Wait a minute: The guns in Fast and Furious didn't originate from the government?

[Google]

That's it, from now on I am going to post news clips and actual videos of the congressional investigation--because i am absolutely done with repeating the facts of this case.

 

[Darkwind]

Those liberals in this debate really should consider the 'cut and run' strategy.

The evidence is overwhelming that F&F was a program started under the Obama DOJ, ran by the Obama DOJ, and the wrongful deaths of hundreds of Mexcians and a border agent are at the feet of Eric Holder.

The only real question is how criminal will it be to obstruct the legitimate oversight of the Executive branch by the Congress?

 

[Sallow]

Holy shit.

All they were doing..it seems, was MONITORING gun sales.

It wasn't even like Wide Reciever..where the ATF actually had the guns to begin with.



So basically..they just watched the sales..went to prosecutors in Arizona to arrest these folks..and the prosecutors refused.

THAT'S THE BIG SCANDAL?

Well it is, sorta, because it's the gun nuts that kept the ATF from stopping the gun walking.

Congratulations, you have proven what I have said all along--you are completely ignorant.

Still trying to figure out if she's a partisan bigot or a bigoted partisan.

Another fag?

Can't tell the difference between men and women?

Cause men are women and women are men?

You fucks are freaks.

 

[Google]

Congratulations, you have proven what I have said all along--you are completely ignorant.

Still trying to figure out if she's a partisan bigot or a bigoted partisan.

Another fag?

Can't tell the difference between men and women?

Cause men are women and women are men?

You fucks are freaks.

You are a classless, ignorant, bigot, piece of human excrement--your posts demonstrates that very well.

 

[The Infidel]

If those documents have bearing on cases that are on-going? Or have information in them that might be important to national security?

Heck yeah.

In fact..the President and Holder would violate the law..if those sorts of Documents were released.

Read this and then say that....

The POTUS can not use E/P unless he is DIRECTLY involved, or he/she is hiding something... thats the law buddy.
"It seems", as you like to say, that you sir do not know what you are talking about.


June 25, 2012

The President
The White HouseWashington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

On June 19, 2012, shortly after leaving a meeting in the U.S. Capitol, Attorney GeneralEric Holder wrote to request that you assert executive privilege with respect to Operation Fastand Furious documents he is withholding from this Committee. The next day, Deputy AttorneyGeneral James Cole notified me in a letter that you had invoked executive privilege. The Committee received both letters minutes before the scheduled start of a vote to recommend thatthe full House hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with its subpoena. Courts have consistently held that the assertion of the constitutionally-based executive privilege — the only privilege that ever can justify the withholding of documents from a congressional committee by the Executive Branch — is only applicable with respect to documents and communications that implicate the confidentiality of the President’s decision-making process, defined as those documents and communications to and from the President and his most senior advisors. Even then, it is a qualified privilege that is overcome by a showing of the committee’s need for the documents. The letters from Messrs. Holder and Cole cited no caselaw to the contrary. Accordingly, your privilege assertion means one of two things. 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. To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case.

As you know, the Committee voted to recommend that the full House hold AttorneyGeneral Holder in contempt of Congress for his continued refusal to produce relevant documentsin the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. Last week’s proceeding would not haveoccurred had the Attorney General actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said hecould provide. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the contempt resolutionthis week. I remain hopeful that the Attorney General will produce the specified documents sothat we can work towards resolving this matter short of a contempt citation. Furthermore, I amhopeful that, consistent with assertions of executive privilege by previous Administrations, youwill define the universe of documents over which you asserted executive privilege and providethe Committee with the legal justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel(OLC).

Background

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a firefight with a group of armedMexican bandits who preyed on illegal immigrants in a canyon west of Rio Rico, Arizona onDecember 14, 2010. Two guns traced to Operation Fast and Furious were found at the murder scene. The Terry family appeared before the Committee on June 15, 2011, to ask for answersabout the program that put guns in the hands of the men who killed their son and brother.Having been stonewalled for months by the Attorney General and his senior staff, the Committeeissued a subpoena for documents that would provide the Terry family the answers they seek.The subpoena was served on October 12, 2011.

Internally, over the course of the next eight months, the Justice Department identified140,000 pages of documents and communications responsive to the Committee’s subpoena. Yet,the Department handed over only 7,600 of these pages. Through a series of accommodationsand in recognition of certain Executive Branch and law enforcement prerogatives, the Committee prioritized key documents the Department needed to produce to avoid contempt proceedings.These key documents would help the Committee understand how and why the JusticeDepartment moved from denying whistleblower allegations to understanding they were true; theidentities of officials who attempted to retaliate against whistleblowers; the reactions of senior Department officials when confronted with evidence of gunwalking during Fast and Furious,including whether they were surprised or already aware of the use of this reckless tactic, and;whether senior Department officials are being held to the same standard as lower-levelemployees who have been blamed for Fast and Furious by their politically-appointed bosses inWashington.

I met with Attorney General Holder on June 19, 2012, to attempt to resolve this matter inadvance of the Committee’s scheduled contempt vote. We were joined by Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley, respectively the Chairmanand Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The Department had previouslyidentified a small subset of documents created after February 4, 2011 — the date of its letter containing the false claim that no gunwalking had occurred — that it would make available tothe Committee. The Justice Department described this small subset as a “fair compilation” of thefull universe of post-February 4th documents responsive to the subpoena

During the June 19th meeting, the Attorney General stated he wanted to “buy peace.” Heindicated a willingness to produce the “fair compilation” of post-February 4th documents. Hetold me that he would provide the “fair compilation” of documents on three conditions: (1) that I permanently cancel the contempt vote; (2) that I agree the Department was in full compliancewith the Committee’s subpoenas, and; (3) that I accept the “fair compilation,” sight unseen.

As Chairman of the primary investigative Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, I considered the Attorney General’s conditions unacceptable, as would have my predecessors from both sides of the aisle. I simply requested that the Department produce the“fair compilation” in advance of the contempt vote, with the understanding that I would postponethe vote to allow the Committee to review the documents.

The short meeting in the Capitol lasted about twenty minutes. The Attorney General leftthe meeting and, shortly thereafter, sent an eight-page letter containing more than forty citationsrequesting that you assert executive privilege. The following morning, the Deputy AttorneyGeneral informed me that you had taken the extraordinary step of asserting the privilege that isdesigned to protect presidential decision making.

In his letter, the Attorney General stated that releasing the documents covered by thesubpoena, some of which he offered to the Committee hours earlier, would have “significant,damaging consequences.”

It remains unclear how — in a matter of hours — the AttorneyGeneral moved from offering those documents in exchange for canceling the contempt vote andending the congressional investigation to claiming that they are covered by executive privilegeand that releasing them — which the Attorney General was prepared to do hours earlier — would now result in “significant, damaging consequences.”

The Scope of Executive Privilege

Deputy Attorney General Cole’s representation that “the President has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents” raised concerns that there wasgreater White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious than previously thought Thecourts have never considered executive privilege to extend to internal Executive Branchdeliberative documents.

Absent from the Attorney General’s eight-page letter were the controlling authoritiesfrom the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As the court held in the seminalcase of In re Sealed Case (Espy):

The privilege should not extend to staff outside the White House inexecutive branch agencies. Instead, the privilege should apply only tocommunications authored or solicited and received by those members of an immediate White House adviser’s staff who have broad and significantresponsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given thePresident on the particular matter to which the communications relate.

The D.C. Circuit established the “operational proximity test” to determine whichcommunications are subject to privilege.
Espy made clear that it is “operational proximity to thePresident that matters in determining whether the president’s confidentiality interest isimplicated.”

In addition, even if the presidential communications privilege did apply to some of thesesubpoenaed documents, Espy made clear that “the presidential communications privilege is, at alltimes, a qualified one,” and that a showing of need could overcome it. Such a need — indeed acompelling one — plainly exists in this case.

The Justice Department has steadfastly maintained that the documents sought by theCommittee do not implicate the White House whatsoever. If true, they are at best deliberativedocuments between and among Department personnel who lack the requisite “operational proximity” to the President. As such, they cannot be withheld pursuant to the constitutionally- based executive privilege. Courts distinguish between the presidential communications privilegeand the deliberative process privilege. Both, the Espy court observed, are executive privilegesdesigned to protect the confidentiality of Executive Branch decision-making. The deliberative- process privilege, however, which applies to executive branch officials generally, is a commonlaw privilege that requires a lower threshold of need to be overcome, and “disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct has occurred.”

The Committee must assume that the White House Counsel’s Office is fully aware of the prevailing authorities of Espy discussed above, and Judicial Watch v. Dep’t of Justice If theinvocation of executive privilege was proper, it calls into question a number of public statementsabout the involvement of the White House made by you, your staff, and the Attorney General.

Finally, the Attorney General’s letter to you cited numerous authorities from prior Administrations of both parties. It is important to note that the OLC opinions provided asauthorities to justify expansive views of executive privilege are inconsistent with existing caselaw.

Remarks about White House Involvement in Fast and Furious

For the past sixteen months, Senator Grassley and I have been investigating OperationFast and Furious. In response to a question about the operation during an interview withUnivision on March 22, 2011, you stated that, “Well first of all, I did not authorize it. EricHolder, the Attorney General, did not authorize it.” You also stated that you were “absolutelynot” informed about Operation Fast and Furious. Later in the interview, you said that “theremay be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made and if that’s the case then we’ll findout and we’ll hold somebody accountable.”

From the early stages of the investigation, the White House has maintained that no WhiteHouse personnel knew anything about Operation Fast and Furious. Your assertion of executive privilege, however, renews questions about White House involvement.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney emphasized your denial that you knew aboutFast and Furious. Mr. Carney stated, “I can tell you that, as the president has already said, he didnot know about or authorize this operation.” A few weeks later, Mr. Carney reiterated the point, stating, “I think he made clear . . . during the Mexican state visit and the press conferencehe had then that he found out about this through news reports. And he takes it very seriously.”

In an October 6, 2011 news conference, you maintained that Attorney General Holder “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious.” Regarding your own awareness, you went on to state, “Certainly I was not. And I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that couldhave been prevented by the United States of America.”

On March 28, 2012, Senator Grassley and I wrote to Kathryn Ruemmler, who serves asyour Counsel, to request that she grant our numerous requests to interview Kevin O’Reilly, amember of the White House National Security Staff. We needed Mr. O’Reilly’s testimony toascertain the extent of White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. In her response,Ms. Ruemmler advised us that the e-mail communications between Mr. O’Reilly and William Newell, the Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division, did not reveal “theexistence of any of the inappropriate investigative tactics at issue in your inquiry, let alone anydecision to allow guns to ‘walk.’” She further emphasized “the absence of any evidence thatsuggests that Mr. O’Reilly had any involvement in ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ or was aware of the existence of any inappropriate investigative tactics.”Your assertion of executive privilegerenews concerns about these denials.

Earlier this month, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith asked theAttorney General when the Justice Department first informed the White House about thequestionable tactics used in Fast and Furious, he responded, “I don’t know.” He informedChairman Smith that his focus was on “dealing with the problems associated with Fast andFurious,” and that he was “not awfully concerned about what the knowledge was in the WhiteHouse.”

Attorney General Holder has assured the public that he takes this matter very seriously,stating that “to the extent we find that mistakes occurred, people will be held accountable.” Yet, he has described the Committee’s vote as “an election-year tactic.” Nothing could befurther from the truth. This statement not only betrays a total lack of understanding of our investigation, it exemplifies the stonewalling we have consistently faced in attempting to work with the Justice Department. If the Attorney General had produced the responsive documentsmore than eight months ago when they were due, or at any time since then, we would not bewhere we are today.

Moving Forward

At the heart of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious aredisastrous consequences: a murdered Border Patrol Agent, his grieving family, countless deathsin Mexico, and the souring effect on our relationship with Mexico. Members of the Committeefrom both sides of the aisle agree that the Terry family deserves answers. So, too, do AgentTerry’s brothers-in-arms in the border patrol, the Mexican government, and the American people. Unfortunately, your assertion of executive privilege raises more questions than itanswers. The Attorney General’s conditional offer of a “fair compilation” of a subset of documents covered by the subpoena, and your assertion of executive privilege, in no waysubstitute for the fact that the Justice Department is still grossly deficient in its compliance withthe Committee’s subpoena. By the Department’s own admission, it has withheld more than130,000 pages of responsive documents

I still believe that a settlement, rendering further contempt of Congress proceedingsunnecessary, is in the best interests of the Justice Department, Congress, and those most directlyaffected by Operation Fast and Furious. In light of the settled law that confines theconstitutionally-based executive privilege to high-level White House communications, I urge you to reconsider the decision to withhold documents that would allow Congress to complete itsinvestigation

In the meantime, so that the Committee and the public can better understand your role,and the role of your most senior advisors, in connection with Operation Fast and Furious, pleaseclarify the question raised by your assertion of executive privilege: To what extent were you or your most senior advisors involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it,including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee?Please also identify any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the WhiteHouse and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011 and June 18, 2012, the day beforethe Attorney General requested that you assert executive privilege.

I appreciate your prompt attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,
Darrell IssaChairman

 

[Google]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEpMm5r6i0U&feature=related]Issa Throws Down and Owns Holder Over Fast and Furious Emails Dec 8th 2011 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sallow]

The Fortune magazine article is based on Ms. Eban's opinion. Hardly anyone in the administration denies the allegations that the ATF allowed the guns to be shipped to Mexico. As a matter of fact even Obama spokespeople and democrats acknowledge that the program was a complete and abject failure and some ATF agents were fired. The question remains why the A.G. refuses to comply with the congressional subpoena as he is required to by law.

1. Because there are "other" ongoing investigations.

2. President Obama invoked Executive Privilege (as Bush did SIX times).

Ongoing investigations is not an excuse to not provide documents to a Congressional investigation.

Oh really?

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:


The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Executive privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[The Infidel]

The Fortune magazine article is based on Ms. Eban's opinion. Hardly anyone in the administration denies the allegations that the ATF allowed the guns to be shipped to Mexico. As a matter of fact even Obama spokespeople and democrats acknowledge that the program was a complete and abject failure and some ATF agents were fired. The question remains why the A.G. refuses to comply with the congressional subpoena as he is required to by law.

1. Because there are "other" ongoing investigations.

2. President Obama invoked Executive Privilege (as Bush did SIX times).

Ongoing investigations is not an excuse to not provide documents to a Congressional investigation.

It sure isn't.

 

[Google]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBIWSyoe6vA]How Did Obama Know About 'Fast And Furious' Before Holder? - YouTube[/ame]

 

[tinydancer]

Holy shit.

All they were doing..it seems, was MONITORING gun sales.

It wasn't even like Wide Reciever..where the ATF actually had the guns to begin with.

“There was no effort to get more guns to the straw purchasers,” Eban said in an interview with host Al Sharpton, summarizing her findings. “The ATF agents in question did everything that they could to seize guns, and basically prosecutors determined that they didn’t have grounds under the laws as written to seize most of the guns that wound up flowing ultimately to criminals; that is a far cry from guns being walked.”
Fortune report complicates Fast and Furious story. Writer: 'There was no effort to get more guns to the straw purchasers' - Lean Forward

So basically..they just watched the sales..went to prosecutors in Arizona to arrest these folks..and the prosecutors refused.

THAT'S THE BIG SCANDAL?

Well it is, sorta, because it's the gun nuts that kept the ATF from stopping the gun walking.

Oh for crying out loud, you liberals are really beginning to look as desperate and as pathetic as the administration.

Just keep believing that the ATF and the DOJ are vestal freaking virgins and pure as the driven fucking snow.

How crazy are you folks? Well I guess super freaking crazy when you put up a link to Al Sharpton's show. That's like a black equivalent of Prison Planet for heavens sake.

What next? Links to Calypso Louie?

Sheesh. From CBS's investigation.

n late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic "weapons of choice" used by Mexican drug traffickers - semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols.

Sources tell CBS News several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but ATF encouraged them to continue.

Jaime Avila was one of the suspicious buyers. ATF put him in its suspect database in January of 2010. For the next year, ATF watched as Avila and other suspects bought huge quantities of weapons supposedly for "personal use." They included 575 AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles.

ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it's a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, "walk."

One agent called the strategy "insane." Another said: "We were fully aware the guns would probably be moved across the border to drug cartels where they could be used to kill."

On the phone, one Project Gunrunner source (who didn't want to be identified) told us just how many guns flooded the black market under ATF's watchful eye. "The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That's how many guns were sold - including some 50-calibers they let walk."

50-caliber weapons are fearsome. For months, ATF agents followed 50-caliber Barrett rifles and other guns believed headed for the Mexican border, but were ordered to let them go. One distraught agent was often overheard on ATF radios begging and pleading to be allowed to intercept transports.

The answer: "Negative. Stand down."

CBS News has been told at least 11 ATF agents and senior managers voiced fierce opposition to the strategy. "It got ugly..." said one. There was "screaming and yelling" says another. A third warned: "this is crazy, somebody is gonna to get killed."

Sure enough, the weapons soon began surfacing at crime scenes in Mexico - dozens of them sources say - including shootouts with government officials.

One agent argued with a superior asking, "are you prepared to go to the funeral of a federal officer killed with one of these guns?" Another said every time there was a shooting near the border, "we would all hold our breath hoping it wasn't one of 'our' guns."

Then, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. The serial numbers on the two assault rifles found at the scene matched two rifles ATF watched Jaime Avila buy in Phoenix nearly a year before.

Officials won't answer whether the bullet that killed Terry came from one of those rifles. But the nightmare had come true: "walked" guns turned up at a federal agent's murder.

"You feel like s***. You feel for the parents," one ATF veteran told us.

Gunrunning scandal uncovered at the ATF - CBS News

Yeah right. The ATF didn't do anything wrong. Every one is pure as the driven snow. The DOJ didn't do anything wrong. Holder is nothing short of an angel. He's been so co operative and hasn't been caught out in any lies.

 

[Sallow]

Still trying to figure out if she's a partisan bigot or a bigoted partisan.

Another fag?

Can't tell the difference between men and women?

Cause men are women and women are men?

You fucks are freaks.

You are a classless, ignorant, bigot, piece of human excrement--your posts demonstrates that very well.

Oh go fuck yourself, asswipe.

And learn to stick with your own battles you cowardly piece of dog shit.

 

[Google]

1. Because there are "other" ongoing investigations.

2. President Obama invoked Executive Privilege (as Bush did SIX times).

Ongoing investigations is not an excuse to not provide documents to a Congressional investigation.

Oh really?

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:


The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Executive privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

REALLY

You haven't a clue.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obama Stimulus didn't fail + Fast & Furious never happened = Libs have lost

 

[Google]

Another fag?

Can't tell the difference between men and women?

Cause men are women and women are men?

You fucks are freaks.

You are a classless, ignorant, bigot, piece of human excrement--your posts demonstrates that very well.

Oh go fuck yourself, asswipe.

And learn to stick with your own battles you cowardly piece of dog shit.

Once again, your posts demonstrates that very well

 

[buckeye45_73]

1. Because there are "other" ongoing investigations.

2. President Obama invoked Executive Privilege (as Bush did SIX times).

Ongoing investigations is not an excuse to not provide documents to a Congressional investigation.

Oh really?

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:


The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Executive privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again that is the US Attourney issue. When did it become a crime to fire political appointees? I must have missed that.

 

[The Infidel]

[

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:


The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Executive privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the same as asking your superior "permission to speak freely sir".
And the POTUS is directly involved.... was Obama involved or not???


Read it Sallow... you are wrong man.

 

[Google]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBIWSyoe6vA]How Did Obama Know About 'Fast And Furious' Before Holder? - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Google]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zus2lnej1xw]Congress Cuts Funding for Obama Justice Dept for Stonewalling Fast and Furious Investigation - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sallow]

Ongoing investigations is not an excuse to not provide documents to a Congressional investigation.

Oh really?

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:


The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Executive privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

REALLY

You haven't a clue.

No..it's you..that hasn't got a clue.

You're fucking wrong.

As usual.

 

[The Infidel]

If those documents have bearing on cases that are on-going? Or have information in them that might be important to national security?

Heck yeah.

In fact..the President and Holder would violate the law..if those sorts of Documents were released.

Read this and then say that....

The POTUS can not use E/P unless he is DIRECTLY involved, or he/she is hiding something... thats the law buddy.
"It seems", as you like to say, that you sir do not know what you are talking about.


June 25, 2012

The President
The White HouseWashington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

On June 19, 2012, shortly after leaving a meeting in the U.S. Capitol, Attorney GeneralEric Holder wrote to request that you assert executive privilege with respect to Operation Fastand Furious documents he is withholding from this Committee. The next day, Deputy AttorneyGeneral James Cole notified me in a letter that you had invoked executive privilege. The Committee received both letters minutes before the scheduled start of a vote to recommend thatthe full House hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with its subpoena. Courts have consistently held that the assertion of the constitutionally-based executive privilege — the only privilege that ever can justify the withholding of documents from a congressional committee by the Executive Branch — is only applicable with respect to documents and communications that implicate the confidentiality of the President’s decision-making process, defined as those documents and communications to and from the President and his most senior advisors. Even then, it is a qualified privilege that is overcome by a showing of the committee’s need for the documents. The letters from Messrs. Holder and Cole cited no caselaw to the contrary. Accordingly, your privilege assertion means one of two things. 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. To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case.

As you know, the Committee voted to recommend that the full House hold AttorneyGeneral Holder in contempt of Congress for his continued refusal to produce relevant documentsin the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. Last week’s proceeding would not haveoccurred had the Attorney General actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said hecould provide. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the contempt resolutionthis week. I remain hopeful that the Attorney General will produce the specified documents sothat we can work towards resolving this matter short of a contempt citation. Furthermore, I amhopeful that, consistent with assertions of executive privilege by previous Administrations, youwill define the universe of documents over which you asserted executive privilege and providethe Committee with the legal justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel(OLC).

Background

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a firefight with a group of armedMexican bandits who preyed on illegal immigrants in a canyon west of Rio Rico, Arizona onDecember 14, 2010. Two guns traced to Operation Fast and Furious were found at the murder scene. The Terry family appeared before the Committee on June 15, 2011, to ask for answersabout the program that put guns in the hands of the men who killed their son and brother.Having been stonewalled for months by the Attorney General and his senior staff, the Committeeissued a subpoena for documents that would provide the Terry family the answers they seek.The subpoena was served on October 12, 2011.

Internally, over the course of the next eight months, the Justice Department identified140,000 pages of documents and communications responsive to the Committee’s subpoena. Yet,the Department handed over only 7,600 of these pages. Through a series of accommodationsand in recognition of certain Executive Branch and law enforcement prerogatives, the Committee prioritized key documents the Department needed to produce to avoid contempt proceedings.These key documents would help the Committee understand how and why the JusticeDepartment moved from denying whistleblower allegations to understanding they were true; theidentities of officials who attempted to retaliate against whistleblowers; the reactions of senior Department officials when confronted with evidence of gunwalking during Fast and Furious,including whether they were surprised or already aware of the use of this reckless tactic, and;whether senior Department officials are being held to the same standard as lower-levelemployees who have been blamed for Fast and Furious by their politically-appointed bosses inWashington.

I met with Attorney General Holder on June 19, 2012, to attempt to resolve this matter inadvance of the Committee’s scheduled contempt vote. We were joined by Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley, respectively the Chairmanand Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The Department had previouslyidentified a small subset of documents created after February 4, 2011 — the date of its letter containing the false claim that no gunwalking had occurred — that it would make available tothe Committee. The Justice Department described this small subset as a “fair compilation” of thefull universe of post-February 4th documents responsive to the subpoena

During the June 19th meeting, the Attorney General stated he wanted to “buy peace.” Heindicated a willingness to produce the “fair compilation” of post-February 4th documents. Hetold me that he would provide the “fair compilation” of documents on three conditions: (1) that I permanently cancel the contempt vote; (2) that I agree the Department was in full compliancewith the Committee’s subpoenas, and; (3) that I accept the “fair compilation,” sight unseen.

As Chairman of the primary investigative Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, I considered the Attorney General’s conditions unacceptable, as would have my predecessors from both sides of the aisle. I simply requested that the Department produce the“fair compilation” in advance of the contempt vote, with the understanding that I would postponethe vote to allow the Committee to review the documents.

The short meeting in the Capitol lasted about twenty minutes. The Attorney General leftthe meeting and, shortly thereafter, sent an eight-page letter containing more than forty citationsrequesting that you assert executive privilege. The following morning, the Deputy AttorneyGeneral informed me that you had taken the extraordinary step of asserting the privilege that isdesigned to protect presidential decision making.

In his letter, the Attorney General stated that releasing the documents covered by thesubpoena, some of which he offered to the Committee hours earlier, would have “significant,damaging consequences.”

It remains unclear how — in a matter of hours — the AttorneyGeneral moved from offering those documents in exchange for canceling the contempt vote andending the congressional investigation to claiming that they are covered by executive privilegeand that releasing them — which the Attorney General was prepared to do hours earlier — would now result in “significant, damaging consequences.”

The Scope of Executive Privilege

Deputy Attorney General Cole’s representation that “the President has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents” raised concerns that there wasgreater White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious than previously thought Thecourts have never considered executive privilege to extend to internal Executive Branchdeliberative documents.

Absent from the Attorney General’s eight-page letter were the controlling authoritiesfrom the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As the court held in the seminalcase of In re Sealed Case (Espy):

The privilege should not extend to staff outside the White House inexecutive branch agencies. Instead, the privilege should apply only tocommunications authored or solicited and received by those members of an immediate White House adviser’s staff who have broad and significantresponsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given thePresident on the particular matter to which the communications relate.

The D.C. Circuit established the “operational proximity test” to determine whichcommunications are subject to privilege.
Espy made clear that it is “operational proximity to thePresident that matters in determining whether the president’s confidentiality interest isimplicated.”

In addition, even if the presidential communications privilege did apply to some of thesesubpoenaed documents, Espy made clear that “the presidential communications privilege is, at alltimes, a qualified one,” and that a showing of need could overcome it. Such a need — indeed acompelling one — plainly exists in this case.

The Justice Department has steadfastly maintained that the documents sought by theCommittee do not implicate the White House whatsoever. If true, they are at best deliberativedocuments between and among Department personnel who lack the requisite “operational proximity” to the President. As such, they cannot be withheld pursuant to the constitutionally- based executive privilege. Courts distinguish between the presidential communications privilegeand the deliberative process privilege. Both, the Espy court observed, are executive privilegesdesigned to protect the confidentiality of Executive Branch decision-making. The deliberative- process privilege, however, which applies to executive branch officials generally, is a commonlaw privilege that requires a lower threshold of need to be overcome, and “disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct has occurred.”

The Committee must assume that the White House Counsel’s Office is fully aware of the prevailing authorities of Espy discussed above, and Judicial Watch v. Dep’t of Justice If theinvocation of executive privilege was proper, it calls into question a number of public statementsabout the involvement of the White House made by you, your staff, and the Attorney General.

Finally, the Attorney General’s letter to you cited numerous authorities from prior Administrations of both parties. It is important to note that the OLC opinions provided asauthorities to justify expansive views of executive privilege are inconsistent with existing caselaw.

Remarks about White House Involvement in Fast and Furious

For the past sixteen months, Senator Grassley and I have been investigating OperationFast and Furious. In response to a question about the operation during an interview withUnivision on March 22, 2011, you stated that, “Well first of all, I did not authorize it. EricHolder, the Attorney General, did not authorize it.” You also stated that you were “absolutelynot” informed about Operation Fast and Furious. Later in the interview, you said that “theremay be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made and if that’s the case then we’ll findout and we’ll hold somebody accountable.”

From the early stages of the investigation, the White House has maintained that no WhiteHouse personnel knew anything about Operation Fast and Furious. Your assertion of executive privilege, however, renews questions about White House involvement.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney emphasized your denial that you knew aboutFast and Furious. Mr. Carney stated, “I can tell you that, as the president has already said, he didnot know about or authorize this operation.” A few weeks later, Mr. Carney reiterated the point, stating, “I think he made clear . . . during the Mexican state visit and the press conferencehe had then that he found out about this through news reports. And he takes it very seriously.”

In an October 6, 2011 news conference, you maintained that Attorney General Holder “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious.” Regarding your own awareness, you went on to state, “Certainly I was not. And I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that couldhave been prevented by the United States of America.”

On March 28, 2012, Senator Grassley and I wrote to Kathryn Ruemmler, who serves asyour Counsel, to request that she grant our numerous requests to interview Kevin O’Reilly, amember of the White House National Security Staff. We needed Mr. O’Reilly’s testimony toascertain the extent of White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. In her response,Ms. Ruemmler advised us that the e-mail communications between Mr. O’Reilly and William Newell, the Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division, did not reveal “theexistence of any of the inappropriate investigative tactics at issue in your inquiry, let alone anydecision to allow guns to ‘walk.’” She further emphasized “the absence of any evidence thatsuggests that Mr. O’Reilly had any involvement in ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ or was aware of the existence of any inappropriate investigative tactics.”Your assertion of executive privilegerenews concerns about these denials.

Earlier this month, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith asked theAttorney General when the Justice Department first informed the White House about thequestionable tactics used in Fast and Furious, he responded, “I don’t know.” He informedChairman Smith that his focus was on “dealing with the problems associated with Fast andFurious,” and that he was “not awfully concerned about what the knowledge was in the WhiteHouse.”

Attorney General Holder has assured the public that he takes this matter very seriously,stating that “to the extent we find that mistakes occurred, people will be held accountable.” Yet, he has described the Committee’s vote as “an election-year tactic.” Nothing could befurther from the truth. This statement not only betrays a total lack of understanding of our investigation, it exemplifies the stonewalling we have consistently faced in attempting to work with the Justice Department. If the Attorney General had produced the responsive documentsmore than eight months ago when they were due, or at any time since then, we would not bewhere we are today.

Moving Forward

At the heart of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious aredisastrous consequences: a murdered Border Patrol Agent, his grieving family, countless deathsin Mexico, and the souring effect on our relationship with Mexico. Members of the Committeefrom both sides of the aisle agree that the Terry family deserves answers. So, too, do AgentTerry’s brothers-in-arms in the border patrol, the Mexican government, and the American people. Unfortunately, your assertion of executive privilege raises more questions than itanswers. The Attorney General’s conditional offer of a “fair compilation” of a subset of documents covered by the subpoena, and your assertion of executive privilege, in no waysubstitute for the fact that the Justice Department is still grossly deficient in its compliance withthe Committee’s subpoena. By the Department’s own admission, it has withheld more than130,000 pages of responsive documents

I still believe that a settlement, rendering further contempt of Congress proceedingsunnecessary, is in the best interests of the Justice Department, Congress, and those most directlyaffected by Operation Fast and Furious. In light of the settled law that confines theconstitutionally-based executive privilege to high-level White House communications, I urge you to reconsider the decision to withhold documents that would allow Congress to complete itsinvestigation

In the meantime, so that the Committee and the public can better understand your role,and the role of your most senior advisors, in connection with Operation Fast and Furious, pleaseclarify the question raised by your assertion of executive privilege: To what extent were you or your most senior advisors involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it,including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee?Please also identify any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the WhiteHouse and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011 and June 18, 2012, the day beforethe Attorney General requested that you assert executive privilege.

I appreciate your prompt attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,
Darrell IssaChairman

Rep. Issa Letter to Obama Re: Executive Privilege