A recent office of legal counsel memo on executive privilege(行政特权) maintains that private advisers to a president can avoid responding to a subpoena(传票) by asserting the president’s executive privilege. The ability of presidents to shield communications from public view through claims of executive privilege, whether their own or those of a senior adviser, was already a powerful tool for presidents to avoid accountability(问责制). But if courts accept the OLC’s new interpretation of presidential privilege, it will be substantially harder to call witnesses to testify before Congress or in court proceedings regarding possible wrongdoing by the presidents.(但如果法院接受OLC的新解释，传唤证人将困难得多。)
最近，法律顾问办公室一份关于行政特权的备忘录主张，总统的私人顾问可以通过主张总统的行政特权来避免回应传票。总统通过主张行政特权（无论是自己的还是高级顾问的）来屏蔽通信、不让公众看到的能力，早已是总统规避问责的有力工具。但如果法院接受OLC对总统特权的新解释，那么传唤证人到国会作证或在法庭程序中就总统可能的不当行为作证将变得困难得多。
Equipping presidents with extensive power to block witnesses in legal proceedings is a dangerous practice that invites corruption by presidents and their advisers. Consider the former White House counsel Don McGahn’s 2019 refusal to testify in response to a subpoena by the House judiciary committee in connection with(与……有关) the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump. McGahn didn’t come up with(想出，提出) that idea on his own. It was the Trump White House that sought to bar McGahn from testifying through an assertion of a type of executive privilege known as “testimonial immunity(作证豁免权).” Ironically, Mueller was investigating whether Trump obstructed justice, among other things, by demanding that McGahn fire Mueller himself. Trump’s insistence that McGahn not testify, backed up by a 2019 OLC opinion, effectively made the first Trump administration complicit in the very obstruction under investigation.(特朗普坚持麦加恩不作证，并得到OLC意见支持，使政府成为同谋。)
赋予总统广泛权力来阻止证人在法律程序中作证，是一种危险的做法，会招致总统及其顾问的腐败。想想前白宫法律顾问唐·麦加恩2019年拒绝作证的事件，当时他收到众议院司法委员会因特别检察官罗伯特·穆勒调查唐纳德·特朗普而发出的传票。麦加恩并不是自己想出这个主意的。正是特朗普白宫试图通过主张一种被称为“作证豁免”的行政特权来阻止麦加恩作证。具有讽刺意味的是，穆勒调查的正是特朗普是否妨碍司法（除其他事项外），包括要求麦加恩解雇穆勒本人。特朗普坚持麦加恩不作证，并得到2019年OLC意见的支持，这实际上使第一届特朗普政府成为被调查的妨碍司法行为的同谋。
The then federal district court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ended up rejecting the claim of privilege and ordered McGahn to testify. After the Trump administration appealed and judicial decisions flipped back and forth, the parties finally reached a settlement permitting McGahn to testify behind closed doors. But it was too little too late(太少太迟) for Congress. The case reminds us that assertions of privilege by presidential advisers are not legally well-established, but such assertions are sufficient to throw sand in the gears(故意捣乱，阻挠) of a congressional investigation, even if such assertions are legally highly tenuous(牵强的，脆弱的).
时任联邦地区法院法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊最终驳回了特权主张，并命令麦加恩作证。在特朗普政府上诉、司法裁决反复摇摆之后，双方最终达成和解，允许麦加恩闭门作证。但对国会来说，这太少了也太晚了。这个案例提醒我们，总统顾问的特权主张在法律上并不稳固，但这类主张足以给国会调查的齿轮中掺沙子，即使这些主张在法律上非常牵强。