Fast & Furious: Mr Obama asserts "Executive Privilege" to keep pertinent documents secret

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
-Barack Hussein Obama, Inauguration, 2009

Mr Obama rolled out Executive Privilege on Wednesday in order to clot and stop the investigation into Fast & Furious, plain and simple. To save the ass of his attorney general, Eric Holder.

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration told a U.S. House panel that the president is asserting executive privilege and refusing to turn over documents sought by lawmakers related to a U.S. law enforcement gun operation.

Mr Obama is not only "disinterested" in discovering the truth involving Fast & Furious, he is purposely obstructing the investigation with his assertion of EP regarding documents.

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
-Barack Hussein Obama, Inauguration, 2009

Mr Obama's having done this may equate to his own "Watergate." Where no one died. But, as you may recall, John Mitchell (Nixon's Attorney General) did go to jail for contempt.

Eric Holder is hiding the facts. Mr Obama is hiding the facts. Purposely. I suggest: what's "good" for Mitchell is "good" for Holder. And on up.

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
-Barack Hussein Obama, Inauguration, 2009

Watergate, where no one died, is opposed to Fast & Furious, where F&F-involved guns killed USBP Agent Brian Terry. And an unknown number of Mexican nationals on their own sovereign soil. That "body count" is yet to be determined.

Because, after all, the DOJ is having such a spectacular time prosecuting horribly serious crimes involving John Edwards and Roger Clemons. Yes?

Let's go back for a moment:

Court records were already sealed by the Obaka Administration in 2011:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

The DEA already laundered cash for Mexican drug cartels post-F&F.

The death and coverups started here.

CBS started coverage here.

July 2010 memo here.

"Tricky case" e-mail here.

And here, Mr Obama himself tells CNN's Larry King that Executive Privilege is an unacceptable reason to shield the facts from Congress.



Oddly enough, Eric Holder himself -- in perfect keeping with Mr Obama's insistence that former President George Bush is responsible for everything -- walked that claim back earlier this month. Perhaps GW Bush was not involved in F&F? Perhaps only Mr Obama and Mr Holder. Amazing that, yes?

In a second major retraction over its version of the the gun-walking scandal, the Justice Department has retracted Attorney General Eric Holder's charge in a hearing last week that his Bush administration predecessor had been briefed on the affair.

House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor released:

Despite being given multiple opportunities to provide the documents necessary for Congress’ investigation into Fast and Furious, Attorney General Holder continues to stonewall. Today, the Administration took the extraordinary step of exerting executive privilege over documents that the Attorney General had already agreed to provide to Congress. Fast and Furious was a reckless operation that led to the death of an American border agent, and the American people deserve to know the facts to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. While we had hoped it would not come to this, unless the Attorney General reevaluates his choice and supplies the promised documents, the House will vote to hold him in contempt next week. If, however, Attorney General Holder produces these documents prior to the scheduled vote, we will give the Oversight Committee an opportunity to review in hopes of resolving this issue.”

CNN writes:

Washington (CNN) -- Voting on strictly partisan lines, a House committee recommended Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder be cited for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to the botched Fast and Furious weapons sting operation.

The vote ended an extraordinary daylong hearing that took place after President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over some documents sought by the panel investigating Fast and Furious.

At the risk of exposing the Department of Redundancy Department:

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
-Barack Hussein Obama, Inauguration, 2009

BZ