Posted on 06/23/2012 6:31:20 PM PDT by marktwain
That, at least to me, is the pregnant question. He had a number of other options but 4 months from a critical election, chose the most controversial and potentially damaging one.
Why?
Let’s begin with a quote from a former White House counsel from a Powerline post:
Even with his fawning press, [President Obama] will pay a price for this one. He knows this, meaning that the documents now to be withheld must be dynamite. They have to show either that Holder knew what was going on with Fast and Furious and approved it, or that he directly committed perjury in his Congressional testimony, or both. I just can’t see any other explanation for such a risky move.Wasn’t the Washington Post just covering big time the 40th anniversary of Watergate? I wonder how much coverage this one will get.
That’s the result of the move – speculation that the documents being withheld point to perjury by Holder or the President, or both.
So let’s break this down a bit. If it was all about Holder, why would the president risk this sort of a controversial move this close to an election. It’s not like he’s never thrown anyone under the bus. In fact James Carville is on record advising Obama to dump Holder.
Obama had the option, then, of letting Holder face contempt charges (not much happens as we’ve seen in the past, to those who are served with contempt of Congress charges) and drag out the document release until after the election.
With the election season gearing up, it is likely that while the controversy would have been an issue, it wouldn’t have been a major issue. Now it certainly is.
He could have asked Holder to resign. He could have then used the opportunity to appear as a statesman, a leader and bi-partisan all in one fell swoop. Depending on how he handled that it could actually have been a positive for him heading into an election. In the meantime, an acting AG could continue to delay on providing documents.
But he did neither of those things. For some unknown reason (at least to this point) he chose to do the least likely and most politically damaging thing – invoke executive privilege. As the lawyer quoted has said, those documents must be “dynamite” to have the president make this move.
And, unsaid by the lawyer is the speculation that the documents show the involvement of the White House to a degree that is damaging – apparently more damaging than the speculation and attention this move by the President has brought.
David Kopel at Volokh Conspiracy gives you a great history of the controversy. As for the documents Kopel notes:
According to Attorney General Holder, the DOJ has 140,000 documents related to Fast & Furious. Fewer than 8,000 have been provided to Congress pursuant to subpoenas. The contempt vote has been narrowed to 1,300 documents. In refusing to comply with the House subpoenas, the DOJ has refused to create a privilege log–which would identify withheld documents, and the legal reason for their being withheld.
Matthew Boyle at the DC caller points out that Holder has retracted two previous statements he made to Congress where he gave them inaccurate information in an attempt to blame previous AGs or administrations. It seems that’s a standard operating procedure with all parts of this administration. So Holder is left holding the bag all by himself on this one, or so it seemed, at least, to the point that executive privilege was invoked.
That brings us to these 4 point by Todd Gaziano at the Heritage Foundation about the use of executive privilege:
First, the Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon (1974) held that executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing. The courts held that Nixon’s purported invocation of executive privilege was illegitimate, in part, for that reason. There is reason to suspect that this might be the case in the Fast and Furious cover-up and stonewalling effort. Congress needs to get to the bottom of that question to prevent an illegal invocation of executive privilege and further abuses of power. That will require an index of the withheld documents and an explanation of why each of them is covered by executive privilege—and more.Second, even the “deliberative process” species of executive privilege, which is reasonably broad, does not shield the ultimate decisions from congressional inquiry. Congress is entitled to at least some documents and other information that indicate who the ultimate decision maker was for this disastrous program and why these decisions were made. That information is among the most important documents that are being withheld.
Third, the Supreme Court in the Nixon case also held that even a proper invocation must yield to other branches’ need for information in some cases. So even a proper invocation of executive privilege regarding particular documents is not final.
And lastly, the President is required when invoking executive privilege to try to accommodate the other branches’ legitimate information needs in some other way. For example, it does not harm executive power for the President to selectively waive executive privilege in most instances, even if it hurts him politically by exposing a terrible policy failure or wrongdoing among his staff. The history of executive–congressional relations is filled with accommodations and waivers of privilege. In contrast to voluntary waivers of privilege, Watergate demonstrates that wrongful invocations of privilege can seriously damage the office of the presidency when Congress and the courts impose new constraints on the President’s discretion or power (some rightful and some not).
The key point, of course, is executive privilege cannot be used to “shield wrongdoing”. While it is speculative, it appears highly likely – given the other options available – that executive privilege is being used for precisely that reason in this case.
Additionally, given the choices available to the President, it is not at all out of bounds to speculate that the most transparent administration in history is trying desperately to hide something even more terrible than the political fallout from this choice.
The White House cites internal discussions and ongoing investigations are the reason for its denial and claims the investigations would be jeopardized with the release of the documents. But, as Gaziano points out, accommodations can be made in that regard. The total number of documents requested is 1,300. The White House is simply refusing to cooperate or accommodate.
Why?
We’re still left with that question.
And the answer, given the actions to date, lead to some logical speculation – what is contained in those documents is much more damaging politically than the damage done by the decision. Additionally, Obama can’t afford to let Holder go because if he does there’s the potential that Holder will then spill the beans.
Oh, and finally, this move has suddenly brought Fast and Furious to page one and the top of the newscast like nothing else could. The majority of the country, which was mostly ignorant of this scandal are now in the loop.
As the cited former White House counsel said, “the documents now to be withheld must be dynamite.” In fact, they must be so explosive that the White House is desperate enough to try to weather this self-inflicted political storm in lieu of exposing them.
That says a lot.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
the dick holder knows about the phony commie obommie background and helped protect him fighting court cases, providing coverups, etc. There was no way holder would be asked to resign and obama had to use his last card since they are in a lot of criminal things together.
To my mind, the analysis in the article misses the point because it doesn’t start from the proper understanding of the Obama crowd.
The best starting point in understanding Obama is still “Radical-in-Chief” by Stanley Kurtz.
Obama is a radical masquerading as a conventional politician. Therefore approaching the analysis by trying to find an explanation for his actions in considerations that would be paramount to a conventional politician is not a useful approach.
The same is true of Holder and the radical racists and leftists that operate under his protection in the Justice Department.
If we go back to Alinsky’s way of thinking as a touchstone to understand Obama, what would Alinsky advise?
Alinsky would urge a tactic of provoking confrontation and amplifying grievance.
He would use the media to isolate and demonize the Republicans in Congress who are trying to use the traditional Constitutional procedures to keep Obama and his administration in check.
The first step in the media strategy is to cement in the public mind that this is in essence just a partisan squabble.
The next step is to portray the Republican opponents as being oppressive and overreaching and abusive. This helps to delegitimize the constitutional procedures used by the opponents.
In order to break the Constitution, one must maximize the tensions and contradictions inherent in the system in order to reach a breaking point.
Obama is practically begging for Congress to attack him for improperly usurping power beyond that legally permissible for a president.
He has declared that there are laws he will not enforce (DOMA) and recently unilaterally exempted entire classes of persons from Congressional law (Obamnesty).
He has now found an opportunity to challenge the very basis of Congress’ power to oversee the executive branch.
I think arrogance and absolutely no respect for the Constitution or American government. I read Holder said way back during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, the government did not need a warrant. This is how this Administration has operated from day one. We can do what we want. Also, we have learned during Clinton and now Obama that these types will never give an inch. They simply want people to give in to their way of governing and allow them to do what they deem best. We have lots of ‘rooting out’ to do.
That's true. I had forgotten until I read an earlier post today that Holder was involved in the shameful Elian Gonzalez episode, but obviously that typified his attitude then and does so to this day.
Stauch supporters of this usurper-in-chief will be forced to admit that this was an amateurish, ham-handed, ill-considered reaction out of the Oval Office. The Emperor’s Clothes, or lack thereof, are rapidly becoming humiliatingly apparent.
Too bad for Odumbo he has no military experience aside from organizing protests. Even a complete civilian with nothing more than a moderate interest in war movies could have recognized and avoided this Charlie Foxtrot.
Wicked accurate appraisal of the situation.
Spot on.
obama considers himself untouchable...largely because no one has ever really tried.
Thank you. By the way, just because I detailed my view that he (and his admin) are off the cuff, careless, and lazy, doesn’t eliminate nor detract in any way from the several other possibilities; that they are flat out evil, or flaming Marxists, or socialists, or generally not that bright. They are at times, all of those. But they are lazy Marxists. They are evil, but they are not remarkably cunningly evil. They have despicable intentions, but they just aren’t all that clever when it comes to trying to manifest them. They have what would seem to be brightest-of-the bright Harvard educated idealogues in many positions, but those people apparently are so smug and self-righteous in their elitism that they think their ideas should just be getting over on their own inherent value. And IMO, that’s the main reason why we’re viewed as stupid Neanderthals for not accepting their crap. Who are we to doubt their global warming theory? How dare we question their child-rearing acumen? Who do we think we are, imagining that we know more than the Paul Krugmans of the world (crap! Is there more than one?!) about how the economy works?
Why not? What’s he got to lose? Everything to gain if the Pubbies haven’t the stones.
To dead souls like the democrats, who have used the slaughter of tens of millions of alive unborn human children as an empowerment scheme, the slaughter of a few hundred Mexicans/Latinos an a few LEOs is worth the work to institute severe gun controls. There is no one nor any segment of America that these lying criminal bastard commies will not use and sacrifice to work their agenda.
Chicago mafia tactics in their purest form.
Couldn’t help but think of this after reading your post——”...there is a distinct lack of “adult supervision...”
Isaiah 3:4—
“and I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.”
Assuming it goes to the Courts on the EP claim, there will not be a resolution until after November.
They are running out the clock hoping that even if the worst comes to light, they will still be in power.
More kicking the can down the road. Too damn typical of Washington.
Because he could.
For almost four years he has repeatedly lied, cheated, stolen, extorted, broken laws, violated the Constitution, run roughshod over the nation and generally gotten away with acting like a tyrant with almost no repurcusion or complaints.
It seems the more he has defiled the nation, the more most of the media have risen to protect him.
He thinks he is King and up until now most of the nation has treated him as one.
Why does Obama want to challenge and break the Constitution?
Congress could have impeached the clown for Libya. They could have impeached the clown for blocking oil production in the Gulf of Mexico in defiance of a court order. Obama has no authority for his amnesty, he can be impeached for that, it is clearly unconstitutional. He should have been impeached for his GM redistribution to the Unions. There are more examples.
Why is nobody rushing to fight this bozo?
Obama wants a fight, it is part of his fundamental plan. Some FREEPERs think he is arrogant, some think he is stupid, some think he is incompetent but nobody seems to have the correct, obvious answer.
To get the right answer, you have to figure out WHO IS OBAMA WORKING FOR? OBOZO is always on the wrong side of every issue, always. How could he get everything wrong unless it was why he is POTUS? Saying it another way, who put Obozo in power to destroy the USA?
OBOZO himself. My, my, my.
And for good reason. Having the GOP as your opposition is like having the campfire girls against you. The worst that will happen is they will try to hurt your feelings.....really bad.
The Sept. 2008 ‘run’ on the Fed took place 6 weeks out from the election, remember?
0bama was shooting hoops, saying to ‘call’ him if they ‘needed’ him. He was unscathed.
At the WH, with W, McCain, Reid and Pelosi, it was 0bama that lost his temper in the meeting.
Someone here spoke of 2008 starting with transactions at the Chicago Exchange. The poster made a rather compelling case, at least for me.
IOW, it was the people who did that which are the people who installed 0bama, and he knew it all along.
He knew he was to bring down the US....oil, finance, and insurance. HE is part and parcel of the Constitutional Crisis—and he knows EXACTLY what he is doing.
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