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 WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has tried for years to reassert a White House right to keep secrets from Congress. Now he must decide how far he wants to go to keep aides from testifying about the firing of federal prosecutors.
If he claims executive privilege and the dispute ends up in court, the fight with Congress will be refereed by a judicial branch that recently has not been kind to the presidency in fights over subpoenas. Lawmakers, meanwhile, risk seeing a judge permanently curtail their power to summon presidential aides to Capitol Hill.
"I don't think anyone would want this in court. If anything is to be politically settled, it's this one," said Louis Fisher, a Library of Congress specialist on constitutional and an expert on presidential powers.
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