300 dead Mexicans: a privilege
President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.
As to why? Well:
Obama’s decision pertains to documents from February 2011 and afterward examining how Justice officials learned about the Fast and Furious probe.
They don’t want you to know what they know and when they knew it.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:43 am
The only way the documents qualify for executive privilege is if they were used to advise and brief the POTUS himself.
Obama just bought Fast and Furious, lock stock and barrel.
June 20th, 2012 at 11:01 am
You know, Nixon didn’t break into the Watergate hotel. He didn’t order the break-in. He didn’t have knowledge of the break-in before the fact. What he did do is use the power of his position to try to cover up for it. That’s what he got impeached for.
Watergate didn’t have a body count.
The indicated and subpoenaed information is precisely where an innocent AG and senior DOJ staff should be trumpeting their transparency and eagerness to get to the truth of the matter. An innocent DOJ leadership could be turning this disaster into an election winning triumph of necessary house-cleaning and righteous-indignation-turned-to-action.
Even an incompetent DOJ leadership could reveal their post-scandal handling as evidence of innocent institutional confusion that no reasonable person could expect to be pierced by anything less than Herculean efforts in the Augean Stables of the bureaucracy. It’s not an election winner, but it could be the nucleus of a really good campaign promise to reform the DOJ.
This was a colossally stupid move on the part of the president. Fast And Furious shocked the conscience of DOJ insiders enough that some are acting as whistleblowers for the congressional investigation. The investigation will get what it’s looking for eventually. And now President Obama’s name is embroidered on the blanket the Holder has thrown over the post-scandal damage control activities, exactly the activity where a cover-up would be occurring.
If President Obama get re-elected, he’ll be facing impeachment proceedings himself.
Agents of the US government are accessories to murder in Mexico, 300 counts and rising. Making the generous assumption that senior DOJ leadership and the President weren’t accessories before the fact, they’ve all managed to make themselves accessories after the fact by their conduct up to now.
Incidentally… presidential pardons wouldn’t have any weight in a Mexican court of law, would they? If Romney wins, and President Obama signs a flurry of pardons to cover Holder and other political appointees from head to toe, all Romney has to do is permit extradition and turn the evidence over to the Mexicans government.
June 20th, 2012 at 11:35 am
It is also of some interest that Mr. Obama in 2007 discussed the use of executive privilege by President Bush. Essentially saying that it did not apply or could not be used unless national security would be compromised or some other catastrophic event was imminent. I’m hoping that that interview will be trotted out to hoist the liar in chief on his own petard.
June 20th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Interesting, the documents in question cover their deliberations on how to respond to Congress. A response that contained many material errors as it turns out. But the kind of things discussed in such deliberations are who knew what when, what the real goal of the op was and how it was shielded, or even nice ancillary benefits (like outrage leading to gun control support) and what you are afraid they might find.
All information that they are working hard to stall exposing until after the election.
Not to mention, Holder’s letter to Obama and the DOJ letter to Congress never actually asserts the involvement of the Office of the President or the President so it is an expansion of the Executive Privilege that is in direct opposition to US v Nixion (1974), the landmark case
From PJ Media:
June 20th, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Be prepared for “Wag The Dog”
Something of extreme importance will happen soon š
June 20th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
…And two KNOWN US federal police officers, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata. Irony Alert: Zapata was killed in Mexico with weapons supplied to the cartels by the very person he had apprehended earlier in Texas – Otilio Osorio – and who is believed to have been a federal informant.
June 20th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Funny. GSA gets caught, Heads roll within a week. Secret Service gets caught, Heads roll within a week. If there’s nothing in the Documents, releasing them would make Issa look like a Tool, and the Dems could run with it all Election Season.
But there must be something in them that leads to someone above Holder’s Pay Grade, or else why NOT embarrass Issa and the Republicans? So, logically, there could only be one thing in them: Obama knew and approved.
But then Agent Terry was MURDERED, and suddenly, one could argue that would make the Admin and all the people who signed off on F+F Accessories to MURDER.
And that is why Barry issued his Illegal (as JKB posted) “Executive Privilege” edict.
June 20th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Obama and Holder are covering each other’s asses. For now. If one of them really squeals, the other will go after him with information proving guilt. I think this goes deeper than many would ever suspect.
June 20th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Lyle, you mean like a Mexican Standoff?
Sorry, couldn’t resist. But Holder needs to hire a food taster, ASAP.