On June 17, 2019 Neal K. Katyal posted a New York Times article, Trump's Abuse of Executive Privilege Is More Than a Present Danger, claiming President Trump was abusing Executive Privilege. It's another prime example of an article from the mainstream media which is beyond absurd.
There's nothing which even remotely suggests Trump has used executive privilege to cover up any wrong doing. In fact, with all the prior investigations into the issue, it'd be a miracle if there's anything left to find, period. Trying to compare this to Nixon or Clinton as the article does is idiotic. There is no valid analogy there - not even remotely. The circumstances are quite obviously radically different.
Trump has only used executive privilege now twice - the first on an issue which had already been incredibly thoroughly investigated - by not only both the House and Senate, but also FBI, CIA, NSA, and a huge Special Counsel team no less including 19 top lawyers and over 50 FBI agents!!! All with no wrongdoing found. The second over an issue where there's no crime involved or being investigated.
Plus, this article essentially lies to readers with this bit:
"But when the claims appear to hide wrongdoing, they begin to curdle. Instead of safeguarding high-minded principles, the claims look personal, and more like something a king would do. And that is just about what Mr. Trump's latest invocations look like. In the teeth of a redacted report that all but labels Mr. Trump a criminal."Gee, funny, but in fact the report clearly did NOT label Trump a criminal - in fact it stated explicitly time and again that there was no crime, no collusion, no conspiracy. This is nothing more than rank partisan anti-Trump Trump Derangement Syndrome opinion - e.g., more wishful fantasizing by the author. There is no appearance of hiding wrongdoing unless one has decided beforehand, without evidence what-so-ever, that Trump's guilty of something. Even worse, the person making this assumption apparently hasn't even decided what that supposed wrong doing might be!
The Mueller report was incredibly lightly redacted for that sort of document, and the redactions were done directly in concert with the FBI, only redacting the bare minimum required by law. If Trump were to publicly release the full report and associated documents demanded by Congress, he would be violating the law for gawd's sake! What's more, Congress was offered a version of the report that's even less redacted which they could view in a secure location - and not one Democrat has bothered to go see it.
The final bit in the above excerpt: "In the teeth of a redacted report that all but labels Mr. Trump a criminal" is downright idiotic - in fact the Mueller report time and again said no crime was committed. That there was no evidence of collusion or conspiracy or any other crime tying Trump or his staff to Russia election interference.
Even the political cherry picked hack job on the possible "obstruction" section of the Mueller report was unable to find evidence of an actual crime, of actual obstruction - which is why there were no charges recommended. Not to mention that section is nothing but innuendo, gossip, hearsay, and items which are VERY easily explained by perfectly legal actions and motives. When there is no crime to cover up - as shown in "collusion" section - and plenty of perfectly reasonable and legal explanations for issues, it's virtually impossible to prove any "obstruction of justice" occurred.
What's more, there's reams of evidence that Trump was not in any way trying to obstruct justice. He didn't fire Mueller and the other investigators. In fact he didn't stop or impede the Special Counsel investigation (SC) in any way. Even though he clearly had the constitutional authority to do both. He voluntarily turned over more than 1.4 million documents. He allowed unprecedented access to his top White House counsel and other top White House lawyers - including allowing over 30 hours of interrogation of the senior White House attorney. Similarly, he didn't stop any of his staff or anyone in the Executive branch of government from testifying to the SC - again, all of which he could have legally done. He didn't even exert executive privilege at all, etc., etc., etc.
So, after four massively in-depth investigations all into the same issue coming up entirely clean, exactly what is Trump supposedly trying to "cover up" by finally saying enough is enough, my people have jobs to do serving the American public, quit wasting their time and massive amounts of taxpayer money with multiple re-investigations of things which have already been investigated to death, time move on?
Furthermore, how is this supposedly analogous to either the Nixon or Clinton situations, where in both cases there were already known, proven crimes which were committed (the Watergate building break in) or an ongoing lawsuit against the president himself alleging a heinous crime (rape)? Both of which were in the initial investigation stages. Clearly such an analogy is beyond absurd no matter how much the mainstream media tries to paint it otherwise.
The only other time Trump has used executive privilege is over the internal deliberations with his top aides (exactly what executive privilege is for!) over the census citizenship question. A question which was on EVERY census through 1950, and has been on parts of the census process ever since. A question which the vast majority of American citizens support no less as shown by multiple major polls - we have every right to know how many non-citizens are living in our nation.
What's more, claims that the question is "racist" or will somehow suppress immigrant responses are essentially specious - this is yet another manufactured crisis by the left. So here we are again - exactly what "crime" could Trump possibly be covering up in that regard? What's more, where's the criminal investigation into it? There isn't one. Where's the probable cause for one? There isn't any.
This entire New York Times article is in the nature of "when did you stop beating your wife?" They're begging the question based on their wishful fantasies and base partisan assumptions that everything Trump does must be somehow nefarious. They've got no actual grounds for the claims they're making.
So this article is yet more absurd leftist spin, and slander/libel - nothing more, nothing less. It's disgraceful, as is so much of what passes for "news" in the mainstream media these days - a disgrace to actual journalism.
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