Hiding Behind Executive Privilege

President Barack Obama has long tried to distance himself from the “Fast and Furious” scandal at the Justice Department, which stems from a program under which Mexican drug cartels were allowed to acquire U.S. firearms that were later used against U.S. law-enforcement personnel. By invoking executive privilege to stymie congressional investigation of the case, the president has placed himself squarely in the center of it.

President Obama, who had been a bitter critic of the Bush administration’s use of executive privilege, today through his representatives protested that he is only doing what the Bush administration did before him. The same man who once accused President Bush of “hiding behind executive privilege” is now hiding behind George W. Bush.

Executive privilege serves a necessary function in our constitutional order, reinforcing the separation of powers and protecting sensitive deliberations within the executive branch, and it is especially strong when the president or his closest advisers in the White House are involved in the communication. In this case, the administration has long denied that the president was directly involved. Instead, Attorney General Eric Holder wasted everyone’s time invoking a spurious form of deliberative privilege that was completely decoupled from executive privilege. Such a privilege has no force vis-à-vis Congress. By finally invoking executive privilege yesterday, the president belatedly acknowledged that his attorney general was full of it.

Executive privilege has legitimate uses — and illegitimate uses. For instance, it is not intended to be used merely to protect the president from political embarrassment stemming from grievous errors in judgment by members of his cabinet or officers of the departments over which they preside. There is good reason to believe that in this case the privilege is being abused.

Fast and Furious became public knowledge only when dissatisfied agents within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives blew the whistle on the program after the murder of Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent gunned down by criminals wielding semiautomatic rifles, at least two of which were sold to arms traffickers with the foreknowledge of the Justice Department as part of the program. Congress has the right to make inquiries of the executive branch in the course of undertaking its constitutional lawmaking duties — for example, while studying whether to pass laws forbidding U.S. law-enforcement agencies to knowingly allow bloodthirsty drug cartels to acquire firearms. In such situations, executive privilege is by no means absolute. The privilege is qualified and contingent. One limiting factor is an allegation of official misconduct, and there is reason to believe that official misconduct has occurred in this case, not least Holder’s conflicting and inconsistent accounts of the case and the presence of evidence suggesting that his accounts have been in some part untrue. Indeed, the claim of executive privilege will only increase the sense that Holder has been more dishonest in his congressional testimony than is already evident.

The case is quickly turning into a showdown between the executive and legislative branches of government, an undesirable development that the president could easily have prevented by simply waiving privilege in this matter (declining to invoke executive privilege in no way diminishes the president’s right to use it in the future) and instructing his attorney general, who is currently facing the prospect of being held in contempt of Congress, to cooperate with the investigation. If the full Congress holds Holder in contempt, it is unlikely that the Justice Department will choose to prosecute the man in charge of it. That leaves Congress with the option of filing a lawsuit to force the Justice Department to comply with the subpoena and release the documents in question. Congress should avail itself of that option. If the case is litigated, the administration will almost certainly lose. In the meantime, Mitt Romney should commit to a full investigation of Fast and Furious should he be elected in November.

Disputes between co-equal branches of government are best settled politically, and, fortunately for the American people, an election is at hand. What we already know about Fast and Furious bespeaks gross irresponsibility at the Justice Department — and an equally serious failure in judgment at the White House, which today has declared that it cares more about its immediate political prospects than about cooperating with a full and open investigation of government actions that abetted the murder of an American law-enforcement agent.

I think I might be kicking a hornet's nest, but here goes:
The argument, in purely logical terms, is not strengthened by mentioning Brian Terry's death...although it DOES create an emotional response. But isn't the emotional argument the gambit of the dems? One we rightly denigrate?

There are two issues:
1) Fast and Furious, which can be absolutely destroyed by solid, logical argument. It is fallacious to imply that F&F caused, or even materially contributed to Terry's death. Without F&F, Terry would still be dead, the guns would have been acquired somewhere else, without a doubt.

2) Terry's death is tragic and deplorable. The argument should be for the complete evisceration and annihilation of the drug thugs - and by taking on the mindset that drug users are contributing to the drug thugs. If we had been truly fighting a war, taking it to these scumbags instead of playing patty-cake with them and the governments that protect them, Terry might still be alive

Let's quit trying make the appeal to emotion, make the strong logical arguments that are there. We aren't dems after all.

Well you are both wrong and arguing a hypothetical.

1. The United States government allowed criminals to acquire weapons they were absolutely barred from possessing. that is a fact as opposed to your hypothetical which assumes a linear process of events.

The fact of the matter is life operates chaotically and without the sale of guns Brian Terry might well be alive.

2. Terry’s death is tragic and deplorable. It was also avoidable for the government willfuly deciding they weren’t fighting a war on drugs or the cartels but, rather, deciding good decent law abiding Americans needed to have their rights under our Constitution severaly restricted to conform to this administrations fascist ideals.

I actually can’t believe you have been a Freeper this long with such insupportable and irrational reasoning.

You obviously don’t understand logic or read very well. The article said there were more guns used than the F&F guns - ergo, they had means to buy guns NOT sold to them by the government - ergo, they murder Terry with guns NOT sold to them by the government. I am not making the linear argument, YOU are.

Where does my argument dispute that F&F allowed them to possess the TWO weapons? That’s what we should be arguing, not that they were used in a murder - otherwise we fall into the logical trap: Joe sold the gun to Fred (legally), Fred killed Frank, so let’s prosecute Joe (or Remington, or Winchester, or Smith & Wesson)

Make the argument that the US was not doing what they should have been doing - fighting the war instead of playing around (which is the argument I made, that you didn’t seem to notice) - and MAYBE Terry would be alive. Don’t make the argument that because the guns were used, F&F caused the murder. That is a specious appeal to emotion that is effective with dems, idiots and children....but I repeat myself.

I can’t believe you have the nerve to question ANYBODY’S conservative credentials.

I don’t doubt you are a conservative but your premise is mortally flawed.

There are bullets in Terry that came from a gun or guns acquired in F&F an illegal operation that resulted again, in Terry’s death.

Could other means have been used? Sure and there were but the fact remains someone and really a group of someone’s unlawfully and illegally allowed guns to be purchased and transported by who knows and across a national border, with no controls and no conscience of violating another nations laws by so doing and who knows how many laws were broken that are codified in our laws.

I can think of probably twenty to start with and the EP issued yesterday probably greatly expands that number.

You ask where your argument disputes F&F allowed them to posses those two weapons?

Exhibit A, I guess:
“It is fallacious to imply that F&F caused, or even materially contributed to Terry’s death”

It isn’t fallacious nor hypothetical but a real and demonstrable fact.

It is also, repeating myself, a fact that the guns were used in the commission of a murder, of an American by the name of Brian Terry.

Said person murdered was an American and let’s see....there was another American murdered who fell victim to this unmitigated disaster and his name is Jaime Zapata.

These are but two names, no make that real human beings, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata, whose lives were snuffed out by an ideological and zealous administration.

Now, what if we were to create a wall of remembrance for the other victims, who were also murdered using weapons provided by the American Government?

How many other Americans have been murdered using F&F weapons? We won’t know unless the cartels conveniently drop them and we can compare rounds in the victims to those fired from the weapon.

How many Americans and Mexicans should be on that wall?

This ain’t not “Joe sold the gun to Fred(legally) scenario.

This is about unlawfully and illegally selling weapons to people are, by law, barred from owning weapons, acting as straw buyers and allowing those weapons to be transported across an international boundary.

The whole thing from beginning to now was illegal from the act of the United States Government to the murders of innocents and the shootouts with law enforcement.

So let’s prosecute every last bastard involved in F&F in our government and every last person involved from the time they took possession of the weapons.

The only innocents in this are the very dead people as a result of this and their families who seek resolution and closure to this nonsense.

They can be pursued on the MERITS of the case, that they sold guns to the drug cartel. Going further is over-reaching (remember, burden of proof is on the accuser) - one cannot logically or convincingly make the case that without the F&F guns, there would have been no murder - in fact, I could create a HUGE reasonable doubt in less than five minutes were I defending the case.

IF you make the case that F&F was criminally responsible for Terry’s death because their guns were used, then you can make the case that S&W is civilly responsible every time their guns are used - it is simply not solid reasoning to try to hold ATF responsible for his death.

We have reason to be angry at ATF. We have reason to demand answers. We have reason to call for resignations. We have reason to belive Obama is hiding something. What we do not have is a solid, logical foundation upon which to accuse ATF of murder - because the reasonable answer to the question, “Would Brian Terry be alive today if F&F was never implemented?” is “No”.

Furthermore, making the argument opens the door to the “S&W is responsible” argument - and one cannot deny one and accept the other. As I said before, it is an appeal to emotion, one that is wrapped in the appearance of logic, but without the necessary substance thereof.

Going further than what?

Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata were murdered by people unlawfully in possession of weapons provided by the US Government who broke their own laws in selling these weapons to Mexico and in so doing violated Mexican laws.

The only case to be made are the facts. It matters not that there were other guns used in the commission of crimes or that other guns or no other guns could have still been used without F&F guns.

We have reason to be angry at ATF? LOL, what? Do you work for them or know someone who does?

They Effing broke the law and people died and were injured As A Result of that action?

It now appears The White House was involved otherwise they would not have issued a EP. Which means this program was authorized by the White House in violation of, again, who knows how many laws here in the United States and Mexico.

Should we merely be angry at all these people and send them a strongly worded letter?

Is that your assertion? This is nothing more than an exercise in emotional flagellation and really there were no laws broken other than the murder of these innocents?

There is a lawful order for manufacturing, distributing through the supply chain and obtaining weapons on the market and the ATF broke that order of possession by knowingly allowing the weapons to be sold to straw purchasers and walked across the border. Those guns were absolutely and with demonstrably certainty used in the commission of crimes and everyone involved knew damned well who was actually going to get the guns and their use of the weapons would be illegal, if not for the mere possession.

When I travel to Mexico I don’t walk around with a gun or even a pocket knife...It’s illegal and I’m a guest in their country. I act like one.

The United States allowed weapons into a country in violation of their sovereignty and their laws. Those weapons were then used in the commission of a crime.

Those weapons were unlawfully provided and sold under illegal pretense.

That’s the conflation. It was illegal and someone lost their life with an illegal act that had its genesis at the ATF.

I’m guessing you like to hear yourself talk and you are probably a reasonable person but not on this subject.

Besides, you wanted to talk with someone otherwise you wouldn’t have made the claim and I took the bait.

I’ll be here all night and your 5 minutes of destroying this case are up.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

MURDERGATE