willing to entertain that. And, of course, we are willing to have a dialogue about the privilege assertions in the document, and if the committee chose to identify with greater specificity in that dialogue what it was seeking, and we could respond and move forward.
Mr. MacDougald, we haven't had a chance to have this conversation because there has been no discussion, no negotiations.
Mr. MacDougald. One at a time.
I understand. There is, though, the Miers case clearly rejects a blanket assertion of privilege, even when asserted by a sitting President with respect to White House counsel. The privilege must be asserted question by question, area by area.
And I understand your point about badgering.
I don't intend to badger you or Mr. Clark with those questions.
With that said, it's important to get on the record the areas of inquiry so that a court could potentially adjudicate the application of a privilege.
Mr. MacDougald. I think that if the committee is interested in pursuing the inquiry, balancing Mr. Clark's interests in complying with his duties as a lawyer in light of President Trump's invocation of the privilege, the fair thing do to Mr. Clark is to let the Trump v. Thompson case play out rather than badgering.
Now, if there is some alternative method of preserving the record, I'm happy to discuss that. But I think sitting here for 5 hours while counsel and committee members propound questions that we're not going to answer is not a good use of anybody's time. And, as far as—and, again, on the timing of this and us not having had a dialogue, before I got involved, Mr. Clark asked for a three-week extension. That was not agreed to. That's okay. You get to decide, which made the one week you gave me especially appreciated when I—when we spoke.
