What’s Contempt of Congress and Executive Privilege?

It’s the restricted proper of the president to say no requests from Congress and the courts for details about inner White Home talks and deliberations. The privilege is meant to supply a secure area for presidents to get candid recommendation from aides with out the priority that they’ll later be referred to as to testify. Although U.S. presidents have claimed a proper to confidentiality within the face of congressional calls for just about because the founding of the republic, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom first acknowledged govt privilege in 1974 within the endgame to the Watergate scandal, when President Richard Nixon, claiming absolute safety of all presidential communications, tried to withhold audio tapes of Oval Workplace conferences and different proof demanded by a particular prosecutor. Even because it rejected Nixon’s particular argument, the court docket agreed {that a} president usually does have an curiosity in sustaining White Home secrecy.