Obama uses executive privilege to hide documents from 'Fast & Furious' scandal

Obama asserts executive privilege on some Fast and Furious documents
By Tom Cohen,
CNN
June 20, 2012

Washington (CNN) -- An extraordinary House committee hearing debated a contempt measure against Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday even though President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over some documents sought by the panel investigating the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the White House assertion of executive privilege "falls short" of any reason to delay the hearing.

What happens if panel cites Holder for contempt?

However, the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, accused Issa of setting an "impossible standard" for Holder by initially demanding documents the attorney general is legally prohibited from providing.

Now Issa has "no interest in resolving" the dispute with Holder, Cummings said.
After more than three hours of statements by committee members, the panel went into recess to allow members to take part in votes on the House floor. Issa said the committee would reconvene later Wednesday to vote on the contempt measure.

If approved, the measure would then go to the full House for consideration.

Wednesday's developments further heightened the drama of a high-profile showdown between Issa and Holder over the committee's demand for the Department of Justice to turn over more documents about the Fast and Furious program.

The White House move means the Department of Justice can withhold some of the documents from the House Oversight Committee, which was scheduled to consider a contempt measure Wednesday against Holder.

In a letter to Obama seeking the assertion of executive privilege, Holder said the documents involved related to the Justice Department's "response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries," and that release of internal executive branch documents would have "significant, damaging consequences."

Holder also said releasing the documents would "inhibit the candor of executive branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the ability of the executive branch to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight..."


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Making state-sanctioned murder of Americans legal?

U.S. AG Eric Holder, credit: Infowars

Holder To Justify Killing Americans On Foreign Soil
Obama administration firms up support for state-sponsored assassination


Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, March 5, 2012

 Attorney General Eric Holder will today attempt to justify the Obama administration’s policy of state-sponsored assassination, as he prepares to give a speech explaining how the U.S. government can arbitrarily kill U.S. citizens on foreign soil.

“Holder plans to say in a major speech on Monday at Northwestern University law school in Chicago that lethal force is legal under a Sept. 18, 2001, joint congressional resolution,” reports the Associated Press.

The notion that the White House can target Americans for summary execution by merely claiming that they are associated with terrorism is chilling given the fact that Americans who engage in political activism or even banal behaviors have been characterized as potential terrorists by U.S. authorities.

The White House has asserted the right to carry out state-sponsored assassination anywhere in the world without having to provide any evidence or go through any legal process. The administration merely has to state that the target is a terrorist and it doesn’t matter whether they are an American citizen or not, as we saw in the case of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, who were both killed last year.

In December, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination, claiming that “U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets” and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution.

During a CBS 60 Minutes interview in January, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed that Obama himself personally approves the policy to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without trial on a case by case basis.

“So it’s the requirement of the administration under the current legal understanding that the president has to make that declaration, not you?” Panetta was asked, to which he replied, “That is correct.”

The administration’s support for state-sponsored assassination without a shred of legal oversight puts into context the worthlessness of an Obama ‘policy directive’ last week that promised the White House would not indefinitely detain American citizens under the National Defense Authorization Act, which Obama signed on New Years Eve.

As we documented at the time, it was the administration itself which demanded the controversial detention without trial provisions of the NDAA be applied to American citizens.
The NDAA defines the entire planet, including America, as a “battlefield,” meaning Americans could also hypothetically be assassinated without any legal process on U.S. soil under the legal framework that has been codified under Obama.

The recent announcement that up to 30,000 drones will be in American skies within ten years, allied to the DHS plan to spend up to $50 million dollars on a spy system that has been used to hunt insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States, makes it clear that Americans are being targeted as terrorists at both home and abroad.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.