How much executive privilege should there be? the bush administration pushed to shield certain information from the public. their reasoning was that, to make effective policy, policymakers must be able to have candid conversations with advisers that are not shared with the public. how much should the president and the executive branch be able to use executive privilege? what are the downsides to not releasing information? what would our founders (who met in private but also did not trust any branch with too much power) say about this?