President Barack Obama today asserted executive privilege over documents long sought by Congress in the investigation of the “Fast and Furious” operation. The assertion in my view is facially overbroad and excessive. It is the latest example of sweeping claims of executive power and privilege by this Administration. Congress has ample reason to investigate this operation, which involves alleged criminal acts that may have resulted in the death of third parties, including a U.S. agent. The Justice Department is accused of complicity in one of the most ill-conceived and harmful operations in recent years. The very officials and agency accused of wrongdoing is claiming that it can withhold documents from a committee with oversight responsibilities.
The position of the Justice Department on the issue seems hopelessly conflicted. On one hand, the White House and Justice Department have stressed that Obama did not review these documents to protect him from the political backlash over the operation. Yet, it is claiming sweeping privilege over Justice Department documents. It is precisely the type of executive privilege claim that many of us denounced during the Bush Administration. The Administration is left with deliberative process rather than a presidential communication privilege since these documents were not “solicited and received” by the President
In a letter by Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the Justice Department refused to turn over the documents on the basis of privilege. The letter was delivered shortly before a scheduled contempt vote. The full House would have to approve the measure for Holder to be held in contempt.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Wednesday informing him that the president has granted the request.
The documents were written from February 2011 and afterward detailing how Justice officials learned about the Fast and Furious probe. Holder insists that they fall within the “deliberative process” privilege. The position however could sharply curtail the ability of Congress to be a check and balance in such controversies. Any documents prepared in response to such a controversy would be viewed as deliberative process. This claim is generally used in discovery in civil litigations and Freedom of Information Act requests. It is the most frequently invoked executive privilege in the federal courts. However, the documents must be both “predecisional” as well as “deliberative.”
The use of the privilege in my view raises serious questions over the separation of powers in the tripartite system. The deliberative process privilege is not constitutionally based and “disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct [has] occurred.” In re Sealed Case (Espy), 121 F.3d 729, 745 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
The Justice Department has long tried to expand the deliberative process privilege to allow it the same sweeping protections that come with presidential communications. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the notion that agency employees are chilled by congressional inquiries in NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co:
The probability that the agency employee will be inhibited from freely advising a decisionmaker for fear that his advice if adopted, will become public is slight. First, when adopted, the reasoning becomes that of the agency and becomes its responsibility to defend. Second, agency employees will generally be encouraged rather than discouraged by public knowledge that their policy suggestions have been adopted by the agency. Moreover, the public interest in knowing the reasons for a policy actually adopted by an agency supports [disclosure].
My greatest concern rests with the impact on checks and balances in a system already left anemic by ever-expanding claims of executive power.
Source: ABA Journal
“anon, Most Americans have used Planned Parenthood at one point or another in their lives. For some women it is the only doctor they can afford to see! If you are against Planned Parenthood, you are really against medical care for the poor or disadvantaged.
Not quite racist, but ‘classist’ you think only the well to do should have medical care.”
Thank you for misrepresenting me.
If you can find anything that suggests either a) I don’t support Planned Parenthood, or b) I think only the well to do should have medical care, than please do.
In the meantime, keep your misrepresentations of others to yourself.
Regardless, the statement from SwM (echoed by other feministas) that she will only vote for Planned Parenthood endorsed candidates certainly makes her a special interest, vote your vagina voter.
Acceptable statements:
Vote your head!
Vote your heart!
Don’t let your dick do your thinking!
All women and “good men” will vote for planned parenthood endorsed candidates.
Unacceptable statements:
“I don’t consider a planned parenthood endorsement the final word on who I vote for”.
which is responded to with bullshit calls of
MISOGYNY MISOGYNY. CLASSISM! RACIST! MISOGYNST!
So shano, take your bullying and your cries of misogyny and either put up the evidence or shove them deep.
anon, Most Americans have used Planned Parenthood at one point or another in their lives. For some women it is the only doctor they can afford to see! If you are against Planned Parenthood, you are really against medical care for the poor or disadvantaged.
Not quite racist, but ‘classist’ you think only the well to do should have medical care.
I give to PP because the gave me medical care I could afford when I was poor. And they saved my sisters fertility so she has a beautiful daughter now. They preserved her fertility. I would not have this beautiful niece if Planned Parenthood had not helped my sister.
but, yea, I think you are a misogynist anyway. Try to back off Planned Parenthood if you can, because it is a great organization that does more good in the world than you ever could.
Romney will be worse than Obama, there is no doubt about that. Just like Bush was much worse than we could even imagine. Romney will forcefully cut everyones hair.
“This is precisely what happens in a polarized world of party politics.”
Thanks Mark, the other way we the people aid and abet this is because we allow the Democratic Party to assume they can count on our votes, because “who else are you going to vote for”, and “if Romney gets in it’s DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM”. As well as all the bullying that goes on, even/especially at sites like this: “All women and good men should vote for Planned Parenthood candidates or else MISOGYNY”, “You like Ron Paul, YOU ARE A RACIST!”, “You are a white Democrat considering someone other than Obama? RACISM!”
Support proportional voting, and if you don’t see a candidate you like, vote for the most viable third party candidate to encourage other alternative party runs in the future.
importanttopics 1, June 21, 2012 at 11:15 am
I would bet a million dollars that Romney would not outlaw abortion even with two Republican majorities in congress.
==================================
Keep your money. They’re already trying to ban vodka.
The truth is, despite what Mike would tell you, that Romney and Obama are very much alike. One appeals to the right wing of society and one appeals to the left. In substance they are both quite similar. Look at how similar Obama has been to Bush with regard to foreign policy and domestic police-state policies. Don’t let people scare you about Romney banning abortions, outlawing homosexuality, or taking away a woman’s right to vote. I would bet a million dollars that Romney would not outlaw abortion even with two Republican majorities in congress. These are the issues they use to divide people along religious lines. Romney, if you remember, is very much pro-choice. Oh, he changed his view? Of course he did. But it means nothing. He is running on a national Republican ticket now. This ain’t Massachusetts anymore.
“The truth is, despite what Mike would tell you, that Romney and Obama are very much alike. One appeals to the right wing of society and one appeals to the left. In substance they are both quite similar. Look at how similar Obama has been to Bush with regard to foreign policy and domestic police-state policies. Don’t let people scare you about Romney banning abortions, outlawing homosexuality, or taking away a woman’s right to vote. I would bet a million dollars that Romney would not outlaw abortion even with two Republican majorities in congress.”
importanttopics,
Now if I was a clever right-wing operative, who wanted to affect the election by stating that the two candidates were one in the same and so it doesn’t matter who you vote for, or whether you vote at all, I would adopt exactly what you said. I don’t know enough about you to be able to say I had discerned your motivation, but strategically it would be a good move if you were such an operative.
But riddle me this, per today’s story in the DailyKos link below, why are all these corporate fat cats and Republican operatives hovering around Mitt and think his election so important, if who’s President doesn’t make a difference to the 1%?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/20/1101747/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-Bush-conservatism-s-second-act
“The wolf in charge of shepherding modern American conservatism, Grover Norquist, observed a while back that it did not really matter which Republican was put in the presidency so long as they could sign their own name. His point was a valid one. No matter which Republican wins the nomination, the same figures would still hold sway; the same narrow group of people would be selected from, to govern and to give advice; the same money handlers would be present, collecting from the same groups and companies, demanding in return the same policies and agendas.”
Now you try to ease our minds by stating:
“Don’t let people scare you about Romney banning abortions, outlawing homosexuality, or taking away a woman’s right to vote. I would bet a million dollars that Romney would not outlaw abortion even with two Republican majorities in congress. These are the issues they use to divide people along religious lines.”
Now I’m sure you’re ready to put up your million dollars in a wager, but who are you that I should trust your “sureness”. One would have thought that extremely conservative Senator Richard Lugar would be immune from primary defeat at the hands of the Tea Baggers, but lo and behold he lost his primary and a further message was sent to Republicans that they follow the dictum of this radical religious base, or face defeat. Romney has prove nothing if not that he’s the most pliable of candidates. Somehow your assurances don’t comfort me.
Pattern of lawlessness continuesPublished on Thursday, June 21, 2012 by Common Dreams
Obama White House Rejects Request for Targeted Killing Docs
– Common Dreams staff
Citing national security concerns, the Obama administration on Wednesday rejected requests by the ACLU and the New York Times for documents relating to the US military’s drone and targeted killing campaigns.
Critics argue that the government cannot reasonably expect to exploit details of these programs for political reasons on the one hand and then deny they exist when the legality of the same programs are challenged in court. In court documents filed late Wednesday — in accordance with a deadline set by a New York federal court – the administration argued the information requested was “highly classified,” despite the fact that details of the programs have been leaked to the media. Critics argue that the government cannot reasonably expect to exploit details of these programs for political reasons on the one hand and then deny they exist when the legality of the same programs are challenged in court.
In response to the government’s court action, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said Thursday: “The notion that the CIA’s targeted killing program is still a secret is beyond absurd. Senior officials have discussed it, both on the record and off.”
The ACLU’s Jaffer said, “The public is entitled to know more about the legal authority the administration is claiming and the way that the administration is using it.”
“We continue to have profound concerns with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the president should be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts,” Jaffer said.: ”
Consistent patterns of lawlessness have a meaning. People are willing to ignore that meaning and the events when it’s “their” side doing them. That is as dangerous as the lawlessness itself. When Republicans do that, it is dangerous to our whole nation. When Democrats do it, it is dangerous to our whole nation. Our fellow citizens have to mean more to us than cheering for our party. Real things are at stake here, things that will destroy our social fabric. Radical honesty and integrity of mind and spirit are the only tools citizens have to combat this level of corruption and lawlessness. We must exercise our finest qualities as human beings.
woody voinche 1, June 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
US FUNDS THE TALIBAN????
…this is the most important issue of the day…we will never win a war where if not directly then
indirectly the US is funding the opposition!!!!
====================================
Time to leave. Never should have done it in the first place. Afghanistan, yes, because of what they did. Iraq, no.
US FUNDS THE TALIBAN????
One of the most important issues today is the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan and the fact that US
Military Aid to Pakistan is being used to fund the Pakistani ISI which is in turn funding Taliban
and Al Quada fighters. While this has been reported sporadically in the media for whatever
reason political pundits on the left and right have effectively ignored this issue.
Joe Klein in an article for Time, August 9, 2010, p. 19, has written an article that every American
citizen should go to their library and read, he writes,
“The commanders are unanimous in their belief that the ISI is running the show….And so,
despite professions of alliance with the US by Pakistan’s then dictator Pervez Musharraf, a
decision was made to keep the Taliban alive. A spigot of untargeted military aid from the George
W. Bush Administration helped fund the effort. A commander of the vicious Haqqani Taliban
network tells Waldman that their funding comes from ‘the Americans–from them to the
Pakistani military, and then to us.’ Waldman reports that the commander receives from the
Pakistanis ‘a reward for killing foreign soldiers, usually $4000 to $5000 for each soldier killed'”.
American tax dollars if not directly, then indirectly are being used to fund the Taliban and put
a bounty on American boys and girls head… Makes one wonder why the establishment right
or left is not reporting on this? If the right is covering for
the mistakes of the Bush administration…why is the establishment left not reporting on this???
…this is the most important issue of the day…we will never win a war where if not directly then
indirectly the US is funding the opposition!!!!
woody voinche
*************************************************************************
This is a bigger scandal than Fast and Furious…that Amerikan
tax dollars are funding the Pakistani military and ISI who are
then funding the Taliban and Alquada and putting a $5000 bounty
on Amerikan boys and girls heads….why isnt there a call for a
Senatorial and Congressional investigation of this?????
Some of these officials get selective amnesia along party lines???
Is it about the Board on Professional Responsibility?
A complaint could be made against Eric Holder to the DC Board on Professional Responsibility, for instance.
This is precisely what happens in a polarized world of party politics. Neither sides assumes any sense of goodwill from the other to fairly judge an issue. Thus the Executive believes that the Legislature, controlled by its opponents, will take every unfair advantage to mushroom a relatively minor scandal into an election year debacle, while the Legislature assumes the worst from the Executive and demands accountability. It’s a kangaroo court with each side unworthy of belief. This is precisely the problem with factions as Madison noted in Federalist 10:
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
They have to turn over the documents. Do you know what the “Rosemary Rule” is?
=========
The 18½ minute gap
According to President Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, on September 29, 1973, she was reviewing a tape of the June 20, 1972 recordings[3] when she said she had made “a terrible mistake” during transcription. While playing the tape on a Uher 5000, she answered a phone call. Reaching for the Uher 5000 stop button, she said that she mistakenly hit the button next to it, the record button. For the duration of the phone call, about 5 minutes, she kept her foot on the device’s pedal, causing a five-minute portion of the tape to be re-recorded. When she listened to the tape, the gap had grown to 18½ minutes and later insisted that she was not responsible for the remaining 13 minutes of buzz.
The contents missing from the recording remain unknown to this day. It is widely believed that the tapes recorded a conversation between Nixon and Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman. Nixon said that he never heard the conversation and did not know the topics of the missing tapes.[4] Haldeman’s notes from the meeting show that among the topics of discussion was the arrests at the Watergate Hotel.[5] White House lawyers first heard the now infamous 18½ minute gap on the evening of November 14, 1973 and Judge Sirica, who had issued the subpoenas for the tapes, was not told until November 21, after the President’s attorneys had decided that there was “no innocent explanation” they could offer.[5]
Rose Mary Woods demonstrating how she may have erased tape recordings
Woods was asked to replicate the position she took to cause that accident. Seated at a desk, she reached far back over her left shoulder for a telephone as her foot applied pressure to the pedal controlling the transcription machine. Her posture during the demonstration, dubbed the “Rose Mary Stretch,” resulted in many political commentators questioning the validity of the explanation.[6]
Years later, former White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig speculated that the erasures may conceivably have been caused by Nixon himself. According to Haig, the President was spectacularly inept at understanding and operating mechanical devices, and in the course of reviewing the tape in question, he may have caused the erasures by fumbling with the recorder’s controls; whether inadvertently or intentionally, Haig could not say.
In a grand jury interview in 1975, Nixon noted that he initially believed that only four minutes of the tape was missing. When he later heard that 18 minutes was missing, he said, “I practically blew my stack.”
==============================================
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes
The thing that bothers me about the pending House vote is that the NRA has made it known that they will be noting who votes nay and it will go against their hallowed “score”. This is basically a threat to GOP house members. If they had an idea to vote nay on principle, it will be quickly scuttled to avoid a black mark from the NRA. That is the kind of power that the NRA wields on the Hill.
The GOP is responsible for gutting many government agencies, making it next to impossible for them to do their jobs effectively. The ATF is their special target because the NRA would like to see it gone. So, step 1: cripple the regulating authority that you don’t like. Step 2: wait for it to fail. Step 3: go in for the kill, justifying said action by pointing out how ineffective it is. Or in this instance, base your case on the conspiracy theory that F&F was intentionally flawed in order to take away our guns.
“I keep telling Obama to fire Eric Holder, but he does not listen”
Why would Obenito fire him?
Interesting article from the Nation!
Gene,
You are right that Pelosi should have arrested Rove if they ad the goods on him!
I fully support the idea of a TOTAL RECALL of elected officials. I can’t see this happening at the federal level but our state has an initiative process so it might be easier to implement.
What I mean by a Total Recall is where the voters instigate an initiative for a special election where there are two choices. 1) Initiate a recall election against the entirety of the legislature. 2) Initiate a recall against the governor. If both choices are yes, the governor and all members of the state legislature are out of office that day. No bills can be levied from the time the initiative reaches the level to hold an election until after the votes are counted. If NO then business as usual. If YES then hit the road jack.
A caretaking government will preside by the Lieutenant Governor as acting governor, the attorney general as advisor, and the supreme court as an oversite committee. (Despite what people think, the state does function without the presence of the governor or legislature in office) A general election would be held within a reasonable amount of time. Former recalled politicians would be banned from holding office until the following full election cycle.
No need for an upheaval, just get them out if they are not worthy.
Wentzel, not likely as this program was started under George ‘NRA Cheerleader’ Bush.
Bob, the DOJ wouldnt know where the damn soda machine might be located, much less who busted into it.
All I can say is, wtf are we doing with all these nano sized RFD chips and all this teeny tiny spy equipment if we cannot use it it track guns being smuggled into Mexico?
The DOJ ‘lost’ thousands and thousands of guns. W.T.F.
Not for nothing, but we’re talking about allegations of criminal acts surrounding the death of a U.S. agent.
Accordingly, in Dr. Strangelove speak, the DOJ is alleged to have knowledge as to who busted into the soda machine and therefore must answer to the Coca Cola company (aka congress).
Twain was an astute observer, OS.
Excellent thread, got here late but enjoyed the read.
“Wentzell
1, June 20, 2012 at 9:09 pm
It’s likely that the genesis of Fast & Furious was to create a case (or tragic events) that would advance gun control in the United States. If evidence of this motivation existed in the documents requested by Congress it makes political sense that the Executive would go to great lengths to restrict them, as they have done.”
======
You’re being played. File that under ‘today’s right-wing conspiracy made up out of whole cloth’.