Executive Privilege

Executive privilege is the authority claimed by a president and other executive branch officials to keep certain communications confidential and to resist subpoenas from Congress or the courts when disclosure would impair government functions. The Constitution does not mention it explicitly; the Supreme Court traced it instead to the separation of powers, as Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in United States v. Nixon, saying the privilege derives from the supremacy each branch holds within its own constitutional duties. The doctrine covers a presidential communications privilege for direct exchanges with the president and close advisors, harder to overturn because it rests on separation of powers, and a broader deliberative process privilege rooted in common law that is more easily challenged. It is not absolute and has repeatedly yielded to compelling public interests such as criminal proceedings where the evidence is essential.