1. An extremely dangerous, flawed legal decision. Because the judge appears to extend ‘executive privilege’ to:
1.1. a partisan server.
1.2 a private, partisan domain.

She appears to be saying, ‘yes, the emails were supposed to be private, but maybe someone screwed up and mixed up private/partisan work with public work. They mixed stuff up, so you can’t see any of it.’

That gives the benefit to the people who created the problem and caused it.
That tells everyone else, ‘just act like you made a mistake and screwed up – there’s precedent for screwing up so you’ll be off the hook, don’t worry’.

By failing to draw clear, bright lines between private (in this case, partisan) activities and communications, the judge blurs the distinctions between partisan activity and government jobs. Don’t know anything about this judge, but the way I read it she bent over backward to accommodate the RNC.

but you did a bangup job of drawing all the point to point mappings.

I’m getting a divorce in a community-property state.
Some portion of my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s assets is the result of illegal activities.
He tells the judge that some portion of his assets is illegally acquired.
He is hiding some portion of his assets from disclosure.
He tells the judge he’s hiding some assets.
He claims some portion of his assets is exempt from disclosure because it isn’t community property on some grounds that the judge will just have to take his word for.

So the judge decides that she can’t order him to disclose the hidden assets because I haven’t countered his exemption claim (because he won’t say what it is), and because I haven’t proven precisely which portion of the hidden assets is legal and which is illegal, and because the divorce court can’t pursue the question of his illegally acquired assets, and because the criminal court hasn’t chosen to pursue the illegal activities that resulted in some portion of the hidden assets?

And the judge further decides that she can’t reach the question of the validity of his exemption claim because that would necessarily take her into the legal/illegal assets territory where she can’t go?

Is this pretend scenario remotely analogous to what Huvelle has decided?

[Hi NSA — this is all made-up, I’m single and have never been married to or divorced from anybody engaged in illegal activities.]

Back on topic: I had no idea that there was a legal precedent out there for the idea that the First Spouse is a gov’t officer. Interesting.

What effect will a change of admin and thank the Lord DOJ have on the RNC emails in this or any case?

I imagine the court decision in: Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. v. Hillary Clinton does not help in any way…

That case raised the question whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act (”FACA”) applied to the health-care-reform panel chaired by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. And that question, in turn, depended on whether the First Lady is, or is not, an officer or employee of the government.

Under FACA, if a person who is not an officer or employee of the government is a member of a government group, then the group’s proceedings must be open to the public. The health-care-reform panel had kept its proceedings private, so if the First Lady was not a government officer or employee, it had broken the law. Fortunately for the Clinton Administration, however, the court held that the First Lady is indeed an officer or employee of the government, and FACA thus did not apply.

So, could the WH claim RNC falls under FACA?

Additionally, why not have the dismissed attorneys file for this FOIA in regards to “wrongful dismissal”? Would that have had more weight? Again, these may be “low level” legal questions. I am not a legal eagle…

According to Nixon, “executive privilege” arose via custom and court decisions, not the Constitution or statute. Executive privilege is NOT absolute…. The strength of the privilege varies from strong to weak, depending on the nature of the communication the president seeks to protect from disclosure. The strength of the interest competing with that privilege must vary accordingly.

The strongest privilege relates to direct communications between the president and an adviser on military, foreign policy or national security issues. In that realm, the privilege is virtually absolute. Other claims are less protected. In Nixon, the competing interest that overcame the president’s privilege was the public’s interest in pursuing a formal investigation into criminal wrongdoing by the president’s advisers….

If cornered and hauled into court, the Bush administration will fight like a wolverine. But it prefers to argue its case in the media, where there’s no risk of perjury, using the Rovian claim that this is all politics. But its principal tactic is to run out the clock, hoping that evidence will stale, memories fade and statutes of limitation will pass. It also hopes that time and intervening emergencies will distract Congress or the next Attorney General into dropping the issue. In which case, the strength of their claims, if any, will never be tested.

The FOIA didn’t hinge on executive privilege, but a statutory exception from disclosure in the FOIA statute itself. But you’re right, the Dems seem exceptionally leery of resting their claims against privilege on a formal or criminal investigation. Then again, preventing them from doing that has been one of Gonzales’ and now Mukasey’s principal jobs, which they’ve done very well.

Case in point, though OT. A Times editorial today complains that Bush is hindering the government from doing its job by stubbornly insisting on radical nominees that the Senate has repeatedly refused to confirm. I think that’s being willfully credulous. The Times should ask why the president is intentionally stopping the Department of Justice and key regulators of business from doing their jobs. Given the scope of potential criminal wrongdoing by this administration and its reliance on corporate support for its meager electoral prospects, the answer should be obvious.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/…..;invol=683

The best place to hide what you most want hidden is out in the open, among what you expect to see every day and therefore ignore. A shelf full of books or random, violent crimes. The ability to erase your work or use government power for corrupt partisan purposes.

Out of hundreds of White House actors, few would have known how their e-mails were routed or stored, or that they could freely erase them without trace. Fewer would have used that knowledge, fewer still would have had the power to impose those “features” on the system. Among the latter were Cheney and Rove, actors who also harbor the greatest paranoia about protecting their communications.