Bush invokes executive privilege

WASHINGTON -- President Bush invoked executive privilege Thursday to block Congress from seeing prosecutors' memos in controversial criminal cases in a move that angered lawmakers already concerned about access to sensitive information.

The president said he invoked the legal privilege, which gained notoriety during Nixon and Clinton scandals, because he was concerned that sharing such documents with Congress could chill prosecutors' private deliberations in criminal cases.

"I believe congressional access to these documents would be contrary to the national interest," Bush wrote in a memo ordering Attorney General John Ashcroft to withhold the papers.

A Republican House chairman threatened to take the president to court, and other lawmakers from both parties said they feared Bush was trying to create an "imperial presidency" by thwarting Congress' ability to oversee the executive branch.

"This is not a monarchy," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., whose House Government Reform Committee sought the documents from cases ranging from a 1960s murder in Boston to the Clinton-era fund-raising probe.

Executive privilege is a doctrine recognized by the courts that ensures presidents can get candid advice in private without fear of its becoming public.

Expected move

The maneuver was expected -- White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez recommended earlier this year that Bush use the privilege to keep lawmakers from meddling in or exposing sensitive law enforcement conversations.

Senators recently complained that Bush didn't consult them before deciding some terrorism defendants could be tried by secret military tribunals. Other lawmakers have been frustrated by their inability to get information about the administration's deliberation on a national energy policy.

Congress' investigative and auditing office is considering suing the Bush White House to force it to identify industry executives who met with Vice President Dick Cheney about the energy policy.

In his memo to Ashcroft, Bush said disclosing them would cast a pall over the confidential deliberations of government lawyers.

"Disclosure to Congress of confidential advice to the attorney general regarding the appointment of a special counsel and confidential recommendations to Department of Justice officials regarding whether to bring criminal charges would inhibit the candor necessary to the effectiveness of the deliberative process by which the department makes prosecutorial decisions," the letter said.

Worried about policy

Lawmakers said they were concerned the administration has set a new policy to resist lawmakers' requests to view prosecutorial decision-making documents that have been routinely turned over to Congress in years past.

Several such memos were shared with Congress during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently, in the 1990s, such documents were turned over to lawmakers during the Whitewater, fund-raising, pardons and impeachment investigations.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the practice of invoking executive privilege is common among presidents -- President Reagan claimed it three times, Bush's father twice and President Clinton four times.