Justice Department officials on Wednesday said President Obama has asserted executive privilege over documents sought by a
House committee in an investigation of the botched “Fast and Furious” operation.
The last-minute move came just prior to the start of a scheduled hearing by the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a contempt on
Congress citation against Attorney General
Eric H. Holder Jr., who has refused since October to honor a committee subpoena seeking the documents.
In a letter to
Committee Chairman
Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, a
Justice Department official said the privilege applies to documents that explain how the
department learned there were problems with the investigation, which allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be “walked” to drug smugglers in
Mexico.
A contempt vote against
Mr. Holder became likely after he and
Mr. Issa failed to reach an agreement over turning over the documents during a 20-minute meeting Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Holder
did not turn over any records at the Tuesday meeting and later told
reporters he would not turn over Fast and Furious documents unless
Mr. Issa agreed to another meeting, where he said he would explain what is in the materials.
He said he wanted an assurance from
Mr. Issa that the transfer of the records would satisfy the
committee’s subpoena.
“It’s not about Eric Holder. It’s about the Department of Justice and ... more >
“I had hoped that after this evening’s meeting I would be able to tell you that the
department had delivered documents that would justify the postponement of tomorrow’s vote on contempt,”
Mr. Issa said. “The
department told the
committee on Thursday that it had documents it could produce that would answer our questions.”
“The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions,” said
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who first began the Fast and Furious investigation.
“How
can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White
House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over
documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden
to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural
mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.
“The questions from
Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”
Mr. Grassley’s
inquiry into Fast and Furious began with allegations by Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents who said the
government had allowed the transfer of illegally purchased weapons that
were found at the scene of the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian
A.Terry. The agent died during a Dec. 15, 2010, shootout with Mexican
bandits just north of the border, south of Tucson.
He said the
Justice Department denied the allegations for 10 months before being forced to withdraw its denial in face of evidence to the contrary.
