Executive Privilege Definition

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“Executive Privilege” and The President

In 1789 George Washington was elected the first president of the United States. Since then we have had 44 presidents with the 45th on his way into office. Since Washington has been in office there has always been a practice of executive privilege among our presidents. Although it was never discussed until Eisenhower came into office the executive privilege has always been around. Executive privilege is a practice I believe we should keep around. In my essay I will be exploring what it means for a president to have executive privilege, whether or not a president should have this privilege, and the history behind it. “Executive privilege is is the constitutional principle that permits the president …show more content…

Too many people have strong opinions and act on them. As we can see with the election just passing us many protest broke out from those opinions that people had. Imagine if we knew our country's secrets and what the president is doing behind the closed doors of his office. We elect who we think is best for our country so I feel there is no need to know what decisions he's making because he has our country's best interest in mind. Many would disagree with being kept in the dark. As Americans we feel it is our right to know what is going on because we are paying money to live here. Also presidents can also take advantage of the executive privilege by concealing wrongdoing, and politically damaging information about them. When Obama used the executive privilege over the DOJ documents, some claimed it was inappropriate use of his power, in which he replied that he's keeping congress out of where they should not be. This I believe is a fine example of a good use of the executive privilege. Nowhere in the constitution does it state executive privilege and as “the late legal historian Raoul Berger once said it is one of the greatest ‘constitutional myths’. ” Our country is constantly evolving so whether or not something is in the constitution I believe if something is right then it should happen regardless of if it's in the constitution or