A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has rejected President Obama’s claim that executive privilege prevented him from giving Congress records relating to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning investigation that allowed thousands of firearms to be sold across the border in Mexico.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department is not exempt from the records demand because it had publicly acknowledged its response to the gun-walking program, undermining its executive privilege claims.
“The court finds, under the unique and limited circumstances of this case, that the qualified privilege must yield, given the executive’s acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the investigation, and the fact that the department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold,” she said in her ruling.
The decision is the latest step in a four-year legal battle between the Obama administration and the GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The House in 2012 voted to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide the records requested. The House Republican leadership then sued the Justice Department to force it to hand over the documents.
Jackson said some of the documents could still be considered privileged and withheld because they could reveal sensitive information on law enforcement techniques or touch on sensitive foreign policy concerns.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he had not heard about the decision but would have another spokesman follow-up shortly.
