BUSH INVOKES EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

WASHINGTON -- President Bush invoked executive privilege for the first time
Thursday to keep Congress from seeing documents of prosecutors'
decision-making in cases ranging from a decades-old Boston murder to the
Clinton-era fund-raising probe.

The administration informed a House committee of the decision prior to a
congressional hearing on the Boston case involving the FBI's handling of
informants.

In a memo to Attorney General John Ashcroft, the president explained his
decision.

"It is my decision that you should not release these documents or otherwise
make them available to the committee," Bush wrote in the memo obtained by
AP. "I have decided to assert executive privilege with respect to the
documents."

Bush wrote that the "disclosure to Congress of confidential advice to the
attorney general regarding the appointment of a special counsel and
confidential recommendations to Department of Justice officials regarding
whether to bring criminal charges would inhibit the candor necessary to the
effectiveness of the deliberative process by which the department makes
prosecutorial decisions."

Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, the Republican House chairman whose committee
sought the documents, decried the decision and said it wrongly handicapped
Congress for overseeing the government.

"This is not a monarchy," Burton said at the start of Thursday's hearing.
"The legislative branch has oversight responsibility to make sure there is
no corruption in the executive branch."

Burton said for the time being he would hold additional investigative
hearings into whether Bush was misusing executive privilege. Another option
would be for Burton to take the president to court for contempt of Congress
for refusing to turn over the documents, but that would require the
cooperation of the full Congress. The House is controlled by Republicans
and the Senate by Democrats.

The decision immediately affects a subpoena from the House Government
Reform Committee for documents related to the FBI's handling of mob
informants in Boston dating to the 1960s.

More importantly, it sets a new policy in the works for months in which the
administration will resist lawmakers' requests to view prosecutorial
decision-making documents that have been routinely turned over to Congress
in years past.

"I believe congressional access to these documents would be contrary to the
national interest," Bush wrote in his memo to Ashcroft.

Executive privilege is a doctrine recognized by the courts that ensures
presidents can get candid advice in private without fear of its becoming
public.

The privilege, however, is best known for the unsuccessful attempts by
former Presidents Nixon and Clinton to keep evidence secret during
impeachment investigations.

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales recommended Bush invoke the privilege
earlier this fall.

While invoking the privilege, Bush instructed Ashcroft to have the Justice
Department "remain willing to work informally with the committee to provide
such information as it can, consistent with these instructions and without
violating the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers."

Burton's committee for months has been seeking Justice Department memos
about prosecutors' decisions in cases involving the handling of mob
informants in Boston, Democratic fund raising, a former Clinton White House
official and a former federal drug enforcement agent.

The committee subpoenaed Ashcroft, demanding those documents in the fall
and scheduled a hearing Thursday to examine the Boston case.

That case stems from revelations that Joseph Salvati of Boston spent 30
years in prison for a murder he did not commit even though the FBI had
evidence of his innocence. Salvati was freed in January after a judge
concluded that FBI agents hid testimony that would have cleared Salvati
because they wanted to protect an informant.

Several such memos were shared with Congress during both Republican and
Democratic administrations. Most recently, in the 1990s, such documents
were turned over to the Whitewater, fund-raising, pardons and impeachment
investigations by lawmakers.

But the concept of extending executive privilege to Justice Department
decisions isn't new. During the Reagan years, the privilege was cited as
the reason the department did not tell Congress about some memos in a
high-profile environmental case.

And Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, advised Clinton in 1999 that he
could invoke the privilege to keep from disclosing documents detailing
department views on 16 pardon cases.