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2012-06-21 Home Front: WoT

Breitbart: Holder Will Lose Executive Privilege Fight

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Posted by 2012-06-21 09:15|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 From the article: The only way to beat an executive privilege claim is by court order. To take this issue to court, the full House must vote to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, thenwhen federal prosecutors predictably inform the House that they will not prosecute their bossthe full House must pass a second resolution authorizing Rep. Darrell Issa to file suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C. on behalf of the entire U.S. House.
Holder will lose the court fight. Hell appeal, of course, but eventually the appeals will be over, and well all learn the truth of what really happened in Fast and Furious.
And whom to hold accountable.
Wouldn't it just be easier to impeach Holder?

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-06-21 10:24|| 2012-06-21 10:24|| Front Page Top

#2 Wouldn't it just be easier to impeach Holder?

It would be easier for teh 0ne to throw him under the bus. Or have him assassinated. Dead men tell no tales.

Posted by DarthVader 2012-06-21 10:31|| 2012-06-21 10:31|| Front Page Top

#3 There is no time for any of these lengthy legal maneuvers. The election is little more than 4 months away. With the Congressional recess and all the campaigning there will be no big fight in the courts.

The way to go is an incessant drum beat of attacks on this despotic clique on this and other issues. Unfortuneately there will be no coverage of that by the MSM. It's now time for the new media to show its power.

Posted by AlanC 2012-06-21 10:35|| 2012-06-21 10:35|| Front Page Top

#4 My guess is that they're quite aware that they're gonna lose. The tactic has to do with time -- hoping against hope that they'll win in 2012, at which point B.O. expects to 'have more flexibility' and can pressure the matter to be dropped.

Posted by Fred 2012-06-21 11:09|| 2012-06-21 11:09|| Front Page Top

#5 If BO loses in Nov. (be still my beating heart) you can expect a raft of F&F based pardons in Dec.

These criminals will get themselves all get out of jail free cards.

Posted by AlanC 2012-06-21 11:22|| 2012-06-21 11:22|| Front Page Top

#6 John Hinderaker's analysis of the issue is worth a read. Of particular interest is the scope of the matter:

The public may not be aware that what we are talking about here is not some vast universe of documents relating to Fast and Furious, but rather, as Holder acknowledges, a tiny subset: The Committee has made clear that its contempt resolution will be limited to internal Department documents from after February 4, 2011, related to the Departments response to Congress. February 4 was the date of DOJs letter which falsely represented to Congress that Fast and Furious did not involve deliberately allowing guns to make their way across the border to the cartels. DOJ withdrew that letter on December 2, 2011, ten months later. So Issa is trying to obtain only DOJ communications relating to the false letter, and the process by which DOJ concluded that the letter was indefensible, and decided to retract it.

In focusing narrowly on DOJ's decision to withdraw its false statements, Issa has pared the issue down to the point where it should be bulletproof against even the most partisan hack on the federal bench. One would think that, given the nature of the content withdrawn, documents relating to the decision to withdraw would blow the entire matter wide open.

While we might prefer that this gain significant traction ahead of our elections this fall we should nevertheless give credit where it is due (to Issa) for engaging in what appears to be an all-too-rare act of good governance.

Posted by AzCat 2012-06-21 11:31|| 2012-06-21 11:31|| Front Page Top

#7 With Obama extending executive privilege, I'm thinking some investigative reporter is smelling a Pulitzer here. 21st century Woodward and Bernstein. What he needs is a 21st century Mark Felt.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2012-06-21 11:54|| 2012-06-21 11:54|| Front Page Top

#8 If the Speaker is willing to press the issue hard, it will be the end of July before it clears the House and gets to a court, and well into the fall before a district court rules. If the ruling is in Champ's favor it will be trumpeted loudly, of course. Then it's off to the Circuit Court of Appeals. That certainly won't happen in time for the election.

Impeachment won't work: the Senate will never vote to convict, and Champ won't fire Holder under those circumstances.

I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away.

Posted by Steve White 2012-06-21 12:53|| 2012-06-21 12:53|| Front Page Top

#9 The fun thing to do right now, when one encounters a liberal who defends Champ's use of executive privilege, is to ask them --

"So, what do you think President Romney will do with the precedent that Obama set in this case?"

Usually stops them for a moment or two.

Posted by Steve White 2012-06-21 12:54|| 2012-06-21 12:54|| Front Page Top

#10 With the election this close, investigation and publicity about F&F is better than prosecutions, the better to get Obama and Holder out my dear. The One can only pardon people who are charged and convicted. Save the prosecutions for 2013. I suspect that with BHO and Holder out of power that there will be sufficient lower echelon types to turn states evidence. If Holder did what most here think he did, then privileged immunity won't apply.

Posted by RightWingNutter 2012-06-21 12:58|| 2012-06-21 12:58|| Front Page Top

#11 F&F led to a murder; Holder is an accessory and there is no statute of limitations. Not to mention where all the documents will lead, there are other tangents no one mentions. They try to blame Wide Receiver/Gunrunner under Bush but to prove that, they have to release docs showing where it all originated. The weapons found at the Jaime Zapata murder scene were from Texas. The busts in Dallas and Columbus NM are in the area of operations of the Houston Field Division. They were not Fast and Furious busts and no one in Houston has come forward like John Dodson. We have the evidence presented by Carter's Country in Houston that they were being told to let the firearms walk, yet no one in local or national media has apparently asked the hard questions of the Houston Field Division ATF management personnel. Then there is Op Castaway, running guns south from Tx and Fl, with some going to MS-13 in Honduras; Rep. Bilirakis wrote to Holder last July demanding answers but I haven't seen compliance there either. Letting guns cross international borders requires State Dept. approval--seems like they are implicating themselves with silence or they too, would start producing evidence. Keep digging and all sorts of skeletons are bound to show up.

Posted by OmuluqueHapsburg5085 2012-06-21 14:42|| 2012-06-21 14:42|| Front Page Top

#12 Remember that Watergate became an issue well before the 1972 election. Nixon won that election but the Senate committee continued to investigate and in 1973 Nixon resigned because of the scandal. This is not to say that the same thing will happen to Obama but just imagine Obama making Slow Joe promise to pardon him. Then just imagine President Biden. Of course, if Biden goes under the bus we could get another President Clinton.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-21 14:55|| 2012-06-21 14:55|| Front Page Top

#13 Also from July of 2011:
Issa and Grassley name 12 senior Justice Department political officials they believe may have been involved in the decision which allowed guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. They asked Holder to provide all records relating to communications between those 12 individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious.

"As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program," Grassley and Issa wrote to Holder. "Therefore it is necessary to review communications between and among these senior officials."

Obama administration officials Issa and Grassley named in their letter were:
--Former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden(since resigned)
--Deputy Attorney General James Cole
--Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney
--Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod
--Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel
--Gary Grindler in the Office of the Attorney General
--Brad Smith, in the office of the Deputy Attorney General
--Kevin Carwile, section chief of the Capital Case Unit
--Joseph Cooley, in the Criminal Fraud Section

The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:

Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer

Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF (resigned)

William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF

Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA

Robert Mueller, Director FBI

Four other Justice Department directors (see below) or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session.

While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.

Posted by OmuluqueHapsburg5085 2012-06-21 15:00|| 2012-06-21 15:00|| Front Page Top

#14 If Obama did not know about Fast and Furious, how can he assert executive privilege about something he claims he did not know about?

Posted by JohnQC 2012-06-21 15:38|| 2012-06-21 15:38|| Front Page Top

#15 I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away. It's very likely this whole thing will drag on beyond the election. If the "One" doesn't win and it is not known who is responsible for F & F, pardons can't be issued for unknown persons.

Posted by JohnQC 2012-06-21 15:48|| 2012-06-21 15:48|| Front Page Top

#16 AlanC, Can you pre-pardon someone before a conviction?

Posted by Hellfish 2012-06-21 18:41|| 2012-06-21 18:41|| Front Page Top

#17 QC answered it.

Posted by Hellfish 2012-06-21 18:48|| 2012-06-21 18:48|| Front Page Top

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