Presidents rely on the Justice Department to provide them with a legal basis for their actions. Today, Attorney General Eric Holder provided President Obama with a legal basis for blocking an investigation that into “serious wrongdoing” by his Justice Department, according to House investigators.
“The legal basis is set forth in the enclosed letter from the attorney general to the president,” the Justice Department wrote in a letter this morning to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announcing that Obama had asserted executive privilege over documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious.
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“The committee has uncovered serious wrongdoing by the Justice Department,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in his opening statement today at a hearing to consider holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress. “The Department of Justice has fought this committee’s investigation every step of the way, starting with an unequivocal denial that it used the reckless tactics we now know were used in Fast and Furious.” The DOJ retracted that false claim in December 2011, eight months after initially making the denial. The contempt fight this morning is intended by Congress to force Holder to deliver documents that might indicate why that false statement was made by an assistant attorney general.
“It’s clear that Congress relies on its ability to get truthful testimony when investigating the executive branch,” Issa said. “Over and over again, the Department has sought to protect its political appointees.”
Issa and other House investigators openly wondered if Obama’s assertion of executive privilege over Operation Fast and Furious documents means that he had discussed the operation with the DOJ, contrary to Holder’s testimony before Congress.
“One of the big issues that we’ve been dealing with is: who knew about Fast and Furious?” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. “Why would the president claim executive privilege unless there was something very, very important that he thought should not be made known to this committee and to the public?”
Obama’s attempt to block the disclosure of these documents undermines his statements on transparency. “The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama wrote on his White House website. “Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.”
In 2007, Obama faulted President Bush for attempting to “hide behind executive privilege” to thwart a congressional investigation into the Justice Department.
