Jack Nicholson Quotes

Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White House is their private preserve after they all promise an open administration on the campaign trail, but some are more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.

There's several different forms of executive privilege. The one that is most absolute would be close advisers talking to the president himself.

If the President really wanted to know exactly how Rove and Libby were involved, he could walk down to their offices and demand that they answer him honestly.

Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.

That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

Executive Privilege

I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.

I don't doubt that there are many presidential acts that would constitute obstructions of justice if anyone but the president engaged in them but which constitute legitimate exercises of presidential power when the president engages in them.

There is no doubt in my mind that Article II limits to a considerable degree the application of the obstruction statutes to the president when he is acting in his capacity as chief law-enforcement officer of the country.

The president and the executive branch are always going to have greater latitude and greater authority when it comes to protecting America because sometimes you just have to respond quickly and not everything that is a danger can be publicized and be subject to open debate, but there have to be some guardrails.

I didn't say 'former president,' I said 'president,' and I have the constitutional rights according to the constitution, including immunity from prosecution.

I think the president should be accessible, should answer questions that aren't pre-screened, but I think there should be a little bit of dignity to the presidency.

I think that presidents deserve to be questioned. Maybe irreverently, most of the time. Bring 'em down a size. You see a president, ask a question. You have one chance in the barrel. Don't blow it.

Presidential power was overruled by the high bench in July 1974, when President Nixon was ordered to turn over some audio tapes of his White House conversations, including the 'smoking gun' tape of June 23, 1972, that revealing the Watergate cover up.

I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.

I’m not your lawyer. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell the President to burn the tapes immediately and then proclaim he’d done so as a matter of national security and executive privilege and out of an obligation to protect the office of the presidency.

It’s hard for a President to make case for more powers when he has not used the powers he already has.

Is there any statute that gives the President authority in any way to change the spelling?

The presidency is not about easy choices.

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

The President is entitled to keep secret those conversations which a President may have had with his aids for the purpose of advising him in his Constitutional duties. Executive privilege cannot cover crimes, for they are not Constitutional duties.

Control is not a luxury that most Presidents are allowed.

When a President asserts constitutional powers he needs to be pretty certain he has those powers.