Don't worry Holder, Obama's got your back

Democrat Elijah Cummings, member of the House Oversight Committee

2007 – on the resignation of then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez
"As we continue to see agents and appointees of the Bush Administration depart, we must come together as a nation to ensure that we move forward to recover from poor judgment and harmful decisions that have been exercised. It must be a top priority to restore credibility and faith in the government."

2011 - in response to Fast and Furious program addressing the family of Brian Terry
" We will not rest until every single person responsible for all of this, no matter where they are, are brought to justice."

2012 – After “executive privilege” order from Obama, allows Holder to refuse to turn over documents to the House Oversight Committee
"I don't think he's hiding a damn thing,"

Rep. Cummings votes party line against the contempt charges for Holder


I guess his statement “It must be a top priority to restore credibility and faith in the government” only applies to republican members of the government, elected or appointed. The good news is that we know Cummings is losing a lot of sleep since he promised not to rest until every single person was held responsible. He may never close his eyes again.
 
Claims are executive privilege are a little like the filibuster. The "outrageousness" of it depends on one thing and one thing only - the party affiliation of the one asserting the privilege. When Bush asserted the privilege, the GOP thought it was great, and the Democrats thought it was an utter travesty of justice. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and both sides are making the reverse accusations.

Without knowing with precision the documents requested, none of us are in a position to have a very strong opinion one way or the other.
 
Deez- I agree in general. However, you are the lawyer, can Obama, or any president, claim no knowledge of something on one hand and then claim executive priviledge on the other?

I always assumed that executive priviledge was for information that the president had direct knowledge of. Is that not correct?

For the record, there have been all kinds of stupid things doen in govt. I am sure there was at least some positive reason for doing fast and furious. No shame in just being wrong. However, people have died with these guns which raises the stakes considerably. Certainly I do not blame the guns directly as these criminals find guns anyway, but the fact that one of them ended up killing someone is pretty bad. At a minimum someone needs to lose their job.
 
Bronco
You ask good questions.
One thing I will disagree with you on is that there was a positive angle to Fast and Furious. If there was why not tell the Mexican gov't what you were doing, as Bush did in Wide Receiver?

Knowingly sending weapons into drug cartel hands with no tracking and knowing with reasonable certainty these weapons would end up with Mexican people being shot or killed and NOT letting the Mexican gov't know is unconscionable.

the fact that 2 Americans were killed with these weapons that the BO admin let ' walk" into Mexico only adds to the vile nature of what the BO admin did.

last night all the dem talking heads kept insisting Bush started this but then asked, OK if Bush started this why not turn all the docs over they immediately went into a Nixon and or Bush rant.

Bo could salvage this by releasing all the docs. he would end up loking good.
 
What this thread is making painfully clear, and the quotes cant be diminished, is that both parties are full of sacks of **** that tow the party line and do the same exact damn thing the other party does when they regain power.

We are being fed a lie and every 2 and every 4 years we think we are making a change, when in reality, we are only making a superficial change. In fact nothing is changing. The corruption continues, and the American people are the ones that ultimately suffer for it.

Anyone who thinks Romney is going to change anything..... when are you going to realize that hes not?
 
6721- What is the old expression about the road to ruin being paved with good intentions. I refuse to believe that we let guns into criminals hands withouit some plausible reason for doing it? It might be a horribly bad reason and one I would disagree with, but there had to be some reason.

The blame Bush stuff cant work in this case because BO didnt shut it down. He continued it and expanded on it. Its his.
 
Bronco, executive privilege invocation does not mean that Obama was directly involved in the subject matters. That is political spin from the Republicans. It is, however, very possible/probable that EP is being invoked to avoid political embarassment. It is also possible that after Holder has testified 9 times, and provided document dumps of thousands of documents, Issa realy is overreaching for his own political reasons. I don't know; I suspect that no matter what the executive branch releases, Issa will scream that it is not enough - nobody outside democratic party circles wants the circus to leave town. Teh press and the Republicans are loving it. It is unfortunate, but I suspect that most Americans have little confidence that the administration is playing straight up on this, and little confidence that Issa and his friends are not just doing the usual "lets embarass the president in an election year" dance. The Link
 
Thanks Whit. I read the article briefly and it seems like the type of priviledge being asserted is a much weaker form but not necessarily unprecendented. Sounds like it was priviledge not rooted in the constitution but one that has evolved over the years.

I agree that it is politically motivated on all sides. probably not a winner for BO but he can tie the priviledge up pretty easily until at least the election as it may have to go to the SC to get decided.
 
considering they started this over a year ago in a non-election year it is kinda hard to argue they are doing this during an election year. And even if they are, so what? You have tax payer money funding guns being run by FEDERAL AGENTS at the bequest of the freaking AG and maybe even the POTUS that has resulted in over 200 Mexican deaths, and the death of a US FEDERAL AGENT. We deserve the truth on this and it doesn't matter what party did it, or what election cycle it is. We are either a nation of laws, or we are not. The Democrats are proving they do not care about the truth, the laws, or the constitution on this. Holder has perjured himself, and should be fired, impeached, or resign. period.
 
The Nixon defense was shot down in part because executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing.

Maybe the AG knew and was personally involved and maybe not but there seems to be a very clear case of some wrongdoing here. Thousands of guns given to criminals, dozens or more dead and a US citizen shot as a result of this program.
 
The other question I would have now is why after almost a year of this is executive privilege only now being cited? In fact, when Holder first started this thing, he stated that they weren't going to hide behind privileges or withhold anything. But one day before the deadline for contempt, Obama sites executive privilege? What changed? If these documents are that sensitive, you'd think that would have come up in the umpteen other discussions he's had with the oversight committee.
 
Neither will Obama. To which you respond "he did in 2010", To which I reply "that is a mischaracterization of what occurred" Of course we could always play the "Bush did it too",which would be a like mischaracterization, and you will likely roll out the distinctions without difference between fast and furious and wide receiver. See, look at all the time I've saved everyone! The reality is that whoever is president will make sure that direct orders are given that there will be no more gun-walking operations.
The whole notion gun-walking smacks of something that ATF pinheads thought would be cool, just like in the movies.
 
I guess BO thought everyone would forget that 8 days before he was sworn in office BO pledged to Calderon to stop the flow of guns from USA into mexico.
so what does the admin do?
Create a really stupid dangerous program with zero ability to track the guns and then release thousands of guns to flow to the cartels.
program gets hundreds of people killed including 2 American agents

then BO admin lies about it

then BO admin tries to blame it on Bush.

is there anyone who in their heart thinks there is nothing incriminating in the docs? or thinks we don't have a right to know what is in the docs?
They already breached security and that cost lives.What so called security could there be left?
 
I meant to add these salient quotes
from Gibbs
"President-elect Obama expressed support for efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash,” said Gibbs. “He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts.

“He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico,” said Gibbs."



How interesting, in retrospect is this
"Public statements from both Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano demonstrate that they were both personally working on this issue from their first month in office."

Ah yes they worked on the American guns into Mexico all right.
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So the court will look at whether someone else could die as a result of Fast and Furious and evaluate that relative to the importance of keeping the information confidential?
 
A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor commented on this topic for local public radio today. He stated that Bush invoked EP 6 times and Clinton 14. This is Obama's first according to the reporter.

Whomever stated that the opposite side cares only when the it's the other team was spot on. Both parties are only interested in protecting themselves and embarassing the other side.

Shame on all politicians.

majorapplewhite- Reagan sold arms to Iran. That activity was explained away....pardoned by the right. How can you be SURE Romney wouldn't commit an act like this.

I'm with Bronco on this. This program was likely started with great intentions but was ill conceived. Someone should be held accountable. If that is Holder he should do the honorable thing and step down.
 
How can ANYONE sane person think any good could come from allowing thousands of UNTRACKABLE weapons from USA to get into Drug cartels hands?

Anyone? what possible good could come from this and remember this started within weeks of BO taking office and within weeks of BO pledging to Calederon :
'He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico,” said Gibbs."
Anyone?
How is BO Admin sending thousands of weapons helping?
That CBS reporter, Atkinsson has reported this ) F&F) is one of 10 gunwalking ops she discovered.

if anyone can offer an explanation on how this could stem the flow of weapons into Mexico we'd like to hear it.

Anyone?
 
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