Posted on 04/08/2016 3:05:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
Just moments before Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in contempt of Congress by Republicans and Democrats in June 2012 , President Obama asserted executive privilege over thousands of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. Holder was held in contempt for stonewalling and failing to turn over the documents to the House Oversight Committee. Obama granted the executive privilege request despite claiming to have no knowledge about Operation Fast and Furious when it was active from 2009-2010.
Now after years of court battles and a federal judge striking down the executive privilege assertion, Obama has finally agreed turned them over. From POLITICO:
Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.
Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush confirmed that the administration does not plan to appeal. He argued that Jackson's ruling validated Obama's initial claim of privilege.
“The Department of Justice is pleased that the district court ... continued to recognize that the deliberative process component of the executive privilege exists and was a valid basis for the Department to withhold certain documents when requested by the House in 2011. Although the Department disagrees with the district court's conclusion that the privilege was overcome in this particular case by disclosures and statements made in other contexts, the Department has decided not to appeal the court’s judgment and has provided a production of documents to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform," Rodenbush said in a statement.
“As we've long asserted, the Committee requires and is entitled to these documents. They are critical to the Committee’s efforts to complete meaningful oversight. The Committee has a duty to understand and shine light on what was happening inside DOJ during the time of this irresponsible operation. Yet DOJ has obstructed our investigative work for years," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz issued in a statement. "Today, under court order, DOJ turned over some of the subpoenaed documents. The Committee, however, is entitled to the full range of documents for which it brought this lawsuit. Accordingly, we have appealed the District Court’s ruling in order to secure those additional documents.”
Operation Fast and Furious was an ATF and Department of Justice program that purposely allowed the sale and trafficking of thousands of weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by Mexican bandits in December 2010 and guns from the operation were found at the murder scene. When Sinaloa cartel leader El Chapo Guzman was captured last year, guns from the operation, including a .50 caliber rifle that was used to shoot at a police helicopter, were found in his hideout. Hundreds of Mexican citizens have been killed as a result of the program and thousands of guns are still missing and being used to carry out violent crimes in Mexico and potentially in the United States.
This post has been updated with additional information.
Obama wants to keep Trump off the media.
sure he does.
redacted, edited, and revised.
and not even all fo them.
liars lie.
Finally got ‘em all altered eh?
... and on a Friday so it will be forgotten by the news shows on Monday. Games.
I wouldn’t doubt it.
Including Holder how many people did Obama fire for this dangerous outrageous act?
Ya I thought of that too. What is this a Friday afternoon document dump????
I wouldn’t doubt it.
All the redacted info in the Friday afternoon document dump? You KNOW there will be nothing of value. I am sure the shredders have been running full steam in that little room in the basement of the WH. No info to indict will be found after the Won exits stage far left.
Forced migrations with different intentions.. 0dungheap has this down to a science.
The standard Friday afternoon data dump from the criminals in the White House...
Our government is going the way of the French aristocracy, the Czar’s government, the Chinese Empire, the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, the Roman Empire, and many others. Buried by their own corruption and hubris. Can there still be an honest man in Washington? I think not.
Fast & Furious Documents Released
We invite you to review these documents and help us uncover any evidence related to the Operation Fast & Furious scandal hidden within. We encourage you to post a description of any incriminating evidence you find, along with the document number in the comments section below, or to our Facebook post on the same topic.
Except for this document and that document that will never see the light of day.
Haven’t they learned yet that Friday dumps allow the whole weekend for research?
There’s always that period of real corruption as the empire declines, when apparently people are so drunk on power that they don’t realize anything beyond their own cologne. The Ottomans’ Tulip period comes to mind, as does the 1001 Nights of Harun Al-Rashid’s Abbasids. Byzantine.
Byzantine.
CORRECTION:
Slowly, O releases some documents that are not exceptionally fast or furious....
The Obama Friday dump.
If anyone thinks this “document release” will make one iota of difference at this late date, they are smoking Maui Wowee.
Besides, any incriminating evidence in these documents will have been redacted.
The next court fight will be over inappropriate and excessive redactions.
Screw it.
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