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Posted on 06/25/2012 12:29:20 PM PDT by neverdem
President Obama may have to clear a high bar in order to lock down Fast and Furious documents from the prying eyes of congressional investigators.
After the White House asserted executive privilege over potentially thousands of documents pertaining to the botched anti-gunrunning operation, critics of the move pointed out that the federal appeals court in the nation's capital has taken a skeptical view toward privilege claims in the past.
The D.C. appeals court in 2004 rejected a privilege claim made by the George W. Bush White House pertaining to Justice Department documents dating back to the Clinton administration.
That case involved a different type of claim, but a 1997 opinion from the same court made an observation that could come back to haunt the Obama administration if the current case ends up before the federal judiciary.
"The privilege," the court wrote, "disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred."
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., former House Judiciary Committee chairman, released a memo earlier this week citing that very line and decrying the administration's argument as bunk.
"The president's assertion of executive privilege is an illegal attempt to avoid responsibility for the department's misconduct," Sensenbrenner said.
He wrote in his memo that the privilege "cannot be used to protect documents in the face of wrongdoing."
As congressional Republicans pursue their contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Eric Holder -- potentially with a vote on the House floor this coming week -- the push to extract thousands of Fast and Furious documents from the Justice Department is expected to continue. And the D...
--snip--
'The privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.' - D.C. appeals court in 2004...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“The privilege,” the court wrote, “disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.”
The underlying corruption in our government must cease. The question is how.
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SO let’s get movin’!
Well, the law is clear enough. The problem is that the “Justice” Department and the Obama regime is utterly lawless and does not give a rat’s a$$ who knows it.
Suppose Holder’s contempt citation goes before the House and is sustained. What happens then? It goes TO Holder who is supposed to take it and prosecute. Yeah, I can just TOTALLY see that happening.
And even if Executive Privilege is disallowed by a court (which will take how long?), who’s going to make Obama or Holder comply? They’ll just tell the court to stuff if and keep holding the documents — those that haven’t been totally destroyed, anyhow.
You are right, unfortunately. The question then becomes how long will we continue to stand for it...or do we stand for nothing at all?
Who thought up the idea of executive privilege?
If I see the word “botched” in one more of these reports, I think I’m going to pull out my hair and scream.
Faux News is singing the same liberal line. It’s maddening.
Congress is weakened and weak. Romney refuses to speak out.
I don't know. It comes from the separation of power in the three branches of gov't. Look it up. Enclose it within quotation marks. I wouldn't use Wikipedia for anything political.
There is one big difference between past presidents and obama. He’s black! You can’t touch him! He could be caught doing exactly what Nixon did, recordings and all, and he’d still not be impeached.
It is counter productive to give the lying bastard commie a benefit of the doubt by comparing his deadly acts to the bumbling of Richard Nixon and his plummers. What Barry and Eric have done has killed hundreds of people, real human beings, slaughtered because these commie bastards wanted headlines to support their outlawing guns in America.
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