Obama exerts executive privilege over Fast/Furious documents

well you know, it's the "new" history.

Oh, you mean the "Revisionist History of the Sovereign Citizens of the Plutocracy of the Founding Fathers" playbook? Yes, I'm familiar with that work.

Transparency and Open Government

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_off ... Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

BARACK OBAMA


It seems as transparent as a sheet of new glass what's going on here.

Must be pretty bad if Obama had to pull out this trump card. What did Barack know and when did he know it?

You beat me to it, lionshead.

" We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency,...."

Yet another unfulfilled promise of the current administration.

My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use

Evidently, disclosing information about a major scandal is not consistent with 'policy'.

Gee, I guess it's a good thing that Bush made no "promises" he couldn't keep:

George W. Bush administration

The George W. Bush administration invoked executive privilege on six occasions.

President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno,[2] the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001.[8]

Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. In a separate Supreme Court decision in 2004, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted "Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power 'not to be lightly invoked.' United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7 (1953).

"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion for constitutional confrontation between the two branches' are likely to be avoided whenever possible. United States v. Nixon, supra, at 692."[9]

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:

The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.

On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers. Furthermore, White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding refused to comply with a deadline set by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it, and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. On July 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee voted to cite Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for contempt of Congress.[11][12]

On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers and Taylor, Counsel Fielding effectively claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee.[13]

On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President's Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that "Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity...."[14]

Leahy claimed that President Bush was not involved with the employment terminations of U.S. attorneys. Furthermore, he asserted that the president's executive privilege claims protecting Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove are illegal. The Senator demanded that Bolten, Rove, Sara Taylor, and J. Scott Jennings comply "immediately" with their subpoenas, presumably to await a further review of these matters. This development paved the way for a Senate panel vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. "It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort", Leahy concluded about these incidents.[15][16][17][18]

As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."[19]

Funny thing about "transparency"...It seems to only be applicable to the OTHER party when it's convenient...

Raees wrote:

The power of executive privilege in America dates back to George Washington, who refused comply with a request from Congress to turn over documents related to negotiation of the Jay Treaty. Washington argued that the power to negotiate treaties belongs to the executive and the Senate, but not the House of Representatives. Executive privilege was also asserted by Thomas Jefferson in the trial of Aaaron Burr for treason in 1807.

Wow - you are trying to equate the negotiation of a treaty and allowing guns to be purchased and walked across the border in violation of federal law? Really? Washington was defending the powers of the executive branch that had been delegated to it by the Constitution when he evoked executive privilege. It wasn't Congress that he rebuffed, it was the House of Representatives - a body with absolutely no say so in treaties at all. Washington did supply the documents to the Senate by the way, he didn't claim executive privilege allowed him to refrain from supplying the documents to that body of Congress. Same for Jefferson. When the courts ruled that the 6th Amendment required him to produce the documents sought, he complied with the request. Funny how the details are made fuzzy in a failed attempt to paint Obama's actions in the same light as those of earlier president's, isn't it. Seems that it is hoped that by only telling half the truth instead of all of it, public perception might be changed.

But I agree - it is time for the requests and the demands to cease. Either charge Holder with contempt of Congress and bring forth Articles of Impeachment on that charge or be done with it. It shouldn't have gone this long without a definitive resolution on the matter being obtained.

PrintSmith wrote: But I agree - it is time for the requests and the demands to cease. Either charge Holder with contempt of Congress and bring forth Articles of Impeachment on that charge or be done with it. It shouldn't have gone this long without a definitive resolution on the matter being obtained.

LJ, I expect you to condemn this executive privilege. I didnt like it when Bush or any other president does this. Won't you join me in agreeing this shouldn't be allowed?

RenegadeCJ wrote: LJ, I expect you to condemn this executive privilege. I didnt like it when Bush or any other president does this. Won't you join me in agreeing this shouldn't be allowed?

You go back and pull a sample of ANY your posts where you disagreed with ANY of the SIX Bush orders, and we'll talk....

Democracy4Sale wrote: Funny thing about "transparency"...It seems to only be applicable to the OTHER party when it's convenient...

I'm so glad you are willing to admit to your hypocrisy. It makes me hopeful that there is actually some residual amount of reasoning occurring in the space between your ears.