Executive Privilege has become over the years sort of like taking the fifth in court. It implies — rightly or wrongly — guilt.
UPDATE: Holder cited for contempt of Congress.
President Obama asserted executive privilege over documents related to the “Fast and Furious” operation Wednesday as a House panel moved to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt for failing to cooperate with a related congressional inquiry.
[…]
Sharing the “Fast and Furious” documents “would raise substantial separation of powers concerns and potentially create an imbalance in the relationship” between Congress and the White House, Holder wrote in a letter to Obama delivered late Tuesday.
Well it would make clear why the Office of the Attorney General lied to Congress and stood by those lies for something like a year which might prove embarrassing to some.
That might even make clear who authorized the cover up and why no one has been held accountable.
I doubt if we will learn much while Obama is in office. Mr. Transparency isn’t very transparent except when his staff is leaking government secrets to make him look good not that those plans worked out all that well.
The most criminal and corrupt administration in History.
How can the Obama White House claim “Executive Privilege” unless they have “Standing”.
That is to say, the White House cannot exert Executive Privilege unless it is involved in confidential communications.
So Obama invoking Executive Privilege proves by definition that they are intimately involved in sending thousands of guns to the worst of the criminal cartels in Mexico which resulted in the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and at least one American.
Let’s see:
Nixon: A few guys wiretapping a hotel room. No one dies.
Obama: Sends thousands of deadly weapons to Drug Lords. Lots of people die.
Sorry, but Nixon doesn’t get a pass. He illegally expanded the Vietnam War in Cambodia, people died, lots of people died.
and this gun program was started by the Bush administration
by “this” I mean the these gunwalking operations not Fast and Furious by it self, that was just doubling down on a bad plan
Some privilege.
They get to lie to us.
They do that to us anyway.
We’d be better off selecting people at random.
For those who don’t understand Executive Privilege.
“executive privilege
The principle that members of the executive branch of government cannot legally be forced to disclose their confidential communications when such disclosure would adversely affect the operations or procedures of the executive branch.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition”
Also for a good read:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege#Clinton_administration
“…when such disclosure would adversely affect the operations or procedures of the executive branch…” – program in question is not in operation any more. Disclosure about discontinued program can’t affect any ongoing operations or procedures. We The People have Congress as supervisor over executive branch and the right to know what have happened in the past, exactly.
“Disclosure about discontinued program can’t affect any ongoing operations or procedures.”
Ok, are you sure?
One last thing.
What this really means is, between this fiasco and the White House leaks of national security information,
Obama has handed Romney the election on a golden platter.
Just imagine the commercials and debates!
The question is who’s got the gold?
That’s will answer who can afford more attack ads.
Is this what the great American democratic experiment has boiled down to?
I say scrap it and start again.
Evidently bobbo, Dallas, and the other Obama-bots are sleeping late today, so let me posit *their* memes:
1)Bush started it all – Obama didn’t know about it until many months after he had taken office. Uh, wait a minute, Holder & co. just walked that assertion back.
2)This is just another election year stunt by the Republicans to distract us from, uh, Mitt Romney’s record – or something…
3)You all are racists! Holder is doing God’s work in this administration and you just can’t handle having a Black President AND a Black Attorney General!
’nuff said!
Another fine example of ‘It’s fine when republicans do it, but it’s TREASON when Democrats do it.’
Remember the last guy?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201206200008
Remember the (than) Senator Obama opinion on executive privilege? Could he keep his opinion on anything but Marxism for a while? Finally, this “privilege” is enacted after few years of investigation and after EXPLICIT Administration statements that this privilege does not apply (11/2011), when it became obvious that other hiding mechanisms do not work.
LotsaLuck
LOL!! Exactly, except you forgot one.
Bush did it so we can do it to! (See above)
So much for the insane libs thinking Obama is better than Bush.
Obama >= Bush
Absolutely agree that we must preserve separation of powers between the three branches of government.
Congress needs to do their job in producing, changing and passing legislation that benefit the sheeple. Less time concerned with periodic oval office cock sucking and the vacation plans of the First Lady.
Um, it is the House’s responsibility to investigate matters such as this.
Impeachment, in the U.S. and Great Britain, proceeding by a legislature for the removal from office of a public official charged with misconduct in office. Impeachment comprises both the act of formulating the accusation and the resulting trial of the charges; it is frequently but erroneously taken to mean only the removal from office of an accused public official. An impeachment trial may result in either an acquittal or in a verdict of guilty. In the latter case the impeached official is removed from office; if the charges warrant such action, the official is also remanded to the proper authorities for trial before a court
And idiots will vote these fucking criminals back in. You will get what you deserve.
If you’ve only got the vote to right what’s wrong with this country, you are fucked.
It doesn’t matter which bunch of self-selected millionaires, all lackeys to the owners of this country, the 12,400 billionaires, you elect.
You’re just changing which dick you’re sitting on, and how fast your money is going into their pockets.
Has it ever been explained just how they were going to go about tracking these weapons? Is it possible that they had some kind of top secret device embedded into them and they don’t want that information getting out? not defending the operation or this use of executive privilege just wondering why they would be fighting so hard to keep this information buried. Other than self preservation.
Keep dreaming. They wanted to see where the guns ended up as they were found, so they would have an idea who was supplying to whom. At least that’s the story. The other version is they wanted an excuse to argue for gun control.
That doesn’t make any sense and thats the problem I’ve had with that assertion from the beginning. They wanted to see where they ended up as they were found? Thats a big-ass assumption to make that they would ever be found. Ahh but I guess it wouldn’t be without historical precedence for our government to assume when it comes to large operations. The phrase “we’ll be greeted as liberators” comes to mind.
They are not asking for details on Fast and Furious, but rather documents about the reaction to Fast and Furious, which we’ve been told did not go up the chain of command. With the claim of executive privilege, it looks like they were right.
As for executive privilege means guilt, that isn’t necessarily so.
Obama plays the Executive Privilege card for the first now he only needs two more times to catch up with Reagan the hero of the right. 5 more to catch Bush and a whopping 13 more for Clinton
Is Holder worth the political capital lost? I mean he’s no Cheney, Rove but it’s not like he is just a Lewinsky with a soiled dress
Well I guess the military fanboys would respect this not leaving a man behind behavior.
Very true.
Not only that and my real concern …Election season is probably the most dangerous time for America as assaults from the opposing party undermine the ability of the president to respond to threats.
The House is pulling every lever they can to install the wealthy cult leader with offshore tax shelters onto the high office. The sheeple just read the large type fonts and the infotainment channels. It’s gonna get worse.
That Wikipedia article is quite a gem. To quote, “Manuel J. Jauregui of the Reforma newspaper wrote, “In sum, the gringo (American) government has been sending weapons to Mexico in a premeditated and systematic manner, knowing that their destinations were Mexican criminal organizations.””
It did not work for Nixon I don’t think it will work for him either.
Sheila
http://www.survivingsurvivalism.com
Of all the comments, including my own…
McCullough hits the home run.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
um..ok, now can we string up the entire 535 on the hill for treason..?
(along with every lobbyist they came in contact with)
-s
Sounds like you’re arriving at my solution.
I wasn’t asleep, but I’ve been finding lots of “new stuff” on google videos. Right now–time lapse on building houses and stuff. The WWW just gets better and better.
As to Executive Privilege–seems to me if such a privilege is claimed then Congress should invoke the Cone of Silence in some way to judge that claim. IOW–in our system it is Congress that is supposed to be in charge of our goverenment and what we do and don’t do. The executive is there to carry out the will/directon of Congress==how can any privilege thereby be appropriate?
Yes, yes–they are all crooks. Spare Me. Again==I prefer the Dumbos, as they line their own nests, a few crumbs fall out and I get a few services. The Pukes however are so used to hoovering crumbs that none fall out of their pockets, we only get trickle down unavoidable leakage when the Rich are thru urinating on us.
Amusing how the Pukes argue “open mouthed” for the policies of the middle class destroying Puke Party of today. But as long as somebody/anybody is below you on the food chain, it doesn’t matter to all concerned that the chain is being lowered.
Killing people with guns to run drugs is Free Speech. Silly Hoomans.
Ahh Bobbo.
Sitting in his basement watching porn has taken the time to enlighten us with his insane blather.
How some things remain the same.
http://nationalreview.com/corner/303523/executive-privilege-congress-andrew-c-mccarthy
Justice Department was created by Congress. It rebelled. It evolved. There are many copies of documents. And they have a plan to hide them.
Fast and Furious indeed. Not our government, you know it was more like slow and complacent.
So the President asserts that documents he says he’s never seen are vital to national security?
The documents they asked for last were related to how they manged to misinform Congress and not get back until they were called on it something like a year later. I suppose that could be a vital security issue for this President.
That’s nothing.
Obama can go to war in Libya without asking for a declaration of war.
And he can even send Leon Panetta over to the hill to tell the congress that they don’t even need congress to approve any wars if it’s OK with the UN or NATO.
And there’s still no impeachment.
So, I don’t think Obama or Holder is going to sweat not cooperating with a congressional investigation.
In fact, I don’t think they are going to worry that it is as plain as day that they planned to get people killed – just to undermine the 2nd Amendment their oaths of office notwithstanding.
If you think about it, the only thing Caesar had that Obama doesn’t yet is lifetime tenure.
How long do you think he’s going to put up with being the only African president who is not president-for-life?
that’s any president ! and the rest of your statment is crazy talk !
This crap started in 2006 under W. and his clowns. Why has no Bushie been called by Rep. Issa (the criminal)?
Congress wants to cite Holder for contempt. He is in good company, I don’t know anyone who does not hold congress in contempt. This repub congress deserves nothing but contempt.
Sad isn’t it they cannot seem to maintain the standard set by Anthony Weiner.
Fast and Furious leads right up to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. No wonder Obama wants to cover it up.
The documents being requested are from 2011, and are regarding the DOJ’s response to an investigation. Already the DOJ and Eric Holder have been caught in lies, and have withdrawn their Feb 2011 later in December. Congress wants to know who told them to lie.
It’s simple.
The President told them to lie. Hence the Executive Privilege.
Those documents must be toxic. Because this will be a net negative politically for Obama. The media has been covering for him. NBC Nightly News has covered the topic for a total of 10 seconds. New York Times didn’t even report on the meeting or threatened contempt vote today. Now by asserting executive privilege, the media will cover the story more.
Media just keeps covering for the president. Some politically savvy people had no idea why Obama was joking at the media dinner about eating dog. They got all their news from New York Times and other conventional sources.
First they tried to claim it didn’t happen. Then they tried to claim Bush and AG Mukasey knew about it. Both statements have been ‘withdrawn’. Normally when people are caught in perjury they face consequences, but for the big folks it’s a different set of rules.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/holder-retracts-claim-bush-team-knew-about-fast-and-furious/article/2500157
Without glancing over any preceding comments, dare I ask if anyone read, say, Holder’s letter to Issa immediately preceding this vote?
Oh.