CNN paid tribute to longtime Republican political commentator Alice Stewart who was found dead Saturday in the Belle View neighborhood in northern Virginia.

Law enforcement told the network they did not suspect foul play in the death of Stewart, 58, whose body was discovered outdoors. CNN said police believe she suffered a medical emergency.

Stewart’s death left her colleagues at CNN stunned and saddened. Anchor Jake Tapper called it “an unspeakable loss” during Sunday’s edition of “State of the Union.”

While Stewart worked for staunchly conservative Republican candidates, Tapper noted she had deep friendships with people on the other side of the political spectrum.

Ashley Allison, a Democratic political commentator on the program, held back tears as she described their off-camera connection. She said the two grew close following a heated exchange on CNN over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Allison said she reluctantly accepted Stewart’s invitation for a drink after the discussion. They eventually became close friends and trained together for a marathon.

“That night we got to know each other for who we were and it wasn’t about politics,” she said. “She was a good person and I loved her and I’m really going to miss her.”

Stewart was a former local TV anchor who moved into politics when she became communications director for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. She held the same position on Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign and served in a similar capacity for GOP presidential aspirants Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Stewart often called for civility during the 2016 campaign when Cruz faced harsh attacks from former President Donald Trump.

“That was always Alice,” Tapper said. “She was all about civility and all about kindness.”

She joined CNN ahead of the 2016 presidential election and had been a regular presence since. Her last appearance was Friday on “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer.”

“Alice was a friend and colleague to all of us at CNN,” CNN Chairman Mark Thompson said in a statement. “A political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who brought an incomparable spark to CNN’s coverage, known across our bureaus not only for her political savvy, but for her unwavering kindness. Our hearts are heavy as we mourn such an extraordinary loss.”

President Biden’s assertion of executive privilege to prevent recordings of his interviews with special counsel Robert Hur from being released shares some similarities with former President Trump’s attempts to use privilege while in the White House, according to one legal expert.

Though transcripts of Biden’s interview with Hur have already been released to a committee, the White House asserted executive privilege to block the audio recordings from becoming public while arguing in lockstep with Attorney General Merrick Garland that “law enforcement files like these need to be protected.”

“The same arguments were made during the Trump years as are being made now. It’s just that the roles are reversed,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy told Fox News Digital. 

“For example, during the Mueller investigation, Trump made available Don McGahn, who was the White House counsel. They not only let Mueller interview McGahn at length, but McGahn took voluminous notes of his conversations with Trump, which they also turned over. And then Democrats wanted to subpoena McGahn to come to the House Judiciary Committee, and the Republicans fought it.

BIDEN’S PRIVILEGE CLAIM TO KEEP SPECIAL COUNSEL INTERVIEW UNDER WRAPS A ‘CRUDE POLITICS’ MOVE: EXPERTS

“What they said was giving information to an executive branch prosecutor doesn’t waive the privilege as to Congress,” he added. “The Democrats all said that this was an obstruction of justice, that it was outrageous, that he’d already waived the privilege by allowing McGhan to speak to the prosecutor.”

Executive privilege has been around since the earliest days of the country and gives the executive branch the ability to withhold certain internal discussions and documents from scrutiny by the courts and the legislative branch. It allows the president some breathing room for his own deliberations with staff.

“The fact is that since the Republic started, presidents have been withholding information from Congress,” McCarthy said.

Congress has a variety of tools it can use to pry information out of the executive branch, including by holding people in contempt. 

“Congress has a whole arsenal of stuff from the Constitution, powers that it can use to fight back and pry information out of the executive branch,” McCarthy said. “You know, you can slash budgets or hold up appointments, and if it gets bad enough, you can start holding people in contempt. … The final option, obviously, is impeachment.”

McCarthy warned, however, that if the president’s party has enough influence in Congress, those efforts can be more challenging.

“If the president’s party has enough sway in Congress that you can stop that arsenal from being used, then the whole thing is just a political calculation,” he said. “Like for Biden here, it’s how much worse would I be hurt by letting the tape come out or the recording come out than by stonewalling. It looks like the tape is so bad, he’s decided that even though he’s going to be damaged by stonewalling, that’s better than letting the tape out.”

McCarthy also highlighted how the media has reacted to Biden’s assertion of executive privilege, saying they’ll report on the matter in an attempt to preserve their integrity and then move on from it to “help Biden bury it.”

“The usual problem that you always have here is that when Republican administrations stonewall, the media gets all whipped up about it, and when Democratic administrations stonewall, they feel like they have to cover it for a day or two so that they can say they covered it but then move on to another subject and help Biden bury it, or at least they’ll try,” he said.

Former President Trump, left, and President Biden (Associated Press )

Garland on Thursday defended Biden’s decision to assert executive privilege, saying the subpoena for audio recordings “is one that would harm our ability in the future to successfully pursue sensitive investigations.”

“There have been a series of unprecedented, frankly, unfounded attacks on the Justice Department. This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just the most recent effort to threaten, defund our investigations, and the way in which there are contributions to an atmosphere that puts our agents and our prosecutors at risk,” he added.

“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the President’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress,” Associate Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote in a letter Thursday to GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, chairmen of the Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Oversight and Accountability, respectively.

That “longstanding position,” however, was challenged following Trump’s term in the White House and the Capitol protests Jan. 6, 2021. 

Two individuals who served in the Trump administration and raised executive privilege claims — former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former Trump adviser Peter Navarro – have been convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to serve jail time for their refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the now-defunct House select committee investigating the Capitol protests.

TRUMP ALLY STEVE BANNON LOSES APPEAL ON CONTEMPT CONVICTION AS HE FIGHTS TO STAY OUT OF PRISON

Bannon, 70, was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022 and a $6,500 fine for ignoring a congressional subpoena.

Bannon’s appeal was denied last week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released a 20-page opinion that said granting Bannon’s appeal would “hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority.”

Bannon claimed he acted on the advice of his legal team and did not intend to break the law. Judge Bradley Garcia wrote the acting on “advice of counsel” defense is “no defense at all.”

The ruling will be appealed, Bannon’s attorney, David Schoen, told Fox News Digital last week.

Schoen noted that Bannon’s attorney at the time he received the subpoena, Robert Costello, advised his client that he was not permitted, as a matter of law, in any way to respond to the notice, saying executive privilege had been raised and that it was not his privilege to waive it. Costello wrote the committee to inform it that Bannon would comply if the panel worked out any privilege issues with former President Trump or if a court ordered him to comply, Schoen said.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, left, and former Trump adviser Peter Navarro (Getty Images)

Similarly, Navarro, who reported to prison in Miami in March following an order from the U.S. Supreme Court, was charged and convicted with contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with a congressional subpoena demanding his testimony and documents relating to the events of Jan. 6.

Though Navarro is attempting to appeal his contempt of Congress conviction, the court refused to postpone his imprisonment until after the appeal is concluded.

Navarro claimed he could not cooperate with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack because Trump had invoked executive privilege, an argument that lower courts have rejected.

The lower courts found that Navarro could not actually prove Trump had invoked executive privilege.

Biden’s decision to assert the privilege, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, came at the request of Garland. Jean-Pierre said it was Garland’s suggestion that “law enforcement files like these need to be protected.”

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced a resolution to hold Garland in contempt of Congress over the Justice Department’s failure to produce the subpoenaed audio recording of Biden’s interview with Hur. The vote advances the measure for a full floor vote.

Special Counsel Robert Hur, left, and President Biden (Getty Images)

Hur led the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after his departure as vice president under the Obama administration. Hur announced in February that he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, saying Biden is “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur wrote in the report that “it would be difficult” to convince a jury to convict Biden of any willful crime, citing his advanced age. 

The findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime but could serve as president. Trump has meanwhile slammed the disparity in charges as a reflection of a “sick and corrupt, two-tiered system of justice in our country.“

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo, Elizabeth Elkind, Louis Casiano and Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Today we discuss travel, leisure, sunsets and presidential debates.

Goody! Looks like we’ll have two Biden-Trump debates to tide us over this summer.

It seems that way. But who knows.

Wait. I shouldn’t cancel my dream vacation just yet?

I wouldn’t.

I mean, I don’t want to pop your party balloon. If a political debate is your idea of a good time — rather than, say, sitting on the sugary sands of some beach watching a dappled sunset play on the water, more power to you!

But we’re still a long way from the moment President Biden and former President Trump share a debate stage.

I thought it was all settled.

The prospective debates did come together rather quickly after Biden issued a taunting challenge and Trump immediately agreed to two face-to-face meetings.

The first is scheduled for June 27 on CNN. The second is set for Sept. 10 on ABC.

However, there are still a lot of details to be worked out, and plenty of opportunity for one party or the other to walk away.

Remember, in 2020 Trump bailed on a debate with Biden because the terms — a remote set-up, taken as a precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic — weren’t to his liking.

I thought all the details were ironed out by an independent debate commission.

That’s how it used to work.

Starting in 1987, the Commission on Presidential Debates — a nonprofit entity with a bipartisan board of directors — worked with the television networks to set up three presidential and one vice presidential debate each election cycle.

Matters such as the format, the choice of moderators and the seating (or standing) arrangements were settled ahead of time.

All the candidates had to do, apart from cramming for the 90-minute sessions, was show up.

So what happened?

The commission laid out its plans for four debates this fall, starting on Sept. 16 and ending on Oct. 9. But Biden and Trump chose to disregard the commission and ignore its proposed schedule.

They can do that?

Yes, indeed. There’s absolutely no requirement the candidates abide by the commission’s recommendations, or debate at all.

Jeepers.

Actually, the move wasn’t all that startling.

Trump was unhappy with the commission for several reasons. He complained about the moderators chosen in 2016 and again in 2020. He also didn’t like a decision to mute candidates’ microphones during parts of the second 2020 debate after he persistently talked over Biden in their first meeting.

Two years ago, at Trump’s behest, the Republican National Committee officially withdrew from the debate commission.

So Trump blew it up.

No. Biden had issues with the commission as well.

Two of his top political advisors, Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, were part of a bipartisan panel that issued a 2015 report calling for an overhaul of the presidential debate process by, among other things, expanding the pool of potential moderators and eliminating on-site audiences.

The bottom line is both campaigns thought it better suited their interests to bail on the commission and work out a debate schedule by themselves.

So it’s a win-win for Biden and Trump?

You could look at it that way.

Biden doubtless would have preferred to come nowhere near Trump. If he was running away with the contest, the president might have gotten his wish.

But debates have come to be expected of the two major party candidates, and if Biden refused it would have invited further unwanted questions about his health and stamina.

By agreeing to two debates, and no more, Biden limits the risks of a campaign-jeopardizing stumble. Also, by holding the debates earlier than usual — the last takes place nearly two months before election day — it allows the president plenty of time to recover politically if he turns in a less than stellar performance.

That said, Biden could be boffo — or at least perform decently enough. He’s shown a penchant for rising to important occasions, such as his well-received State of the Union speech in March.

What’s in it for Trump?

He’s been salivating to get onstage with Biden, repeatedly saying he’d debate the president anytime, anywhere. So Trump couldn’t very well refuse when Biden replied, OK, let’s do it.

More than that, Trump and his strategists are thoroughly convinced that Biden is a walking, or rather, doddering disaster. In fact, while it’s typical for a candidate to downplay expectations — the better to crow about their performance once the debate is over — Trump has done the opposite.

He’s described Biden as “the WORST debater I have ever faced” and a man who can’t “put two sentences together.”

So if he puts two sentences together, Biden wins?

I wouldn’t say so.

It doesn’t matter how high, or low, Biden or Trump set expectations. Voters can watch and judge their performances independent of any pre-debate spin. That’s why tens of millions of people tune in. The debates offer one of the few occasions during a campaign where the candidates can be seen unscripted and thinking and acting on their feet.

What about other candidates?

Trump and Biden would both be happy to exclude Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the leading independent candidate, since neither side is certain whom he helps or hurts more.

Regardless of how Kennedy performed, standing on the same stage as Biden and Trump would automatically elevate his candidacy.

That’s another reason the two major party candidates agreed to their own arrangements — though Kennedy could still qualify under the criteria put forth by CNN and ABC. His participation is among the open questions surrounding the debates and something that could end up nixing one or both.

So should I stick with or cancel my summer plans?

Go ahead. Get out there and see the world. It’s summertime!

If you’re that concerned about missing the political action, just make sure your cabana or mountain aerie has reliable Wi-Fi.