Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) reminded President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder that Obama isn’t King of the United States of America and can’t ignore the powers of Congress. After 14 months of refusing to give the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee documents relating to the Fast and Furious fiasco, the committee, chaired by Issa, voted to hold Holder in contempt this week.
Chairman Issa didn’t schedule the vote until after President Obama, arrogant as ever and determined to pick a fight with Congress, exerted his executive privilege to block Holder from releasing any additional documents to the committee. If Holder doesn’t have anything to hide, why is Obama shielding the Attorney General from turning over the same 80,000 documents he already gave the Justice Department’s inspector general, who has also been investigating the “gun-walking” mess? Let’s remember this is the same Attorney General who thought it was a good idea to give 9/11 terrorists civilian trials a stone’s throw away from Ground Zero in New York City.
Fast and Furious is proving to be a mess the Obama administration wants to forget fast. (PS-It will be only a matter of minutes before Obama will blame the Republicans in Congress for forcing him to exert his executive privilege in the first place.) From 2009-2010, the Phoenix, Arizona division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) came up with a hair brain scheme to allow Arizona gun shops to illegally sell 2,000 guns to suspected gun smugglers, purchasing the guns for the Mexican drug cartel. Agents believed they would then track the guns back to the drug lords. Instead guns walked away and got lost into the hands of the drug lords and ended up killing Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and popping up at numerous crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.
This was a dumb plan gone wildly out of control. Making the scheme look even more reprehensible and fishy, CBS News obtained emails revealing AFT agents wanted to use the dangerous plot to build a case to advocate for more gun laws. During nine congressional hearings on the topic, Holder has insisted he knew nothing about the “gun walking” debacle. The question is what is Holder hiding and if documents are good enough for the Justice Department’s inspector general to see, they should be good enough for Congress to see.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) indicated he plans to schedule a contempt vote in the House next week and already Democrats are crying foul. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) decried if Speaker Boehner scheduled a vote on the House floor, he would “be seen as one of the most extreme speakers that ever took charge of the House.”
Quite the opposite is true. After putting his presidential hand into this Fast and Furious Fiasco, Obama seems to be cementing his image as one of the most extreme, divisive presidents in our history. Fish rots from the head down and employees lead by example.
Last week, Obama demonstrated he has no regard for Congress when he announced he would grant 800,000 illegal immigrants amnesty under the age of 30 to remain and work in America.
Though Obama and Democrats held a super majority from 2009-2010 and could pass whatever they wanted, immigration reform wasn’t on the docket of priorities. But since House Republicans refused to pass the Dream Act and Obama finds himself up for re-election, he sent a message to Congress with his “Dream Like” amnesty edict that if it doesn’t bow to his demands, Obama will act like Congress doesn’t exist. That’s exactly what his employee Eric Holder is doing, taking his cues from his Commander-in-Chief and telling Congress to shove it.
As Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) observed: “ He [Holder]wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he’s not turning over. That’s unacceptable. . .Chairman Issa is right to move forward to seek answers about a disastrous government operation.”
Holder looks like he’s playing Robin to Obama’s Batman in Chicago style political thuggery. But our caped crusader the President of the United States doesn’t seem to realize he’s not in Chicago anymore. Obama’s job as president is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America,” which divides the power of government evenly across three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. If Obama and his team want to stonewall and bypass Congress like it doesn’t matter, he probably needs go to a country like Syria and declare himself dictator.
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