That was intentional. I don’t believe that Holder’s actions as AG represent the people of the U.S. or the American justice system but are used to push his own political agenda.
You forget that this is the same Napalitano that demanded and threatened to sue the federal government to follow the law and pay for incarcerated illegal immigrants in Arizona. After she left and Gov. Brewer continued the fight coincidentally through Napalitano’s office. Nappy’s response was basically. “I know naught of what you speak.”
I remember when providing arms to terrorists, and lying to Congress about it, was a big deal. Although, to be fair, those weren’t narco-terrorists. And nobody died as a result. So I guess that makes all the difference.
Regards,
Shodan
Really? I never hear it come up during the fawning hero worship as “best president ever”, assuming we’re thinking of the same guy.
So, Eric Holder is Oliver North in your scenario?
Wasn’t it Richard Nixon that said, “It’s not the lie; it’s the cover-up that will get you.”?
He should know.
The thing is…even if the House is presented with a vote for contempt, and even if the house votes in favor, and even if the federal attorney in DC takes it to a grand jury for criminal charges (he won’t), and even if it’s pursued for civil charges, and even if the president is eventually forced to provide all the documents requested to be perused in camera by a judge(he would be)…it probably won’t matter. By then the election will be long done, Holder will probably have resigned, the documents will be so severely redacted as to be innocuous, and another tempest in a teapot will have blown over while innumerable congresscritters will have wasted 10’s of millions of dollars for, effectively, nothing. (I think this is the likliest scenario. The lawyers here can give you a better description, probably.)
Because some idiot in the ATF or DEA or ICE, whoever, thought since Wide Receiver was such a resounding success, let’s try it again…with less oversight.
I really believe that neither Holder nor the president knew about the details of F&F. But the moron who came up with it should be hung out to dry.
By “tempest in a teapot”, I don’t mean to make light of the death of the agent(s). But, damn, why didn’t the DOJ just offer up the idiot who crafted F&F a year ago and be done with it?
That’s the problem isn’t it. Why wouldn’t they just identify the person who created the F&F operation? How hard could it be?
Unless it isn’t that simple. Holder has said he didn’t know about F&F and suddenly remembered that he did. Napalitano did the same thing.
My question is why would Obama be issuing Executive Privilage to an operation that he and Holder say Obama wasn’t involved in? EP only applies to direct Presidential involvement.
They didn’t use executive privilege solely to stop inquiries about F&F, they’d already provided thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of testimony to the House oversight comity.
They are using executive privilege for documents that have no known link to the F&F issue. Issa might be able to show a link between F&F and the document’s he’s requested but he’s declined to do so.
Issa has as many hours in the house comity and on Fox news as he wants to demonstrate he isn’t just requesting documents as part of a witch hunt. Instead he’s using that time to claim things like the ‘F&F was a government conspiracy to further gun control.’
I don’t think this is true, but I’m not a lawyer.
My understanding is that EP can be invoked to cover members of the Executive Branch as to their production of “work documents” – things that, say, the Department of Justice was “working on” regarding how they were going to advise the president on this matter. I don’t believe that EP requires that the president be directly involved.
But, like I said, I’m not a lawyer–certainly not a Constitutional lawyer.
ETA: It might be a good topic for General Questions: Just what is Executive Privilege, and who does it apply to?
Somebody already did add a GQ topic:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=656089&highlight=executive+privilege
EP doesn’t apply to a BATFE operation that isn’t directly tied to the WH. If the Presidency isn’t involved, EP doesn’t apply.
Holder doesn’t want to turn over documents showing who ordered F&F. That seems like a pretty easy question to answer. Who ordered F&F and who ran the operation? Federal agents swear that they were ordered by higher ups to allow illegal gun sales to take place within the U.S.. Agents also swear that these guns were allowed to illegally enter Mexico. No one notified Mexican authorities that these guns were coming, had entered Mexico, or should be followed and traced while in Mexico.
It’s obvious that Holder lied about what he knew and when he knew it. EP doesn’t apply to Holder’s lying about his or the Justice department’s involvement. Unless the WH was directly involved in some stage of Holder’s actions. If the Presidency isn’t involved, EP doesn’t apply.
What we do have is a situation where the President HAS invoked EP. The question is what Presidential action or involvement is Obama protecting?
Nixon claimed EP because the court was trying to discover (uncover) what the “President” actually said or did. There was direct Presidential involvement.
Is this what Obama is claiming? That the President had direct involvement in the planning, or operation, or the coverup of F&F? How exactly was Obama involved in F&F so that he could claim EP for the operation?
Obama can’t claim EP for Holder simply because he believes that Issa is picking on Holder.
I didn’t think “direct involvement” was required. The president can invoke it on behalf of his cabinet, can’t he?
I was reading something (I want to say in the Christian Science Monitor) that said Executive Privilege was invoked regarding documents from after the F&F program and during the start of the Congressional investigation. In that case, they very well could be correspondence with the president while not being evidence that the president was involved in F&F while it was happening. The administration’s stance being that they already handed over all the stuff during F&F, they weren’t going to start handing over everything after F&F as well just because Issa wants to go fishing.
I think it’s important to learn why EP was invoked. EP doesn’t include every action by a cabinet member.
Is Holder claiming that releasing the name of the person or person’s responsible for F&F and Terry’s death is a national security issue?
Is Obama simply claiming that Holder’s actions are no one else’s business?
As far as I know, Obama can use EP to protect Presidential communications with Holder and Presidential communications with the BATFE. I don’t believe Obama can use EP to protect communications between Holder and the BATFE just to prevent public embareassment or criminal charges to Holder or the BATFE. Obama could claim EP to prevent embareassment to himself for something Obama said or did.
If the President or his office wasn’t invovled in the F&F debacle, what privilage of the Executive branch is Obama claiming?
From CSM:
So (and I don’t know), it’s plausible that the documents ARE correspondence the president was involved in but not correspondence that links him to F&F while it was going on.
I’m sure Nixon wasn’t personally involved in the break in at DNC headquarters in real-time, but only held discussions with underlings “after the fact.” Doesn’t seem very reassuring to me.
Hypothetically, for example: what if there is a document showing that Obama instructed Holder and Neopolitano to lie to Congress about their knowledge of F&F? Would you all consider that none of Issa’s business?
The question is whether or not it falls under the requirements for EP. Since a number of people hinge this primarily upon Obama’s involvement in the correspondence, it seems logical to look at that. I’m not going to waste a bunch of time guessing what would make people feel better.
I think the biggest question most are asking is why Obama would do this, not whether he’s legally entitled to do so. And if he was instructing Holder to lie, then such communications would not be covered under Executive Privilege.
So, like I said, whether or not it qualifies for EP. “Why” is a part of that as you just said. So is “What” – as in people upthread saying this-or-that document could never qualify.