Executive Privilege? Where Have We Heard That Line of Bull Before?

Richard Nixon

NewsNM note (Spence) - Are there similarities between the Fast and Furious scandal and the botched burglary of Democratic National Headquarters back in 1972, better known as Watergate? Fast and Furious is much worse. Why? There was no harm done in the Watergate break in. The thieves were caught redhanded by hotel security and local police and taken directly to jail. What the Watergate scandal did do was expose a horrific coverup of crimes. It also exposed the lengths to which Nixon administration operatives would go in terms of breaking laws, including U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell.

John Mitchell

Fast and Furious makes Watergate look like child's play. Fast and Furious led to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. With Fast and Furious we don't have two-bit crooks arrested during a botched political burglary, we have our own U.S. Department of Justice running guns to drug lords who used those guns to kill our law enforcement officers. Richard Nixon made a terrible mistake obstructing justice in 1972 . Eventually the Washington Post exposed him. Barack Obama has started down the same obstruction path exactly forty years later. Instead of cutting Eric Holder loose, Obama has claimed "executive privilege" to block the truth-seeking process. Just as Nixon did, Obama is tolerating trash in his midst. And accordingly, he is now starting to behave like trash himself.

Newsmax - The President Barack Obama granted an 11th-hour request from Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege and withhold documents related to the Fast and Furious gun probe, but the maneuver appeared unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by House Republicans. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its chairman Rep. Darrell Issa forged ahead Wednesday morning with a meeting on the contempt resolution in spite of Obama’s move.

Brian Terry

After Holder made the request to Obama in a letter on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to Issa on Wednesday informing him that the president has granted the request. "We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee's concerns and to accommodate the committee's legitimate oversight interests regarding Operation Fast and Furious," Cole wrote. "Although we are deeply disappointed that the committee appears intent on proceeding with a contempt vote, the department remains willing to work with the committee to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of the outstanding issues." Read full story here: News New Mexico

Executive Privilege? Where Have We Heard That Line of Bull Before?