Listening to Holder (approx. 3.15 into the clip) the reasons he gives for witholding documents are
- - to prevent compromising ongoing investigations
- to protect witnesses
- to protect 'people we are working with'
From what I can find out the three things that Holder had to retract were:Cail wrote:If it went no higher up the ladder than Arizona, why did Holder have to retract three statements and under what right did Obama exercise Executive Privilege?
- - that the ATF never used the tactic of 'walking' guns (they did)
- that people high up in the Bush administration knew about 'gun walking' in Wide Receiver (they didn't)
- that there were 70,000 documents in total related to the F&F operation (there are 140,000 (at the last count)).
As to the use of Executive Privilege two reason now seem plausible to me. The first would be that certain documents relate to the possibility of using F&F (after the fact) as a way of applying pressure for gun control measures such as Demand Letter 3 (the mandatory reporting of bulk sales of long guns similar to what is required regarding bulk sales of handguns). These documents would, IMO, come under the 'deliberative process privilege' because in the hands of Republicans they would be used politically.
The other reason is that Obama wanted to protect Holder from the contempt charges that were looming. The reason he might do this is because he sees the contempt charges as politically motivated. Is this is a legitimate use of EP?
Reading the article that wayfriend posted cleared up many of the points about the F&F operation (apart from why there was no Mexican involvement). If a reporter from Forbes can find this information out without the powers of an oversight committee (and without privileged access to documents) then how much more does the committee need before it can make a report?
u.