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Fast and Furious was the Justice Departments gun-running operation that allowed about 2,000 guns to flow into Mexico under federal supervision before authorities lost control of the guns. The operation began in the fall of 2009 and was halted in December 2010 after two of the guns from the operation were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona. The Justice Department first told Congress that the department did not sanction gunwalking, but later admitted that was not accurate. After more than a year of failing to provide documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a bipartisan House vote that included 17 Democrats voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress.
At one point during the oversight committees investigation, President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to prevent Congress from receiving documents. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Mar. 6, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked if the White House was involved in Fast and Furious, to which Holder answered no. You asserted executive privilege against handing over documents concerning Fast and Furious, Cruz followed. Now, executive privilege, the Supreme Court has made clear, protects communications and advice with the president. If the White House was not involved, executive privilege does not apply to those documents. If executive privilege applies to those documents, it necessarily implies that the White House and the president was personally involved. So which of the two is it, general?
Holder said the White House and Justice Department did not communicate on the matter until after it was under congressional investigation and no longer operating. Youre cutting too fine a line, Holder told Cruz. The president, the White House was not involved in the operational component of Fast and Furious. Certainly, interactions, conversations between the Justice Department and the White House about the operation after all of the operative facts had occurred, after all of the controversial actions had been taken. Then we got into the situation where we were talking about the congressional investigation of Fast and Furious. There were communications between the White House and the Justice Department.
Cruz followed, Is it your position that executive privilege only applies after the details of Fast and Furious became public and subsequent communications? But there is no executive privilege before it becoming public because as you said, just a minute ago, the White House was not involved in any way, shape or form with Fast and Furious. Holder concurred, Executive privilege protects communications between the White House and the executive branch agency. To my knowledge, there are no communications that deal with operational components of Fast and Furious between the White House and the Justice Department.
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