The President MUST Be Involved in an Issue to Invoke Executive Privilege

By now, you probably know that President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to stall Congress' attempt to get Attorney General Eric Holder to fork over documents in the Fast and Furious Scandal.

You probably also know, by now, that Obama explicitly spoke out against executive privilege before he was president, saying "the American people need to know what's going on," in yet another classic "do as I say, not as I do" moment brought to you by the first dictator in the history of the United States.

But did you know the president has to be involved in a situation in order to invoke executive privilege?

From the files of Congress:

Under those precedents, the privilege, which is constitutionally rooted, could be invoked by the President when asked to produce documents or other materials or information that reflect presidential decisionmaking and deliberations that he believes should remain confidential.

Note the emphasized language, and the grammar of the sentence that leaves no doubt that the president MUST be involved in whatever issue for which he invokes executive privilege: "when asked to produce documents or other materials or information that reflect PRESIDENTIAL DECISIONMAKING AND DELIBERATIONS.


You won't hear this from the lapdog media. But, hey, I'm just a blogger.

So, what we have here, then, is the president not only protecting Holder, he's also protecting himself.


Meanwhile, over at Think Regress (see comments), the left  is rejoicing about the president's actions, once again, as leftists do, defending the indefensible.


I wonder how the president's new 800,000 voters feel about him covering up information about the murder of Mexicans.


UPDATE: Not only is the president apparently involved in F&F, he's illegitimately using executive privilege to shield wrong doing.

UPDATE II: Breitbart is saying this is deliberative process privilege, rooted in common law not the Constitution, and therefore Obama didn't invoke EP to protect himself.


UPDATE III: But Judge Napolitano says the implication the president is involved is in his actions of claiming executive privilege. H/T: YouViewed

Cross-posted at Pat Dollard.

Linkage: Thanks, Moonbattery and Noisy Room.

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The President MUST Be Involved in an Issue to Invoke Executive Privilege

Racist Congress Sets Contempt Vote for Holder

I just KNEW that GOP Congress was racist.

They send nearly 30 jobs bills to Dirty Harry Reid's desk, but he won't sign them because ... they're racist. They won't cooperate with Demorrhoid in Chief Barack Obama's agenda because ... they're racist. They call Obama out of touch for saying the economy is "doing just fine" because ... they're racist.

Now they want to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

That's. Just. Racist. Why, it's criminal to suggest Holder has withheld information from Congress about Fast and Furious. After all, he has Superior Knowledge.

The Justice Department has maintained it has cooperated fully with the congressional investigation, turning over tens of thousands of documents and having Holder testify to Congress on the topic at least eight times.

However, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., says the Justice Department has refused to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents. Those include materials created after Feb. 4, 2011, when the Justice Department wrote a letter to Congress saying no gunwalking had occurred. The Justice Department later retracted the denial.

"The Obama Administration has not asserted Executive Privilege or any other valid privilege over these materials and it is unacceptable that the Department of Justice refuses to produce them. These documents pertain to Operation Fast and Furious, the claims of whistleblowers, and why it took the Department nearly a year to retract false denials of reckless tactics," Issa wrote in an announcement of the vote to be released shortly. It will reveal the vote is scheduled for Wednesday, June 20.

But that's just Issa grandstanding. In a day and age when the racist GOP accuses the Supreme Leader of the Less Freer Than We Were in 2008 World of leaking classified information in attempt to boost his I Killed Bin Laden MYSELF image in time for the election, it's just time to stop being so damned offensive.

Fast and Furious was a routine government operation. Just like Ruby Ridge. Just like Waco. There's nothing to see here; just move right along, GOP.

Why, Holder's such a stand-up guy he's even investigating the classified information leaks himself. Kudos to him for not wasting the taxpayer's money on an independent council. It's better to look yourself for where you stashed your dirty underwear.

In fact, if the GOP wasn't so racist, they might be congratulating the president on his win in Wisconsin last week. After all, the sky really isn't blue (since NASA no longer rockets into space to check), the 1%er tax payment checks are in the mail to the IRS, and, since Michelle Obama doesn't go all the way down, Obama isn't ... ahem ... leaving anything in anyone's mouth any time soon.

Except the word "GOTCHA."

UPDATE: Apparently 31 Demorrhoids are racist too.

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Racist Congress Sets Contempt Vote for Holder

Eric Holder Must Be an Honorary Member of Al Queda

Why else would the Justice Department contain nine ... yes, nine ... appointees that once either represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees? That's about as brilliant as posting online the Cliff Notes of a trillion-dollar wealth share bill you know you don't have enough votes for, just before you put on a sham puppet show in the name of "bipartisanship," not that I'm crying or anything.

The surprising admission came three months after Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa asked Attorney General Eric Holder for a list of names of Obama DOJ appointees who had been involved in legal work for Gitmo prisoners.
Holder, in a letter to Grassley, admitted that nine of the agency's appointees had done some kind of work on behalf of terror suspects.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," said Holder in the letter, which is dated Feb. 18.

"Four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."

Score one more zero for Holder and his boss, Robbing Hood, the captain of transparency, and his merry band of liars.

Via JammieWearingFool.

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Eric Holder Must Be an Honorary Member of Al Queda

Liars, Clowns, and Thieves

Posted on behalf of Jamie


We have always seen that the real loonies accuse others of what they are guilty of themselves… So Joe Biden says that Dick Cheney isn’t entitled to rewrite history… what chutzpah…


A new CNN poll shows that 52% of those polled would not reelect The One we’ve been waiting for… So, maybe we can change that to The One we’ve been waiting for to leave…


Barack Hussein Obama (Mmm, mmm, mmm) is starting to get the jitters when it comes to Hillary and 2012…


Even softballs from David Gregory on NBC’s Meet The Press couldn’t hide the fact that these clowns just don’t get it… The One, Biden, and Eric Holder all have said publicly that they want civilian trials for terrorists so that the world will see that we are open and fair. In the same breath, they prejudge the trial, saying terrorists won’t go free…


It has to be clear to almost everyone that this clown is in WAY over his head…


The One is being schooled by his boss in preparation for the trap being set for Republicans on February 25th…

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Liars, Clowns, and Thieves

Obama's Hopey, Change Circus

Upon his capture, the most beautiful words a terrorist can hear are the following:

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

If you read the above paragraph, you have just been "Mirandized." That is the Miranda Warning that law enforcement officers must recite to every criminal suspect they question -- if they want to introduce something as evidence in any criminal proceeding.

The ringleaders for Obama's Hopey Change Circus, Mssrs. Holder and Gibbs, maintain that the proper procedure for bringing terrorists to justice is arrest them and give them full Constitutional protection as afforded to every American citizen. From the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn writes:

During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example from the Bush years to supposedly support his point.

“Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we made him an enemy combatant, he didn't talk. He did talk when he was transferred back into a civilian court.”

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today. Brennan argued: “Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation.”

Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s custody and interrogated.

Joscelyn also calls their bluff:

Thus, when Padilla was initially detained by the FBI in May 2002 authorities knew he was up to no good. The FBI questioned Padilla for several hours but got nowhere. A copy of the FBI’s 302 memo written after the initial questioning of Padilla shows that al Qaeda’s man gave the bureau nothing. Padilla talked about his personal history but said nothing about his real intentions or his nefarious friends.

So a month later, in June 2002, Padilla was transferred back into military custody. Things changed in a hurry. Waterboarding is my friend.

The memo then reads: “Since that time [June 9, 2002], additional and more detailed intelligence information about Jose Padilla has been developed and made available in unclassified form.”

As a retired LEO, I have had to deal with the consequences of Miranda v. Arizona. In NYS the restrictions are even greater. If a suspect is already in criminal proceedings from a prior arrest, the right to counsel automatically attaches and you cannot interrogate him under any circumstances unless he first confers with his lawyer. This means that even if the suspect wants to confess and voluntarily waives his right to counsel, he cannot and you cannot until he talks with his lawyer,

Obama, Brennan, Holder and Gibbs want to reduce terrorism to the level of a convenience store robbery.

They want to turn this:

USS ARIZONA

Into This:

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Obama's Hopey, Change Circus