Confidential Government Communications

 

 

Extract on confidential government communications from: Seth Barrett Tillman, Loyola University of Chicago Law School, Fourth Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium, Six Puzzles for Professor Akhil Amar (Nov. 1, 2013), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2173899>:

One of my correspondents compared [President] Washington’s accepting these foreign gifts with his taking possession of state papers at the end of his second term. The two situations are not akin. The Constitution is silent with regard to state papers; it is not silent in regard to foreign gifts. Moreover, Washington had a strong claim to “his” papers. [Albeit,] [h]e had a continuing (fiduciary) duty to protect confidential communications. He could have believed that he was better situated to do so than his successor (who was not a party to those communications). Cf. Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342, 347 (C.C.D. Mass. 1841) (No. 4,901) (Story, J.) (discussing confidentiality concerns in regard to the publication of former presidents’ and other state papers). See generally Title to Presidential Papers, 43 Op. Att’y Gen. 11 (1974) (Saxbe, Att’y Gen.).

Six Puzzles, at 15 n.67 (emphasis added).

Seth Barrett Tillman, Confidential Government Communications, New Reform Club (Jan. 15, 2023, 4:21 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/01/confidential-government-communications.html>;