White House spokesman Eric Schultz defended
Obama’s assertion of executive privilege, saying that the move is legal and has
long been supported by courts even if the president is not directly involved
with the documents in question.
“Our position is consistent with executive-branch legal precedent for
the past three decades spanning administrations of both parties, and dating
back to President Reagan’s Department of Justice,” said Schultz in a statement.
“The courts have routinely considered deliberative process privilege
claims and affirmed the right of the executive branch to invoke the privilege
even when White House documents are not involved.”
Isa on Sunday acknowledged in an interview
with Fox host Chris Wallace that he has no evidence that would suggest a White
House cover-up of the gun-tracking operation.
The House has scheduled a vote on the
contempt charge for Thursday, the same day the Supreme Court is scheduled to
deliver its decision on Obama's healthcare law. That virtually ensures the
Holder vote will get less media attention, something that might be fine with
many Republicans who want to focus the political debate on the economy.
Conservatives within the GOP have been pressing for the action against Holder.
Many of the documents that Isa has narrowly
focused his request on center on the period of time after Feb. 4, 2011, when
the Justice Department sent Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) a false letter
claiming it did everything in its power not to let guns “walk” across the
U.S.-Mexico border.
Ten months later the DOJ took the rare step
of withdrawing that letter. Isa wants to know what agency officials learned in
those months and how that decision was reached by reading their internal
emails.
The chairman said on Tuesday that Obama’s
use of executive privilege implicates him in the decision-making process and
that he hopes the president will more clearly define his assertion. House
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) raised similar questions almost immediately
following Obama’s move last week.
“I am hopeful that, consistent with assertions of executive privilege
by previous administrations, you will define the universe of documents over
which you asserted executive privilege and provide the committee with the legal
justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC),”
wrote Isa.
“To what extent were you or your most senior advisers involved in
Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it, including the false Feb. 4,
2011, letter provided by the attorney general to the committee?” he continued.
“Please also identify any communications, meetings and
teleconferences between the White House and the Justice Department between Feb.
4, 2011, and June 18, 2012, the day before the attorney general requested that
you assert executive privilege.”
Issa has been investigating Fast and
Furious for the past 16 months, after whistleblowers brought news of the failed
operation to the attention of Grassley, whose attempts at retrieving more
information from the DOJ were unsuccessful.
After issuing two subpoenas and
interviewing dozens of witnesses, Isa says that the DOJ has stopped producing
documents to the committee. He says his panel has about 7,600 documents,
whereas the DOJ’s inspector general, which Holder ordered last year to complete
its own investigation, has more than 80,000 documents.
