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Subscribe to RSSNBC News has obtained a copy of a seven-page letter from House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa to Barack Obama that raises the stakes in the stand-off between Congress and the attorney general.
In the letter, Issa challenges the president's assertion of executive privilege over documents sought by the committee in the "Operation Fast & Furious" investigation.
Issa requests the president provide a formal, legal justification for the privilege claim and a list of specific documents covered by it.
Issa points to case law that maintains executive privilege is reserved for direct presidential decision-making.
The California Republican ratchets up the pressure by stating that either the president's "most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious ... and the fallout" or the White House is asserting "a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation."
The letter includes the president's own public statements that neither he nor Holder knew about or authorized the operation.
Issa asks why and the attorney general was offering certain documents last week with the condition that the contempt citation be dropped but the next day those same documents were shielded by executive privilege.
The chairman says there has been no explanation for how Holder could tell the president that releasing the documents would result in "significant damaging consequences" only hours after saying he could provide them to congressional leaders if contempt was off the table.
Rep. Issa: No evidence of White House cover-up in 'Fast and Furious' gun-running case
The chairman goes through the history of the case, the death of border agent Brian Terry and reminds the president that Attorney General Holder provided false information to Congress on Feb. 4, 2011 in a letter that denied the gun operation permitted illegally bought weapons to cross into Mexico.
The Justice Department retracted that denial months later. Issa pointedly states that lying to Congress is a crime itself and says the subpoenaed documents pertain to Holder's denial and internal communications that brought about the subsequent correction.
In a new request, Issa also asks for any communications between the White House and Justice between the date of the false denial and June 18, 2012, the day before privilege was asserted.
Issa rejects criticism that the contempt vote is purely political. He complains that Holder referred to the committee's action as an "election-year tactic."
Issa writes that "nothing could be further from the truth. This statement not only betrays a total lack of understanding of our investigation, it exemplifies the stonewalling we have consistently faced."
Still, the House Oversight Chairman tells the president he is "hopeful the Attorney General will provide the specified documents so that we can work towards resolving this matter short of a contempt citation."
Leave a Comment:
Solyndra was bad, Fast & Furious Cover-Up was worse. But the WH classified security leaks is TREASON.
Solyndra is an invented issue. The US government has put money into all kinds of private companies for all kinds of reasons. At least with Solyndra, they were looking into new and renewable energy delivery methods. But the money given to companies like Solyndra is dwarfed by the money thrown at, say Haliburton and Bechtel. Try again on that one.
F&F wasn't a cover-up. It was a failed policy under 2 administrations that's only the latest excuse for the GOP to attack Eric Holder.
The "leak" matter is another distraction.
Do you have any real concrete, substantive issues with this administration or do you just wish to repeat talking points from Fox?
Some of the LW pundits and media have been confused talking about Operation “Fast & Furious”, versus Operation “Wide Reciever” during the Bush Administration.
Apparently even Eric Holder himself doesn’t know the difference when he tries to explain his way out of the disaster that was created prior to the Agent Terry death.
Operation Wide Receiver: During the Bush administration was designed to track the flow of illegal guns, by inserting tracking devices into the guns to see where they went. The intend was to recovery the guns. The program was labeled a failure, and stopped by Bush in 2007. Mainly, the Mexican government could not complete the tracking.
So when Eric Holder’s supporters blame Bush for starting Operation Fast and Furious, they are either purposefully LIERS, or are very poorly informed. Fast and Furious was very ill concieved and executed " Obama time" version of the general gun-running tactic of the ATF.
Brian Terry's death is irrelevant. He wasn't killed by a weapon from F&F.
backfire, if you're right about the treason accusation we should see charges from the white knights on the right pretty soon, right?
Bwahahahahahaha!!!
Go ISSA!
Find out who is responsible for the debacle, why they lied and are now stonewalling/covering up.... where there is smoke there is fire and this incompetent and corrupt administrations needs to be taken down by someone like you before they break every law they find to be an inconvenience to them.
A quote from JFK may be applicable here. "Where there is smoke there is fire - or at least a smoke machine." (This is from memory, so may not be exactly right.)
I feel like I am living through a flashback to the 60's & earky 70's here. Surreal.
FDI! and the horse he rode in on.
And may you hit the dusty trail. Lots of "road apples" do.
the government's been hiding stuffs from everybody for years and years, live with it. go fickin fix the economy you dam republican sht.
Issa, Boehner, they're embarrassments. They should stop the witch hunt and do something productive, like pass the jobs bill.
Backfire... leave it to the right wing whack jobs to scream treason again. What? You done with the birth certificate issue and now focusing on something else just as lame now?
Nov 2010 Rep Issa promises to conduct oversight committee meetings 7 days a week for 40 weeks a year. On Sunday 6/24/12 when asked if he had ANY evidence of Obama administration wrongdoing- NO was the answer.
Congress will vote on condemming Holder- Issa needed a scalp of some kind.
Political Witch Hunt brought to you by the party of 180+ and counting filibusters
the party that met on 1/19/09(before Obama was inaugurated) to discuss stretegy to make Obama a failure.
Feb 2009- Demint tweets "we will break him" referring to Obama
Dream ACT passes the Senate with 55 YES votes but killed by filibuster.
Obama jobs bills- pass the Congress but killed by filibuster
Brought to you by the party that runs on the motto Country First
Brought to you by the party of NO
Barry to the repubs in eary '09: You can ride along on the back of the bus!
Sure knows how to build cooperation, huh?
oh, was he suppossed to say pretty please
act like a grown up. The republicons meet BEFORE the inauguration on how to destroy his Presidency and you guys bitch that he didnt ask you nice enough to be part of the agenda. Using a Republicon health plan wasnt good enough cooperation for ya?
you do realize how arrogant you sound?
You guys? I'm no republican, but neither do I belong to a personality cult. I simply pointed out that for all the whining about the GOP obstructionists, there was a missed opportunity very early on - Barry, Nancy and (to a lesser public degree) Harry all set the stage for the division we endure today.
Do you know how ignorant you sound?
By referring to the President as "Barry", you give the strong impression of having a seated dislike for him. Or do you know him personally?
David -
I have little respect for him, for our Congress (house or senate), a little more for the Supreme Court.
I know these folks only by what I read, or hear and see of them directly.
I referred to our previous "illustrious president" as George Jr.
My thoughts on why Barry got elected: He was virtually unkown, a "tabula rosa" (blank tablet) on which a great deal of the electorate could project what they wished. He gives an impressive speech (when on teleprompter) and appealed to various demographics. Also, the electorate was very unimpressed with the choices they knew.
Did I vote for John McCain and Palin? You've got to be kidding. As a life-long news-junky and political hack, I don't like very many of them. I have met and respected a number of pols (mostly state/local), others I didn't like so much (Al Gore and John Edwards come to mind). One of the most memorable days of my early life involved ny scout troop lining the entry to Giants Stadium in Tacoma when JFK spoke there - he passed by and shook my troop leaders hand.
I am proudly unaffiliated, but do enjoy pricking the balloons of the water-carriers of both sides.
Thank you for your candor. I actually agree with a fair amount of your post.
I too vote independently. I did not vote for Obama or McCain in 2008, choosing a different candidate that I felt reflected my views.
Most politicians I have met are pretty smarmy.
But I have to acknowledge that Obama isn't just a good public speaker, although he does excel at that. I also understand him to write a lot of his own speaking material, so I don't believe he's depending on someone to feed him good spoofed lines on a prompter. The main impact I've noticed from teleprompters isn't to make a bad speaker look good. It's to allow the speaker to follow his/her notes or the text without looking down all the time. Personally, I don't think it's bad technology.
And I have to acknowledge that Obama has faced nearly universal opposition and obstruction from the GOP ever since he won the election in 2008. I don't know that the electorate was so unimpressed in 08 that they settled for Obama. Turnout was higher in that election, which suggested that voters really wanted to be involved. But once he had won, something the right wing media was predicting with assurance he would not, there was a strong attack wave, far nastier than anything Bush 43 had to face. When all was said and done, the Dems voted to approve Bush policies almost every time. They did not present a solid wall of "NO" every time a policy came up for a vote. The GOP has done that as a strategy, ever since Rush Limbaugh kicked off the festivities with "I hope he fails!". Whether I agree with Obama on many issues is irrelevant, but I acknowledge that I don't agree with him much of the time. But the GOP conduct has been ridiculous. Obama's comments to the GOP were directly about their conduct. I don't mind him calling them on their games, the same way I don't mind a GOP president calling Dems on their games. It goes both ways.
Lyndon Johnson, Demo President, had to deal with a recalcitrant congress. He was not the elected president then. He told them, basically: Look fellas, I'm the only president you've got. Now, let's get it together and make it work!
That's leadership - whether you liked Lyndon, or not.
Johnson's Congress may have been recalcitrant but they were not obstructionist, they were willing to compromise on most issues.
Now, I think Darrell Issa is running for Vice-President and this is his big chance to make a name for himself.
Okie dokey, Joe. You may be right. My guess is that Darryl is a little too divisive at this point to be a viable veep candiadate. That doesn't mean that this issue is politics-free, of course.
On the other hand, I am with those who vote for the full truth and nothing but the truth. Call me loony if you must . .
I believe LBJ was already a leader in Congress for years before he became VP and then Pres. Of course, by the end of his time in office, you could see the damage the presidency had done to him.
I agree that Issa is way too divisive to be a VP candidate during this or any other year. His big moment in politics came in 2003 when he engineered the recall of Gray Davis. His plan had been to use the moment to walk himself into the Governor's office in California, but he wound up watching Arnold Schwarzenegger steal his thunder. The press conference Issa gave at that time was indicative of who the man truly is, and it previewed the tantrums we've been seeing this year from him. His smirk during the Wallace interview at the thought of arresting Holder was another indication. Based on his career and the contradictions between the serious moral tone he likes to take in public and the way he's actually conducted himself, I could come to no other conclusion but that the man is simply a hypocrite and a publicity seeker.
David -
I think you and I are more alike than differrent. You seem to like Obama, Ok. I don't particuarly. OK.
But isn't civil discouse nice?
I agree on the last.
I don't know that I'm really much of an Obama fan, but it's been obvious since the 2008 campaign that the GOP never had any intention of working with him. I just wish they'd be more honest about it and not hide behind false piety.
What a dramatic farce congress puts on. I really wonder why their approval rating is only 9%. shaking head.
IMHO -
Kinda makes "contmpt of congress" a great redundancy, does't it?
"contempt" & "doesn't"
Long day and my eyes are bleary with fatigue and pollen. Sorry, folks.
How clever of President Obama to trick the previous Bush Administration into starting the "gun walking" program just so Obama could undermine gun rights 4 years later.
No, Republicans aren't insane at all!
Obummer, is like many of the libturds here. A BIG FAT LIER.
Badly spelled Kool-aid from the other side.
Typical political grandstanding.
Dear Friends:
When the decision comes through, how many feel that ISSA should be punished or taken out of office if The Attorney General and The President are found not guilty of
contempt to House of Representatives or any other improper procedures, but in fact performing their duties.
The cost, embarrassment, attempt to manipulate congressional doings and government and Presidential and Executive Branch duties. Should Issa be removed from Congress? Is it not noticeably prejudice proceedings and accusations? Contempt is that not for court proceedings?
Law Schools, Scholars, former Judicial Supreme Court Justices ( are they allowed to comment?)
Dear Friends:
While we wait for the results on the Congress activities, has anyone noticed the unusual activities of the storms in the Central America and off the Eastern coast and those just forming out of Africa? The one off the Eastern coast looks like a two headed monster with more than one eye! Lookin at ya! Could it split and form two seperate hurricanes? Just South of Mexico in the Pacific a desperate attempt to also form another eye. Swirling like whirling derbies will they all come to be monsters? Weather men and woman we are counting on you and your expertise around the world. Well the Bermuda triangle, what is the longest day of the year, fires and smoke in the atmosphere and wow!
Romney does what is best for him , always.
Veterans, military retirees; note that Romney PROMOTED THE DRAFT, then skipped out to France for extraordinary lenth of time when church missionary tours were limited. When Romney came home, he sided with his dad that the whole Viet Nam War was a scam and that he was against the war. His early flip flops, he is good at.
Promoting the draft, while Americans were dieing, he skipped out, then says he wishes he could have participated. Pro church, Anti Americam.
And there lies the major rub here..
willard dodged the draft for a war he actively supported.. Then he went to stroll through the avenues, and boulevards of Paris, while thousands of his countrymen, were strolling through the jungles of Vietnam.....
Sadly, I can't think of a word that accurately describes such an individual... One that perfectly captures the cowardice, the hypocrisy, the ideological emptiness..
Maybe there is one,.. but I just can't grasp it..
Issa and his clan are piddling while Rome burns. Pass Transportation/Infrastructure/Jobs now.
The false information that USAG provided was conveyed to him by a subordinate; the USAG doesn't oversee every DOJ investigation. As I understand the procedural history, when Holder revealed his initial communication to be incorrect, he explained that his information came from a subordinate, and suggested that the panel subpoena the subordinate to explain the mistake or falsehood. Knowing this, however, didn't change Issa's insistence on subpoenaing Holder, a mere conduit. If my understanding of the procedural history is correct, it's a more objective way of proving the purely political nature of these events than criticizing the Issa-NRA Fellini-esque psychosis about undermining the Second Amendment. (Even trying to have a dialogue about that gives it more substance than it deserves.)
Is Issa correct about what the case law says about the scope of executive privilege? If he is, then the President should reconsider invoking the privilege. If he's not, he's not merely mistaken (the committee has legal counsel), he's lying,and the president should call him on his lie.
they will hand over the documents,,,just as soon as they edit them...
What a public service a msnbc could have served if it had posted Issa's letter in its entirety, as did at least one other news site. As everyone learned, or should have learned in school, first-hand information and original documents are the most reliable sources of information, not someone else's edited "version" or summary. Media audiences need to be constantly aware that they are being shown and told what the commentator wants them to see and hear. The same is true of political figures. Bias is becoming more and more blatant, especially in places it should not exist. As individuals, and as a nation, we do ourselves a disservice when we blindly accept what others tell us and make no effort to verify the facts.
Only liberals can make this about Obuma vs Bush when the fact is someone paid with this illegal action with their life. This means someones son, husband, father etc... but you lib tards are to ignorant to see that. Not one lib will mention when Bush ran a similar operation because during that one the Bush Admin was working hand in hand with the Mexican government, they had tracking numbers put into every single firearm and they also tracked each firearms while letting Mexican authorities know exactly who, what, when and where on every step of the way. The second it was even thought of that an innocent Mexican citizen was killed by the use of one of the firearms used in the joint operation, G.W. Bush himself squashed the entire operation stating that no loss of human life was worth an operation that "might" turn up someone eventually. Of coarse, we all know why libs won't mention this and that's because hero Obuma didn't read the prompter correct when ordering this illegal act that resulted in the death of a federal officer. Holder and Obama and everyone else in between should be held accountable for the death of a federal officer. I mean heck, if an average everyday Joe murders a federal agent, their life is over. I guess when your the problem and that problem sits in the white house, that means your above the law. You have to be a complete idiot to think Obama did not know anything about this especially when this operation was all about attempting to gain "ammo" to use in Obamas anti 2nd amendment ideology. Holder could not have ordered such a thing without a higher authorization to clear himself and we all know Hillary couldn't make a call that complicated if her life depended on it. Now she could say that she was under "sniper fire" from the drug cartels and hence, created such a plan but all the lies, cover ups, orders to keep their mouths shut, people willing to be thrown under the bus in the name of protecting messiah....... It's disgusting how this administration has not only thumbed it's nose at the US Constitution but the American people as well. I pray we never make the same mistake again electing an idiot who has no business being in a position when as a congressmen couldn't even tie his own damn shoes.
Issa was allowed to continue his agenda and call for contempt proceedings on Eric Holder even after commenting on camera that there was no evidence to connect either the President or Holder of any wrong doing in the Fast and Furious operation. ( That is if you listen to any thing but Fox News).
How pathetic!