The White House Party Crashers and the Separation of Powers

Liberal legal scholar Sandy Levinson is none too impressed with the White House's decision to invoke executive privilege in order to keep Social Secretary Desiree Rogers from answering Congress's questions about those White House party crashers. In Levinson's view, "the White House is making a big mistake for no defensible reason":

[I]t is literally inconceivable that anyone drafting the Constitution would have imagined the position of White House Social Secretary, paid for with taxpayer funds, and that the majesty of separation of powers rhetoric would apply to a situation like this…. This is simply yet more evidence that all presidents, regardless of political party and ostensible commitment to "transparency," take on royalist airs when taking their oath of office.