Trump Invokes Cheney Precedent to Shield Kennedy Center Input

President Donald Trump once called Dick Cheney “irrelevant” and said he was “never a fan.” Now, however, Trump is relying on a legal precedent involving the late former vice president to keep details of his “deliberations” about the Kennedy Center’s future from being disclosed in discovery.

The Justice Department made that argument Wednesday in opposing a motion to compel discovery filed by Kennedy Center board of trustees member Rep. Joyce Beatty. In a filing to U.S. District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper, the DOJ argued that Beatty’s requests should be rejected in their entirety.

The government invoked Cheney v. United States in the opening paragraph of its response.

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The DOJ also argued that Trump’s simultaneous role as the Kennedy Center board’s chairman “is of no moment.” It said Beatty’s “extraordinarily weak justification for an extraordinarily intrusive discovery campaign” fails regardless of that dual role.

“In other words, even though the President’s statutory duties and the Chairman’s trust duties overlap, what matters for the purpose of executive privilege is that Plaintiff seeks information, documents, and communications concerning the President’s actions in his official capacity,” the filing stated. The government acknowledged that Trump “has at various times participated in renovation planning at the Center.”

The government rejected Beatty’s argument that the case differs from Cheney. “For three reasons, Plaintiff asserts that ‘[t]his Is Not A Cheney Case.’ All three are wrong,” the filing said. It also disputed claims that the administration had stonewalled Beatty, saying it had produced “more than 7,500 pages” of “documents and responses.”

The post ‘Chairman’ Trump uses Dick Cheney precedent to keep his ‘input’ about Kennedy Center’s fate out of discovery first appeared on Law & Crime.