Oh, boy. President Obama is invoking executive privilege to avoid handing over documents related to Fast and Furious, and a House panel has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
A Republican-run House committee voted today to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt after President Obama asserted executive privilege over documents in the “Fast and Furious” operation.
Holder’s Justice Department requested that Obama claim the privilege and withhold documents concerning the botched gun-smuggling operation and the death of a U.S. border agent.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted along party lines for the contempt citation, after a full day of sniping between folks on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
The “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 Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer shot back that House Republicans are on a “politically motivated, taxpayer-funded, election-year fishing expedition.”
Pfeiffer said Republicans should concentrate instead on extending federal funding for transportation projects and student loans.
I seem to recall another president who used executive privilege to perpetuate a cover-up. I don’t think Obama’s attempt will work any better.
Just after Obama became president his more enthusiastic supporters compared him to such presidents as Roosevelt and Kennedy, even Lincoln. More recently, Obama’s detractors have taken to comparing him to Carter and Nixon. I think he is worse than either of them. Nixon may have been corrupt, but at least he was an effective president. Carter may have been incompetent, but at least he was honest. With Obama we are getting the worst of both worlds, a president both corrupt and incompetent. And, of course, nobody was killed as a result of the Watergate scandal.
Related articles
- Contempt vote on after Holder stiff-arms Issa; left erupts with vitriol (twitchy.com)
- Border Agents Call For Holder Resignation (bitterqueen.typepad.com)
- Fast & Furious amnesia hits Attorney General Eric Holder during House testimony (givemeliberty01.wordpress.com)
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