Republicans attack White House over Holder executive privilege

Can Issa now hold Holder in contempt of Congress? Stanford Center for Internet and Society photo

By GWEN FISHEL
Talk Radio News Service

WASHINGTON - Conservative lawmakers attacked the White House following today’s announcement that President Obama will use executive privilege to deny the House access to previously requested documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious.

During a panel discussion with fellow Republican members sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), member of the House Oversight Committee, voiced the need to investigate why Obama has chosen to just now use executive privilege.

“How is it that for months, in fact over a year, the president and the attorney general have said that they had no communications about Fast and Furious… and all of a sudden, the president is exerting an executive privilege?” Labrador asked. ”So, once again, I ask, did they not tell us the whole story when they came before Congress?”

Rep. Sandy Adams (R-Fla.) said that subpoenas for those documents had been issued several months ago, and that regardless of Obama’s invocation of executive privilege, it is still important for Congress to follow through with collecting information since it is an issue important to the American people.

Rep. Jeffery Landry (R-La.) echoed his colleagues sentiments, arguing that the administration should face the consequences of the botched operation.

“The American people deserve, if not anything, for somebody to be held accountable. There is a man that lost his life. There are arms that went into another country by a President that accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, the Chair of the House Oversight Committee, is bringing a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for allegedly refusing to cooperate with lawmakers’ investigation into the operation. The White House announced early Wednesday morning that they would be exercising executive privilege over a series of documents subpoenaed by Congress.

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Posted by Gary on Jun 20 2012. Filed under Breaking News, Politics, US. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.