Executive Privilege

A contrite Secret Service director today accepted the blame for a breach of security that enabled an uninvited Virginia couple to gain access to a state dinner at the White House, as members of Congress spoke of compelling the White House social secretary to testify as well. Three members of the Secret Service have been placed on paid administrative leave for the breach of security, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said, maintaining that the security breakdown was not an institutional problem.

President Obama's appointment of "czars," or policy coordinators, is drawing new fire from lawmakers in both parties. They complain that Obama's naming of the czars circumvents the Senate's role in confirming important nominations to the president's administration. In a letter to the president this week, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and five other Republican lawmakers accused the administration of encroaching on Congress' authority in establishing what they said were too many far-reaching czars.

USC guard Dwight Lewis looked up from his locker-room chair at a stadium named after a former vice president and took a shot at the current executive branch. Like a lot shots USC attempted Friday, this one was all net. "I guess we messed President Obama's bracket up," Lewis cracked from deep inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Barack Obama, in his mock offering to ESPN, had USC losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament and the Pacific 10 Conference going 1-5.

Gov. Sarah Palin is being asked by a local Republican activist to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public records request, including 40 that were copied to her husband, Todd. Palin had claimed executive privilege for documents copied to her husband, who is not a state employee, in responding to an open records request in June made by Andree McLeod, an activist in Anchorage. The administrative appeal filed Tuesday by McLeod's attorney, Donald C. Mitchell, argued that by copying Todd Palin on sensitive state correspondence, the governor and her aides shattered the privilege rightly afforded elected officials.

A federal appeals court granted the White House a temporary delay in turning over documents to a House committee investigating the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. A three-judge panel ordered the stay on Thursday, the deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee for White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten to provide the records. The order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also will probably delay the appearance of former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers before the committee.

Congress and the Bush administration headed for a preelection showdown Wednesday over the issue of executive privilege, with House Democrats scheduling a hearing that would put a key former administration figure under oath and the Justice Department mapping a last-ditch court appeal. Justice lawyers said they would go to court as soon as today to block a ruling by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates that forces the White House to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the politically charged firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

A federal judge Thursday rebuked the Bush administration for making the "unprecedented" claim that senior White House officials were beyond the reach of congressional subpoena power, and ordered two top officials to cooperate with the politically charged probe of U.S. attorney firings. The ruling by U.S. District Judge John D.

President Bush invoked executive privilege to keep Congress from seeing the FBI report of an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney and other records related to the administration's leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003. At the time, the administration was trying to undercut former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's criticism of Bush's rationale for the Iraq war. Wilson and Plame are married. The House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey to turn over the documents.

Lawyers for the White House and Congress sparred in federal court over whether lawmakers can force top presidential advisors to testify or produce documents for a legislative committee. The House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firings of U.S. attorneys in 2006, filed a lawsuit in March seeking to force former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to testify about a possible White House role in the dismissals. She has refused to appear, citing executive privilege. The committee also sued to force White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten to produce documents he says are protected by executive privilege.

Escalating a fight with Democrats on Capitol Hill, the White House on Friday invoked executive privilege in refusing to turn over documents to a congressional committee investigating the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny California permission to implement its own vehicle emission standards.