This effectively gives Attorney General Eric Holder, of Fast and Furious fame, extended power over guns and gun-related property.
A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent who blew the whistle on the botched Fast and Furious gunrunning investigation and, according to lawmakers, was threatened with losing his job has successfully resolved a retaliation claim.
ATF agent Peter Forcelli settled the claim, according to Carolyn Lerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel, through an OSC-overseen mediation process in which a neutral third party — in this case an independent OSC mediator — assisted the opposing parties in reaching a voluntary, negotiated resolution.
The resolution is confidential under OSC mediation rules.
“[Y]our privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”
The Fast and Furious investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has produced President Obama’s first executive privilege claim. The Committee has been aggressively looking into the ATF’s botched operation that deliberately allowed about 2,000 weapons to be sold into Mexico, and distributed among Mexican drug cartels. This resulted in the killing of at least one US Border Patrol agent. The committee has subpoenaed Justice Department documents pertaining to who in the department knew about the operation and when they knew it. The department has refused to turn over most of the subpoenaed documents.
“Executive privilege protects communications with the president, the human being of the president, not with people that work for him and the Justice Department,” Judge Andrew Napolitano said on FOX News today.
“If the attorney general sat down and discussed it with the president, he probably doesn’t want the Congress and the public to know that, because we know of the awful events that occurred as a result of the Fast and Furious escapade. But we also know that executive privilege only pertains to military, diplomatic, and sensitive national security matters. Now, was fighting the drug gangs at the border a sensitive national security matter? And, if so, was the President of the United States of America personally involved in making decisions as to how to conduct that fight? If that’s the case, this has reached a different level and we now know why the attorney general has ferociously defended these documents,” he said.
Pete Kasperowicz at The Hill said yesterday that The House voted overwhelmingly to prevent the Justice Department from using taxpayer funds to lie to Congress.
In what appears essentially to be the equivalent of having one’s credit cards cancelled, Kasperowics reports that:
“…The vote reflects the ongoing frustration Republicans — and apparently some Democrats — have with Attorney General Eric Holder…Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) offered the novel funding limitation amendment earlier in the day. The amendment was a reaction to arguments that Justice lied when it told Congress in February 2011 that it had no involvement in a gun-walking program called Operation Fast and Furious…”
Exactly one year after the Attorney General lied in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the Phoenix operation known as Fast and Furious, Rep. Darrell Issa has distributed a staff briefing paper and draft of the contempt of Congress resolution against the sitting AG.
This week Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21) released a report on the U.S. Justice Department’s disregard of the Constitution and rule of law, saying that “Rather than enforce the law and uphold the Constitution, the Obama administration has placed partisanship above the rule of law.”
“The Justice Department has a responsibility to enforce the laws of the land and protect the Constitution. Of all federal agencies, the Justice Department should not be motivated by a partisan agenda. Unfortunately, under this Administration, the Justice Department has become more partisan than ever…“The Obama administration has ignored the constitutional balance of power between co-equal branches of government and blocked investigations of its actions. When the Administration doesn’t like a law, they refuse to enforce it. And if the Senate’s constitutional authority to approve political appointees gets in their way, the Administration ignores the Constitution…All government officials are bound by the limits of the Constitution and the rule of law, including the President and the Attorney General. Unfortunately, this Administration continues to put a partisan agenda ahead of the Constitution and the rule of law.”
On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signed expansive new guidelines for terrorism analysts, allowing the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) to mirror entire federal databases containing personal information and hold onto the information for an extended period of time—even if the person is not suspected of any involvement in terrorism. (Read the guidelines here).
Despite the “terrorism” justification, the new rules affect every single American. The agency now has free rein to, as the New York Times’ Charlie Savage put it, “retrieve, store and search information about Americans gathered by government agencies for purposes other than national security threats ” and expands the amount of time the government can keep private information on innocent individuals by a factor of ten.
