Author Topic: BREAKING: Obama asserts Executive Priviledge over Fast n Furious documents. (Read 6661 times)

240 is Back · « **Reply #75 on:** June 20, 2012, 12:00:28 PM »

Quote from: The Coach on June 20, 2012, 11:31:05 AM

History wasn't your best subject was it? Or did you forget or not even read about Nixon? He, meaning Obama abused his exec order to bury (cover up) a MAJOR crime. Think about that. This is Obama's Watergate only on an entirely different level.

I dont understand - we agree completely that obama used an exec order to hide a felony.

333386 brought up nixon. That is entirely different, a break-in.

My point is that giving ANY prez the power to shield himself or his admin from criminal prosection is dangerous. Bush shouldn't have had it, Obma shouldn't have it, and Pres Romney or Rand Paul or Paul Ryan shound't have it.

But they will. And every one of them will get away with anything they want.

Hugo Chavez · « **Reply #76 on:** June 20, 2012, 12:10:23 PM »

Quote from: Hugo Chavez on June 20, 2012, 11:41:13 AM

what happens after the contempt charge passes? I suppose absolutely nothing?

Is there a sentence of some kind or does this just go on Holder's record as a way of saying you've been a naughty boy, now run along... Does anything happen or is this a total waste of time? I'd like to see him handcuffed and tossed behind a cell for a while... No chance of that I suppose...

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #77 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:11:46 PM »

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #78 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:13:15 PM »

Brian Terry family ‘disappointed’ with Obama on Fast and Furious

June 20, 2012

Commentary Staff Writer
The Washington Examiner
E@charliespiering

The family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry have released the following statement, on the day the House Oversight Committee weighs a Contempt of Congress Resolution against Attorney General Holder, for his failure to disclose information related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to fully disclose the documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious and President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth. Our son, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by members of a Mexican drug cartel armed with weapons from this failed Justice Department gun trafficking investigation. For more than 18 months we have been asking our federal government for justice and accountability. The documents sought by the House Oversight Committee and associated with Operation Fast and Furious should be produced and turned over to the committee. Our son lost his life protecting this nation, and it is very disappointing that we are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/brian-terry-family-disappointed-with-obama-on-fast-and-furious/article/2500190

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #79 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:18:35 PM »

Romney Campaign Says Obama Fast And Furious Decision “Another Broken Promise”

Press Secretary Andrea Saul piles on the White House.

Zeke Miller BuzzFeed Staff

Image by Susan Walsh / AP

Posted Jun 20, 2012 1:33pm EDT

Romney Press Secretary Andrea Saul attacked President Barack Obama's decision to invoke executive privilege on documents pertaining to the Fast and Furious scandal requested by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“President Obama’s pledge to run the most open and transparent administration in history has turned out to be just another broken promise,” she said in a statement to BuzzFeed.

The scandal has largely been ignored by the media and the American public, but is entering the mainstream as the committee prepares to vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the documents.

The contempt vote centers around documents contempt from after February 4, 2011 — the fate the Department of Justice first tried to downplay the failed operation — to examine why it took so long to acknowledge the operation's flaws, the management practices at the department, and how it treated whistle-blowers.

In his letter to Obama requesting privilege, Holder requested that those documents not be released to Congress, saying they spoke to how the department responds to congressional and media inquiries — which have traditionally been held back by previous Attorneys General.

The Romney response keeps the campaign out of the nitty-gritty of the investigation, while alleging Obama violated a campaign promise to further transparency in government.

Hugo Chavez · « **Reply #80 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:20:28 PM »

Quote from: 333386 on June 20, 2012, 01:11:46 PM

that was fucking good. points made in a way that just can't be argued against.

GigantorX · « **Reply #81 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:33:03 PM »

It seems Obama just put himself directly in the middle of this scandal. He wasn't in it and now he is.

What is he hiding?

What can't be hid away are 3 dead agents, hundreds of dead Mexicans (maybe more?) and a shit load of guns on the streets of Mexico and in the hands of criminals.

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #82 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:36:04 PM »

Quote from: GigantorX on June 20, 2012, 01:33:03 PM

It seems Obama just put himself directly in the middle of this scandal. He wasn't in it and now he is.

What is he hiding?

What can't be hid away are 3 dead agents, hundreds of dead Mexicans (maybe more?) and a shit load of guns on the streets of Mexico and in the hands of criminals.

Obama/Hillary are knee deep in this.

No way someone low down just decides to do international crimes like this.

Remember - the Deputy AG said Obama/Holder specifically directed them to do this.

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #83 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:43:35 PM »

White House Mocks Issa Fast & Furious Investigation as "Political Theater"
CBS News via Twitter ^ | Wednesday, June 20, 2012 | Mark Knoller

Posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 1:03:23 PM by kristinn

WH Comms Dir @pfeiffer44 slams Oversight Cmte for pursuing "a politically-motivated, taxpayer-funded election-year fishing expedition."

In written statement, @pfeiffer44 says House GOP should work with Presd Obama "to create more jobs, not more political theater.”

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #84 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:50:26 PM »

Executive Power Grab on F&F Documents
Alana Goodman | @alanagoodman 06.20.2012 - 12:08 PM

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/20/obama-power-grab-on-fast-and-furious-documents

Because nothing says “I have nothing to hide” like an executive power grab to block investigators from looking at government documents:

President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege over documents sought by a House committee investigating the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting, according to a letter to the panel Wednesday from Deputy Attorney Gen. James Cole.

The move means the Department of Justice can withhold the documents from the House Oversight Committee, which was scheduled to consider a contempt measure Wednesday against [Attorney General Eric] Holder.

The immediate question raised by this sudden assertion of executive people is whether President Obama was involved in the scandal. Why would he put himself at risk of serious political backlash if this was all about simply protecting Holder — who is about to be charged with contempt of Congress anyway? And if there is something damaging about Obama or top White House officials in those papers, maybe that explains why Holder still has a job despite the growing calls for his resignation.

The Department of Justice and the Obama administration is going to try to defend this as a necessary response to a baldly political witch hunt by House Republicans. But will the public buy that at this point? Not only are there numerous signs of behind-the-scenes shadiness that we already know about — the timing inconsistencies, Holder’s misstatements — there’s also the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent at the top of the story. Is the Obama administration actually going to argue that the family of Agent Brian Terry doesn’t deserve to know the full circumstances surrounding his death?

Obama’s assertion of executive privilege turned this from a political back-and-forth between the DOJ and a congressional committee into a full-blown scandal ensnaring the president. What exactly is hiding in those papers that pushed Obama to take this risk?

240 is Back · « **Reply #85 on:** June 20, 2012, 01:51:37 PM »

fox news is apeshit livid about this on their website.

Shockwave · « **Reply #86 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:02:07 PM »

Quote from: Hugo Chavez on June 20, 2012, 01:20:28 PM

that was fucking good. points made in a way that just can't be argued against.

Dude was fucking lit up. Kinda cool to actually see some passion from some of these guys, rather than just typical wooden politics.

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #87 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:05:40 PM »

Blaming Bush backfired big time today on Holder/Obama and now Holder faces another perjury claim.

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #88 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:10:26 PM »

What is the Obama Administration Hiding, and Why Are They Hiding It?
Peter Wehner | @Peter_Wehner 06.20.2012 - 2:06 PM

Attorney General Eric Holder has a problem with the accuracy of his congressional testimonies.

For example, on May 3, 2011, Holder – when asked when he became aware of the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, told the House Judiciary Committee, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” But as CBS News reported, “Internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.” This forced Holder to confess to Senate Republicans that the Justice Department had provided “inaccurate” information to Congress during his May 3 testimony.

Now comes Retraction Number Two.

In a memo today from Republican Senator Charles Grassley, we’re informed, “The Justice Department has retracted a second statement made to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During a hearing last week, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that his predecessor, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, had been briefed about gunwalking in Operation Wide Receiver. Now, the Department is retracting that statement and claiming Holder ‘inadvertently’ made that claim to the Committee. The Department’s letter failed to apologize to former Attorney General Mukasey for the false accusation.”

Grassley went on to make this statement:

This is the second time in nearly seven months that the Department has gotten its facts wrong about gunwalking. Attorney General Holder accused Attorney General Mukasey, without producing any evidence, of having been briefed on gunwalking in Wide Receiver. The case Attorney General Mukasey was briefed on, Hernandez, is fundamentally different from both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious since it involved cooperation with the Mexican government. Attorney General Holder’s retraction should have included an apology to the former Attorney General.

In his eagerness to blame the previous administration, Attorney General Holder got his facts wrong. And his tactic didn’t bring us any closer to understanding how a bad policy evolved and continued. Bad policy is bad policy, regardless of how many administrations carried it out. Ironically, the only document produced yesterday by the Department appears to show that senior officials in the Attorney General’s own department were strategizing about how to keep gunwalking in both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious under wraps.

So let’s consider where we are. Congress has been misled several times by the Attorney General. We don’t yet know if Holder committed perjury or was simply incompetent in making the claims he did. But we do know that President Obama, who was once a harsh critic of executive privilege when it came to his predecessor, has suddenly discovered a real fondness for it. Obama, in fact, is now invoking executive privilege in order to prevent Congress for getting the documents it needs in order to investigate a program that was, by any measure, a scandalous failure that led to the deaths of innocent Americans and Mexicans.

Which raises these questions: As Alana noted earlier, what is the Obama administration hiding? And why are they hiding it?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/20/what-is-obama-administration-hiding-and-why

blacken700 · « **Reply #89 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:10:49 PM »

this is going to drag on for a few years, and nothing will come of it

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #90 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:13:10 PM »

Quote from: blacken700 on June 20, 2012, 02:10:49 PM

this is going to drag on for a few years, and nothing will come of it

Good. This is going to drag obama right into the mud the more he covers up his failed deadly scam.

MCWAY · « **Reply #91 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:15:29 PM »

Quote from: 240 is Back on June 20, 2012, 10:45:21 AM

I dunno. FOX has some lame ass stories on the front page. Nothing exciting/rating$ about the economy sucking. But a new iSurface pad? Edwards? woo hoo!

Did you not just read what I said about the jobs numbers coming out later this week?

When Fox, or any other news outlet, points out the economic numbers, you want to focus on other items.

When other items, that shows Obama's incompetence and/or treachery, come to the forefront, then you want the focus to be on the economy (as if that helps Obama one bit).

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #92 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:15:51 PM »

He’s directly involved [Reader Post]
By: DrJohn

Dick Morris appeared on Fox and Friends this morning and was eerily prescient. The crew was discussing Fast and Furious and the possible Eric Holder Contempt of Congress vote that looms. Someone asked Morris what he thought was going on and Morris said that it seemed that Obama was going to allow Holder to take the hits on his own over F&F. Otherwise Obama would drop a cloak of Executive Privilege over the documents, but that would in turn make it appear as though Barack Obama was directly involved in the mess.

And now it appears he is directly involved.

President Obama on Wednesday asserted executive privilege over documents sought by a House panel ahead of a scheduled panel vote where Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to be held in contempt of Congress.

It’s the first time Obama has used executive privilege since taking office. A White House aide said the president had gone longer without asserting the privilege in a congressional dispute than any other president in the last three decades.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said his panel was “evaluating” a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole asserting the privilege that arrived minutes before Issa’s committee was to begin contempt proceedings. The vote was to take place Wednesday after a last-ditch effort to reach a deal over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious failed on Tuesday night.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley asked some pointed questions about the assertion of Privilege:

““The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions. How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances. The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”

Watch and listen to this hypocrite be critical of hiding behind Executive Privilege

The man who just can’t shut up when it comes to some national secrets clearly doesn’t want something discovered. Now it seems highly likely that this scandal goes right to the top. Yet if not, Obama has learned nothing from Watergate.

It’s like Obama said

“I think the American people deserve to know what was going on.”

Obama has denied any knowledge of the tragic gun running operation. Either Executive Privilege does not apply or Obama is directly involved and has lied about it.

UPDATE

It’s really hitting the fan

No sooner does Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee jump to Holder’s defense and tries to pin F&F falsely on Bush

than Holder retracts that assertion

http://floppingaces.net/2012/06/20/hes-directly-involved-reader-post

blacken700 · « **Reply #93 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:16:29 PM »

Quote from: 333386 on June 20, 2012, 02:13:10 PM

Good. This is going to drag obama right into the mud the more he covers up his failed deadly scam.

wishfull thinking but it's going nowhere

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #94 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:19:18 PM »

Murdered Border Agent’s Family Says President Obama ‘Compounding This Tragedy’ with Executive Privilege Assertion

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/murdered-border-agents-family-says-president-obama-compounding-this-tragedy-with-executive-privilege-assertion

Image credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection/AP

The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was killed with guns tied to the Fast and Furious program, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon accusing President Obama of compounding their family tragedy by invoking executive privilege.

President Obama invoked executive privilege to shield the Justice Department from having to release documents sought by House Republican investigating the secret law enforcement program, wherein weapons smugglers were permitted to buy guns so law enforcement could trace them to drug cartels. Law enforcement lost track of hundreds of the guns, which began showing up at crime scenes, most tragically in December 2010, where Terry was killed.

Terry family attorney Pat McGroder on Wednesday released the following statement from Terry’s parents Josephine Terry and Kent Terry Sr.: “Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to fully disclose the documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious and President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth.”

The Terrys said that their son “was killed by members of a Mexican drug cartel armed with weapons from this failed Justice Department gun trafficking investigation. For more than 18 months we have been asking our federal government for justice and accountability. The documents sought by the House Oversight Committee and associated with Operation Fast and Furious should be produced and turned over to the committee. Our son lost his life protecting this nation, and it is very disappointing that we are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.”

Earlier today, Josephine Terry was on Philadelphia Talk Radio 1210 WPHT.

Asked about the president’s assertion, she said, “The only thing I can say is, if he did that they apparently don’t want Issa to get the documents to see what’s in there.”

“My son and I were very, very close,” she continued. “And my son was a person that believed in justice and he believed in telling the truth. He was a man of his honor. And if anybody knew him, they knew that. And I know he would be saying ‘you know what, I died for my country.’ He was a true American and I think he deserves the truth and I think everybody should know the truth. And if this was a bad thing they did with Fast and Furious it should be acknowledged so it never happens to anybody else’s son.”

-Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce

Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #95 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:21:08 PM »

OBAMA = YOU LIE!

blacken700 · « **Reply #96 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:22:26 PM »

333386 ==

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #97 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:23:51 PM »

Obama = BUSTED

Soul Crusher · « **Reply #98 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:24:38 PM »

Quote from: blacken700 on June 20, 2012, 02:22:26 PM

333386 ==

STFU - obama / holder have deaths of hundreds on their hands and you pofs want to brush it under the rug?

blacken700 · « **Reply #99 on:** June 20, 2012, 02:25:13 PM »

the only place this is going to matter is in your little world