| | Turley: Blanket pardons would be 'final nail in Bush's coffin'
 President Bush has consistently claimed executive privilege in response to attempts to investigate potentially illegal actions by his administration, and it now seems that he could continue to make that claim even after leaving office. There is also speculation that Bush could issue blanket pardons for anyone who might have engaged in torture or other criminal activities under his orders.
On Wednesday, an article in the New York Times noted that President Truman had invoked executive privilege in 1953, when he was no longer president, to avoid having to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Congress did not challenge that unprecedented claim, and legal cases involving Watergate and Iran-Contra have given it some tentative support.
"Can they really do that?" MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley on Thursday.
"This is very controversial," Turley replied. "Truman's own people later questioned whether they actually did have the right that they invoked, and it's really never been tested, it's never gone to the Supreme Court. I personally have considerable doubts about it."
Turley explained that although federal law gives former presidents control over the release of presidential papers, what is being discussed here goes far beyond that. He indicated his belief that "this idea that President Bush can continue to invoke executive privilege even against the position of a sitting president, I think is pretty shaky."
"Ultimately," Turley suggested, "a court may have two presidents in front of it, one a sitting, one an ex-president, taking rivaling positions on executive privilege. In my view, the court would be insane to take the position of the former president over a sitting president as what is required to protect the office of the presidency."
Turley noted, however, that a post-presidential claim of executive privilege could be highly effective as a delaying tactic, because "the Supreme Court would very likely take up the case," so that the real question becomes "how much of a negative legacy does George Bush really want to leave."
"This would be an incredible act," Turley stated, "a very dysfunctional and negative attack on a sitting president. ... But you know, this administration does not shy away from extreme positions. ... Most of us would hope that they would have some adult supervision, but we haven't seen that in the last eight years on these claims."
Turley also addressed the possibility that Bush might issue blanket pardons for anyone involved in torture under his administration. "This is one of the most scary potentialities of the waning days of the Bush administration," he commented. "It would create a terrible precedent. Effectively, the president would be pardoning the world."
"If he did that," concluded Turley, "I think that he would trigger a constitutional crisis where people would demand a constitutional amendment to limit the power of the president. ... This would be the final, really, nail in the coffin for Bush."
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 13, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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