Bloomberg data shows that the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) checks are at their lowest level for this time of year since pre-Covid. This data suggests that the gun-buying bubble, which peaked during the Covid and BLM riots, continues to deflate until the next round of Marxist groups spark riots in America.
US unadjusted criminal background checks dropped 10% to 2.13 million in May. This is the lowest level in eight months, and compared with the same month a year earlier, down 17% from 2.55 million.
On a seasonal basis, this is the lowest May level since May 2019 and well below the 5-year average.
NICS data is a proxy for gun sales because there is no national database tracking firearm purchases.
That said, gun and ammo stocks, such as Sturm Ruger & Co. Inc. and Smith, Wesson Brands Inc., and Ammo Inc., have positively correlated with rising NICS and falling NICS.
Many years ago a civil engineer explained to me the wisdom of taking solid biological residues from sewage treatment plants—dubbed biosolids—and using them on farm fields and garden plots. After all, nature intended for human wastes to return to the soil to replenish it in the same way animal manure has long been used to fertilize farm fields.
“What about all the industrial chemicals that end up in wastewater,” I asked. He replied that these weren’t significant enough to be concerned. I was skeptical.
But believe it or not, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to contamination of biosolids. A 2022 report on chemicals found by EPA’s examination of biosolids around the country lists 726 chemicals. These include chemicals used in pesticides, drugs, cosmetics, and flame retardants as well as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (widely used in electric transformers and highly carcinogenic).
For many years the EPA has assured farmers that biosolids are safe. The agency is still promoting them as a way to improve the fertility of the soil. (Inquisitive readers might like to know that organic agriculture regulations prohibit the use of biosolids or sewage sludge of any kind.)
The biosolids issue demonstrates clearly why the so-called circular economy is an impossibility in a modern industrial society. The chemicals produced by the modern economy are too many—over 150,000 by a recent count—and too easily dispersed to be segregated from the waste stream.
That’s just the way the chemical industry likes it. It would be exceedingly expensive to prevent all leakage of toxic chemicals into the environment—and downright counterproductive in the case of pesticides and herbicides which must be broadly dispersed to be effective. And, it would be considerably more expensive to find substitutes that are nontoxic and biodegradable. No one in the chemical industry is going to do either of these things if they don’t have to.
Ask yourself how many times the chemical industry and their mouthpieces in universities have told us not worry about chemicals in the environment. The concentrations are too small to hurt us, they say. Then, ask yourself whether you want to sit down to a meal of grains grown using biosolids and meat and milk products from animals dining on those same grains. Yum!
“This Is Horrifying”: Baltimore County Releases Illegal Alien Sex Offender, Defying DHS’ Detainer Request
Local media outlet Fox 45 News revealed a convicted sex offender and illegal alien was released by Baltimore County officials, blatantly ignoring the federal government’s request to keep the criminal in jail. This stunning act of defiance in the progressive-controlled Baltimore metro area raises serious questions about their commitment to public safety, upholding law and order, and adherence to the federal government.
Fox 45 spoke with the US Department of Homeland Security about 25-year-old Raul Calderon-Interiano, who was convicted of a fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault in April by a Baltimore County judge.
The illegal alien was sentenced to six years in prison, but the judge suspended all of his prison time.
Despite federal immigration officials filing a “detainer” for the officials in the county to keep the illegal alien in custody, the Baltimore County Detention Center released him anyway after his prison sentence was suspended.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox 45 News in a statement, “Calderon-Interiano will remain in ICE custody pending his removal from the United States.”
A separate Fox 45 investigation found that Baltimore County officials regularly ignore detainer requests from the federal government to keep illegal aliens in custody.
ICE data shows the county ignored about 70% of detainers in 2023.
Del. Nino Mangione, R-Baltimore County, responded to the Fox 45 report, saying, “This is a horrifying, disgusting and outrageous story about how flawed our immigration system is.”
Mangione continued:
“This is yet another example of a question being asked too often, why in the hell is a person like this in our county and how did they get into our country to begin with? And the irresponsible action of the Office of Refugee Resettlement is mind blowing to me.
“What we need at ICE is an Office of Immediate and Permanent Deportation to remove these people from our country permanently.
“We have a liberal Democrat crisis that has been created by those who have no respect for the rule of law, border security, human decency, or the safety and security of American citizens. Yet, the Democrats sit on their hands, make excuses, and do nothing year after year.
This is their fault and their fault alone!”
There is absolutely no logical reason for the progressive county to let this illegal alien. Not one.
Oil futures prices have fallen to the lowest level for four months and calendar spreads have slumped after OPEC⁺ ministers signalled their intention to start increasing production from the fourth quarter of 2024.
Front-month Brent futures closed at $78 per barrel on June 3, the first day of trading following the OPEC⁺ ministerial meeting held on June 2, up just $2 per barrel compared with the same time last year.
Brent’s six-month spread slumped to a backwardation of $1.50 per barrel (56th percentile for all months since 2000) from an average of $2.85 (78th percentile) in May and $4.86 (95th percentile) in April.
Inter-month spreads for the remainder of 2024 and through 2025 have all softened as traders anticipate increasing OPEC⁺ production will eliminate any threat of shortages or a fall in inventories.
Following a hybrid meeting held in Riyadh and online, OPEC⁺ announced voluntary output cuts amounting to 2.2 million barrels per day (b/d) would be extended until the end of September 2024. But the cuts will then be gradually phased out on a monthly basis over the final quarter of 2024 and the first three quarters of 2025.
The planned production increases are subject to the caveat it can be “paused or reversed subject to market conditions”, ministers said. But it is nonetheless an enormous increment – equivalent to roughly 18 months of normal growth in global oil consumption.
Inevitably, prices have fallen.
STRATEGY SHIFT
The scheduled production increases mark a change of strategy by OPEC⁺, led by Saudi Arabia, which had previously focused on depleting excess inventories and driving prices towards $100 per barrel.
Instead, the group has switched its focus to stabilising, or even regaining, some of the market share it has lost in the last two years to rival producers in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Guyana.
Repeated official and voluntary production cuts by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC⁺ members have failed to lift prices (though they probably averted a more severe decline).
Instead they have thrown a lifeline to higher-cost producers in the western hemisphere, encouraging them to maintain and even increase output.
Dwindling OPEC⁺ market share has simply become too painful and contentious to sustain; it brings uncomfortable reminders about Saudi Arabia’s role as a swing producer in the early 1980s.
The scheduled increases are intended to signal there is a limit to how far Saudi Arabia and its closest allies will cut production on their own to support prices and they do not accept cuts are permanent.
To stabilize and recapture market share, OPEC⁺ needs slower growth in rivals’ output and faster growth in consumption. Both imply lower prices to enforce a slowdown in drilling, stimulate fuel use, and make room for more OPEC⁺ crude.
Extra production also implies inventories will be higher than previously anticipated, explaining the sudden slump in spreads.
The Brent spread for the fourth quarter of 2024, when the first production increases are scheduled, slid to 89 cents per barrel on June 3 from $1.58 on May 28 and as much as $2.51 at one point in April.
The spread for the whole period between September 2024 and September 2025 slid to $3 on June 3 from $5 on May 28 and more than $8 in early April.
ROOM FOR MORE OIL
For OPEC⁺ to pump more, others must pump less, other things equal, and that requires lower prices to force a production slowdown, especially in the price-sensitive and short-cycle U.S. shale sector.
Pre-announcing increases in OPEC⁺ production is intended to forestall further increases in output by the U.S. shale sector, partly through signalling and partly through lower prices themselves.
By deferring the first production increases until October, and making them conditional on future market conditions, OPEC⁺ ministers have given themselves some flexibility.
Scheduled production increases can be deferred again if oil consumption growth fails to accelerate, inventories remain comfortable and prices stay under pressure.
But OPEC⁺ has signalled an important shift in the direction of policy. Having repeatedly thrown the shale sector a lifeline in 2023, OPEC⁺ is preparing to squeeze it again in 2025.
Topline: A Delaware employee stole $181,000 from the state’s Department of Labor early last year, but the public didn’t find out until this April. The truth was only revealed after the WHYY News public radio station contacted the Delaware Department of Labor following a tip.
Key facts: Unemployment insurance administrator Michael Brittingham allegedly stole the money from the Delaware Unemployment Compensation Fund, according to WHYY.
The State of Delaware hired Brittingham in February 2019. That summer, he was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing almost $43,000 from his homeowner’s association by writing checks to a company he owned, NEWAGE Management LLC, the news outlet reported.
Instead of being fired by the state, Brittingham had his jail time turned into probation and even earned multiple job promotions while still serving his sentence. The state Department of Labor bizarrely blamed it on the fact that employees are expected to “self-report” criminal convictions in a statement to WHYY News.
Brittingham’s salary doubled from $35,000 to $70,000 in that time span, according to records at OpenTheBooks.com.
Brittingham then allegedly pulled the same check-writing scheme on a much larger scale. In January 2023, he instructed his staff to issue two tax refunds to NEWAGE Management LLC: one for $86,827 and another for $94,357
He was caught by his colleagues once they realized the business’s address matched the one listed on Brittingham’s 2019 arrest warrant.
Brittingham took his own life in April 2023 shortly after an investigation was opened.
Background: The theft is just one part of larger issues with Delaware’s Department of Labor. Its $390 million unemployment fund was deemed to be “unauditable” in a state report issued this year.
Independent auditors took the “unprecedented” step of issuing a “disclaimer of opinion” on the unemployment insurance fund, meaning its accounting practices are so poor that they could not determine whether its financial statements are accurate.
But the auditors’ report did not mention the theft. Even now, the state refuses to tell WHYY News whether the investigation has been closed.
Critical quote: “I’m not sure how or why they tried to keep it quiet other than they don’t want to bring attention to the fact that everything is really screwed up,” Laura Henderson, a tax collection manager at the state’s Unemployment Insurance Office, told WHYY News.
“We would love for there to be transparency. For us to just put it out in the open like, ‘Hey, we’re drowning and let’s come up with a plan here.’”
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
In National IQ Test, Biden Does ‘We Gotta Secure The Border!’ Routine
Update (1443ET): President Ron Burgundy read what is perhaps the most audacious attempt to trick Americans into believing the exact opposite of reality – namely, that he didn’t cause the border crisis, Republicans are the reason it isn’t fixed, and he’s here to save the day.
A national IQ test, if you will.
And he’s off! To some kind of a start…
After taking steps on his first day in office to undo border security, Biden starts his speech with: I’ve come here today to do what Republicans in Congress refuse to do, secure the border. pic.twitter.com/sffPQ8iiCo
Former President Trump responded to this attempted sleight of hand, saying that “The truth is that Crooked Joe Biden’s Executive Order won’t stop the invasion…it will actually make the invasion worse.”
The truth is that Joe Biden’s Executive Order won’t STOP the invasion—it will make the invasion WORSE.
We recently learned, Biden is secretly granting mass amnesty to hundreds of thousands of these illegal aliens, along with welfare, government benefits, work permits, and jobs. pic.twitter.com/uVEI6u4uwj
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) June 4, 2024
FOX’s @BillMelugin_: IN NO WAY should Biden’s executive order be described as “shutting down the border.”
— It does NOT stop or slow the 1,500 illegals/day being released into the country by showing up at ports of entry via the CBP One app.
Insane footage from @BillMelugin_ at the Jacumba border last night. In the middle of the night, hundreds of migrants crossed into San Diego, several from countries of concern, and many taking selfies when they arrived.
— Supervisor Jim Desmond (@jim_desmond) June 4, 2024
* * *
After shredding Donald Trump’s ‘xenophobic’ Executive Orders on border security his first day in office more than three years ago, resulting in what some estimate to be upwards of 20 million illegal migrants pouring into the United States (which Trump plans to deport), President Joe Biden is quietly signing an executive order on Tuesday aimed at slowing migrant crossings.
As we noted on Friday, the EO would slash asylum claims by roughly two-thirds of where they stand today – and would cap the number of daily encounters at an average of 2,500 crossings per day (or 912k per year), however Biden would allow mass asylum claims to resume once border encounters fall to around 1,500 per day.
US Border Patrol recorded approximately 4,300 daily encounters in April – which of course doesn’t include ‘gotaways’ – those who enter the US without notice.
The move comes three months after the White House said Biden was no longer considering using executive action to secure the border.
Karine Jean-Pierre confirms Biden is no longer considering executive action to secure the border — even though he dismantled border security by executive order immediately after taking office. pic.twitter.com/n1q665Wexn
According to Bloomberg, lawmakers and others have been invited to a Tuesday afternoon event at the White House.
The order is Biden’s most aggressive move yet to address the crisis on the US-Mexico border, which has seen record levels of migrants and taxed communities across the country struggling to deal with the influx of new arrivals. A bipartisan Senate plan that would have given Biden similar powers was blocked by Republicans at Trump’s behest earlier this year, denying the president a political win and prompting him to act unilaterally.
Tuesday’s order is politically risky. It will invite criticism from Biden’s left flank, which has blasted moves to ramp up deportations as an inhumane approach to the crisis. That has the potential to stymie his efforts to shore up an electoral coalition already riven by divisions over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war and overarching concerns over his age and fitness to serve a second term. -Bloomberg
The Biden administration’s move underscores how the administration has been compelled to act just months before the 2024 US election – as it’s become a centerpiece issue for Republicans on the campaign trail. Donald Trump has been constantly hammering Biden over the border as polls continue to show that voters think the border and immigration are critical issues.
The Executive Order is also timed to reflect an effort to deter a seasonal increase in crossings that typically occurs each summer and early fall (right before the election), and comes as Mexico welcomes a new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who was elected on Sunday. She doesn’t take office until Oct. 1, and it’s unknown what actions she will take on the border situation.
In recent weeks the Biden administration has taken other steps to tighten immigration rules. Last month, they proposed a rule that would allow the US to expedite the expulsion of certain undocumented migrants trying to claim asylum.
According to the report, Biden will use Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act – which Trump invoked – which are anticipated to invite legal challenges.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News Sunday that the move is “too little too late,” adding “The only reason he’s doing that is because the polls say that it’s the biggest issue in America.”
President Biden has engineered a wide-open southern border and is now trying to convince Americans that he wants to address the chaos he created.
The American people know better. He intentionally created this crisis and an executive order won’t change that. pic.twitter.com/4CsnkmG0Cl
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) June 3, 2024
Dershowitz: Trump Could Fast-Track His Appeal To Supreme Court
Retired Harvard Law Professor and Jeffrey Epstein’s former attorney Alan Dershowitz thinks that former President Trump has a path to expedite his conviction to the US Supreme Court before the November presidential election.
Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
In a Friday interview with Megyn Kelly, Dershowitz suggested that Trump’s legal team should immediately push to get their appeal heard before the New York Court of Appeals, asking them to bypass the Appellate Division – which, Dershowitz suggested, are elected and more likely to work against Trump.
“The Appellate Division or Manhattan judges that are elected and they don’t want to have to face their families and say you were the judge who allowed Trump to become the next President of the United States. They don’t want to be Dershowitz’ed,” he said, referring to the fact that he defended Trump during his first impeachment trial in the Senate.
“They don’t want to be treated in New York, the way I have been treated in Martha’s Vineyard and Harvard and New York because I defended Donald Trump, so they should skip the Appellate Division.”
And so, to avoid the politicized Appellate Division, Trump’s attorneys should ask the Court of Appeals for an expedited appeal while preparing to argue in front of the US Supreme Court that the Manhattan case was rushed to try and get a verdict before the election.
Dershowitz further suggested that the Supreme Court has an obligation to review the case before the election so that the American public has resolution.
As Tom Ozimek of the Epoch Times notes further, Dershowitz has in the past accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of unfairly building the case against the former president by using a novel legal theory to elevate misdemeanor business falsification charges into a felony by alleging that the records fraud was carried out to conceal an underlying crime. In the Trump case, the underlying crime that was alleged was seeking to interfere in the 2016 election by using non-disclosure agreements to prevent unfavorable media coverage about an alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels that the former president has denied.
Mr. Dershowitz said that Trump attorneys should consider supporting their petition to the New York Court of Appeals by highlighting two issues, with the first relating to the fact that the state’s highest court recently reversed Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction because the trial judge prejudicially allowed testimony on allegations unrelated to the case.
The retired law professor alleged that Judge Juan Merchan “improperly” allowed irrelevant salacious details of President Trump’s alleged tryst with Ms. Daniels to be admitted into the record, while also raising the so-called “missing witness” issue.
The second point that Mr. Dershowitz said would bolster a petition for an expedited review to the New York Court of Appeals is that the judge allegedly didn’t instruct the jury properly on why prosecutors didn’t call former Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg to testify in the case. The judge was open to having Mr. Weisselberg testify but the prosecution didn’t call him, framing him as an unreliable witness due to earlier perjury charges in an unrelated case, while the defense also didn’t call him, citing the fact that prosecutors had undermined his credibility.
Mr. Dershowitz argued that failure to call Mr. Weisselberg left a hole in proving the case because it was expected that his testimony would have undermined some of the claims from another witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against the former president.
“Number two, I think would be the failure to give an instruction on the missing witness,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “The way the judge and the prosecution handled Allen Weisselberg really denied the defendant the right to a presumption that the only reason he wasn’t called was because he would not have corroborated the very important testimony, lying testimony of Michael Cohen.”
Mr. Dershowitz said those two issues are what Trump attorneys should highlight in their request for an expedited appeal.
“This is a winnable appeal,” he insisted.
The Epoch Times was unable to reach Trump counsel for comment on Mr. Dershowitz’s remarks.
The guilty verdict made President Trump the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
Other Legal Experts Weigh In
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told The Epoch Times that he shares frustration expressed by critics of the verdict, including the House speaker, at what he described as an obvious “miscarriage of justice.”
Mr. von Spakovsky said that the prospect of the Supreme Court getting before the appeals process plays out in New York state courts is not realistic.
“There are certainly issues that give the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the state court conviction, given the fundamental violation of Donald Trump’s substantive due process rights under the U.S. Constitution in the way the trial judge and prosecution mishandled the case,” he said. “But I don’t believe the Supreme Court will take the case until the state appeals process is exhausted.”
Jonathan Emord, a constitutional law and litigation expert, told The Epoch Times that he believes that the trial violated President Trump’s due process rights and was “riddled with bias” but that he, too, sees little hope for Supreme Court intervention until the New York Court of Appeals has weighed in.
“The fact of the matter is that a trial violated President Trump’s due process rights and was riddled with bias, evidentiary rulings that deprive him of a full and fair opportunity to present his case,” he said.
“On the merits, there really is no foundation for a legal basis for decision because it’s a novel theory of law that’s been applied,” Mr. Emord said of the way the case was brought by Mr. Bragg.
Asked why Mr. Johnson suggested that the Supreme Court should step in at an earlier-than-normal stage of the appeals process, Mr. Emord suggested it’s because of “exceptional circumstances.”
“He’s arguing that there are exceptional circumstances that would warrant the Supreme Court to intervene and while there certainly are exceptional circumstances, I suspect that the Supreme Court would not intervene in the first instance, but would allow an appellate court in New York to issue a determination,” he said.
Short of a successful appeal, President Trump could now be facing such penalties as jail time, probation, or fines.
Sentencing in the case has been set for July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention where President Trump will be formally designated as the Republican presidential nominee.
While there are no laws barring President Trump from running for the White House as a convicted felon, an overturned verdict before Election Day would likely boost his chances of victory.
Anthony Fauci got the verbal smacking of his life in Congress Monday from several GOP representatives on the COVID Select Subcommittee, but there was one guy who out did them all with some epic trolling while sitting directly behind him.
Brandon Fellows encapsulated how everyone else reacted when Fauci began complaining about the harassment he has received by letters, email and texts for his role and actions during the pandemic.
Fauci claimed he has received “credible death threats” and that they increase every time someone claims he is responsible for the death of people all over the world.
He also claimed that it requires him to have “protective services.”
While Fauci complained, Fellows pulled ‘boo boo’ faces behind him.
Watch:
🚨 NEW: Dr. Fauci breaks down into tears discussing personal death threats.
He says, “Every time someone gets up and says, I’m responsible for the death of people throughout the world, the death threats go up.”
— Corinne Cliford 🇺🇸 (@corinnecliford) June 3, 2024
Fellows subsequently posted about the incident on Facebook:
It turns out that Fellows was convicted earlier this year to three years in prison for entering the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and was on supervised release.
This made leftists freak out even more.
You’d think a convicted J6 MAGA terrorist would be banned for life from the Capitol by @CapitolPolice after serving 3 years in prison but here we are and he’s sitting behind Fauci today making faces like the jackass that he is pic.twitter.com/YvzDhKx2OM
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) June 3, 2024
Hey @HouseDemocrats why the h*ll are the felons; the jerks who threaten people not only allowed in the hearings but get a seat right behind Dr Fauci. HOW? You need to investigate how Ivan Raiken or Brandon Fellows got there??? https://t.co/cPTlueZ6ZC
For every democrat hilariously freaking out that I was sitting so close to mass murderer Fauchi… Yes I’m a felon, but only until the Supreme Court dismissed the felony later this month. Look up the opening statements of USA V Fisher… My supervised release is about to end.
Fauci himself addressed Fellows’ presence at the hearing during a softball fawning interview with CNN host Kaitlin Collins. Fauci exclaimed “What’s somebody like that doing at a hearing about COVID?”
During the hearing, Fauci was also subjected to a six minute berating by former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson.
The fall of Fauci. Covid-19 is officially exposed as a US Govt project. A virus engineered by US scientists using a bio lab in China for cover. The biggest crime against humanity killed more victims than the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. Demand Justice. pic.twitter.com/xsFdNQiR0F
The verbal lectures didn’t deter Fauci from declaring that the unvaccinated are “responsible” for an “additional 200,000 to 300,000 deaths” from COVID in the U.S.
Fauci is still on with this garbage! He says the unvaccinated were responsible for 200,000 – 300,000 additional COVID deaths. This is patently insane on many levels but it’s pure DC swamp creature behavior. He’s continuing the coverup rather than telling Americans the truth. His… pic.twitter.com/0PO91VWd0r
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Queens Couple Finds $100,000 In Safe At Bottom Of Corona Park Lake While ‘Magnet Fishing’
A couple “fishing” with a magnet at a lake in Corona Park made the ultimate catch this weekend, pulling up a metal safe with approximately $100,000 in it from the bottom of the water, according to a new report from NY1.
NY1 reported that “‘Magnet Fishing’ enthusiasts lower high-powered magnets into bodies of water, and hoist them out to see what sticks.” In this case, something stuck.
James Kane and Barbie Agostini, both from Queens, did just that on Friday of last week and felt something heavy on the end of their line after a while. When they pulled the line up, they discovered an old safe.
“It was two stacks of freaking hundreds. Big stacks,” Kane said. He added the bills were “soaking wet, pretty much destroyed”.
Kane, a seasoned magnet fisherman, remarked that he and Agostini have encountered numerous safes in the past, typically finding them empty except for some plastic bags that once contained money.
Kane admitted he cursed out loud in surprise. Agostini didn’t believe him at first.
“He showed me and once I saw the actual dollars and the security ribbons I lost it,” Agostini said.
“I guess the finders keepers rule worked for us,” Kane said. He noted that the couple called the police but there was no way to identify who owned the safe, which they guessed was probably stolen.
The couple started magnet fishing during the pandemic. “We were borded during covid lockdown and I’ve always had this itch to become a treasure hunter … so we discovered something called magnet fishing,” Kane concluded.
The 2024 election cycle has resurfaced longstanding debates over presidential power and how much independence the executive enjoys from other branches of government.
Executive privilege, which refers to presidents’ withholding communications from other branches, has come under scrutiny with issues surrounding both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The idea behind executive privilege is that presidents should have freedom to speak with advisers without fear of retaliation over the content of their comments.
George Washington University law professor W. Burlette Carter told The Epoch Times via email: “Executive privilege is designed to allow presidents the broadest freedom to speak and act in the presidency in pursuit of the public good.”
President Trump has asserted executive privilege before and after leaving office. Two of his associates—former White House advisors Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon—were sentenced to jail for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas while citing executive privilege.
President Trump has tried asserting privilege over several areas, including correspondence related to Jan. 6, in order to challenge subpoenas of his former aides for a grand jury probe into Jan. 6, over his financial records, and over boxes of documents he transferred from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has asserted executive privilege over the audio recordings of his two-day interview with special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating his handling of classified documents.
The executive privilege claims from both have raised questions about when its assertion is legally valid, as well as how much other branches can demand of the executive.
What Is Executive Privilege?
Executive privilege isn’t explicitly granted in the Constitution but derives from the document’s general concept of separation of powers.
Executive privilege is thought to have been asserted since the beginning of the Republic. The nation’s first president, George Washington, refused to cooperate with Congress’s request for information on his negotiations in the Jay Treaty with Great Britain.
The concept of executive privilege was more firmly outlined in two Supreme Court cases involving former President Richard Nixon. Those cases—United States v. Nixon in 1974 and Nixon v. General Services Administration in 1977—collectively established that Congress could require storage of presidential records, and that the president’s interests in privilege must be balanced against those of the entities seeking the records.
In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court underscored the legal importance of executive privilege by stating that it “is fundamental to the operation of Government, and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution.”
Since George Washington, multiple administrations have cited executive privilege over sensitive materials.
Most recently, Attorney General Merrick Garland cited U.S. v. Nixon in a May 15 letter requesting that President Biden assert privilege over the audio of his interview with Mr. Hur rather than complying with subpoenas from two House committees.
The same decision clarified, however, that generalized interests in confidentiality weren’t enough for presidents to assert executive privilege over evidence needed for “the fair administration of criminal justice.”
Court decisions involving President Nixon have clarified that the privilege is limited and that presidents themselves aren’t the final arbiters of how far it extends. Rather, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in Nixon v. Sirica, the judicial branch has ultimate say over its applicability.
What Does Executive Privilege Protect?
The controversies surrounding investigations into both President Biden and President Trump have illustrated the somewhat messy debate over what executive privilege actually protects.
It’s a long-debated question that hinges on the nature of the executive’s activities and the interests other branches have in its communications.
These interests can vary but Congress may want to obtain information in order to better craft legislation. The judiciary, meanwhile, could be seeking that information for prosecutions.
According to Ms. Carter, former presidents were able to assert executive privilege only “in cases alleging personal liability of the President for criminal or civil behavior.”
She said that could occur “only so long as the action claimed to be privileged was in the course of performing presidential duties.”
“Now if the president walks outside the White House and shoots someone after having a conversation about that plan, that is a different matter. No privilege during or after the presidency,” Ms. Carter said.
The distinction between official and unofficial acts of presidents reached the Supreme Court this year but with a different aspect of executive power—that of presidential immunity. In April, the Supreme Court heard oral argument over President Trump’s claim that he enjoyed immunity from prosecution for the official acts that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had indicted him for in Washington.
The court will issue its decision in June and experts speculate that the justices will issue a refined definition of presidential immunity to cover official acts while directing the district court to parse out which of President Trump’s acts fell under that classification.
Trump’s Privileges and Immunities
It’s unclear how the ruling will eventually parse President Trump’s activities on and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021.
Regardless, in distinguishing between official and non-official acts, the court could prompt consideration about how both executive privilege and presidential immunity apply to certain aspects of the DOJ’s indictment.
Pacific Legal Foundation Vice President Jim Burling said President Trump will likely face an “uphill battle” if he tries to assert executive privilege over communications in his Washington case.
“He is going to have to prove whatever he did on January 6—he was acting as president rather than a former candidate or a losing candidate,” he told The Epoch Times.
In his Washington trial, President Trump’s defense attorneys might claim that he was relying on the advice of his aides or attorneys in making some of his decisions. One of his attorneys, John Lauro, has already made this argument on television, saying that President Trump thought he was following the advice of his attorney.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Epoch Times that if President Trump raises that type of defense, he might be forced to waive executive privilege, which extends to White House aides.
Mr. Rahmani said the special counsel’s office may also try to force President Trump to waive attorney-client privilege. Both forms of privilege, he suggested, could hinder the prosecution’s ability to make its case.
“For the prosecution to prove that Trump conspired to defraud the United States … they really need to get inside his head and prove that he knew … that he lost the election and that he intended to overturn the results anyway,” Mr. Rahmani said.
“Once the privilege is asserted, the court weighs the interests of the various groups involved,” Ms. Carter said.
“Remember, just because the DOJ says there was a crime does not prove there was a crime. And congressional investigations can be quite political. In both situations, the privilege holder’s rights and the purpose of the privilege must be considered.”
In issuing a subpoena for President Biden’s audio files and other documents, House Republicans told the attorney general in February that the materials served Congress’ interest in oversight of the DOJ, its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Biden, and potential legislation reforming special counsel investigations.
The White House responded on May 16 by telling House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) they lacked a legitimate need for audio recordings as the administration had already given Republicans documents relevant to Mr. Hur’s investigation—including transcripts of his interviews with President Biden and his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.
“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal—to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” White House Counsel to the President Edward N. Siskel wrote the committee chairs in a letter.
Mr. Garland also raised concerns in his May 15 letter that granting the Committees’ requests for the audio recordings would chill cooperation in future high-profile investigations such as Mr. Hur’s.
Supreme Court Weighs In
Democrats controlled the House from 2019 through 2022, which gave them leadership over committees that could issue subpoenas for President Trump—which they did for his tax returns and other financial information, as well as records related to the Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021.
