LawFuel.com – Will the US House of Represetnatives cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt, in a history-making move that the House Oversight Committee has recommended?
The Oversight Committee recommended the vote against Attorney General Holder last week after he refused to hand over all of the requested documents in its investigation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ controversial Fast and Furious gun-running sting.
CNN reports that the vote came after President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over some documents sought by the panel. The White House move means the Department of Justice can withhold some of the documents.
House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa said Sunday a letter being sent to Obama will outline why his invocation of executive privilege is either “overbroad, or simply wrong.”
The letter will be sent by Monday, Issa, R-California, told ABC’s “This Week.”
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“We’re past that part of the discovery, relative to contempt,” Issa said. “We know that there’s a lot of wrong things and we want to fix it. What we’re talking about now, when we get lied to, when the American people get lied to, there can’t be oversight when there’s lying.”
“The Supreme Court held pretty clearly there cannot be executive privilege over a criminal cover-up,” he said. “Lying to Congress is a crime. We have every right to see documents to say, ‘Did you know?’ ‘What did you know?’ including even the president.”
The citing of Holder for the contempt action will have constitutional lawyers and others reassessing legal history depending upon what the documents Holder has withheld actually say.
