Excerpted from Politico: A dispute over executive privilege appears to be looming in connection with fired Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod’s lawsuit against late conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart.
In a letter filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, a lawyer involved in the case said the Justice Department had advised that it will assert executive privilege to block disclosure of information subpoenaed in the case from USDA and the White House.
“[T]he Government confirmed this week that it intends to assert ‘executive privilege’ and ‘deliberative process privilege’ objections as purported grounds for withholding at least some documents and information from both the USDA and the EOP [Executive Office of the President],” wrote Mark Bailen, an attorney for Breitbart employee Larry O’Connor.
However, a Justice Department spokesperson said Thursday afternoon that the government had not reached any conclusions about how to respond to subpoenas served in connection with the case.
“Contrary to what the letter asserts, the department has not made any decisions about what privileges to assert in this ongoing matter,” the spokesperson said.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said at a status hearing on the lawsuit last month that he was fearful that a White House privilege assertion might bog down the case.
“One of my biggest concerns, of course, would be if we found ourselves in a situation where I had to now have litigated in front of me claims of executive privilege that would in some way, you know, slow everything down to a halt,” Leon said, after private lawyers involved in the case described their interaction with the government. “I am really happy to hear no one is rattling any swords of that kind and maybe the reason why is because there isn’t any of that kind to deal with which would be great. I am not looking for more litigation. I have plenty to do around here.”
Leon also suggested he might look skeptically on such a claim in a case where political sensitivities, rather than national security concerns, were at stake. “I am not sure the D.C. Circuit has ever recognized that as a sufficient basis for an executive privilege claim, political embarrassment, to spare the White House political embarrassment,” he said.
Sherrod was forced to resign as a state rural development director for USDA in 2010 after Breitbart posted video clips online from a speech she gave earlier in the year at an NAACP event. The videos appeared to suggest that Sherrod was a racist. Within a matter of hours, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack dismissed her, acting in consultation with the White House. Keep reading
Read more about Obama Pulls Executive Privelege On Breitbart Lawyers To Hide Truth In Sherrod Lawsuit
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