Because “executive privilege” blocked the Celler subcommittee from questioning Justice Department employees, it was necessary to subpoena a former official of the Justice Department to establish that Brownell’s settlement was actually opposed by the working staff in the Antitrust Division. But who could override Brownell, the President’s chief legal adviser? The investigation stopped at the door of his office.
The Celler antimonopoly subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee ran into “executive privilege” again when it started to investigate the operations of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) and the Department of Commerce.
Chairman Celler, an aggressive New York Democrat, was concerned over the way the BAC was influencing policy in the Department of Commerce. He questioned whether there were adequate safeguards against the misuse of such a committee. Without the safeguards, it could become a device for getting competitors together for price fixing or other violations of the antitrust laws.
Chief Counsel Maletz, under directions from Celler, asked for the minutes of the meetings of the BAC and the details of the operations. The subcommittee requests were rejected by Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks on grounds that the BAC minutes were “confidential” business of the executive branch of government.
Chairman Celler then argued that the BAC was a private committee, not supported by government funds and not a government agency. He denied that any “executive privilege” existed and declared that if it did exist, Secretary Weeks could not use it properly to try to cover up the activities of a private group that happened to give some advice to a department of government.
Commerce Secretary Weeks replied that BAC was a government committee, and that the minutes of BAC meetings therefore were covered by an “executive privilege.”
Presumably the Celler antimonopoly subcommittee would have been allowed access to the minutes of the BAC if Weeks had considered it a private business group. But in order to put those minutes out of the reach of congressional inquiry Secretary Weeks was forced to the ludicrous position of claiming that the private group became a part of the government (and therefore entitled to an “executive privilege”) merely by advising it.
I had often used a quotation from Patrick Henry in talks on secrecy, but it had never been more appropriate than now. Said Henry:
“To cover with the veil of secrecy the common routine of business, is an abomination in the eyes of every intelligent man and every friend to his country.”