Privilege or Smokescreen?

I had a detailed post on this Mark Kleiman analysis of Bush Administration delay tactics in the Traitorgate investigation. Fortunately for lovers of brevity, the post lost when my computer froze, and it's too late in the evening for me to recreate it.

In short, I had two questions about the position taken by the White House in the article Mark cites:

1. How does the White House claim executive privilege with respect to documents pertaining to leaks if the putative executive, Bush, knew nothing about the leaks and still claims ignorance of the leakers' identities? Executive privilege applies to communications between the executive and his or her advisers, not leaks from presidential advisers, no matter how senior, to third parties. (Not to mention the fact that if Bush truly wants the "criminals" (his word) caught, he could simply waive any claimed executive privilege in the interests of justice.)

2. According to this report, a White House counsel cannot invoke the attorney-client privilege "to withhold information relating to a federal criminal offense." Doesn't that mean Gonzales and his staff can be forced to testify about any information in documents withheld which identify the leakers, since those identities are neither a matter of executive privilege (as stated above) nor of national security?

Those seem like good questions, although I could just be loopy from the lack of sleep.