BIRMINGHAM - “On September 4, 2007, the Department of Justice informed the House Judiciary Committee that it would not honor the Committee’s request for internal documents related to the prosecution of Don Siegelman.  In my opinion, the Department’s position is too broad and has no sound legal basis.

“None of these documents implicate prvacy concerns of any known individuals.  There has already been an extensive public airing of the allegations around Siegelman and his alleged co-conspirators, and it strains credulity to think that the protection of Siegelman’s reputation is a concern of the Department.  Nor is there any statutory provision that ensures the confidentiality of internal Department of Justice deliberations. To the contrary, as the committee’s official response points out, there are several recent precedents for the department divulging deliberative materials relating to allegations of misconduct by the department. 

“The Department’s ultimate claim is the kind of expansive executive privilege doctrine this Administration has advanced before. In my opinion, the executive branch’s interest in keeping its deliberations secret has some weight, but it is at its weakest outside the context of national security and it must be balanced against Congress’s constitutionally derived authority of oversight.  It cannot be that any government agency can unilaterally declare its decisions off limits to the very Congress that funds that agency and that passes the laws that agency enforces. 

“Finally, and most astonishingly, the Department seems to assert that Congress’s oversight role is somehow limited because some of the factual accusations surrounding the Siegelman case are, in the Department’s opinion, strained or not corroborated.  It is simply not within the Department’s authority to make itself the arbiter of whether a congressional inquiry merits compliance.  Surely an agency of lawyers is not so blind to the constitutional meaning of the separation of powers. “