Executive Obfuscation: Obama Running Cover On Fast and Furious; UPDATE: Contempt It Is
Oxford Dictionaries definition of ‘obfuscate’: make obscure, unclear, or unintelligible
Which is exactly what the public is getting from the self-proclaimed Most Transparent Administration Ever and its efforts today to provide cover for Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempts to bury relevant detail concerning the disastrous gun-running operation that left two Federal officers and more than 300 Mexicans dead in its wake. This from Fox News:
Rep. Darrell Issa pressed ahead with a committee vote Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, despite an 11th-hour move by President Obama to exert executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the dispute.
The announcement instantly touched off a caustic debate on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as Democrats accused Issa of prosecuting a “political witch hunt” and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Holder’s “stonewalling” over the Fast and Furious probe. Even for Washington, the tone at the hearing was decidedly bitter and accusatory.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was first informed of the president’s decision to exert executive privilege in a letter Wednesday morning, shortly before the contempt vote was scheduled.
Issa said committee staff are evaluating the letter but described the move as too little, too late as he and other GOP lawmakers questioned the basis for the assertion.
“This untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings,” Issa said.
Issa accused the Justice Department of trying to compel the committee to close its investigation in exchange for documents it hasn’t yet seen. “I can’t accept that deal. No other committee chairman would,” he said.
Issa says the contempt vote will move forward, and well it should. In point of fact, the application of executive privilege should raise even more questions that demand answers and public accountability. Specifically, exactly how far up the Administration ladder did knowledge and approval of Fast and Furious climb? Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who first began the Fast and Furious investigation, picks up that thread:
“How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? 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? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.
“The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”
Mr. Grassley’s inquiry into Fast and Furious began with allegations by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents who said the government had allowed the transfer of illegally purchased weapons that were found at the scene of the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A.Terry. The agent died during a Dec. 15, 2010, shootout with Mexican bandits just north of the border, south of Tucson.
He said the Justice Department denied the allegations for 10 months before being forced to withdraw its denial in face of evidence to the contrary.
And Grassley isn’t alone with questions that are quickly and rightfully turning into accusations:
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, raised another question after the president invoked the privilege.
“Until now, everyone believed that the decisions regarding ‘Fast and Furious’ were confined to the Department of Justice. The White House decision to invoke executive privilege implies that White House officials were either involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed,” said Boehner’s press secretary Brendan Buck. “The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”
Best guess: both.
UPDATE: With a straight party-line vote, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recommended Attorney General Eric Holder to be held in contempt of Congress for failing to provide documents relevant to the deadly Fast and Furious gun-walking operation. This from CNN:
The committee measure now goes to the full House for consideration, expected next week, of what would be an unprecedented event — Congress holding a sitting attorney general in contempt.
“Unless the attorney general reevaluates his choice and supplies the promised documents, the House will vote to hold him in contempt next week,” said a statement by the chamber’s Republican leaders. “If, however, Attorney General Holder produces these documents prior to the scheduled vote, we will give the (committee) an opportunity to review in hopes of resolving this issue.”
Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, refused to put off consideration of the measure, saying the White House assertion of executive privilege “falls short” of any reason to delay the hearing.
However, Issa said after the hearing that he believes a settlement to avoid an unprecedented contempt vote in the House is “in the best interest of the Justice Department, Congress, and those most directly affected by Operation Fast and Furious.”
In a statement later Wednesday, Holder called Issa’s decision to hold the vote “an election-year tactic” and “an extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary action, intended to provoke an avoidable conflict between Congress and the executive branch.”
Holder, of course, has it completely backward. Issa and other ranking Republicans have made it clear they wanted to avoid a contempt showdown and would have been perfectly willing to do so, if only Holder had produced the documents being requested. The “entirely unnecessary action” became wholly necessary when Holder not only refused, but also ran to his boss for executive privilege cover.
Where does this all head, should the full House adopt the committee recommendation for contempt? CQ lays out three possible tracts:
One option, considered extremely unlikely, would allow House leaders to order the sergeant at arms to arrest and imprison Holder until he complies with the chamber’s requests for information about the “Fast and Furious” operation…
Another option … would be to ask the Justice Department to prosecute its own attorney general. Under an 1857 statute that Issa has invoked in a draft contempt citation he has circulated in his committee, Holder would be subject to a misdemeanor prosecution, a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to 12 months. The Justice Department, however, is unlikely to agree to prosecute its leader.
The third path is the likeliest, but some Republicans will undoubtedly find it deficient. It would allow the House to file a civil lawsuit to compel Holder to turn over information related to the Fast and Furious operation, in which the Justice Department allowed guns to be trafficked into Mexico in order to trace them to Mexican drug cartels.
Holder, however, could claim executive privilege, and it would then be up to the court to decide whether that claim is valid in the context of the gun-smuggling operation.
Mark Levin charts a similar course:
The right way to proceed is to hold Holder in contempt by resolution of the House and seek authorization from the House for the Committee, by its Chairman, to proceed by civil action to compel production of the documents. (Holder will not enforce a holding of contempt against himself — and by the way, he should have authorized, say, the assistant attorney general for legal counsel, to handle the contempt matter once the House voted as at that point he is representing his own interests and not those of the nation generally). Chairman Issa should file suit in federal court in DC and seek expedited action. There is no need for Senate action. The use of this procedure has been acknowledged by the Congressional Research Service in a 2007 study. Further, a privilege log should be sought by Issa and ordered produced immediately by the court, in camera inspection done promptly by the judge, and a final order entered compelling production of all documents for which no legitimate reason justifies Executive Privilege.
Yes, some documents may be covered by EP, but the blanket attachment of that label flouts the law and the Constitution, and harms the legitimate assertion of EP by Presidents of either party in the future. The Constitution is far too important to be subject to the caprice of this President and an AG who, on its face, wants to be free from scrutiny about why he testified falsely before a Committee of Congress.
All and any of this could still be easily avoided, providing Holder would agree to come clean with the relevant details of Fast and Furious. That, of course, would entail acknowledging and telling the truth, something with which both the attorney general and his boss seem to have difficulty.
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