With the a contempt vote set to take place anytime against Eric Holder over the Fast and Furious gun running program, President Obama has finally taken a stand:
The White House granted Attorney General Eric Holder with executive privilege regarding Fast and Furious. Regardless of the action, Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-Cal., head of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee indicated he is moving forward with a contempt vote of the attorney general.
Executive privilege enables the Justice Department to withhold documents from Congress, even if Congress has issued a subpoena, as Rep. Issa has.
In a letter to Rep. Issa, Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote, “Although we are deeply disappointed that the Committee appears intent on proceeding with a contempt vote, the Department remains willing to work with the Committee to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of the outstanding issues.”
Of course the right is up in arms over this. The are acting like no President has ever done this before, despite Bush doing the exact same thing six times and the wingnuts championed it every single time.
Of course if I was Obama I would take it a step further. Instead I would turn over documents pertaining to Operation Wide Receiver, the name of the program back in 2007. Oh but Issa and the GOP don’t want to hear anything about the inception of the program because there was a white Republican in the White House then and he did no wrong in their eyes.