Wow. This is getting nasty. As we reported earlier, Congressman Darrell Issa said he was going to hold AG Eric Holder in contempt if he didn’t release files related to Fast and Furious.
But now, Obama has stepped in and asserted executive privilege over the docs. Wow. This move is so extreme that Drudge now has a pic of Obama and Nixon morphed together.
But Issa is reportedly going ahead with the contempt charges.
Fox News reports:
The announcement instantly touched off a caustic debate on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as Democrats accused Issa of prosecuting a “political witch hunt” and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Holder’s “stonewalling” over the Fast and Furious probe. Even for Washington, the tone at the hearing was decidedly bitter and accusatory.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was first informed of the president’s decision to exert executive privilege in a letter Wednesday morning, shortly before the contempt vote was scheduled.
Issa said committee staff are evaluating the letter but described the move as too little, too late as he and other GOP lawmakers questioned the basis for the assertion.
“This untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings,” Issa said.
The good news is that the media is now forced to cover this although in much of the coverage I’ve perused they haven’t mentioned the body count associated with F and F.
The bad news is I’m not at all sure that the GOP has the stones to go ahead with this thing. We’ll see.
