re: #100 KGxvi
Not my area of expertise, but I don’t think there’s a lot of case law on what constitutes executive privilege even generally, let alone specifically. But I do believe, at least based on tradition, that the president has been able to claim executive privilege with respect to conversations with non-government employees/private citizens. The idea being that sometimes the president/executive branch needs to talk to people not in the government to get different perspectives/ideas/advice and that those conversations, as part of the deliberative process, are protected.
But I don’t know if there’s case law about who holds the privilege and who can waive it and all that fun stuff.
There’s no way that a President can constrain anybody not currently working in the White House against that person’s will. If they want to comply either voluntarily or in response to a subpoena the Courts will let them.