Posted on 09/17/2014 6:56:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
Back in July after a long FOIA lawsuit from government watchdog Judicial Watch, a federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to produce a detailed list or Vaughn Index of documents being withheld from Congress and the American people under President Obama's executive privilege claim. A month later in August, a federal judge ordered DOJ to turn over a privilege log of withheld documents to the House Oversight Committee. Both orders were to be completed by October 1.
Now, Attorney General Eric Holder is asking fa federal judge to delay (again) an order requiring him to turn over thousands of Fast and Furious documents, not just a detailed list. More from POLITICO:
Attorney General Eric Holder is again asking a federal court to delay the transfer of disputed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious to a House committee.
In a new court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson not to require Holder to turn over any of the roughly 64,000 pages of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until after her rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
"The Department respectfully submits that it would be preferable for the parties, this Court, and the D.C. Circuit — if an appeal were taken — to have any injunctive order await the conclusion of the district court litigation to allow for orderly and complete appellate proceedings," DOJ lawyers wrote.
Jackson has previously denied DOJ permission to file an immediate appeal, although lawyers for Holder indicated in the new filing (posted here) that they may do so anyway. Any appeal is likely to take months and perhaps more than a year to resolve. If that process does not begin until Jackson rules definitively on the the executive privilege claim President Barack Obama has made for many of the documents, the timeline for the case being resolved could begin to approach the end of the Obama administration.
How convenient that the appeals process will bump right up against the end of Obama's, and therefore Holder's, time in office. This tactic and strategy that has been used by Holder since the beginning to run out the clock until a new administration comes into office and dumps the case.
Regardless, Holder is still required to produce a list of documents by October 1, which will give us significant insight into the kind of documents the Department of Justice is trying so desperately to hide.
And what happens if he simply says “All physical copies were moved to digital storage and then the HD where it was all stored crashed and everything was lost”.
Nixon was a piker compared to this White Hut.
paging Captain Obvious!
Indeed
This refusal is good reason for Holder to step down. Congress should start the process to take him out of office. They need to hire an Attorney General who will do his job and that requires him to turn over all information requested by Congress.
Great. Now he knows what to do. Thanks ..... :)
Congress would have to have balls to do anything to the administration. And we have seen that Congress is ball-less.
Holder has already announced that he is leaving before the start of 2015. His replacement will be confirmed before the new congress in sworn in.
He is already in contempt of congress, but they have done nothing to punish him for his contempt. It is now a fact that the administration no longer believes they answer to congress..or we the people. This is intolerable. Would a democrat congress put up with the same thing from a GOP administration? The answer is no.
Ya think?
Congress is being led by that worthless drunken jerk, John Boehner. Boehner is Zer0’s House boy. If Congress would start with him, they would develop a little muscle to jerk more of Zer0’s jerks out of office.
Of course the Senate with Harry Reid on the helm won’t do anything against the administration. He has over 300 bills locked in his desk, that were send to him by the House. And in case you are not aware Congress consists of the House of Representatives(Lower House) and the Senate (Upper House)
I’m quite aware of the make up of Congress. I wish the House would impeach Obama and Holder and thus force the issue into the Senate. Then the evidence would be out for all to see and those who don’t vote to convict would be exposed. Impeach Obama on a few charges. If the Senate doesn’t convict, pick a few more and impeach again. There are plenty of things he could be impeached for.
You show your ignorance for not knowing that Congress consists of two Houses. The first one being the House of Representatives with 435 members and the Senate with 100 members
Shame on you
I would like nothing more than seeing that arrogant pos impeached, but I also want to see him removed from Office and send to Fort Leavenworth. It won’t happen with the rats being in charge in the Senate
I hope you don’t think that Holder wants the records released?
Nor should he be released.
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