None of President Trump’s attorney-client privileges should have been pierced — in any proceeding I’m aware of.
And executive privilege as to January 6 matters shouldn’t have been pierced.
This DOJ acts arbitrarily and with blatant political motive. They literally worked with the J6 Committee to elevate law enforcement privilege over executive privilege — with Biden waiving Trump’s executive privilege but simultaneously letting Biden’s DOJ retain law enforcement privilege over exactly the same subject matter area. Executive privilege is superior, as it is constitutionally rooted. Law enforcement privilege is a lesser-order privilege. This is upside-down world.
Privileges can’t properly be used as both swords and shields, interchangeably as best benefits this DOJ.
Look at the 2021 Senate Judiciary Committee deposition of former Southern District of Georgia US Attorney BJay Pak. Whenever Republican staff lawyers wanted to question him about a 2020 election investigation issue which this DOJ didn’t want him to discuss (such as which steps he or others failed to take), they invoked law enforcement privilege and shut down that line of questions. But he was also allowed to answer questions protected on the same privileged basis and to disclose law enforcement privileged matter when he wanted to do so. The only difference is that there, Democrats at DOJ wanted to help build Democrat and media narratives and so let Pak answer those questions — only the ones they deemed helpful.
You can’t even make up these one-sided violations, where lines of questions Democrats like are miraculously left unprivileged but lines of questions they don’t are zealously deemed privileged. And they did this when both lines of questions were on the same subject matter: DOJ investigations or non-investigations of the 2020 election. The dividing line was literally “does this help or hurt Democrat narratives?” Not — Is the witness being called on to discuss DOJ investigative steps or not?
DOJ also ensured all privilege piercing decisions re the Mar-a-Lago documents case were resolved in DC where they were confident that the then-Chief Judge would rule with them, rather than in S.D. Florida which actually had venue over that investigation. This was forum shopping as to both the Chief Judge and DC grand juries.
If you can’t see the double standard weaponization of process against Trump and against lawyers aligned with him in and outside of government, I can’t help you.
The piercing of privilege, this privilege jiggering, the privilege double standards, and forum shopping all occurred to specially and unfairly target Trump.
I detect some hint of glee in the piercing by your tweet below. It is the wrong reaction. It should cause all lawyers to rally against the double standards.
Jeff Clark calls it "piercing the privilege".
None of President Trump’s attorney-client privileges should have been pierced — in any proceeding I’m aware of.
And executive privilege as to January 6 matters shouldn’t have been pierced.
This DOJ acts arbitrarily and with blatant political motive. They literally worked with the J6 Committee to elevate law enforcement privilege over executive privilege — with Biden waiving Trump’s executive privilege but simultaneously letting Biden’s DOJ retain law enforcement privilege over exactly the same subject matter area. Executive privilege is superior, as it is constitutionally rooted. Law enforcement privilege is a lesser-order privilege. This is upside-down world.
Privileges can’t properly be used as both swords and shields, interchangeably as best benefits this DOJ.
Look at the 2021 Senate Judiciary Committee deposition of former Southern District of Georgia US Attorney BJay Pak. Whenever Republican staff lawyers wanted to question him about a 2020 election investigation issue which this DOJ didn’t want him to discuss (such as which steps he or others failed to take), they invoked law enforcement privilege and shut down that line of questions. But he was also allowed to answer questions protected on the same privileged basis and to disclose law enforcement privileged matter when he wanted to do so. The only difference is that there, Democrats at DOJ wanted to help build Democrat and media narratives and so let Pak answer those questions — only the ones they deemed helpful.
https://judiciary.senate.gov/pak-transcript-1?download=1
You can’t even make up these one-sided violations, where lines of questions Democrats like are miraculously left unprivileged but lines of questions they don’t are zealously deemed privileged. And they did this when both lines of questions were on the same subject matter: DOJ investigations or non-investigations of the 2020 election. The dividing line was literally “does this help or hurt Democrat narratives?” Not — Is the witness being called on to discuss DOJ investigative steps or not?
DOJ also ensured all privilege piercing decisions re the Mar-a-Lago documents case were resolved in DC where they were confident that the then-Chief Judge would rule with them, rather than in S.D. Florida which actually had venue over that investigation. This was forum shopping as to both the Chief Judge and DC grand juries.
If you can’t see the double standard weaponization of process against Trump and against lawyers aligned with him in and outside of government, I can’t help you.
The piercing of privilege, this privilege jiggering, the privilege double standards, and forum shopping all occurred to specially and unfairly target Trump.
I detect some hint of glee in the piercing by your tweet below. It is the wrong reaction. It should cause all lawyers to rally against the double standards.
https://twitter.com/JeffClarkUS/status/1668115331682893828?
Excellent point! These bastards need to fry.