Executive privilege explained: What Obama's Fast and Furious document claim mean

[Soul Crusher]

With the options available, why did Obama choose to invoke executive privilege?
qando.ne ^ | 21 June, 2012 | Bruce McQuain
Posted on June 23, 2012 9:31:20 PM EDT by marktwain

That, at least to me, is the pregnant question. He had a number of other options but 4 months from a critical election, chose the most controversial and potentially damaging one.

Why?

Let’s begin with a quote from a former White House counsel from a Powerline post:

Even with his fawning press, [President Obama] will pay a price for this one. He knows this, meaning that the documents now to be withheld must be dynamite. They have to show either that Holder knew what was going on with Fast and Furious and approved it, or that he directly committed perjury in his Congressional testimony, or both. I just can’t see any other explanation for such a risky move.
Wasn’t the Washington Post just covering big time the 40th anniversary of Watergate? I wonder how much coverage this one will get.

That’s the result of the move – speculation that the documents being withheld point to perjury by Holder or the President, or both.

So let’s break this down a bit. If it was all about Holder, why would the president risk this sort of a controversial move this close to an election. It’s not like he’s never thrown anyone under the bus. In fact James Carville is on record advising Obama to dump Holder.

Obama had the option, then, of letting Holder face contempt charges (not much happens as we’ve seen in the past, to those who are served with contempt of Congress charges) and drag out the document release until after the election.

With the election season gearing up, it is likely that while the controversy would have been an issue, it wouldn’t have been a major issue. Now it certainly is.

He could have asked Holder to resign. He could have then used the opportunity to appear as a statesman, a leader and bi-partisan all in one fell swoop. Depending on how he handled that it could actually have been a positive for him heading into an election. In the meantime, an acting AG could continue to delay on providing documents.

But he did neither of those things. For some unknown reason (at least to this point) he chose to do the least likely and most politically damaging thing – invoke executive privilege. As the lawyer quoted has said, those documents must be “dynamite” to have the president make this move.

And, unsaid by the lawyer is the speculation that the documents show the involvement of the White House to a degree that is damaging – apparently more damaging than the speculation and attention this move by the President has brought.

David Kopel at Volokh Conspiracy gives you a great history of the controversy. As for the documents Kopel notes:

According to Attorney General Holder, the DOJ has 140,000 documents related to Fast & Furious. Fewer than 8,000 have been provided to Congress pursuant to subpoenas. The contempt vote has been narrowed to 1,300 documents. In refusing to comply with the House subpoenas, the DOJ has refused to create a privilege log–which would identify withheld documents, and the legal reason for their being withheld.
Matthew Boyle at the DC caller points out that Holder has retracted two previous statements he made to Congress where he gave them inaccurate information in an attempt to blame previous AGs or administrations. It seems that’s a standard operating procedure with all parts of this administration. So Holder is left holding the bag all by himself on this one, or so it seemed, at least, to the point that executive privilege was invoked.

That brings us to these 4 point by Todd Gaziano at the Heritage Foundation about the use of executive privilege:

First, the Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon (1974) held that executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing. The courts held that Nixon’s purported invocation of executive privilege was illegitimate, in part, for that reason. There is reason to suspect that this might be the case in the Fast and Furious cover-up and stonewalling effort. Congress needs to get to the bottom of that question to prevent an illegal invocation of executive privilege and further abuses of power. That will require an index of the withheld documents and an explanation of why each of them is covered by executive privilege—and more.
Second, even the “deliberative process” species of executive privilege, which is reasonably broad, does not shield the ultimate decisions from congressional inquiry. Congress is entitled to at least some documents and other information that indicate who the ultimate decision maker was for this disastrous program and why these decisions were made. That information is among the most important documents that are being withheld.

Third, the Supreme Court in the Nixon case also held that even a proper invocation must yield to other branches’ need for information in some cases. So even a proper invocation of executive privilege regarding particular documents is not final.

And lastly, the President is required when invoking executive privilege to try to accommodate the other branches’ legitimate information needs in some other way. For example, it does not harm executive power for the President to selectively waive executive privilege in most instances, even if it hurts him politically by exposing a terrible policy failure or wrongdoing among his staff. The history of executive–congressional relations is filled with accommodations and waivers of privilege. In contrast to voluntary waivers of privilege, Watergate demonstrates that wrongful invocations of privilege can seriously damage the office of the presidency when Congress and the courts impose new constraints on the President’s discretion or power (some rightful and some not).

The key point, of course, is executive privilege cannot be used to “shield wrongdoing”. While it is speculative, it appears highly likely – given the other options available – that executive privilege is being used for precisely that reason in this case.

Additionally, given the choices available to the President, it is not at all out of bounds to speculate that the most transparent administration in history is trying desperately to hide something even more terrible than the political fallout from this choice.

The White House cites internal discussions and ongoing investigations are the reason for its denial and claims the investigations would be jeopardized with the release of the documents. But, as Gaziano points out, accommodations can be made in that regard. The total number of documents requested is 1,300. The White House is simply refusing to cooperate or accommodate.

Why?

We’re still left with that question.

And the answer, given the actions to date, lead to some logical speculation – what is contained in those documents is much more damaging politically than the damage done by the decision. Additionally, Obama can’t afford to let Holder go because if he does there’s the potential that Holder will then spill the beans.

Oh, and finally, this move has suddenly brought Fast and Furious to page one and the top of the newscast like nothing else could. The majority of the country, which was mostly ignorant of this scandal are now in the loop.

As the cited former White House counsel said, “the documents now to be withheld must be dynamite.” In fact, they must be so explosive that the White House is desperate enough to try to weather this self-inflicted political storm in lieu of exposing them.

That says a lot.

[240 is Back]

will Holder never see a jail cell now?

[Soul Crusher]

will Holder never see a jail cell now?

Obama owns FnF , not holder.   Obama is CYA and you know it.   this ghetto communist traitor thug approved this and you know it.

[Soul Crusher]

A Note on ‘Fast and Furious,’ Executive Privilege, and the End of the Obama Administration
PJ Media ^ | June 22, 2012 | Roger Kimball
Posted on June 23, 2012 7:13:11 PM EDT by Kaslin

Calm down. The end hasn’t come yet, not quite. But you can feel it coming, a dull, oppressive presence like the heaviness of the air before a storm, or the quickly widening fissures that consumed the House of Usher. Future historians, looking back on the wreck of the Obama administration, will mark with wonder the president’s darkly frivolous assertion of executive privilege this week. It was then, they will say, that his administration, that the president himself, officially entered the Period of Panic and Flailing.

It’s not going to be pretty. Expect a season of recriminations, grandiosities, and sudden reversals. The usual narrative holds that Obama asserted executive privilege, denying Congress the documents it requested in the murderous case of gunwalking called “Fast and Furious” in order to save his Attorney General Eric Holder. Perhaps. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, at the end of the day, this spectacular piece of recklessness wasn’t regarded as the beginning of the end for Eric Holder, who will likely face a Contempt of Congress citation next week. Already, various outlets are preparing the ground by quietly inserting into the discussion the name of Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general under President George W. Bush who was hounded out of office by Democratic zealots after he fired some U.S. attorneys. The idea, I suspect, is to upholster the ground so that when (as I predict) Holder is forced out Obama cheerleaders like the New York Times can resort to the tu quoque strategy: “Well, Bush’s attorney general had to resign, too, and some of his staffers were held in contempt.”

Will the upholstery work? Will it successfully insulate public opinion from the damaging facts of the case? I doubt it. For one thing, the two incidents are screamingly different. As usual, Andy McCarthy outlined the issue with superlative clarity:

[T]he Bush situation involved (a) a non-crime (presidents do not need a reason to fire U.S. attorneys), (b) a non-scandal manufactured into a scandal (Bush 43 fired 8 U.S. attorneys; Clinton had fired 92 of the 93, and for no better reason than partisan patronage after he defeated Bush 41), and (c) patently improper subpoenas to the president’s personal staffers who are not subject to Senate confirmation and assist him in his constitutional duties. The Obama/Holder situation, to the contrary, involves outrageous government malfeasance in firearms transfers that led to murders, including the killing of a federal agent, and a patently proper subpoena for documentation maintained by the Justice Department, an agency created by Congress and dependent on Congress for its existence, funding and jurisdiction.

We need to keep those differences in mind as the story unfolds. We also need to remind ourselves of how blatantly, er, economical Eric Holder has been with the truth as he testified under oath before Congress. He didn’t know about Fast and Furious, no sirree, until the day before yesterday, except that internal Justice Department documents show he knew about it back in July of 2010. An email discussing “Fast and Furious” was really about an operation called “Wide Receiver” and was overseen by George W. Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey, except that it wasn’t, as Holder eventually acknowledged (without, however, apologizing to Mr. Mukasey). The more we know about Fast and Furious, the more it appears that Holder’s testimony before Congress is a tissue of evasions, equivocations, and outright lies.

For ordinary folk, lying under oath is a serious offense. What does it portend for above-the-law elites like Eric Holder? At the very least, I suspect, it means that he should be polishing his resume. And here’s something else to ponder: as I say, Obama’s assertion of executive privilege has been widely interpreted as an effort to protect Holder. Yet I can’t help thinking that behind that spectacular performance I hear the revving of a bus engine, a bus that has Eric Holder’s name on it and that he is shortly to be thrown under. Sure, the president wants to conceal something by asserting executive privilege. The dramatic and politically risky nature of the act naturally leads one to suspect that it is something serious. You can’t hear the phrase “executive privilege” without thinking “Watergate,” a word you can’t hear without thinking “cover-up,” “Nixon,” “impeachment.” In fact, Fast and Furious is far worse than Watergate. No one died in Watergate. Dozens of people are dead as the result of Fast and Furious, including at least one U.S. citizen, Border Agent Brian Terry.

No, Obama’s assertion of executive privilege will do little if anything to save Eric Holder. Its chief effect, I predict, will be to focus attention more sharply on the great questions that have not been sufficiently plumbed: Who is Barack Obama? What does he have to hide?

[240 is Back]

Obama owns FnF , not holder.   Obama is CYA and you know it.   this ghetto communist traitor thug approved this and you know it.

this is all common knowledge, but doesn't answer my Q.

[Soul Crusher]

Slow and infuriating: Obama looks bad in partisan feud over Holder
 
June 23, 2012 12:11 am

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If not for hypocrisy, bad faith and opportunism, politics would wither away. The latest case of suspect outrage in Washington pits the Obama White House against hostile interlocutors in Congress over documents regarding a disastrous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program called Fast and Furious.
 
For two years, Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has conducted hearings about the botched undercover program that was designed to track the movement of guns sold to Mexican drug cartels.
 
Instead of building airtight cases against cartel leaders, the ATF lost track of 2,000 high-powered guns in 2009 that are believed to have been dispersed throughout the Mexican underworld. Two of the guns were found near the scene of a shootout that resulted in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
 
While outrage in Congress was understandable given how poorly run the operation was, it had more than a whiff of partisan hackery about it. Rep. Issa pursued Attorney General Eric H. Holder for documents as relentlessly as Inspector Javert pursued Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables."
 
For reasons that encourage skepticism about the Obama administration's intentions, the Justice Department has not cooperated by providing all of the requested documents. It has not been transparent or forthcoming despite Mr. Holder's insistence to the contrary. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories abound. President Obama, who opposed President George W. Bush's liberal use of executive privilege, is in a jam.
 
This week, Mr. Obama claimed executive privilege as a rationale for withholding the documents from congressional oversight. Rep. Issa referred a contempt citation against Mr. Holder to the full House, which will vote on it soon.
 
Even if the investigation is deeply partisan, that doesn't mean executive privilege is warranted except in the rarest of cases. Mr. Obama has lost the high ground.
 

First Published June 23, 2012 12:00 am

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Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/editorials/slow-and-infuriating-obama-looks-bad-in-partisan-feud-over-holder-641585/#ixzz1yjM7ImcE

[Soul Crusher]

New poll: Obama’s executive-privilege assertion not as popular as WH imagined (Only 29% back Obama)
 hot air ^

Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 8:57:36 AM

Via Jammie Wearing Fool, the numbers are as brutal as he says. In a poll taken by The Hill after last week’s assertion of executive privilege by Barack Obama in the Operation Fast and Furious probe, only 29% of likely voters supported Obama’s move to block access to Department of Justice documentation, while a clear majority disapproved:

A clear majority of likely voters believes President Obama has exercised his executive power inappropriately — particularly in blocking the release of documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, according to a new poll for The Hill. …

The Hill Poll found that likely voters disapproved by an almost 2-to-1 margin of Obama’s assertion of presidential power in the case. Overall, 56 percent of voters disapproved of his action, while only 29 percent approved.

The news is even worse among independents, and it’s not exactly a slam-dunk among Obama’s base, either:

The defense is not proving an easy sell with voters, particularly independents.

Sixty-one percent of independents said they disapproved of the president’s actions, and just 25 percent approved. Among Republicans, opposition to the president’s use of executive privilege was more entrenched at 78 percent.

Even 28 percent of Democrats, and 30 percent of self-identified liberals disapproved of Obama’s position.


(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...

[avxo]

blah blah blah. Rep. Issa pursued Attorney General Eric H. Holder for documents as relentlessly as Inspector Javert pursued Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables." blah blah blah.

I am particularly amused by this analogy - I don't think the writer has actually read Les Misérables. Let's not forget that in the book, Javert pursues Valjean for years over a petty crime, and that in the end, he commits suicide after letting Valjean go, having realized that to arrest Valjean would be immoral.

[Soul Crusher]

Biden: ‘Executive Privilege Only Covers Communications Between the President and His Advisors’

 http://cnsnews.com/news/article/biden-2007-executive-privilege-only-covers-communications-between-president-and-his



Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden, when serving as a senator in 2007, made it clear that executive privilege applies only to communications involving the president himself.


(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Court rulings suggest 'privilege' claim over 'Furious' docs would fizzle, Republicans say


By Judson Berger
 
Published June 23, 2012
 
FoxNews.com
 


President Obama may have to clear a high bar in order to lock down Fast and Furious documents from the prying eyes of congressional investigators.
 
After the White House asserted executive privilege over potentially thousands of documents pertaining to the botched anti-gunrunning operation, critics of the move pointed out that the federal appeals court in the nation's capital has taken a skeptical view toward privilege claims in the past.
 
The D.C. appeals court in 2004 rejected a privilege claim made by the George W. Bush White House pertaining to Justice Department documents dating back to the Clinton administration.
 
That case involved a different type of claim, but a 1997 opinion from the same court made an observation that could come back to haunt the Obama administration if the current case ends up before the federal judiciary.
 
"The privilege," the court wrote, "disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred."
 
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., former House Judiciary Committee chairman, released a memo earlier this week citing that very line and decrying the administration's argument as bunk.
 
"The president's assertion of executive privilege is an illegal attempt to avoid responsibility for the department's misconduct," Sensenbrenner said.
 
He wrote in his memo that the privilege "cannot be used to protect documents in the face of wrongdoing."
 
As congressional Republicans pursue their contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Eric Holder -- potentially with a vote on the House floor this coming week -- the push to extract thousands of Fast and Furious documents from the Justice Department is expected to continue. And the D.C. federal courts would likely be asked to weigh in if a deal cannot be reached.
 



'The privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.'
 
- D.C. appeals court in 2004
 

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told Fox News on Saturday the president's executive privilege claim will trigger a civil suit "that we will file in federal court in D.C."
 
Gohmert said Republicans will demand a "log" of all documents the White House is trying to lock down. "There may not be anything that's privileged," he said.
 
But despite all the tea-leaf reading, it would be impossible to judge the outcome of any court challenge based on past rulings -- as there is no case identical to the current dispute between Congress and the Executive Branch over Fast and Furious.
 
The Obama administration has outlined a robust case for its assertion of executive privilege.
 
Officials are invoking the claim based on so-called "deliberative process" -- a claim that argues internal deliberations can be kept secret so as not to inhibit open and candid discussion. That's what the Obama administration says Republicans are looking for here.
 
"I am very concerned that the compelled production to Congress of internal Executive Branch documents generated in the course of the deliberative process concerning its response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries would have significant, damaging consequences," Holder wrote in his letter Tuesday to Obama requesting the president's intervention.
 
He said the documents "fit squarely within the scope of executive privilege." Further, he referenced opinions that a congressional committee can overcome this only by showing the documents are "demonstrably critical" to its duties. Holder said this has not been shown.
 
But Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, said the documents likely "won't be protected."
 
He pointed to the case involving his group -- the one from 2004 -- and said the court decision conflicts with the Obama administration's current claims.
 
As in the current case, the 2004 case involved an attempt by the White House to lock down Justice Department documents. That case, however, involved a different type of executive privilege claim -- the Bush White House was trying to invoke the "presidential communications privilege" over documents pertaining to pardons issued under the Clinton administration. The court ruled that the claim didn't work, because the documents in question never made their way to the president's office.
 
The court opened the door for the Bush administration to consider invoking the "deliberative process privilege" instead -- which it did.
 
That is the precise category of "privilege" that Obama and Holder are now invoking to withhold Fast and Furious documents. Fitton, though, nevertheless remained convinced that the administration's "deliberative process" claim was different and would not pass muster in the face of the lingering questions surrounding Fast and Furious.
 
"Either way," he said, "the courts look askance at using the privilege to stymie probes into misconduct."
 
Fitton, too, referenced the 1997 opinion, which said: "Where there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed light on government misconduct, 'the privilege is routinely denied,' on the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve 'the public's interest in honest, effective government.'"
 
But again, the 1997 case and the current dispute are different.
 
The 1997 case involved not a dispute between lawmakers and the Executive Branch but a dispute between the Office of the Independent Counsel and the White House over a criminal case involving a former secretary accused of corruption.
 
In that case, clear "misconduct" was alleged, whereas it's unclear today what the "Furious" documents under lock and key contain.
 
Scott Coffina, an attorney in private practice who used to serve in the office of White House counsel in the George W. Bush administration, said this would be a gray area for the courts. He said it is "untested" whether bad policy decisions surrounding Fast and Furious would qualify as "misconduct," and in turn compel disclosure.
 
Coffina said he supports the principle of withholding deliberative documents, because "there's an institutional need for the Executive Branch to be able to conduct investigations." But he also said that because of the sheer volume of documents at issue, "I guarantee you they're not all deliberative."
 
Meanwhile, Democrats on the House committee probing Fast and Furious on Friday filed a report stating unequivocally their opposition to the contempt proceedings against Holder.
 
"The Committee's contempt vote on June 20, 2012, was the culmination of one of the most highly politicized congressional investigations in decades," they wrote, referring to the committee vote along party lines to hold Holder in contempt.
 
"The Committee has repeatedly shifted the goalposts in this investigation after failing to find evidence to support its unsubstantiated allegations. The documents at issue in the Contempt Citation are not related to the Committee's investigation into how gunwalking was initiated and utilized in Operation Fast and Furious."
 
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/23/court-rulings-suggest-privilege-claim-over-furious-docs-would-fizzle/#ixzz1yqAqhnaE

[Soul Crusher]

Issa Letter Hammers Obama on Operation 'Fast and Furious'


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By Major Garrett

 Updated: June 26, 2012 | 9:36 a.m.
June 26, 2012 | 8:09 a.m.



The chairman of the House oversight committee investigating White House involvement in the botched “gun-walking” program that led to the 2010 death of U.S. Border Patrol agent accused President Obama on Monday of downplaying his involvement in the program or intentionally obstructing the Congress' inquiry.

Rep. Darrel Issa's letter to Obama questioned the legal basis of the White House move to withhold subpoenaed documents from the Government Reform and Oversight Committee under protections afforded Obama by executive privilege. The Justice Department denied Issa's committee the subpoenaed documents last week, prompting the GOP-led committee to vote along party lines to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

The full House is scheduled to consider the contempt citation this week. The White House contends it's legally entitled to withhold documents related to internal deliberations on policy and advisory discussions among Obama's senior advisers. It was the first time Obama, who pledged a new era of government transparency, has exerted executive privilege.

Issa said the assertion of executive privilege, which occurred after 16-months of negotiations between his committee and Justice officials over documents related to the gun-walking program called Fast and Furious, raised two troubling questions.

(READ FULL LETTER)

"Either you or your most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it...or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation," Issa wrote. "To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case."

Issa's committee has subpoenaed documents it believes relevant to Justice and White House deliberations that led to a false Justice Department submission—in Holder's name—in February 2011 that Fast and Furious was not a gun walking operation. The committee had been told by whistle-blowers that Fast and Furious allowed large quantities of AK-47 firearms and variants to "walk" into Mexico. Two of those firearms were discovered at the scene where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed near Rio Rico, Az., on Dec. 14, 2010.

The White House dismissed Issa's letter.

“The Congressman’s analysis has as much merit as his absurd contention that Operation Fast and Furious was created in order to promote gun control," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. "Our position is consistent with Executive Branch legal precedent for the past three decades spanning Administrations of both parties, and dating back to President Reagan’s Department of Justice. The Courts have routinely considered deliberative process privilege claims and affirmed the right of the executive branch to invoke the privilege even when White House documents are not involved.”

Issa has at times suggested Fast and Furious might have been initiated as part of a larger push for tighter U.S. gun control laws. The chairman largely abandoned that theory on the Sunday talk shows.

The Bush administration in its second term initiated the gun-walking program in an attempt to prosecute gun-runners and drug traffickers in Mexico. Under a larger program called Operation Gun Runner, an ill-fated program called Operation Wide Receiver was conducted from 2006-2007. It was riddled with inefficiency and poor inter-agency cooperation and communication. It yielded no arrests or indictments on Bush's watch. The Obama administration reviewed the dormant Bush-era cases and brought charges against nine people accused of low-level gun trafficking offenses. In October 2009, the Obama administration expanded efforts to pursue high-level Mexican drug and arms traffickers. Building on Wide Receiver, efforts at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives greatly expanded the use of surveillance of firearms purchases. These efforts grew into Fast and Furious.

At the heart of Issa's inquiry is how much Justice and the White House knew about the origins of Fast and Furious, its scope and its operational ambitions.

As he did on the Sunday talk shows, Issa held out hope for a compromise over the disputed documents. The full House has never before voted to hold an attorney general in contempt of Congress.

"I remain hopeful that the Attorney General will produce the specified documents," Issa said. Short of that, the chairman urged Obama to "define the universe of documents over which you asserted executive privilege and provide the Committee with the legal justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)."

Issa acknowledged Justice has provided in excess of 7,600 documents, but said the high-stakes dispute is now over those related to Justice's initial denial—nearly three months after agent Terry's death—that that Fast and Furious was a gun-walking operation.

"These key documents would help the Committee understand how and why the Justice Department moved from denying whistle blower allegations to understanding they were true; the identities of officials who attempted to retaliate against whistle blowers," Issa wrote, adding the committee also want to learn "whether senior (Justice) Department officials are being held to the same standard as lower-level employees who have been blamed for Fast and Furious by their politically-appointed bosses in Washington."

Issa also asked Obama to explain "what extent were you or your most senior advisers involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it" and sought documents related to "any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the White House and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011 and June 18, 2012, the day before the Attorney General requested that you assert executive privilege."

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http://nationaljournal.com/congress-legacy/issa-letter-hammers-obama-on-operation-fast-and-furious--20120626

[Soul Crusher]

ATF leader’s email could be Fast and Furious smoking gun and Holder admitted Obama can’t shield it
 Daily Caller ^ | 06/25/2012 | Matthew Boyle




A single internal Department of Justice email could be the smoking-gun document in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal — if it turns out to contain what congressional investigators have said it does.

The document would establish that wiretap application documents show senior DOJ officials knew about and approved the gunwalking tactic in Fast and Furious. This is the opposite of what Attorney General Eric Holder and House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings have claimed.

It appears that email would also prove senior DOJ officials, likely including Holder himself, knew in March 2011 that a Feb. 4, 2011 letter from the DOJ to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley falsely denied guns were permitted to “walk” into Mexico. The DOJ allowed that false letter to stand for nine more months, only withdrawing it in December 2011.

During the June 24 broadcast of Fox News Sunday, House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa cited the email as a “good example” of a specific document his committee knows Holder is hiding from Congress.

“The ATF director, Kenneth Melson, sent an e-mail. And he had said to us in sworn testimony that, in fact, he had concerns,” Issa said. “And we want to see that e-mail because that’s an example where he was saying, if we believe his sworn testimony, that guns walked. And he said it shortly after February 4, and [on] July 4. When he told us that, we began asking for that document.”

But the details of it surfaced first when Grassley mentioned it for the first time publicly during a June 12 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Holder was testifying.

“He [Melson] immediately sent an email warning others, ‘back off the letter to Sen. Grassley in light of the information in the affidavits,’” Grassley explained.

Ken Melson, now the former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, purportedly sent that email to several DOJ leaders in March 2011. According to Grassley, Melson wrote that he had reviewed the wiretap applications — the same documents Cummings and Holder claim do not show senior DOJ officials knew of or approved gunwalking tactics in Fast and Furious.

“ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson described reading those same wiretap affidavits in March of last year,” Grassley told Holder during the Senate hearing. “He said he was alarmed that the information in the affidavits contradicted the public denial to Congress.”

It appears Republican congressional investigators first learned of the Melson email’s existence on July 4, 2011, when Melson chose to give a lengthy deposition on Fast and Furious without DOJ and ATF lawyers present. Grassley told Holder during the Senate hearing that congressional investigators first requested that the DOJ provide Congress with that email during July 2011, shortly after Melson made his then-secret trip across town to Capitol Hill.

The wiretap documents themselves are under federal court seal, leaving Grassley and Issa to tussle with Holder and Cumming about what they might show. Issa has said a whistleblower provided copies to his committee.

Holder has declined to ask the federal judge who sealed them to unseal them. The March 2011 Melson email, then, may be the only legal way — without violating a court order — to document the agreement of some senior Obama administration members with Issa’s and Grassley’s characterizations of the documents.

Melson’s email could also prove that although senior DOJ officials knew in March 2011 that the Feb. 4, 2011 letter was false, they chose to continue misleading Congress with gunwalking denials for several months.

“We need to see it [the email] to corroborate his testimony,” Grassley said during the June 12 hearing. “But the Department is withholding that email along with every other document after Feb. 4, 2011.”

Grassley pressed Holder on the question of how DOJ had the authority to withhold Melson’s email from Congress, a full week before President Obama indicated that he would invoke executive privilege to shield requested documents. At that time, Holder claimed the Melson email would not be protected by executive privilege.

“On what legal ground are you withholding that email?” He asked. “The president can’t claim executive privilege to withhold that email, is that correct?”

“Well, let me just say this: We have reached out to Chairman Issa to work our way through these issues,” Holder filibustered. “We have had sporadic contacts and we are prepared to make – I am prepared to make – compromises with regard to the documents that can be made available. There is a basis for withholding these documents if they deal with the deliberative …”

“But not on executive privilege?” Grassley interrupted.

“No,” Holder responded.

Holder spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler wouldn’t answer when The Daily Caller asked her if the DOJ was planning to provide the Melson email to Congress.

[Dos Equis]

Senator Obama on executive privilege:

[whork]

I am particularly amused by this analogy - I don't think the writer has actually read Les Misérables. Let's not forget that in the book, Javert pursues Valjean for years over a petty crime, and that in the end, he commits suicide after letting Valjean go, having realized that to arrest Valjean would be immoral.

 

[Soul Crusher]

Skip to comments.
Obama Asserts Fast and Furious Executive Privilege Claim for Holder’s Wife
Judicial Watch ^  | OCTOBER 23, 2014

Posted on ‎10‎/‎23‎/‎2014‎ ‎1‎:‎19‎:‎50‎ ‎PM by Red Steel

Judicial Watch announced today that it received from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) a “Vaughn index” detailing records about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. The index was forced out of the Obama administration thanks to JW’s June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)). A federal court had ordered the production over the objections of the Obama Justice Department.

The document details the Attorney General Holder’s personal involvement in managing the Justice Department’s strategy on media and Congressional investigations into the Fast and Furious scandal. Notably, the document discloses that emails between Attorney General Holder and his wife Sharon Malone – as well as his mother – are being withheld under an extraordinary claim of executive privilege as well as a dubious claim of deliberative process privilege under the Freedom of Information Act. The “First Lady of the Justice Department” is a physician and not a government employee.

This is the first time that the Obama administration has provided a detailed listing of all records being withheld from Congress and the American people about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal. The 1307-page “draft” Vaughn index was emailed to Judicial Watch at 8:34 p.m. last night, a few hours before a federal court-ordered deadline. In its cover letter, the Department of Justice asserts that all of the responsive records described in the index are “subject to the assertion of executive privilege.”

The Vaughn index explains 15,662 documents. Typically, a Vaughn index must: (1) identify each record withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption claimed; and (3) explain how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption. The Vaughn index arguably fails to provide all of this required information but does provide plenty of interesting information for a public kept in the dark for years about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Based on a preliminary review of the massive document, Judicial Watch can disclose that the Vaughn index reveals:

- Numerous emails that detail Attorney General Holder’s direct involvement in crafting talking points, the timing of public disclosures, and handling Congressional inquiries in the Fast and Furious matter.

- President Obama has asserted executive privilege over nearly 20 email communications between Holder and his spouse Sharon Malone. The administration also claims that the records are also subject to withholding under the “deliberative process” exemption. This exemption ordinarily exempts from public disclosure records that could chill internal government deliberations.

- Numerous entries detail DOJ’s communications (including those of Eric Holder) concerning the White House about Fast and Furious.

- The scandal required the attention of virtually every top official of the DOJ and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Communications to and from the United States Ambassador to Mexico about the Fast and Furious matter are also described.

- Many of the records are already publicly available such as letters from Congress, press clips, and typical agency communications. Ordinarily, these records would, in whole or part, be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Few of the records seem to even implicate presidential decision-making and advice that might be subject to President Obama’s broad and unprecedented executive privilege claim.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton criticized President Obama and his disgraced Attorney General in a statement today:

This document provides key information about the cover-up of Fast and Furious by Attorney General Eric Holder and other high-level officials of the Obama administration. Obama’s executive privilege claims over these records are a fraud and an abuse of his office. There is no precedent for President Obama’s Nixonian assertion of executive privilege over these ordinary government agency records. Americans will be astonished that Obama asserted executive privilege over Eric Holder’s emails to his wife about Fast and Furious.

Once again, Judicial Watch has proven itself more effective than Congress and the establishment media in providing basic oversight of this out-of-control Administration. This Fast and Furious document provides dozens of leads for further congressional, media, and even criminal investigations.

On June 28, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives over his refusal to turn over records explaining why the Obama administration may have lied to Congress and refused for months to disclose the truth about the gun running operation. It marked the first time in U.S. history that a sitting Attorney General was held in contempt of Congress.

A week before the contempt finding, to protect Holder from criminal prosecution and stave off the contempt vote, President Obama asserted executive privilege over the Fast and Furious records the House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed eight months earlier. Judicial Watch filed its FOIA request two days later. Holder’s Justice Department wouldn’t budge (or follow the law), so JW filed a FOIA lawsuit on September 12, 2012.

But then the Justice Department convinced U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates to stay our lawsuit, in part to allow ongoing settlement discussions between the Holder’s government lawyers and the House Committee to continue. Unsurprisingly, the “negotiations” between politicians running the House and the Justice Department went nowhere.

Fed up with the interminable delay caused Holder’s gamesmanship and stonewalling, JW renewed its request to the Court to allow our transparency lawsuit to continue. Thankfully, this past July, Judge John D. Bates ended the 16-month delay and ordered the Obama administration to produce a Vaughn index of the alleged “executive privilege” records by October 1. Judge Bates noted that no court has ever “expressly recognized” President Obama’s unprecedented executive privilege claims in the Fast and Furious matter.

Unhappy with having to produce the records prior to the elections, Justice lawyers asked the judge to give them one extra month, until November 3 (the day before Election Day!) to produce the info. Judge Bates rejected this gambit, suggested that the Holder’s agency did not take court order seriously. Rather than a month, Judge Bates gave Justice until yesterday to cough up the Vaughn index. Judge Bates issued his smack down on September 23.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation two days later.

Many share our opinion it was “no coincidence” that Holder’s resignation came “on the heels of another court ruling that the Justice Department must finally cough up information about how Holder’s Justice Department lied to Congress and the American people about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, for which Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives.”

The House had been separately litigating to obtain the records but had gotten nowhere until after Judge Bates ruled that the DOJ finally had to disclose information to Judicial Watch.

On September 9, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, citing Judicial Watch’s success, ordered the Justice Department to produce information to Congress by November 3.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun running” operation in which the Obama administration reportedly allowed guns to go to Mexican drug cartels hoping they would end up at crime scenes, advancing gun-control policies. Fast and Furious weapons have been implicated in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of other innocents in Mexico. Guns from the Fast and Furious scandal are expected to be used in criminal activity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for years to come.

Guns from the Fast and Furious scandal continue to be used in crimes. Just last week, Judicial Watch disclosed that a Fast and Furious gun was used in gang -style assault on a Phoenix apartment building that left two people wounded. We figured this out from information we uncovered through another public records lawsuit against the City of Phoenix.

Congress officially confirmed the AK-47 was used in the assault that terrorized residents in Phoenix. In an October 16 letter sent from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) to Deputy Attorney General James Cole discloses that “we have learned of another crime gun connected to Fast and Furious. The [Justice] Department did not provide any notice to the Congress or the public about this gun….This lack of transparency about the consequences of Fast and Furious undermines public confidence in law enforcement and gives the impression that the Department is seeking to suppress information and limit its exposure to public scrutiny.”

We have many other active lawsuits over the Fast and Furious scandal:

On October 11, 2011, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ and the ATF to obtain all Fast and Furious records submitted to the House Committee on Oversight.

On June 6, 2012, Judicial Watch sued the ATF seeking access to records detailing communications between ATF officials and Kevin O’Reilly, former Obama White House Director of North American Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council.

On September 5, 2013, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ seeking access to all records of communications between DOJ and the Oversight Committee relating to settlement discussions in the Committee’s 2012 contempt of Congress lawsuit against Holder. The contempt citation stemmed from Holder’s refusal to turn over documents to Congress related to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

On May 28, 2014, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ on behalf of ATF Special Agent John Dodson, who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious and was then subjected to an alleged smear campaign designed to destroy his reputation.

[Dos Equis]

That's the most transparent administration in U.S. history right there. 

[240 is Back]

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Obama Asserts Fast and Furious Executive Privilege Claim for Holder’s Wife
Judicial Watch ^  | OCTOBER 23, 2014

Posted on ‎10‎/‎23‎/‎2014‎ ‎1‎:‎19‎:‎50‎ ‎PM by Red Steel

Judicial Watch announced today that it received from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) a “Vaughn index” detailing records about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. The index was forced out of the Obama administration thanks to JW’s June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)). A federal court had ordered the production over the objections of the Obama Justice Department.

The document details the Attorney General Holder’s personal involvement in managing the Justice Department’s strategy on media and Congressional investigations into the Fast and Furious scandal. Notably, the document discloses that emails between Attorney General Holder and his wife Sharon Malone – as well as his mother – are being withheld under an extraordinary claim of executive privilege as well as a dubious claim of deliberative process privilege under the Freedom of Information Act. The “First Lady of the Justice Department” is a physician and not a government employee.

DUDE!  This is essentially obama's own iran-contra scandal.  Feeding guns to foreign bad guys.

it's a crime.  I'm shocked that nobody wants to boot him from office, so that he could be tried for it.

I just don't get it.... I dont.  I give you props, 333386, cause you came back to this.  And if repubs had impeached obama in 2009 or 2010, then we NEVER see obamacare.  But "we'll win more seats" and "people will feel sorry for him" keeps winning out.

He gave guns to bad guys.  It's that simple.  it's a crime, a scandal, and a reason to impeach.  I'm literally in shock here.  Repubs don't want to fire and prosecute his ass.  I'm baffled, I really am.  It's been 5 years since F&F.  Insane. just insane.