can Bush actually stonewall investigations further? In the past it wasn't a problem because he had DOJ run by someone who wouldn't enforce subpoenas. Obama doesn't think the executive is above the law, does he? All he has to do is not prevent DOJ from doing it's job. Congress and the courts can sort out the rest.

In this nation there is supposed to be the rule of law not, the rule of men. If there are no consequences for the Bush/Cheney adminstrations crimes, some of which they boldly admitted to, then why should any of us respect the police, the courts, the law.

On the same subject, at the beginning of the adminstration, Cheney went into a room with oil company executives and lobbyist to discuss energy policy and closed the door. When they came out oil companies posted the highest profit margins in the history of capitalism. Everyone else got cheneyed.

This stinks like a violation of anti-trust law to me. I hope the new USAG isn't afraid to be be called partisan when he investigates.

I wonder if Obama could also reverse the executive order Bush issued regarding letting descendents decide whether to keep presidential records sealed. I hope so.

I also think it is paramount that that Congress get clarity on its right to subpoena members of the administration, and whether the executive branch can evade laws merely by getting favorable legal opinions from its appointees.

Won't all Executive Branch documents be under the control of the Obama Administration after January 20? How could Bush continue to block subpoenas?

But if it's testimony we're after, a judge may have to decided whether or not "executive privilege" shields Rove, Myers, Gonzales et. al. from a duty to provide evidence in a criminal investigation.

The assholes who voted for Bush wanted him to break all sorts of laws. Take your pick. If the Dems can't stand up to Unrepentant Joe, they sure as hell can't stand up to almost half the country.

Okie,

Assuming, as I noted above, that executive privilege operates in a manner similar to attorney-client privilege for private parties, then my guess would be that Obama could waive the privilege for all former Bush administration officials-- it's not, for example, Karl Rove's privilege, it's the privilege of the executive branch of the United States government and it can be waived at any time by that branch, much like a corporation can waive privilege over conversations that its former CEO may have had with outside counsel. Of course, Rove et al. may have a plausible Fifth Amendment claim, but there are ways to get around that and even invoking it would be politically pretty harmful to the GOP.

On one had I'm glad to hear that Congressional Dems are interested in investigations, and on the other hand I wonder if they know anything about an ounce of prevention.

Let me ask a question. Was there ever a time when the outgoing president left the office less powerful? It seems like every president that leaves office leaves the executive branch more stronger and less accountable than when they first came in. Am I wrong?

So much for bipartisanship! So much for change!

It would seem to this observer that hate rules the day. Fear and hate rule the Democrat Party masses. They want to run wild like cossacks and turn over tables and chairs and assault the decency of the American people. Did a deranged pack of British soccer hooligans take over this country? Are they going to drink cheap liquor from paper sacks and shout invective in public places? This is what happens when serious people are no longer in charge.

Did the American people vote for cossacks? No, they voted for hope.

I hope the transformation of America into the world's only socialist superpower can be carried out without too much bloodletting. Sadly, I believe it is impossible to underestimate the bloodlust of the liberal and the scorn of the progressive.

An investigation of DOJ hiring/firing practices and political prosecutions would be a great platform for the top to bottom housecleaning it needs.

I hope they do but I will be shocked if the Dems make anything happen. If they do, it will be with policies of the Bush admin but nothing against him directly.

JRD - thank you. Excellent points.

It makes sense that Executive Privilege belongs to the President, not to George W. Bush.

Wayne is correct. The Democrats bluster something fierce - and then back right down on go in their corner. Expect nothing from them.

Homeland Security Committee Chair Joe Lieberman sure knows this well.

I'm an independent who supported Obama, but I'm beginning to be pretty disappointed by the parade of old and middle-aged white guys being slotted into his administration. Even old white-guy Bush Administration holdovers. I expected Obama, of all candidates, to appoint women and non-whites to key posts.

Here's Glenn Greenwald's take on this; it won't be his last.

"But that's not what Litt is arguing here. Instead, his belief is that Bush officials should be protected from DOJ proceedings even if they committed crimes. And his reason for that is as petty and vapid as it is corrupt: namely, it is more important to have post-partisan harmony in our political class than it is to hold Presidents and other high officials accountable when they break the law.'

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/13/partisanship/index.html

"..."We could spend the entire next four years investigating the Bush years," [Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon] Whitehouse said...."

It leaves the message for future presidents that drop your deceptions and corruptions all over the environment to the point that it's too overwhelming and time consuming to investigate and the dems will drop it. The dem leaders have always found it too difficult to pass policies and hold investigations at the same time (Impeachment would just interfere with policy making"--Pelosi...that's how you get away with mass murder, torture and lying us into a war for profit). Most of us citizens have always known that a new dem administration would just say we need to focus on the future and not be bogged down by the past...and so did Cheney and Bush. Pelosi was living proof that they could do anything and get away with it...and they did. This is all Pelosi will be remembered for in history...making sure there would never be a crime or a reason big enough to call for impeachment. She single handedly made sure Impeachment will never be used again in American politics. They got away with all of it.

Obama: ""If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated... I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt..."

The first statement plainly contradicts the second, since no matter what crimes a Republican commits, Republicans perceive any investigation of them as a partisan witch hunt.

I expect Obama to abide by the second half of the contradiction, and to ignore the first. I hope I am wrong, and that he is canny enough to allow low-key hearings, which will turn into criminal investigations only when unassailable evidence of felonies emerges. The Inspectors General report mandated by the FISA bill - unanimously approved by Republicans! - could do just that.

Has anyone considered charging Bush and Cheney under the RICO statues? I mean we invaded Iraq after the public was fed an unending stream of fraudulent claims about WMD and connections to Al Quida. They took our money and used it to destroy a country as well as an American city.

The best part is all their assets are frozen so they can't leave the country.

I expected Obama, of all candidates, to appoint women and non-whites to key posts.-- ghillie, @15:16

Sigh... Irrespective of everything else? Don't know about you, but I didn't work hard to help get Obama elected because he's black (or half-black), but because he's an extraordinarily intelligent, thoughtful person; a smart politician and someone who remains calm under fire. What he has between his legs, or what the colour of his skin is, was totally irrelevant for me. As I'd hope it would be irrelevant for him, too.

He needs to appoint, first and foremost, people who are *qualified*. Never forget that "tokenism" got us Clarence Thomas in the Supremes, "replacing" Thurgood Marshall. Who, even though also black, was an entirely different kettle of fish. What's the saying? Don't judge the book by it's cover? Well, it applies here too.

The precedent most often cited as the origin of modern executive privilege claims by former Presidents was Harry Truman's argument that he shouldn't have to turn over appear before a Congressional committee investigating Communist penetration of the government during his administration.

First of all, this wasn't a judicial precedent. Congress abandoned its demand that Truman appear, largely because President Eisenhower wasn't interested in abetting a Red-hunting expedition that might disrupt his own administration. Second, it was a precedent that Richard Nixon used as part of his cover-up of what everyone agreed in retrospect were violations of the criminal code. Finally, the question reliance on this precedent begs is mre important now than it has been because of the extent to which George W. Bush's administration has expanded claims of executive privilege to thwart investigations into conduct wildly at variance with what is expected of the executive branch -- like using the power to dismiss a US Attorney to influence a specific prosecution, to cite only one example.

Now, it is a question how far an Obama administration will go toward rolling back the extravagant claims Bush (or, most often, Cheney and Cheney's staff, through Bush) made for the authority of the White House to act independently of the courts or Congress and to keep things secret. And another question is how ready Justices -- for if Bush administration officials choose to litigate this matter it will find its way to the Supreme Court -- appointed by Republican Presidents will be to reject a Republican President's claim of privilege. We should find out the answers to both these questions within the next year or two.

ex libra

I said nothing about appointing "token" women or minorities. Qualified people come with different skin colors and genitals. And perspectives.

The idea that Sen. Obama's statement that "If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated" is then somehow negated by his desire not to have his administration appear to participate in a "partisan witch hunt" is erroneous just based on the contents of the posting.
Sen. Obama clearly differentiates between "really dumb policies" and policies that "rise to the level of criminal activity".
The various shenanigans with the EPA, FDA, etc. would fall in the first category; DoJ, torture, wiretapping, (mis)use of intelligence for political motives would fall into the second.
Sort of like overlooking a speeding ticket when you charge someone with smuggling cocaine...

"I said nothing about appointing "token" women or minorities. Qualified people come with different skin colors and genitals. And perspectives."

If the most qualified person for a job in the administration is a women, appoint a women. If they're a minority, appoint the minority. But, and this needs repeating, if they're a middle-aged WASP man, appoint the middle-aged WASP man.

Anyone who has a problem with that sentiment is as prejudiced as the social memes they're supposedly fighting against.

Hey, President-elect Obama, how about rampant Hatch Act violations, or FISA violations, or outing a covert CIA agent, or Geneva Conventions violations, or politicizing the Justice Department, or Dick Cheney's schizoid claim that he's not a member of the executive branch nor legislative branch, while also claiming that he is a member of both, or not, or maybe, except on Tuesday?

From what I can tell, there are plenty of investigations and prosecutions of Bush officials that are just begging to occur, and if President-elect Barack Obama is half the constitutional scholar that he claims he is, then he will appoint an Attorney General who will be given the task of conducting a thorough housecleaning of our nation's executive branch of government.

If not, then I will vote for whichever Democrat runs against President Barack Obama in 2012, in hopes that his replacement as president will finally do what he should have done.

If the criminal Republicans are allowed to get away with what they've done, then sometime in the future when they take control of the White House again, they'll do EXACTLY the same damn things...since they weren't investigated and prosecuted before when constitutional scholars and patriotic U.S. citizens had the chance (similar to what happened when President Bill Clinton took office in 1993 with Congress at that time controlled by Democrats...they let many of the criminal Republicans behind Iran-Contra off the hook...with many of these same traitors showing up in the George W. Bush administration).

In other words, does anyone want some future Republican administration redefining TORTURE as "enhanced interrogation techniques"???? Or illegally wiretapping U.S. citizens without a legal warrant???? Or outing a covert CIA agent and getting away with it???? Or rampantly violating the church-state separation???? Or pissing on the Constitution again????

Either all the criminal Republicans are held accountable in Obama's first year in office, or our nation will definitely see a recurrence of this Republican criminal activity in the future.

And for good measure, both Bush and Cheney should be impeached, even though they will no longer be befouling the executive branch with their sorry presence. Why? So they will never be public "servants" again. And Dick Cheney should be sued, as part of his war crimes trial, for recovery of all the tens of millions of dollars he made as vice president off of his no-bid contracts given to his old firm, Halliburton, because Cheney had lots of Halliburton stock in a "blind" trust while president. He should be forced to give this blood-soaked money to the families of wounded or dead soldiers from his Iraq War.

And, yes, I'm mad as hell where someone trashes our Constitution and country as much as these crooked Republicans have over the past eight years. Mad. As. Hell.