"President Clinton's claim of executive privilege are for his political security, not national security, " Clinger charged.
Clinger says the executive privilege is supposed to be used in matters of national security.
Plans to call him back had been caught up in the fight over executive privilege.
"They will not testify on anything relating to executive privilege, " said Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona.
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Nevertheless, for the first time the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional basis for executive privilege.
The justices did not address the constitutional underpinnings of the broad assertion of executive privilege.
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But the courts, which have recently been unsympathetic towards executive privilege, were unlikely to swallow this.
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"There's been no assertion of executive privilege, just a refusal to answer, " Lieberman said.
Mr Obama has not once claimed executive privilege to avoid turning over information to Congress.
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Fabiani also said Clinger's accusations of misusing executive privilege for the 2, 000 pages of documents is misleading.
And in each case the argument for executive privilege was rejected by the supervisors of the law.
Nixon's use of executive privilege in Watergate gave the device a bad name.
The White House had resisted letting Rice testify, arguing that to do so would be a violation of executive privilege.
If this broad definition of executive privilege is upheld some of the presidency's lost strength may be restored to it.
The White House recently dropped its general assertion of executive privilege, fearing that the Supreme Court would find against it.
Only this time the issue was whether executive privilege applied to conversations by White House officials with those outside the government.
There, the Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege was overcome by the need for relevant information and evidence in criminal proceedings.
These merits, moreover, have been compounded by the subsequent refusal of lower courts to uphold Mr Clinton's claims of executive privilege.
He successfully challenged the assertions of "executive privilege" for some White House aides and a "protective function privilege" for the Secret Service.
According to CRS, executive privilege has been asserted 24 times since 1981.
The Administration's sweeping claims of executive privilege, for instance, will ultimately be tossed out by the Supreme Court, but the claims will delay investigations.
Executive privilege refers to a president's authority to refuse to comply with some demands from lawmakers and judges to turn over documents and other materials.
Nixon, of course, is Exhibit A. With his back room scheming and his claims of Executive Privilege, he engineered the Watergate cover-up to hide incriminating evidence.
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Maybe Congress should consider enshrining some executive privilege in law.
President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege on some documents in the dispute, preventing them from being turned over on grounds they include internal deliberations traditionally protected from outside eyes.
They also note Obama's use of executive privilege to prevent the release of certain documents in the Fast and Furious case -- a move which typically makes executive branch officials immune from criminal prosecution.
Moreover, Mr Starr has won a string of legal victories, allowing him to subpoena just about everyone in the White House despite the president's claim that these people should be protected by various forms of executive privilege.
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Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, said that instead of the contempt citations, the committee should direct the House clerk to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, exclusively on the executive privilege claim.
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But an Issa aide said the two issues are completely different: The 2008 dispute involved officials who worked in the White House and claimed executive privilege, the aide said, while Issa is seeking information from an agency over which Congress has oversight.
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