Tuesday - June 26, 2012

Bring It

George Bush to the world: “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists.” And he was right.

Issa to Obama: “You’re either part of the Fast & Furious scheme and playing CYA, or you’re flexing muscles you don’t have, to obstruct justice.” And he is right as well.

“[Y]our privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”

Issa said Obama’s assertion of executive privilege “raised the question” about the veracity of how the “White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the department with respect to the congressional investigation.”

Issa revealed in the letter to Obama that Attorney General Eric Holder had requested the president assert the privilege in a letter last Tuesday evening — shortly after Holder, Issa and other congressional leaders involved in Fast and Furious met to try to come a resolution before last Wednesday’s contempt vote in Issa’s oversight committee. The president’s decision to assert the privilege came via a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole to Issa minutes before Issa began the proceedings against Holder.

The California congressman told Obama that Cole’s letter stating that Obama has “’asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011 documents’ raised concerns that there was greater White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious than previously thought.”

Issa laid out that this is because the “Justice Department has steadfastly maintained that the documents sought by the committee do not implicate the White House whatsoever.”

“If true, they are at best deliberative documents between and among department personnel who lack the requisite ‘operational proximity’ to the president,” as legal precedent Issa cites requires. “As such, they cannot be withheld pursuant to the constitutionally-based executive privilege.”

Read the rest at The Daily Caller

Hot Air has more.

Misconduct occurred on two levels.  Issa’s reference is to the false information submitted by DoJ officials in Congressional testimony, which is the specific subject of the subpoenas on which the contempt charge is based.  However, the overall investigation into OF&F also probes official misconduct in deliberately allowing thousands of weapons to be carried over the border with no way to track them, which violates regulations at the ATF — which is why ATF insiders blew the whistle on the operation in the first place.  Either way, Issa is entirely correct under US v Espy that deliberative process executive privilege does not survive in these circumstances.

“Last week’s proceeding would not have occurred had the attorney general actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.” [Issa wrote.]

The full U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. He would be the first attorney general to be held in contempt in the history of the United States.

And now the fight is on, and it’s pretty much proof positive that Fast & Furious goes all the way to the top. Which is what we all figured out in about 4 minutes a year and a half ago. Just you wait until the next whistle blower spills the beans that F&F was only one of a dozen or more parallel ops. I’ll betcha it was.

Meanwhile, Darrel Issa continues to show himself as one of the perhaps three or four honorable members of our government. Scalia, Bolton, Issa. That’s all I can spot from here. Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller? 

Posted by Drew458     on 06/26/2012 at 12:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control • Obama, The One •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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