Hat tip to Fox News for this story
President Obama’s decision to assert executive privilege over Operation Fast and Furious documents not only failed to delay contempt proceedings against Attorney General Eric Holder — it raised a whole new line of constitutional questions and challenges about the power of the presidency.
Republicans already are seeking more than 70,000 additional documents to answer their existing questions on Fast and Furious. The executive privilege claim opened up a new avenue of probing.
The immediate question was whether the documents contained information so damaging that the president was willing to risk the bad PR by moving to lock them down. GOP lawmakers also questioned whether Obama’s assertion was legitimate, later voting in committee that it was not appropriate in this case. And Republicans repeatedly suggested that the White House had tipped its hand, and acknowledged being involved in Fast and Furious discussions by asserting privilege over the documents in question.
“He’s either part of it or he’s not,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, a feisty Republican lawmaker from South Carolina, challenged during Wednesday’s committee meeting on Holder. “If (Obama’s) part of it, then we’ve had a series of witnesses that have misled this committee. And if he’s not part of it, then he’s got no business asserting executive privilege.”
House Speaker John Boehner‘s spokesman also said the move “implies” the White House was involved in the operation itself or the coverup.
Following up, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to Obama Wednesday asking for a “more precise description” of the executive privilege claim. He asked whether Obama was extending the claim to documents pertaining to “communications with you,” or to Justice Department communications separate from the White House.
The White House and Justice Department, though, downplayed the potential implications of the executive privilege claim.
Justice Department officials noted that the assertion does not have to pertain to communications involving the president or White House staff. Any “deliberative communications” among officials in the Executive Branch, they said, could be covered.
In other words, they argued that just because Obama is locking down the documents doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the Fast and Furious discussions.
Executive privilege has been invoked 24 times since the presidency of Ronald Reagan. This was Obama’s first time asserting it.
Republican lawmakers, who so far have been given 7,600 documents, are looking specifically for information from February 2011 and beyond that follow a Justice Department letter which erroneously claimed the department did not allow guns to “walk” across the Mexico border.
The department later retracted that claim.
After the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted Wednesday to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told Fox News there’s still time to avert a floor vote on the contempt resolution. Republicans could abandon the vote if they receive documents which they feel satisfy the subpoena.
Holder is not considered held in contempt unless and until the full House votes.
Both the White House and Justice Department slammed the committee vote Wednesday as political.
Holder, in Denmark, reportedly called the move “unwarranted, unnecessary and unprecedented.”
Related articles
- OBAMAGATE: President Issues Executive Order releasing Eric Holder from Congressional Contempt Charges (votingamerican.wordpress.com)
- EDITORIAL: Holder’s contempt and Obama’s privilege – Washington Times (gds44.wordpress.com)
- Video: Obama not a big fan of executive privilege in 2007 (hotair.com)
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
Thank you for re-posting this GDs44
Forty years after Watergate we find ourselves with a new Tricky Dick
Reblogged this on Boudica BPI Weblog and commented:
Obstructing Justice!
Thank you for re-posting this Bob A.
Kinda makes you wonder what the other hand is doing.
Listening to Rush now, and Romney is still hammering Obama’s economy.
As far as the congressional hearings are concerned, I see it as just another diversion to keep the economy off the table.
Obama knows that he turn the economy around fast enough to use it as an asset for his re-election.
It is too far into the mire of the socialistic mantra.
I was over on American Thinker this morning and one of the comments said that Romney has to hit the ground running to prove that he can turn the economy back from the cliff.
I agree.
The mid-terms will occur in two years, so he has to show US what he’s got quickly.
The Tea Party is not asleep, we are aware and watching.
I agree that Romney needs to get off to a running start as Fast and Furious as he can. Who knows, maybe this scandal will clinch the election for Romney with nary a shot fired.
New Post is out for Voting American:
http://votingamerican.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/brian-terrys-parents-speak-out-against-president-obama-and-eric-holder/
I think that this stink goes all the way to the top..when this story first started breaking, I thought that it all surrounded our 2nd amendment rights, and their wanting the guns out of ‘regular Americans’ hands…but it raised up and bit them in their collective butts. I only hope Boehner does the right thing and votes the contempt charge in the full house. I hope it all comes to light just before the election…this had nothing to do with the bush admin…we’re tire of hearing that…we the people want the truth!!!
We do want the Truth Kathleen and now that the MSM was Forced to report on it the Congress will be pressed to take action.
Democrats are getting desperate. They know they’re in trouble. All they can do is divert attention from the real issues. All I’m hearing now is the Democrats reminding us of Mitch McConnell’s comment about making Obama a one-term president. That’s their excuse for everything. We’re doing this all on purpose to embarrass and oust the president….because of course, NOTHING is his fault. Oh, yes, then there’s Nancy Pelosi, who says this contempt charge is just a ploy to suppress the vote. Huh? Just what planet is this woman living on?
We don’t really need to do anything any more to try and oust this President. He seems to be doing a fantastic job all by himself in destroying his Presidency.
You’ve got that right. Think how much of this damage could have been avoided if we had just vetted him properly in the first place. Look at everything coming out of his book…all the lies. How did it take us 4 years to find all of that? Ridiculous. If the media would have done their jobs in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Perhaps if Fox News had taken Glenn Beck seriously when he was reporting on these thing three years ago the tables would have turned sooner.
Right. But instead he loses his show on Fox. Go figure.
I also love how Pelosi is claiming that she could have had Karl Rove arrested at any time. Since when does the Speaker of the House have full authority to put someone in the pokey? Is she really that stupid, or does she just assume the rest of us are? Maybe a little of both?
I think Pelosi’s many facelifts have cut off circulation to her brain.
Ha, no doubt. She’s clearly in a world of her own.
Fired-Up Rep. Gowdy Has a Message for Nancy Pelosi and Her Voter Suppression Claims: ‘Mind-Numbingly Stupid’
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) responded to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s claims that Republicans were only going after Attorney General Eric Holder in the “Fast and Furious” investigation in order to further an imaginary GOP agenda of voter suppression, calling the assertion “mind-numbingly stupid.”
(Related: ‘Here’s the Proof!’: Rep. Gowdy Raises Voice, Invokes Stephen Colbert in 6-Minute Diatribe Blasting Holder, Obama)
“You know my friend Allen West said the race card was the last card in the deck. I think former Speaker Pelosi has opened up a new deck and has found the 2 of clubs. I could not believe it when I heard her saying that. Is that all you have to come back with?” Gowdy told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday night.
“Is that the best you can come up with, is that we got together in this grand scheme to suppress votes and I‘m sure she didn’t say southern states but that’s what she meant,” he added.
At this point, Gowdy was letting it fly and saying exactly what he, and likely many others, think about Pelosi’s bizarre claim.
He went on: “It’s really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous and the fact that she was once the Speaker is mind numbing. I honestly, and I have heard a lot in my 16 years as a prosecutor, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. But keep in mind, Greta, this is the same woman who said she could have arrested Karl Rove any day she wanted. So I don’t know what was wrong with her yesterday or today or whenever she said that, but I would schedule an appointment with my doctor if she thinks that we are doing this to suppress votes this fall. That is mind-numbingly stupid.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/rep-gowdy-has-a-message-for-nancy-pelosi-and-her-voter-suppression-claims-mind-numbingly-stupid/
Awesome response. She’s completely nuts. And believe me when I say that if Pelosi had the authority to arrest Karl Rove, she absolutely would have done it, without batting an eye. She would have loved nothing more. That woman is delusional.
I think all the liberal “think tanks” are about to implode.
RH,…When you are delusional you do not realize the degree of your stupidity.
Good point
New Post is up for Twilight’s Last Gleaming:
http://twighlightslastgleaming.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/obama-appoints-mob-tainted-iuoe-union-lawyer-richard-griffin-jr-to-nlrb-post/
New Post is out for Voting American:
http://votingamerican.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/is-president-obama-a-pathological-liar/
Voting Americans new post is out on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood:
http://votingamerican.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/representative-allen-west-calls-out-president-obama-on-muslim-brotherhood-egyptian-backfire/
New Post is out for Twilight’s Last Gleaming:
http://twighlightslastgleaming.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/ominous-warning-of-world-wide-financial-collapse-the-handwriting-is-on-the-wall/
New Post is out for Voting American:
http://votingamerican.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/the-lawlessness-and-depravity-of-a-wanna-be-dictator-barack-obama/
New Post is out for Village of the Banned:
http://ireporters.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/new-black-panther-death-threats-against-whites-so-where-is-eric-holder-on-this/
Pingback: Village of the Banned Resource Center Presents: Fact Checking Barack Obama with 358 Links | Village of the Banned