POTUS Use Executive Privilege...

[teddyg]

You guys should go play with your dogs and quit getting your blood pressure up over political vendettas and all the crap coming out of Faux News.

I listened to Faux Radio on my hour long drive from training dogs for 6 hours yesterday. It was like listening to an hour long infomercial from the RNC.

Free your mind, enjoy life, ignore the BS...

All BS aside, did he or did he not issue Executive Privilege?

[coachmo]

It's almost to the point of really questioning the intellectual make-up of obama supporters. I'm not saying I'm just saying!!!

[charly_t]

It's almost to the point of really questioning the intellectual make-up of obama supporters. I'm not saying I'm just saying!!!

Yes, lets do that. Had a relative tell me this morning that she wouldn't know if she should vote for Obama or Romney if that turned out to be our choices ( and I immediately started to worry about her lost marbles ).

[mngundog]

Not sure what you are trying to say with such a well worded response. You think you can expound on your response?

Have a great day

Richard

There was a few short responses on this thread, one was "dictator much", and another was "makes me sick", just wondering if people felt that way about every President that has been exercising this power, or just this President. I myself can't stand Obama, but going after him for using the same tactics that the last three previous Republican Presidents have used doesn't make much sense.

[Gerry Clinchy]

mngundog, it would depend on how each has used executive privilege.

Judge Napolitano explains the use of executive privilege being limited to use of discussions with the President in the course of advising the Pres WRT his duties; and then only in matters 1)military; 2) diplomatic; 3) sensitive national security. And the Pres must put this personally, either in person or in writing. The Pres must specify why the privilege is invoked and into which category it falls. The Supreme Court laid out the "rules" as a result of Nixon resigning.

This would mean that Obama would have known about the F&F operation. Perhaps it could fall into the diplomatic category since this stuff was going on without the Mexican govt's knowledge? Why else would the Pres be advised of an ongoing criminal investigation? And who would have gone over Holder's head to advise the Pres? If it was Holder, himself, who advised the Pres, would that conflict with the timeline given by Holder under oath?

Would this mean that Obama would be admitting to having knowledge of what was going on?

As Bon speculates, this does sound like a no-win situation.

If Holder wouldn't take the fall, maybe it's because since the malfeasance resulted in death to a law enforcement officer, and many Mexican citizens, he would actually see serious jail time (absent a Presidential pardon, that is.) Would be hard to justify just a resignation and financial restitution as with the GSA hanky-panky.

[mudminnow]

I said dictator much, and i said it about GW some too. Obama is not our boss we are his bosses, we do not serve him, he and his team serve us. We should at least have the truth, which has been hard for presidents to tell since old slick willie said "it depends on what your definition of is is". The family of the murdered border agent should be entitled to the truth about who knew about fast and furious. Obama and Holder think not. How would this jeapordize national security. I mean we already have leaks from the white house on intelligence that was damaging. If this program has ended we should know all about who was involved. The only people who will get in trouble are the ones who knew about it. Wasn't this supposed to be the most transparent presidencey ever?
Obama 2012 "Hope and Change your mind when you are in trouble"

[road kill]

There was a few short responses on this thread, one was "dictator much", and another was "makes me sick", just wondering if people felt that way about every President that has been exercising this power, or just this President. I myself can't stand Obama, but going after him for using the same tactics that the last three previous Republican Presidents have used doesn't make much sense.

So, you are OK with Obama's use of this power for this particular case?

Just askin'.......

[gmhr1]

He is not allowed to use it in this case... he claims he was not involved with fast and furious so he cannot claim ex. priv. This is a HUGE cover up he's not protecting holder he's trying to protect his own rear end. Listen to what he said in 2007 about Bush, he said Bush should just be honest not try and cover stuff up buy using ex priv. What is so HORRIBLE in these documents that he has to do this. When the votes were taken there was a black guy I dont remember his name but he said earlier to Brian Terrys family he would do everything possible to find out who's responsible when the votes started he voted NO he should be ashamed of himself and hopefuly next election time we wont see him or any of the other dems that voted no. Get to the truth they took an oath to uphold the law they need to stop cowering to obama and have some guts like the guy from Utah said I applaud him Utah should be proud!

[Gerry Clinchy]

Correction to my earlier post ... the use of executive privilege need not have involved the Pres directly.

It could apply to discussions among others (his advisors) that related to advising the Pres. So, it is possible the Pres did NOT know about the discussions or the nature of the discussions at the time they took place. However, in order to use executive privilege, Pres would have to be made privy to the documents so that he could make the decision that they would be covered by executive privilege, that the documents merited such action, and explain what category the executive privilege is being used for.


So, while the Pres may not have known about the details of the operation back in Feb. 2011 (or prior), he would now have to know the details in order to make the decision to invoke executive privilege.

So far I haven't read that the Pres has actually done it ... only that Holder says the Pres has told Holder it will be done.

The question would still remain as to when Holder came to know the details; whether the timeline would mean he perjured himself on that matter. DOJ has already retracted two statements they made: 1) the letter of 2/4/11 which denied knowledge of the F&F scheme; and 2) a more recent statement that indicated Bush's AG knew about F&F.

[Franco]