The Obama Administration Claims
“Executive Privilege” to Protect Attorney General Eric Holder
from turning over Records in Congressional Investigation of 'Fast and
Furious' Mexican Gunrunning Scheme
On the eve of a vote by the House
Oversight Committee to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt
for his stonewalling of Congressional investigators looking into the
controversial 'Fast and Furious' scheme executed by the BATF which
resulted in the death of at least two federal agents from illegally-
exported American weapons, (including CBP agent Brian Terry),
President Obama extended protection to Attorney General Holder's
refusal to comply with a Congressional Subpoena aimed at forcing
disclosure of who knew what when in the White House about the deadly program.
While technically within the rights of
the President to assert such a privilege, (but see below), such conduct was immediately denounced by
committee Chairman Darryl Issa as a “last minute” ruse to delay
justice for murdered agent Brian Terry and drew charges of hypocrisy
across the right of the political spectrum due to then-candidate Barack Obama's
criticism of the Bush Administration for invoking “Executive
Privilege” to deny access to records by Congress during eight years
of the Bush Administration.
Such action is troubling not just due
to Holder's repeated insistence before Congress that he was not aware
of the controversial program and its deadly outcome to American law
enforcement personnel in spite of receiving emails and updates from
his deputies about it, but because the President has repeatedly
claimed no personal knowledge of the Fast and Furious program.
Indeed, the assertion of “Executive
Privilege” by the President to protect Holder's refusal to comply
with the Congressional subpoena seems to contradict the President's
prior emphatic public statements that he knew nothing about “Fast
and Furious,” and further strains credibility that neither he nor
anyone on his payroll in the White House knew about the lethal
program.
This
is so because a claim of “Executive Privilege,” a legal
doctrine intended to aid the separation of powers and shield
Presidential advisors from potential liability for giving candid
advice to the President on matters of sensitive concern, (e.g. human
“targets” selected for “elimination” by American drones in
the fight against terror in far away places like Pakistan), is only
legally permissible if, in fact, the White House or the President's advisors were
actually aware of the lethal program, (otherwise no “privileged”
information would be at stake which needed to be "protected").
Of course, there is
nothing new about Presidents zealously guarding their right to direct
lawful executive action free from undue meddling by Congress or
trying to protect their own political appointees. In a 180 degree
twist of this doctrine and an example of perhaps the most flagrant
abuse of it in the modern era, everyone over the age of 60 remembers
how President Nixon attempted to use similar arguments to protect himself
from having to disclose the so called “Nixon tapes” in the
Watergate coverup which was rejected by the Supreme Court and
ultimately led to Nixon's resignation. However, comparisons to the
Nixon Administration, even ones not exactly apropos, are not particularly helpful to an Administration already plagued by voter unease and polling below 50%
favorability in most battleground states which Obama must carry to win reelection in 2012.
Moreover, unlike a
more recent example of such claims attempted to diffuse political fallout from a
Potentially devasting scandal during the 1980's, President Reagan, who never actually was proved to have approved of the covert program which indirectly aided the contras contrary to the policy of Congress, arguably did so with the best interests of the
country at heart, in an area in which the President's constitutional
prerogatives are undeniably stronger and allow more leeway in the
long-term interest of the country, (i.e., foreign policy).
To be sure, while one could make a loose claim that the “gunwalking”
scheme at issue in Fast and Furious is likewise related to the important
“foreign policy” of tracking and stopping Mexican drug lords from
committing even worse crimes against American citizens later, the
problem with that theory is in order to accomplish such a goal the Obama Administration would have actually had to have "marked" the weapons with tiny RFID tracers, (which they didn't in this case). While why the feds didn't do so is a matter of furious debate, with those like Wayne Lapierre of the NRA and yours truly believing it was done in an attempt to gin up support for gun control and others asserting mere incompetence on behalf of the BATF and the Obama Administration, the action just taken by the President insures the chances of the American people finding out which it is anytime soon, and certainly before the election, are slim to none.
What IS clear however is the methods used by the BATF violated the very gun laws Democrats normally have championed in regulating gun sales on U.S. soil,
(but which private gun shops in Arizona were urged to circumvent by the government to achieve the purposes of the Fast and Furious
program).
Indeed, in their zeal to illegally put weapons in the hands of dangerous criminals the government violated dozens of federal laws against “fraudulent”
transactions, (including selling to known criminals and fake
“straw man” buyers for the express purpose of exporting said arms across the border to Mexico in contravention of settled federal law).
Further, when some gun shops questioned the safety and propriety of the government's "have a care" methods, some were not too subtly pressured or threatened. It is such claims that are some of the most disturbing and for which the documents requested by Congress could have shed additional light on as well as who in the Obama Whitehouse knew of the deeply flawed program.
Further, in perhaps the biggest contrast between this still youthful scandal of the Obama Administration and that which occurred in the 1980's, Reagan's Iran Contra
resulted in zero American deaths, in fact, to the
contrary Iran Contra arguably saved American lives, (as it ostensibly resulted in the safe return of American hostages held by radical
terrorists).
Indeed, while one can possibly argue about the wisdom of
funneling profits from arms sold to Iran in the '80's to the Contras
in Nicaragua fighting for their freedom, no one can doubt that the
motives of President Reagan in doing so were not sincere and intended to
promote American national interests.
Not so of President Obama, whose actions seem designed, at least with the limited evidence available in light of the Administration's determination to withhold further documents from the public, with only one thing in mind: saving a flagging President from the embarrassment of politically-damaging revelations on his role in the
scandal from erupting publicly just before the 2012 elections in
order to aid his re-election chances, (arguably the only reasonable
explanation for the President's last minute assertion of executive
privilege in light of his previous denials of White House involvement
in the scandal).
Call me crazy, but at least the way I see it, one's crass desire for political
self-preservation doesn't come even close to a legitimate excuse to
stymy a Congressional investigation into potentially illegal
activities which resulted in the death of even one American law
enforcement officer at the hands of Mexican outlaws.
However, most troubling of all is the extent to which such conduct seems to fit
a pattern by the Obama Administration of self-aggrandizement and
expansion of power at the expense of the other two branches of
government, followed by delay, obstruction and distraction tactics
when its methods or aims are legitimately questioned by those we
elect to do so in our government of checks and balances.
From attempts to
bury-- no pun intended-- the coal industry, (the President's remarks
that anyone attempting to open a coal fired electric plant would be
bankrupted and the cost of energy under his plan double come to
mind), to attempts to discredit Fox news and others in the media such
as Sheryl Atkisson of CBS news who have doggedly pursued the truth
about Fast and Furious, (see here and here), to inappropriate and
veiled threats to the Supreme Court which is widely expected to any day
issue its ruling striking down the President's signature domestic
achievement, Obamacare, the Administration seems at best tone-deaf
and at worst malevolent when it comes to an understanding of the
appropriate limits, constitutional and otherwise, to its power and
the almost maniacal way it seems to view itself as well as its political
“enemies.”
And although the use (and/or abuse) of the law and hard ball tactics of Chicago politics to advance his political career certainly is nothing new to the President, (witness Obama successfully using Illinois election law to block his primary opponents
from the ballot in his first run for Illinois State Senate in his first run for office), the extent to which this President seems to recognize no bounds to
his power-grabbing ways and the extent to which he seems willing to
use highly-politicized themes and “power politics” such as the
Trayvon Martin tragedy and attacks on States' voter identification
laws meant to protect the integrity of the voting process is truly
alarming. (And this is especially so when one takes into account the divisive and damaging effect such tactics have on the American body politic).
Don't like the investigation of a Congressional committee into potentially illegal
and certainly poorly conceived “gunwalking” programs that end in
the death of American agents/citizens in Mexico at the hands of
outlaws? Attack the character and motives of the Congressional
Committee's chairman.
Can't get your
controversial “cap and trade” legislation passed through normal
democratic means of debate and consensus? Simply declare, by
Executive fiat, that the Environmental Protection Agency is
“empowered” to administratively introduce draconian and
job-killing regulations that will devastate our ability to develop
our most abundant and reliable source of domestic electricity, coal.
Don't like the Defense of Marriage Act duly passed by Congress and signed
into law by President Clinton? Just “declare,” absent the Supreme Court
or Congress' agreement solely on the judgment of the authority of
himself, that the legislation duly passed by the people's
representatives and signed into law by Democratic president Bill
Clinton defining marriage as between one woman and one man is
"unconstitutional."
Even worse for the President is it exposes the blatant hypocrisy of the left at a time when it is most likely to alienate a critical group of voters not likely to see this as the “heightened transparency” of government Obama promised when running in 2008, conservative leaning independents like me.
In fact, while liberals like to complain that Republicans Administrations, i.e.,
Bush 43, had no respect for the rule of law and abused its powers with such things as executive orders and claims of "executive privilege," similar claims are now brushed off when it comes to the Obama Administration. Indeed, some are now observing the
comparisons which are clearly emerging between this Administration, which
promised to be “the most ethical in history,” and some of the
actions of President Nixon, who famously attempted to stonewall
Congressional investigation into the Watergate scandal of the '70's.
Only time will tell if this President's end shall be similar to Nixon's, or simply end
unceremoniously at the hands of a public exercising their solemn duty
in the privacy of a voting booth in an unprecedented time of deficit
spending and global economic uncertainly who have, for their own
unique reasons, simply had enough. Unquestionably however, it
cannot help Obama's chances. Jp
For more info click here http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-privilege-0622-jm-20120622,0,4057316.story
Agent Terry's parents, interviewed on Fox News' Sean Hannity's show, shared their disgust at the announcement and and belief that it means the White House is "hiding something... They have lied from the beginning..." (see full video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irPiJ-GAXFI&feature=player_embedded )
Speaker John Boehner implied that White House officials were either involved in the Fast and Furious operation or the cover-up that followed.
