Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Fast and Furious: Executives Have Their Privileges

With the 11th hour assertion by Barack Obama and Eric Holder of executive privilege, it looks like the mainstream media will finally have to cover the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

Prof. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection has an excellent summary of the issues:
First Holder pretends he will cooperate, but doesn’t.  Then he stalls with negotiations.  Then he stalls some more by promising to cooperate again, but doesn’t.  Then, when his back is up against the wall because a vote is scheduled to hold him in contempt, he runs to Obama for some legal protection, which will result in the matter being thrown into the courts for more delay.
 As with most things damaging to Obama, all they care about is pushing the bad news off until after the election.
What all this means, of course, is that Holder has been withholding documents responsive to the House subpoena which have not been turned over.  So he has not complied with the House subpoena, since it only was today that he obtained the protection of an Executive Privilege claim from the White House.
 Darrell Issa and his Republican committee members deserve a medal.  Keep pushing.
 Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy of PJ Media weighs in: