loquitur

I don't know because I haven't seen the subpoenas and I'm not expert enough on executive privilege or separation of powers. That's on the federal side. On the Alaska side, I don't know what the relevant state statutes and constituitional provisions say. It makes a difference in terms of the authority to issue subpoenas, the proper scope of the subpoenas, the procedures for response or nonresponse, etc etc etc. The short answer is I just don't know.

In the lawsuits I do, which are plain old civil disputes, I deal with subpoenas all the time, and you're right, they can't just be ignored at the outset, but they can be negotiated and nitpicked to death and then eventually ignored, litigated over, argued about, and appealed. I have no clue what the rules are when there are separation of powers issues. I have no clue what the rules are for congressional subpoenas (as distinct from court subpoenas). I would expect they're not that different from court subpoenas, but I just don't know. And when you toss in separation of powers issues, I'll be goddammed if I know how that works. I do know that the Clinton White House litigated a lot of these things and for the most part lost, but there was an independent counsel in that case and the indep counsel wasn't acting for Congress. The rules for Congress might be different.

That "based on what is publicly known" qualifier is sorta important, don't you think? I'm also curious about how much Alaskan law on governmental subpoenas you know, esp in a separation of powers context. I don't know anything.