in fact, it so irritated sam ervin that he held an unusual press conference, unusual for sam ervin, and that in the course of his more than two decades serving in the united states senate, he had only held two press conferences before this moment, but he was so disturbed by the president's claims of executive privilege and separation of powers as justifications for not cooperating with the senate's investigators. that ervin held a press conference in which he expressed a great deal of moral outrage, and he said that the president essentially was taking the position that he had the right of a king, that he was not accountable to another co-equal branch of government, that was trying to fulfill its constitutionally obligated right to investigate. and not only did he i mean, he he liked to use a lot of folksy charm in his in his he was a very folksy person in his demeanor. but at this press conference, he also called the claim of executive privilege, executive poppycock. he said it was a ridiculous claim. the president couldn't be making the claim of executive privilege to cover up or refu