POLI2327 Lecture Notes - Paula Jones, Money Supply, Saturday Night Massacre
1 Apr 2014
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If you create an independent council, it will lead to problems when it comes to criminal defense: morrison v. olsen, saturday night massacre, case dealing with watergate. Nixon administration is involved in this scandal. Nixon has to do something: agrees to appoint another special prosecutor leon gerorski and promises not to fire him, gerorski goes straight ahead with what cox was doing. Goes to a judge and asks the judge to subpoena the tapes and nixon exercises executive privilege: the modern era is an era of a very powerful federal judiciary. Real dilemma for the court threat that nixon would ignore the court: constitutional crisis, what happens is that the court issues a unanimous ruling against nixon. Court recognizes that presidents have executive privilege and know how important it is: makes an exception for application to situation, it can"t be used to thwart a criminal investigation.
