9 Responses to “Stonewalling tactics and still more trouble”

1. mythago Writes:
   October 24th, 2005 at 9:05 pm

   and there is attorney-client privilege

   If Bush is the client, he can choose to waive that privilege.

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2. Peter Writes:
   October 24th, 2005 at 11:11 pm

   Over at Ann Althouse’s blog, she and many of her commenters seem to think that this is how the White House is setting this up so that they can save face when they withdraw the nomination.

   This comment was written by Peter.
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3. natural Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 3:47 am

   All nominees have some sort of paper trail that the senate can evaluate in its confirmation hearings. Bush should have thought about that before he nominated his private/White House counsel. He can’t have it both ways.

   This comment was written by natural.
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4. RonF Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 8:43 am

   President Bush is entirely correct that he has the right to withold his conversations with his lawyer. Whether or not he should is another story, given that he’s trying to get votes for his lawyer to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Bet he didn’t figure that this was going to be so hard.

   One consideration is that if Bush releases any conversations that discuss a third party, he might become subject to lawsuits from those third parties depending on what he said about them. He also might become subject to lawsuits if he discussed information that other people gave him under the presumption that his discussion of that information with his lawyer would be protected from public scrutiny under client-attorney privilege. I’ll bet exclusion of such conversations from disclosure would leave pretty thin pickings on what he could disclose.

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5. RonF Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 8:44 am

   Oh we’ll just have to wait and see, once she gets on the SCOTUS.

   I’m not sure if I detect a sarcasm tag here. Unlike Roberts, I am not at all willing to presume that she’ll be confirmed.

   This comment was written by RonF.
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6. mythago Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 8:46 am

   On what basis would he become “subject to lawsuits,” Ron?

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7. RonF Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 11:33 am

   I’m not sure, I must confess. I’m not a lawyer. But say I’m negotiating a contract or agreement with another person. Both of us have lawyers, and we have discussions with our lawyers on the agreemet; what we think of it, what our financial situations are, what agreements we may have with other third parties that might affect or be affected by the agreement.

   First, although I don’ tknow this for a fact, I think that the proposed agreement may well be confidential, and the other party may have legitimate objects to having it made public. Certainly there are lawsuit settlements that are specifically set up to be confidential and that would meet the above description. And any information about 3rd parties might have come to the knowledge of the person in question and their lawyer via a confidential agreement or other confidential sources. Revealing such information might be a confidentiality violation that is actionable.

   Again, I’m just speculating.

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8. RonF Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 11:35 am

   Then there’s the situation where someone was talking to their lawyer and said, “I think Joe is an asshole. I know he’s sleeping with Bill’s wife.” If that was published, would Joe have a basis for an action?

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9. Kyra Writes:
   October 25th, 2005 at 11:38 am

   Geez, he wants privacy, maybe he ought to nominate justices who’ll SUPPORT the right to privacy?

   This comment was written by Kyra.
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