Posted on 07/01/2012 1:10:41 PM PDT by Kaslin
On CNN's State of the Union this morning, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew was asked why President Obama asserted executive privilege for Attorney General Eric Holder over Fast and Furious documents when he railed against the use of executive privilege in 2007. Remember, President Obama campaigned on his administration being the "most transparent administration in history."
White House Chief Of Staff Jacob Lew: “Candy, let’s go back to the facts. The facts are that this was a bad plan, this Fast and Furious. It’s something that started in the Bush Administration and the Attorney General did not know about it. It came out of the region and when the Attorney General learned about it, what he did was stop it. He said it was wrong and he said we’re not going to do it. There was a period of time when the Attorney General didn’t know about it because it was happening at a regional office, that a statement was made to Congress that had to be corrected. The Attorney General corrected it. Every document related to the decisions up to that point has been shared. This is not a question of finding facts, this is a question that Congress at the beginning of this investigation said they were going to use their investigatory powers in a political way, and this is political not a substantive question.”
Asked Why Executive Privilege Invoked, WH Chief of Staff Says Obama Admin "Most Transparent Ever "
Rather than answering the question directly, Lew said, "Let's go back to the facts," and immediatly got his "facts" wrong. Lew claimed Fast and Furious started during the Bush administration. That assertion is false. Operation Fast and Furious started in September 2009, President Obama took office in January 2009. Lew also went on to defend Attorney General Eric Holder by saying this was a "regional program." If that was the case, then why is executive privilege necessary or valid in this case? Either the documents requested show some kind of White House communication or President Obama improperly asserted the privilege to buy Holder more time. Lew also said "every document related to the decisions up to that point has been shared," which is also false. There are 240,000 Fast and Furious documents available. The Justice Department has turned over 7,000. Of those 7,000 the majority are sheets of black ink due to extreme redaction. In relation to specific communications, just before the Oversight Committee contempt vote two weeks ago to hold the Attorney General in contempt, Chairman Darrell Issa narrowed his focus from 70,000 documents to 1300, yet Holder still failed to deliver anything substantial. Not to mention, 21 Democrats voted for civil contempt against Holder last week, which destroys Lew's "political" argument.
And finally: Lew said the Obama administration has been the most transparent administration ever.
Reality distortion field.
The only reason you would use Executive Priviledge on documents Congress is asking for....is that you are totally implicated in wrong doing
Obama ordered the shipment of guns to the Mexican Drug Cartels...plain and simple. Stupid for him to just take a hit for Holder
Black Democrats are fighting the investigation into the killing of BP Agent Brian Terry.
Why?
All these people do is lie all day long.
If Lew were a Republican, the interviewer would not have let him get away with it.
Why?
That's a rhetorical question, I presume.
Very powerful argument if it were true however Bush's "Wide Receiver" was shut down two years before "Fast and Furious" was born under Obama's watch. Nice try though...
My understanding is that the Mexican authorities were made fully aware of "Wide Receiver" and were supposed to follow smuggled guns to their ultimate destination. Wide receiver was canceled when Mexican Federales dropped the ball by not showing up at the border as US agents watched the ONLY guns to fall into cartel hands dissapear.
Regards,
GtG
PS Original Sin => Bush's fault! (one of his better ideas)
“It’s something that started in the Bush Administration”
Well isn’t Holder’s false accusation one of the central issues in the contempt citation? If Holder says he didn’t how can he claim it began under Bush??
“This is the second time in nearly seven months that the Department has gotten its facts wrong about gunwalking. Attorney General Holder accused Attorney General Mukasey, without producing any evidence, of having been briefed on gunwalking in Wide Receiver. The case Attorney General Mukasey was briefed on, Hernandez, is fundamentally different from both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious since it involved cooperation with the Mexican government. Attorney General Holder’s retraction should have included an apology to the former Attorney General.
http://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=41374
Asking Holder for documentation to incriminate himself and his socialist boss is just plain silly.
How could any sane person in this day of shredders think that there are any such documents left? Republicans have been made to look like fools.
The interesting premise the White House keeps trying to put out is that this was a program started under Bush (false) and that when Holder found out about it, he put a stop to it.
No matter what the truth might be, it isn't that Holder put a stop to a program he didn't previously know about and he has been forthcoming with information to Congress. According to his testimony he didn't find out about Fast and Furious until several months after Brian Terry was killed. By then the program had already been shut down. If he was involved in shutting down the program then he lied to Congress about when he was told of the operation.
The other crusher on this lie is that we are supposed to believe a GS-14 Supervisor and a rogue Assistant U.S. Attorney cooked up this program completely on their own, violating laws and policies that should be well known to both parties. There is no way that is true.
try changin’ the agents name to trayvon terry.
Wide Receiver was shut down because tracking methods were failing.
The Mexican Government was not doing there part on the other side of the border.
Who changed the name if was Wide receiver and now Fast and Furious.
Blame Bush Admisnstarion would leak documents to the press if the Bush administration was responsible.
-——Black Democrats are fighting the investigation into the killing of BP Agent Brian Terry.——Why? ——
It’s sort of hard for the dem leadership to push the Repubs are racist meme if the dem blacks aren’t doing their best impression of trained seals ....Every time a black politician gets in trouble....
Not only did he come up with the same bs about Holder and Fast and Furious...he was adamant that the SC did not call the mandate a tax. Even when confronted with the facts.
I was, and still an, amazed that anyone could lie like that.
I will have to concur with your diagnosis of sociopath.
The first liar never has a chance, so what's going on here?
Dean: Then we’re going to have to give them Mitchell.
Nixon: Mitchell’s family.
Dean: Either it goes to Mitchell or it comes here.
Haldeman: John’s right boss...not personal. It’s the way the game is played. Sometimes you got to punt.
—Oliver Stone’s ‘Nixon’
Black Democrats are fighting the investigation into the killing of BP Agent Brian Terry.
Why?
Because these libturds know who are at the center of this...Obama and Clinton.
40 years of democratic party rule will go up in smoke in the blink of an eye...
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.