With regard to the current U.S. Attorneys scandal, one of the things the Bush administration has to show is that President Bush was not involved in the machinations behind the firings; otherwise, he'd be implicated in a conspiracy to break federal law.
But another of the things the administration has to show is that President Bush was involved in the machinations behind the firings; otherwise executive privilege doesn't apply.
This tension has led to some interesting formulations:
"The record does reflect at this stage that the president was not involved in decisions about who would be asked to resign from the department," Justice Department lawyer Carl Nichols argued in federal court in June. However, "the record does not reflect that the president had no future involvement." [My emphasis.]
Say what you will about President Clinton's infamous appeal to the ambiguity of the copula (or, for that matter, of 'copulation'); at least he didn't contrive a whole new grammatical tense.
(Via Democratic Underground.)
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