Obama team: 'Fast and Furious' documents are privileged

Obama team: 'Fast and Furious' documents are privileged [usatoday.com]

"I write now to inform you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents," writes Deputy Attorney General James Cole. "We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the Committee's concerns and to accommodate the Committee's legitimate oversight interests regarding Operation Fast and Furious."

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TLDR

Congress has been pestering Holder for documents relating to the F&F "scandal" for some time and Holder has refused, forcing congress to potentially hold Holder in contempt for his non-cooperation. Well now Obama has decided that the documents fall under executive privilege. So when you don't want something to be divulged, just claim "executive privilege" and they disappear into a black hole and are untouchable? So much for transparency, etc etc.

I'm a bit confused as to why anyone would think that this would be any different from any other commander in chief in our history. They don't want it divulged, they cover it with exec privs.

Oh boy. Here we go.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

lol, classic.

so much for "the most transparent administration in US history"

Quote : "How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement?" Grassley said in a statement. "How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he's supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme?"

Interesting.

It will be interesting to see public polling on this topic. Will Americans be concerned about the President's actions? Or will this be viewed as solely being political? As badly as the economy is going, the President might be happy for the distraction, anything to talk about other than the economy.

One way or another, this is a brewing scandal.

"Executive Power Grab on F&F Documents"

http://www.commentarymagazine.com...documents/

snippet from Alana Goodman's article:

Quote : ...The Department of Justice and the Obama administration is going to try to defend this as a necessary response to a baldly political witch hunt by House Republicans. But will the public buy that at this point? Not only are there numerous signs of behind-the-scenes shadiness that we already know about — the timing inconsistencies, Holder’s misstatements — there’s also the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent at the top of the story. Is the Obama administration actually going to argue that the family of Agent Brian Terry doesn’t deserve to know the full circumstances surrounding his death? Obama’s assertion of executive privilege turned this from a political back-and-forth between the DOJ and a congressional committee into a full-blown scandal ensnaring the president. What exactly is hiding in those papers that pushed Obama to take this risk?

Quote from hsjpatman : Interesting.

Exceedingly so.

AFAIK, the only way they can invoke executive privilege is if the potus is involved. Otherwise, they're just running interference for their player.

Prediction: roughly 50% of the country won't give a crap about this.

Yes, we've become that polarized.......

It's just a "mini scandal" nothing to see here....

Didn't Obama bash the Bush administration for invoking executive privilege back in 2007? I remember him saying something about invoking executive privilege when things get a little shaky. Hypocrisy at its finest. Yeah yeah I know but but but Bush did it too!

Quote from andyfico : Didn't Obama bash the Bush administration for invoking executive privilege back in 2007? I remember him saying something about invoking executive privilege when things get a little shaky. Hypocrisy at its finest. Yeah yeah I know but but but Bush did it too!

Another reason why we need a Ron Paul in office.

In my eyes this is important because an American was killed. I don't like Obama or Romney, but if Obama wants to keep feeding Romney fuel to the ad bashing fire, maybe Romney will have a chance to help destroy this country. If he does We'll have another Clinton in the white house in 2016

Quote from andyfico : Didn't Obama bash the Bush administration for invoking executive privilege back in 2007? I remember him saying something about invoking executive privilege when things get a little shaky. Hypocrisy at its finest. Yeah yeah I know but but but Bush did it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feat...redirect=1

This might be the video you're looking for.