If the Attorney General decided to withhold portions of the pending report of the Special Counsel, he might justify his decision by citing legal protections for grand jury information and for executive privilege.
But there are exceptions to both of these categories, and Congress has tools of its own to pursue the desired information, the Congressional Research Service said in a new assessment.
With respect to grand jury information in the Special Counsel report, “Congress could opt to seek documents or testimony from grand jury witnesses themselves,” CRS said.
As for executive privilege, it “is generally qualified, and can be surmounted (in court) if Congress can show an overriding need for the information.” See The Special Counsel’s Report: Can Congress Get It?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 8, 2019 And see, relatedly, The Special Counsel’s Report: What Do Current DOJ Regulations Require?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 7, 2019.
Other noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile, March 7, 2019
Foreign Agents Registration Act: An Overview, CRS In Focus, updated March 7, 2019
United States European Command: Overview and Key Issues, CRS In Focus, March 12, 2019
The War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice, updated March 8, 2019
Strategic Competition and Foreign Policy: What is “Political Warfare”?, CRS In Focus, March 8, 2019
Defense Primer: A Guide for New Members, updated March 8, 2019
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
tudents in the 21st century need strong critical thinking skills like reasoning, questioning, and problem-solving, before they can meaningfully engage with more advanced domains like digital, data, or AI literacy.
When the U.S. government funds the establishment of a platform for testing hundreds of behavioral interventions on a large diverse population, we will start to better understand the interventions that will have an efficient and lasting impact on health behavior.
The grant comes from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) to investigate, alongside The British American Security Information Council (BASIC), the associated impact on nuclear stability.