More One-Sided Coverage of the Documents Non-Issue
Filed under: Dog Trainer, Judiciary — Patterico @ 7:25 am
This morning’s L.A. Times article on the Roberts documents controversy, Struggle Over Access to Roberts’ Memos Intensifies, makes a couple of jaw-dropping assertions. First:
Senate Democrats said they found that assertion [the Bush Administration claim of privilege] unusual, arguing that attorney-client privilege was a legal doctrine covering courts, not Congress.
Really? So if I say something in confidence to my lawyer, Congress can issue a subpoena to my lawyer and force him to disclose it? That’s a new one on me. And what do the legal experts say about that?
We aren’t told. Apparently nobody asked. (Or did they — and just not like the answer?)
Second:
The question of how much access Congress should have to executive branch documents is a long-running debate in legal circles, and there is no consensus on whether attorney-client privilege can be invoked for government lawyers.
Whaddya mean there is “no consensus” as to whether attorney-client privilege can be invoked for government lawyers? Why — because Democrats refuse to recognize longstanding principles of law?
I already linked Beldar’s post on this, but perhaps it’s worth quoting his case law:
Courts, commentators, and government lawyers have long recognized a government attorney-client privilege in several contexts. . . Although the attorney-client privilege traditionally has been recognized in the context of private attorney-client relationships, the privilege also functions to protect communications between government attorneys and client agencies or departments, as evidenced by its inclusion in the [Freedom of Information Act], much as it operates to protect attorney-client communications in the private sector.
Attorney-client privilege can be invoked for government lawyers — period. Yet The Times says there is no “consensus” on that question. If the Democrats deny that the world is round, does that mean there is no “consensus” on the issue?
Again, no expert is consulted on this issue in the Times article. Curious.
And so the one-sided coverage continues . . .
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