Will Bush Hide Behind Executive Privilege To Cover Tainting the Courts?

A number of the US Attorney's fired were investigating Republicans or declined to investigate Democrats for lack of evidence. So of course the intent of Executive Privilege is to allow the President to cover his tracks, right? I suspect a case could be made that someone could be accused of obstruction of justice.
New York Times

The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors insisted Sunday that Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush must testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand.


[..]He said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Mr. Rove as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel.


“I do not believe in this ‘We’ll have a private briefing for you where we’ll tell you everything,’ and they don’t,” Mr. Leahy said on “This Week” on ABC, adding: “I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this.”


Lawmakers in both parties agree that the fate of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales may rest on what happens this week, as the White House and Congress come to blows — or find a compromise — over the testimony lawmakers are demanding. With Mr. Bush at Camp David, the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, spent the weekend in Washington weighing whether to allow Mr. Rove and the others to talk and, if so, under what conditions.


[..]Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, has said it is “highly unlikely” that the president would waive executive privilege to allow his top aides to testify publicly. One Republican strategist close to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to appear to be representing the administration, said: “No president is going to let their senior staff assistant to the president go testify. Forget that. They might agree to do an informal interview, but they’ll never testify.”


Democrats, citing a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, say presidential advisers, including 47 from the Clinton administration alone, have frequently testified before Congressional committees, both while serving the president and after they had left the White House.


Even so, legal experts say precedent does not play a role in decisions about whether to waive executive privilege; each administration, in effect, writes its own rules. The Bush administration has been particularly protective of executive privilege, and Republicans close to the White House say the decision about whether, or how much, to cooperate will come down to a calculation of the political risks and rewards.


Senior White House officials have given public testimony in the past, including before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. But more times than not, it has come on the administration’s terms; Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to appear before the Sept. 11 commission, but only in private and without being required to take an oath.