E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Once the House committee votes in favor of citing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, it goes to the full House for consideration.
If the full House votes in favor of the contempt citation, the issue is sent to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. A federal law adopted by Congress in 1857 directs federal prosecutors to refer these matters to a grand jury for possible prosecution. The language is mandatory as to the U.S. attorney: "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."
But from there on, it gets complicated.
The Justice Department has long taken the position, as a separation of powers matter, that Congress cannot force the Justice Department to undertake a prosecution of an executive branch official. The courts have never resolved the question.
The Justice Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has further claimed that a U.S. attorney must not initiate a prosecution when the president has asserted executive privilege over what Congress seeks.
The administration of George W. Bush most recently made this claim during the congressional investigation of the firings of several U.S. attorneys nationwide. Congress subpoenaed former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, and the president directed that neither should testify or produce the requested documents. Though the broad issue of executive privlege went to court, it is still unresolved.
Another gray area here is how much a president can cover under the umbrella of an assertion of executive privilege. The further a matter gets from the White House and presidential decision making, the more the courts have been unwilling to recognize it.
On a broader point, the federal courts have been reluctant to referee what they see as fights between the White House and Congress. During the legal battle over Miers, the federal district court in Washington practically begged the two sides to work it out without suing each other.
"The court strongly encourages the political branches to resume their discourse and negotiations in an effort to resolve their differences constructively," it said.
And finally, there's this point to remember: if this does end up in court, it could take up to two years to resolve, given the time for a trial and subsequent appeals. However, a contempt citation is valid only during the Congress which approved it. Each term of Congress lasts only two years, so if the issue was still in the courts when this Congress ends in a year and a half, the contempt citation would evaporate, and so would any lawsuit.
Leave a Comment:
When Nixon's Attorney General (Mitchell) broke the law and Nixon tried to cover it up with "Executive Privilege" they were both impeached (The crime was breaking and entering. It was the contempt of Congress, lying under oath, and acting like they were above the law that got them impeached.) Yet now when the current President's Attorney General (Holder) is involved in criminal activities (Selling guns, which are illegal for American civilians to even own, to drug runners in Mexico), and the President tries to cover it up by claiming the same "Executive Privilege" that Nixon claimed; Democrats and Liberals think Congress should dismiss this issue as unimportant.
Tell me who is being more unreasonable.
Nixon and Mitchell were impeached? Really? Know any REAL history, or just make things up in a poor attempt to make a point?
As far as "Executive Privilege" (you don't need to quote it...), I seem to recall a certain president prior to this one that used it several times. Was he impeached? (Not should he have been, but was he actually impeached.)
Your post is a mess - you need to do a little reading before making anything else like it. But at least you got others to give it a thumbs up, even if it has no real merit. What a surprise.
Actually, Nut Job has a point with regard to history. Mitchell was forced to resign as AG but never impeached. Nixon was never impeached, either, because he resigned when it became apparent that if he did not do so then he would be impeached and removed from office -- with bipartisan support, I might add, as there were not Democratic votes alone in the Senate at the time to remove him from office, but there were enough Republican who had seen more than enough. There aren't enough Democrats with that sort of courage nowadays to do that if there were a videotape of Putin handing Obama a suitcase with 50 million euros cash in it that they would do anything against him; realistically, there may not be many Republicans left who would still vote to throw out a crooked President of their party either, and if it's true, more's the pity.
In June 2011, Elijah Cummings PROMISED the famly of Brian Terry that he "Would not rest until everyone is accounted for, and I MEAN EVERYBODY on Fast and Furious".
Here's the link to the video on youtube. I guess he only accounts for things in non-election years.
These sticks and stones are breaking our bones. No bones, no structure. What an extremist chat room this place has become. Let you all loose on eachother and it would resemble the carnage of blood-thirsty drug gangs in Mexico.
Executive Priviledge was announced by the White House...................funny Holder and the White House have been saying from the very beginning that the President didn't know anything about this program so how can he pull Executive Priviledge since he isn't even involved............Strange. Let's be honest they (Holder, Obama)have just hidden all the bodies and this is over.
Once again, we see Obama and his clingons desperately trying to pretend the Emperor has clothes.
Once again, I quote right from the horse's ASS:
“I think we will determine over the next several weeks how this administration (President Bush) responds to the very appropriate call by Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to have these individuals come in and testify, Obama said in 2007. “There‘s been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taken place. I think the administration would be best served by coming clean on this. There doesn’t seem to be any national security issues involved with the U.S. Attorney… There doesn’t same to be any justification for not offering up some clear, plausible rationale for why these U.S. Attorneys were targeted when by all assessments they were doing an outstanding job.”
“I think the American people deserve to know what was going on,” Obama added.
"Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the Attorney General and the white house counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law. Information will not be withheld just because I say so; it will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well-grounded in the Constitution. Let me say it as simply as I can: transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,"
The mindless liberals who continue to support this ass hole in the WH deserve nothing but the contempt of the whole world!
The Republicans have done it again.. all this time since Obama has been in office the Republican party have nearly blocked his every wiggle. He has asked for, time and again for balance, and equality between parties.. and instead he has a bunch of jack asses rooting in digging their heels in and not cooperating, at the public's expense. And despite all that they have blocked him from doing, he has managed to make it better for the lower classes, given he was handed this whole mess from a long line of Republicans. While you all point fingers @ Obama for this one thing or you all can vote out the Republican party come November in each of your own respective stares. put the power back where it needs to be for the people, and not corporate greed and the people who already have more money than they can spend in 10 lifetimes.. and get this economy back on track. When Obama took office our deficit was 7 or 9 trillion, ( do not recall ) he has added to that to help save the ( proverbial corporate America ) from failing, helped save Wall Street from a bust and helped those greedy Republicans from loosing more of what they dont need.
Yet all I keep on reading is Obama has failed as a President. In fact I think he has taken from one administration a decade worth of cooperate greed balled up into one collapse, due to greed, speculative betting on the loss of a particular deal. deregulating certain aspects of the monetary law that pertains to oversight set in place by. Hoover? ( If i recall my history. )
Come November, despite anything that will go on, Obama will have my vote. because having a greed monger who knows very little about how corporate America should be dealt with, Romney is a very poor choice for President. He will be a mere puppet for Corporate greed mongers. Rpmney best sit with Palin @ her kitchen table so they can sip tea, and watch Russia from her kitchen window.
AMEN to that James-Portland-Oregon!!!!!!!!
I believe you will find it was closer to 2 or 3 trillion not 7-8. Check it out before you put numbers in your comments. If you don't that makes you a liar just like all politicians are.
Chuck, it is your numbers which are the bogus ones. Do you know the difference between the deficit (annual) and the debt (aggregate)? Total national debt was about $10 bil. when Obama became President, with deficits under Bush running about $450 bil. at the time. No year under Obama has had a deficit of less than a trillion; thus he has accrued more in his time than in all eight years of Bush. In contrast, at the end of Clinton's time the national debt was actually going down.
The Tea Party led GOP Congressional members are at it again ya'll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Problem With All Socialists / Communists
Is That Eventually...Invariably...They Always Run out Of......Your Money
OBAMA...the Socialist / Communist Has Run out of ...................................Your Money
16 TRILLION Dollar Debt...Obama the Socialist Still keeps Spending.................. Your Money
Your Children Now Very Real economic SLAVES..Because Socialist OBAMA Spent YOUR MONEY
G.W. Spent the money!!!!! Look at the numbers Dummie on who spent and how much!!!
Ali - Too bad that's not true, for if it was, all of these right wing extremists would be in labor camps. Since your not and able to express your opinions, maybe you should thank Obama for not being a Communist. Might want to come back to reality. And BTW, the true left wing liberals and socialists think Obama is too conservative. I guess that implies that any extreme left or right are just two opposing views with the same level of ignorance.
Thank you Gerard for proving my point.
Another Republican coverup and distortion of the facts. 1st fact: The Fast and Furious Operation, began in the Bush administration, under another operational name. 2nd fact: The operation startup under Bush was exposed by Holder who put a stop to it. 3rd fact of perception: This appears to clearly and simply be a partisan attempt by the Republican GOP Congress and Issa to distract from the 1st and 2nd core facts.
So this all about the distraction from the 4th fact: Where are the JOBS?? The summer begins and the construction season, for roads and repairs of bridges, is stuck in the Republican Congressional closets - they will do nothing that creates Jobs and place the blame on Obama. This is the Great Obstructionist Plan - following along with the Mitch GOP Song of NO NO NO.
First fact: true. But......no one DIED because of it (to be fair, no one that we know of). 2nd fact: then WHY would Holder start/greenlight the F&F program????? Perception: My perception is that there were many people in Mexico and a United States Border Agent KILLED because of the F&F program. Why is it a partisan attempt to distract when you demand answers? I, as a citizen of this country, WANT answers, want someone to be held accountable and want to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again....how is that partisan?
Gerard, honestly, your keystrokes aren't worth the effort you must be putting into them. It's so easy to attack, and much more challenging to make a cogent case for your viewpoint, or say anything worth saying.
bigger issues....like stopping obama from using the white house curtains to wipe the fried chicken grease off his fingers
HOMEBOY HOLDER..A DISTORSION...OF THE CONSTITUTION
AN OXYMORON ...OF JUSTICE
OBAMA AND HOLDER..Bringing Us ALL TOGETHER...As OBAMA PROMISED
ALL TOGETHER IN COURT FOR CONTEMPT...
ALL TOGETHER...VERGE OF ISLAMIC WAR...
ALL TOGETHER ..IN NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY
ALL TOGETHER IN UNEMPLOYMENT..
ALL TOGETHER ..IN NEW RACIAL DIVIDE..
ALL TOGETHER...IN A WEAK MILITARY
ALL TOGETHER...AS OBAMA PROMISED
FAST AND FURIOUS
FAST AND FRIVILOUS
FAST AND FLAWED
FAST AND FUTILE
FAST AND ...........FATAL
FAST AND FURIOUS
Fast and Frivilous
Fast and Flawed
Fast and Futile
Fast and .........FATAL
Its so much fun to watch Republicans flog a stick horse thinking they can bring life to it. "Fast and Furious" is a delightful political issue to occupy the minds and efforts of the party in an election year. But the vase majority of the electorate could not possible care less about it. It is not the primary concern ~ nor is abortion, gay marriage, contraception, and other issues of the crotch which fascinate conservatives. No doubt Issa and the House GOP will have a field day with this matter ~ but at day's end its as dead as Kelsey's nutz.
Prime example of Obama and his catspaw Holder's contempt for law and order.
Fear not; they will be held to account.
Tricky Dick got nothing on these dirtbags.
Holder lied, people died.
In this non compos mentis society, it behooves everyone here to look up the logical fallacy known as "tu quoque." What someone before you did in no way makes all right what you did. Neither does whatever a Republican did change the right or wrong of what a Democrat has done or did. Holder is either in contempt of congress or he isn't; and it makes absolutely no difference what anyone else may have done before (or will do hereafter). If ever there were a clearer example of contempt, I challenge anyone to say what it is (and, no, it wouldn't make any difference here, anyway).
With all due respect, it is impossible (including logically) to have any respect for illogical remarks or opinions. People who would excuse a Democrat's crime because he's a Democrat, or a Republican because he's a Republican are a large part of the mess n which we find our country. Dammit, think before you speak!
Holder is being held in contempt for not turning over documents that are protected by executive privilige. Holder can not legally turn over those documents. How is this contempt?
"Tu quoque" (latin meaning "you also") is an invalid method for disproving a logical argument. Murder is still wrong, even if Charles Manson says so. There's a lot of tu quoque in our politics today; your point is noted.
But I just watched the wealthy blow 33 million dollars in Wisconsin convincing people the problem was that unions are making too much money... and succeeding. I'm sure you think that makes perfect sense, but I humbly submit that logic has little place in American politics anymore.
You're only a philosopher if you apply if you apply logic to all sides of an arguement.
It behooves everyone here to look up the word "sophistry." "Pretentious" is a good one to know, too.
Very true. Now here is a question, what if Issa is simply doing a Democratic witch hunt? Not saying he is or isn't, but if he is, does that not nullify any possible contempt or appearance of contempt. I guess what I am getting at is, with high partisanship in politics, any "investigation" by one side against another loses credibility and just looks like political posturing. And this type of political environment gets nothing done, which seems obvious to me, since late in the Clinton administration.
Holder cannot claim executive privilege.
For a variety of reasons, the first being he is not the POTUS.
Too, just yesterday Holder pledged to cooperate.
The whole thing stinks.
Agree with you 100% Hal. Both parties have made a sham of our laws and dreams. If you only follow a parties propaganda, whether a Democrat or Republican, you should be wearing a dunce hat. For christ sake use you brain and think for yourself and not be pulled by a ring in your nose like a bull. I assume you all have a brain and are able to use common sense or maybe you were hiding behind the door when it was handed out. I agree with Hal, the answer is yes or no. Stop saying Johnnie did it so so can we. Grow up.
Agree with you 100% Hal. Both parties have made a sham of our laws and dreams. If you only follow a parties propaganda, whether a Democrat or Republican, you should be wearing a dunce hat. For christ sake use you brain and think for yourself and not be pulled by a ring in your nose like a bull. I assume you all have a brain and are able to use common sense or maybe you were hiding behind the door when it was handed out. I agree with Hal, the answer is yes or no. Stop saying Johnnie did it so so can we. Grow up.
@TReed: Holden can not legally turn over documents protected by executive privilege. How is it contempt to obey the law?
@Steven B: You are absolutely correct, sir. Holden cannot evoke executive privilige. Holden is the Attorney General, only the President has this authority. It was in fact the President who did just that. Dude, if you want to join the conversation read the article first. Great icon, by the way.
@Chuck-Buncho#s: What if I put a lot of thought into it and decided that only collective action, economic equality, and robust government regulatory policy are going to solve the problems our nation faces? What if I looked around and decided for myself that only the Democratic party has a tradition of supporting what I've come to believe?
I think one of our biggest problems is that we can't debate the issues without someone calling people who dissagree with their positions "someone who should be wearing a dunce hat." How does this solve anything?
Representative democracy isn't a logical argument (as much as I wish it was, sometimes!) It is how we make decisions as a group. Give up trying to win the argument. Try to solve the problem. I'll vote for the guy trying to solve the problem over the guy trying to make him look stupid any day of the week.
Quentin - I agree. And yet, Issa was able to get a vote that it was contempt and they are moving the contempt charge to the full house. I think it is partisan politics and both sides do it.
Yes, and then it will go to the floor of the House and they will uphold it along party lines. And then it will go to a grand jury. A jury. 12 citizens sworn to look at the facts. No more Issa, no more Tea-party irrational hatred. And stripped of all the politics, it will die in flames.
How many jobs will all of this create, again? What will this accomplish?
Quentin: How is it illogical that the votes of Wisconsin decided that their "public servants" were not and should not be their "public masters"? Nearly all other Wisconsin taxpayers (including Federal employees) make a significant contribution to both their retirements and their health insurance premiums; why should state employees be exempt because of what conditions were in 1959 when the state unwisely began bargaining collectively with its employees. If a union negotiates a deal in the private sector which makes the employing company noncompetitive, I can always buy another brand. If it negotiates a deal making a state noncompetitive, one's only recourse is to move, and it shouldn't come to that.
Holder has plenty of company! Most of the US has contempt for Congress! (check the approval ratings)
Your President should call up the Speaker of the House and the Senate Minority Leader and offer them a deal:
We'll turn over the documents you want if you'll fast-track (and not fillibuster) the jobs bill.
How come its all about jobs unless Republicans don't feel like it?
Obama has had NO good bill in almost 4 years, the democrats have NOT offered any plan to balance the budget under Obama the great giver at all. Obama is a complete and utter failure.
Don't know what you mean by this. O'Bama was given about a trillon dollars or more to get people working but most went to bail out the Corps and his buddies in the Market and campaign contributors. Please designate the type of bill that's being proposed so we can read and determine if it's just another sham. I know there is some people in here that has the ability to read and analyze to make a decision.
Oh, you know: Infrastructure, rebuilding our shamefully run-down schools, hiring back all the teachers, first-responders, and civil servants that the states are laying-off (the real reason unemployment is over 7%).
I know you'd rather cut taxes for the wealthiest, but they only seem to be hiring for thier new slave-camp sweatshops in China. Of course if we could get rid of those corrupt unions and all this job-killing regulation, they might start hiring for some slave-camp sweatshops right here in the land of the free, right?
We'll all get jobs if the GOP gets its way. The problem is we'll all be working for Foxcorp.
Why should my federal taxes go to build schools in your school district, or employ your state's civil servants? (Yours don't need to be doing that for mine, either.) Why didn't more of the stimulus go to infastructure and a lasting legacy? The one project that we got around here that seemed to be worth anything was a long-needed and apparently well-designed Interstate highway flyover that must've been as close to "shovel ready" as anything could've been. Why not more parks as in the 1930s while the price of real estate is depressed and critical habitat could be bought and protected? Most of that trillion seems to have been wasted. Direct investment in companies, even if they are supposed to produce "green energy", is the sort of "crony capitalism" that only dictators like Franco, Peron, and the like used to engage in -- I'm sure Mubarak did it with too, only with our tax dollars. But it's still "Third World" if you ask me.
Bush. Don't forget Bush. Not only did he provide the first of the big bailouts, he actually sent kids off to die so the veep's buddys at Haliburton could cash in. And Regan, of course (or are you too young to remember all the K-Cars he forced the military to buy as staff vehicles when Chrysler was going under?).
Guess we've been electing third world cronies for a long time now, huh?
So you got a solution or did you just come out to bad-mouth your country?
Nope, remember the Ks. Was in the military then. Chrysler had a "hot line" back then which could start making tanks with only a few days notice and this was their payback/subsidy for it, or at least that's what they told us. I LOVE my country, but I HATE the President's deployment of capital and how few jobs it has created and how poorly his pet companies (often run by his campaign "bundlers") have fared and how little they have done to increase "national security", which any truly successful alternative energy initiatives would do by getting us and the rest of the West off of Middle Eastern oil.
Obviously you didn't address why I should bail out your school district, or you mine. (Hint: Not a federal responsibility. "Leave No Child Behind" is the sort of failure you get when clueless Washington bureaucrats are put in charge of elementary and secondary ed; typically, people think that if you are against the Department of Education you are against education; if it were necessary to have had it to receive an education, I was too young to have received one.) If your state can't pay its workers, it probably has too many or is already so overtaxed that the businesses are migrating to lower-taxed states, which is what has been happening to the beautiful Golden State, for example, for many years now. I'm not doing that state a long-term favor by helping it continue to employ more people than it can afford.
I dunno, Rlquall. Some of us think we've had it pretty good, having lived out our lives in the space between two great economic collapses. We've enjoyed not only the fruits of capitalism, but the fruits of robust government. We have lived the American dream to an extent that our predecessors in the 19th and pre-war 20th century could only imagine. Some of us think we owe it to the next generation to leave them an infrastructure, education system, and social saftey net befitting the greatest democracy to ever grace humanity. Lacking that, is it too much to expect they get at least the same advantages we enjoyed?
Some of us see intrinsic madness in saying "We can't pass our problems on to future generations, so we should lower taxes for the rich, let our bridges and highways crumble, and shut down our schools."
You want to argue that "greed is good," that's fine. You're wrong, of course, but I'll have that debate. However, I really believe this notion of cutting future generations' benifits (while we obsessively preserve our own) in order to somehow "spare them" is Orwellian doublethink. It truly makes me sad to see so many Americans and Christians with so much turn thier backs on those without.
In short: Its only money, man. What better investment than the future?
You didn't really address my questions. And I'm not much on the "greed is good"
school; the enlightened self-interest is not the same as Gordon Gekko, who unfortunately seems to have been a fairly realistic character. But it is NOT necessary to have a government that is orders of magnitude larger than the one of our childhoods.
Case in point: The budget of the state which I live is is about thirty times larger in nominal dollars than it was forty years ago. I'm a realist -- government growing at the rate of inflation plus the rate of population is not really growing at all. Figuring that, the budget should be, given compounding, about ten times now what it was then, not thirty. Even if we have new and bigger priorities, it would seem to be oversized. (Note: Given the fact that women have siginificant employment possibilites beyond nursing, clerical work, and teaching now, and mostly didn't forty years ago, it was inevitable that teachers were going to be paid far more, and I understand this.) I'm pro-education and feel that I've received a fairly good one. I don't think that it takes twice as many people to administer the district that I grew up in and received the majority of my education in when it still has roughly the same enrollment now as then (actually slightly less). I'm pro-infastructure, parks, and libraries, too. I was hoping that the "stimulus" was going to provide lots of new infastructure the way that the one in the 1930's did, and some past due maintenance in some of those parks that date back to then. But only about 10% of it actually went to that.
Still think that one of the best gifts that we can give to future generations is a sustainable level of government that does everything that it needs to do, but not so much that it buries them in either massive debt or a cost-structure that leads to confiscatory taxation. California's children and youth, for example, have been horribly served by the political "leaders" of our generation. Businesses flee, taking their jobs and tax dollars with them.
Bush was thick headed, Cheney ran the show. The thing to do is bring in Cheney now with his flunkies. he is well enough now so he won't have another heart attack. but for him to admit what he really knows could kill him. Of course his tongue is so oily his spit could fry potatoes.
Congress should take the stick from their asses and start helping the people of this nation.
I pray to God that the Republicans do not have majority in congress in 2012 because it is impossible or rather ignorant that they follow their leaders. Boehner, Cantor and the other slow thinker. What they want are unrich people to grovel for food. I can see a real rebellion coming into play.
And he's been out of office for almost 4 years.
Now, we have a new boss.....same as the old boss.
obama is scum...holder is scum....anyone who votes for obama in 2012 is just a complete idiot..i mean i understand in 2008 ( u wanted change..and wanted to get as far from the bush admin as possible) so a lot of people voted for obama....well now obama has been president...you see how he handles things..no reasonable person would vote for him...unless you are a complete racist and only vote for him because he is black...are an extreme left wing democrat and would never ever consider voting outside your party...or u just have no common sense what so ever...and the ads..they are laughable...what obama says about romney's job as governor he has done to the entire country...all the debt...all the bills he tries to cram down our throats..making illegal immigrants legal...suing states for making laws because the federal level has failed...and now covering this up...what about all the broken promises he promised us in 2008? obama is a joke and i wish i never voted for him in 2008...well in 2012 he will not get my vote.
Romney 2012
VOTE the liars out in a very FAST & FURIOUS WAY come November, give it back to them, VOTE them out.
that 1 guy
I am white, a older senior and have watched politics for a long time. I am an Independent and vote to who appears to know business.
Romney knows business to the degree that all he wants is money, a million more millions so if or when he get's into office, watch your perks all go away. You then will live in fear because you will not have what we have now. Unless of course you are in the 'rich' class or just spouting off.
Yes, President Obama is black, so you see it is not a race issue with me. It is for having the better caring man in office. Thinking as he does of his family and children you can bet he will do all that he can for other children and help them to win their dreams.
What has Obama done for the middle class, lowered gas prices, nope, lowered the cost of food, nope, lowered medical cost, nope, lowered immigration, nope, lowered unemployment, nope, what he has raised, the deficit to another 6 trillion, raised foreclosures, supported bankrupt companies, tried to close a Boeing plant, raised food stamp recipients, so exactly what has he done for the future of our children?
the price of gas is down now. I blame the president.
That's fair if you blamed him for it going up. If he would loosen up on the drilling restrictions it might come down a little farther, because the prospect of more supplies would drive the futures market, driven by speculation, down. Lower energy prices = more disposable income, which is the idea behind a "stimulus" and maybe it is coming just in time, because if we keep short-funding Social Security like we've been doing it's going to blow up down the road. Maybe the lower energy prices could, at least for a while, offset the payroll tax reverting back up to a realistic level.
All this is going to do is prove to the American people, and prove to the rest of the world that We Americans have a broken political system. It is a joke. And we put up with it.
No we are NOT putting up with it, Wisconsin spoke loud and clear and now it is AMERICA'S turn to kick Obama out in a FAST & FURIOUS WAY as well.
Wisconsin only shows how broken it is. Wanna buy a slightly used Republican?
People were killed. Anyone doubt that? Reasonable to ask "Why?". No cooperation = Obstruction of justice... conspiracy to obstruct justice. Once a special prosecutor is named, people will start singing like canaries, just like Watergate.
They should be arrested for their illegal deeds, VOTE them out in November FAST & FURIOUSLY.
Obama's in a chokeHolder.