*Obama grants 'Executive Privilege' to Eric Holder*

[fuhr52]

It's all about politics now. The main stream media will hide. Anyone who comes out against the administration will be a racist. As usual the truth be damned. Doesn't matter someone is dead. It was his bad luck to be in the wrong place.

[S&W645]

There are at least three threads discussing Obama's EP claim now, but this one seems to be the busiest, so I guess I'll put this here.

I said earlier in one of the other threads that the claim of EP was a virtual admission that Obama is and has been involved in the willful stonewalling of the congressional investigation. Well, now I have found some corroboration for that assertion in the form of a report prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service specifically concerning the invocation of Executive Privilege and its legal uses.

On the very first page, within a summary of the findings throughout the rest of the report, the following passage appears:



Now, there are technical and legal caveats that may or may not apply to the invocation of EP by a president under specified circumstances, but the above is the general rule of thumb. Only presidential decisionmaking and deliberations are generally protected under the constitutional privilege.

In the context of the subpoena for documents, and the time period it covers, Obama at no time was ever accused of, nor did he or Holder or any other witness or evidence ever claim that Obama was aware of anything having to do with Fast & Furious. Only his own invocation today of Executive Privilege suggests that he himself has been involved all along.

If Republicans can't make hay out of this stunning development, they don't have a hair on their collective a$$. Anyone who has a Republican Senator or Representative better be flooding their inboxes with emails and their offices with phone calls demanding that they support the Contempt citation that Issa's committee just voted in favor of as I was typing this reply. It probably can't pass the Senate if it gets that far, but it should be a prominent topic for every Republican who's within shouting distance of a microphone from now until election day.

Blues

It doesn't go to the Senate Blues. The contempt charge goes right from the House next week if passed directly to the DC DA. Does not pass the Senate and does not get blocked by Reid.

And the CRS report got pulled out by Issa and quoted.

[fstroupe]

Olamo knows that he can't use Executive Privilage in this case. This is just a ploy to drag this stuff out beyond the election. The Supreme Court will not hear any new cases or issues until next year. Same as if they hold Holder in contempt of Congress. So what? What are they gonna do if he refuses to comply? Send the FBI out for him? He owns the FBI. How about the US Marshals? Nope, he owns them too.

This is just Obama's way of flipping Issa off.

Some of the "whistle blowers" in the fast and furious investigation admitted that the goal of the Justice Department was the reinstatement of of the assault rifle ban. Some government officials thought that proving that American guns were causing the violence in Mexico would cause Americans to demand more gun control. Even Obama believed that the congress would not add to gun control unless it could be proven that our guns were causing the organized crime violence. He and the Mexian president discussed the need for more US laws. No deception or lie is beneath this administration.

I thought that the whole "Fast and Furious" plan was pretty stupid....until I thought about was it really was about. Hillary and others suggested that a huge number of automatic weapons have come into Mexico from the US. (she probably doesn't know that "assault weapons" aren't full auto) Remember early last year when the Mexican presidente chided Congress about lifting the ban...in a joint session of Congress? He did.

[S&W645]

Olamo knows that he can't use Executive Privilage in this case. This is just a ploy to drag this stuff out beyond the election. The Supreme Court will not hear any new cases or issues until next year. Same as if they hold Holder in contempt of Congress. So what? What are they gonna do if he refuses to comply? Send the FBI out for him? He owns the FBI. How about the US Marshals? Nope, he owns them too.

This is just Obama's way of flipping Issa off.

I thought that the whole "Fast and Furious" plan was pretty stupid....until I thought about was it really was about. Hillary and others suggested that a huge number of automatic weapons have come into Mexico from the US. (she probably doesn't know that "assault weapons" aren't full auto) Remember early last year when the Mexican presidente chided Congress about lifting the ban...in a joint session of Congress? He did.

He doesn't own the Capitol Police though.

[hogdoc357]

“How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he's supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme?” -- Senator Chuck Grassley(R-IA), June 20, 2012

[walt629]

I'm waiting for the argument comparing this to Reagan invoking Executive Privilege during the Iran Contra hearings to pop up.

[BluesStringer]

There are at least three threads discussing Obama's EP claim now, but this one seems to be the busiest, so I guess I'll put this here.

I said earlier in one of the other threads that the claim of EP was a virtual admission that Obama is and has been involved in the willful stonewalling of the congressional investigation. Well, now I have found some corroboration for that assertion in the form of a report prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service specifically concerning the invocation of Executive Privilege and its legal uses.

On the very first page, within a summary of the findings throughout the rest of the report, the following passage appears:



Now, there are technical and legal caveats that may or may not apply to the invocation of EP by a president under specified circumstances, but the above is the general rule of thumb. Only presidential decisionmaking and deliberations are generally protected under the constitutional privilege.

In the context of the subpoena for documents, and the time period it covers, Obama at no time was ever accused of, nor did he or Holder or any other witness or evidence ever claim that Obama was aware of anything having to do with Fast & Furious. Only his own invocation today of Executive Privilege suggests that he himself has been involved all along.

If Republicans can't make hay out of this stunning development, they don't have a hair on their collective a$$. Anyone who has a Republican Senator or Representative better be flooding their inboxes with emails and their offices with phone calls demanding that they support the Contempt citation that Issa's committee just voted in favor of as I was typing this reply. It probably can't pass the Senate if it gets that far, but it should be a prominent topic for every Republican who's within shouting distance of a microphone from now until election day.

Blues

It doesn't go to the Senate Blues. The contempt charge goes right from the House next week if passed directly to the DC DA. Does not pass the Senate and does not get blocked by Reid.

And the CRS report got pulled out by Issa and quoted.

That's good to know about the Senate 645.

I quoted my own post above because I wanted to relay something that I heard that contradicts my take in it.

Most everyone is familiar with Mark Levin I reckon. Not sure everyone knows his background though. He was an assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan Administration. As such, he not only was exposed to the vagaries of Executive Privilege, but he participated in preparing and arguing for more than one assertion of it in court.

He opened his show tonight by dispelling the notion that the President has to have been directly involved in a specific issue for which he asserts EP for his subordinates. He gave several logical examples, like a general's decisions and deliberations in-theater that the president has given him autonomous authorization to exercise. Or a CIA agent can fall under the privilege's umbrella. A diplomat can have discussions with foreign leaders that the president has no personal knowledge of, but for which he can subsequently protect under the privilege in various circumstances.

Levin didn't go into any depth or detail about it, but he had heard it said enough times throughout the day before his show started that he wanted to put the myth to rest right off the bat. I'm not a huge Levin radio-show fan, but there's no doubt that he's a bonafide constitutional scholar, and I am going to trust his opinion on this one, and therefore, retract my analysis as it relates to this assertion of the privilege necessarily being an admission by Obama that he's been involved in obstructing and/or lying to the committee conducting the Fast & Furious investigation.

All that said, the good news is that Levin thinks the privilege won't stand a court test. He thinks the contempt charge can stand, and the withheld documents have a good chance of being ordered turned over to the committee.

We'll see what happens from here.....

Blues

[BluesStringer]

Olamo knows that he can't use Executive Privilage in this case. This is just a ploy to drag this stuff out beyond the election. The Supreme Court will not hear any new cases or issues until next year. Same as if they hold Holder in contempt of Congress. So what? What are they gonna do if he refuses to comply? Send the FBI out for him? He owns the FBI. How about the US Marshals? Nope, he owns them too.

In a very real way in the public's mind though, he also owns Fast & Furious now*. Notwithstanding my previous post, Obama has created an inextricable connection to the debacle from here on out. Even if it's not an admission of involvement, it's an unforced error in campaign parlance, and can only hurt him in the public's eye.

Blues

*Link goes to a report that claims to be from an unnamed White House insider. I don't know if that's true, but the essay is worth a going-over if anyone's interested.

[Rhino]

Most everyone is familiar with Mark Levin I reckon. Not sure everyone knows his background though. He was an assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan Administration. As such, he not only was exposed to the vagaries of Executive Privilege, but he participated in preparing and arguing for more than one assertion of it in court.

He opened his show tonight by dispelling the notion that the President has to have been directly involved in a specific issue for which he asserts EP for his subordinates. He gave several logical examples, like a general's decisions and deliberations in-theater that the president has given him autonomous authorization to exercise. Or a CIA agent can fall under the privilege's umbrella. A diplomat can have discussions with foreign leaders that the president has no personal knowledge of, but for which he can subsequently protect under the privilege in various circumstances.

Levin didn't go into any depth or detail about it, but he had heard it said enough times throughout the day before his show started that he wanted to put the myth to rest right off the bat. I'm not a huge Levin radio-show fan, but there's no doubt that he's a bonafide constitutional scholar, and I am going to trust his opinion on this one, and therefore, retract my analysis as it relates to this assertion of the privilege necessarily being an admission by Obama that he's been involved in obstructing and/or lying to the committee conducting the Fast & Furious investigation.

You were correct the first time. It's Levin who is mistaken. If you carefully read the first link you provided, you'll find that the courts have ruled on this issue a number of times.

We are aware that such an extension, unless carefully circumscribed to
accomplish the purposes of the privilege, could pose a significant risk of
expanding to a large swath of the executive branch a privilege that is bottomed
on a recognition of the unique role of the President. In order to limit this risk, the
presidential communications privilege should be construed as narrowly as is
consistent with ensuring that the confidentiality of the President’s
decisionmaking process is adequately protected. Not every person who plays a
role in the development of presidential advice, no matter how remote and
removed from the President, can qualify for the privilege. In particular, the
privilege should not extend to staff outside the White House in executive branch
agencies. Instead, the privilege should apply only to communications authored
or solicited and received by those members of an immediate White House
advisor’s staff who have broad and significant responsibility for investigation
and formulating the advice to be given the President on the particular matter to
which the communications relate. Only communications at that level are close
enough to the President to be revelatory of his deliberations or to pose a risk to
the candor of his advisers. See AAPS, 997 F.2d at 910 (it is “operational
proximity” to the President that matters in determining whether “[t]he President’s
confidentiality interests” is implicated)

Of course, the privilege only applies to communications that these advisers and
their staff author or solicit and receive in the course of performing their function
of advising the President on official government matters. This restriction is
particularly important in regard to those officials who exercise substantial
independent authority or perform other functions in addition to advising the
President, and thus are subject to FOIA and other open government statutes. See
Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553, 558 (D.C. Cir.
1996), cert denied — U.S. — -, 117 S.Ct. 1842, 137 L. Ed.2d 1046 (1997). The
presidential communications privilege should never serve as a means of shielding
information regarding governmental operations that do not call ultimately for
direct decisionmaking by the President. If the government seeks to assert the
presidential communications privilege in regard to particular communications of
these “dual hat” presidential advisers, the government bears the burden of
proving that the communications occurred in conjunction with the process of
advising the President.

That's from U.S. v Espy, District of Columbia Circuit Court, 1997. It's quoted in the first link you provided. It echoes Levin's remarks that the material in question does not have to be directly involved with the president to be included under EP. However, in order to qualify for EP, the material must be somehow tied to his staff at the White House and must be directly related to the carrying out of his orders or policies. If that were true, it would directly tie the issue to the White House, something they have previously and vigorously denied. Also, since they have already stated under oath that they had no knowledge of Fast and Furious prior to the death of agent Brian Terry, they cannot claim executive privilege for any materials prior to that date because that would make them guilty of perjury. If they had no knowledge of the documents before that date, they aren't covered by EP. If they had knowledge of them before that date, they have lied under oath. That's obstruction either way.

[BluesStringer]

That's from U.S. v Espy, District of Columbia Circuit Court, 1997. It's quoted in the first link you provided. It echoes Levin's remarks that the material in question does not have to be directly involved with the president to be included under EP. However, in order to qualify for EP, the material must be somehow tied to his staff at the White House and must be directly related to the carrying out of his orders or policies.

I don't see how Levin can be both mistaken and echoing part of what you're citing as proof of that mistake at the same time. Like I said in my retraction, he didn't go into any depth or detail, he just wanted to make sure his listeners understood that blanket statements that the assertion of the privilege necessarily implicate the president as being involved in something are not accurately stated. There are times when he can assert the privilege on behalf of someone else without him being involved, or even personally aware of, the facts surrounding whatever controversy is at issue.

Instead of me trying to explain it myself, here's a link to yesterday's show. He gives myriad reasons why the assertion of the privilege is illegitimate during the first approximately 15 minute segment, including citing the CRS report and several SCOTUS rulings, and during the second segment, starts trying to correct some of the misconceptions that I alluded to above. The part that I'm specifically referring to starts at about 16:20 and ends at 17:xx when the segment ends.

It may well be that I didn't explain what he said very well, but I'm betting he's not mistaken in the least. Take a listen for yourself and we'll hash it out if necessary. It will help you determine whether you think he's mistaken or not about the short segment I recounted, if you listen to the first segment too. But that's up to you. Like I said, I'm not a particular Levin fan, his voice actually is kind of irritating to me. I was washing some dishes and just turned the radio on as background and heard maybe the first 20 or 25 minutes of the show. I just thought what he said that contradicted what I originally said needed to be clarified, so I did, and I think I was right to do so.

Blues