Contempt Vote Tomorrow

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Last week the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 23 to 17 (down party lines) to hold to hold US Attorney General Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress for attempting to Obstruct thier ivestigation into the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry who was killed by a rifle registered to the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).

It has since been revealed that BATFE Agents along the Arizona/Mexico Border had been providing weapons to the Signolla Drug Cartel. I posted about the story when initially broke here.

Holder initially denied any knowledge of of the policy, and later defended it as simply the continuation of a Bush-era program called "Operation Wide Reciever". He has since withdrawn those statements. Holder has not yet been formally held in contempt of Congress. The full House still needs to approve the resolution in order for that to happen. But President Obama has elected to support Holder by asserting executive privilege over the documents subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee.

This raises some interesting questions...

Actual lawyers feel free to corrct me, but as I understand it executive privilege allows the president to withhold documents and other materials that would reveal advisory opinions and recommendations by which governmental policies are formulated. By invoking executive privilege Obama and Holder are essentially admitting that "allowing" guns into Mexico was a policy descision.

Cynics have theorized that this was an effort to justify increased Gun-Control and Federal intervention in southern states. Others see it as simply stupidity and negligence. But what the question I find truly fascinating is "Why has the Obama adminisration chosen to make a stand here?"

I've been expecting Holder to get the boot for a couple of years now but it still hasn't happened. Historically Obama has been willing to sever ties with people who's association has become a liability. Holder is becoming a massive target for the Right and seems to rate an indifferent shrug from the left, so why protect him?

I have a few theories which (in order of increasing cynicism) are...

1: Holder and Obama are friends and Obama is genuinely prepared to risk his own reputation to protect him.

2: Obama doesn't think the charges will stick and sees this as an opprotunity to fuck over a Republican-lead investigation.

3: In relation to #3 Obama and Holder have bought into thier own hype and actually believe that nobody cares about violence in Mexico, they just hate black people.

4: The subpoenaed documents include information that could implicate Obama in wrong doing.

5: Holder has dirt on Obama and is blackmailing him.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not at all. Rather, what is the precise difference between selling guns to people who use them for acts that are deemed illegal by US law? It can't be that the guns were sold, as St. Ray Gunn did that. It can't be knowing they'll be used by bad people for bad things, as Ray Gunn did that too. It can't even be selling them to Latin Americans as the ultimate goal of Reagan's sordid little scandal was to arm sides in a civil war we weren't legally supposed to be involved with. You can claim it's a legal objection, but the claim is not true for being stated, the moreso when we consider how the GOP reacted to Iran-Contra.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I find the outcry "HUNDREDS OF DEAD MEXICANS WHY DOESN'T OBAMA CARE" to be a bit disingenuous; I don't think they'd care one whit about it if it were a Republican president.

That being said, I do think the sting operation at the heart of the affair (not neccesarily the programs themselves) was terribly botched, and yes, LIVES were lost, and of COURSE someone should be held accountable for that. Should it be Holder? I dunno. This whole nonsense is (as usual) another example of trying to turn a botched local operation into political hay and ammunition against political rivals. We've seen it used against Republican and Democratic administrations. You can lay the lion's share of blame for the Iraq occupation's blundering on Rumsfeld (and fucking BREMMER) but everyone and their grandmother wanted to lay that on the feet of Bush. And yea, "the buck stops here", and "a captain is responsible for his crew", and all that. But still, unless Holder personally oversaw the operation of the sting, I can't see how its ineptitude is his fault.

Yea, SOMEONE should be held criminally liable for Terry's death. We're talking some serious neglegance here. But the rest of this is like Clinton and the whole perjury thing. Was he "guilty of perjury?" Sure. Should we have even been wasting time putting him up on the stand during such an idiotic witchhunt in the first place? No.

Which means that yea, maybe Holder will be held in contempt. But should this even have gone beyond a local level (and possibly a public gutting of the local office?) Maybe? Maybe not?

(The answer may, of course, depend on your agreement that the operation was "botched", and not some super-sekrit conspiracy to do an end-run around the Second Amendment because somehow drug violence in Mexico makes people in the U.S. not like guns....? Or something. I dunno. I think the whole thing is just Hanlon's razor at work.)

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

OK. So the GOP are hypocrites. None of this excuses what Holder did in approving F&F, though. You'd agree there, right? F&F is still reprehensible?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Mayhaps he should have been. He did expressly break Congressionally-enacted law.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Absolutely I'd agree that it's reprehensible. This does not, however, erase that the GOP is a bunch of flaming hypocrites for treating this as the worst scandal ever. Especially since *their* evil arming was of none other than the state they perennially advocate war with now. At the same time, the best that could be said for this particular concept is......naive. The worst.......

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

OK, so they're hypocrites. Good on them for now taking the right side. Right? Or are we going to publicly flog them for stuff that happened thirty years ago some more?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And I'm sure Republicans will make every effort to do so in this instance if they can get the goods, It won't be for a lack of trying.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

When they treat one of the biggest perpetrators of that which was as a hero now? Damn right we'll flog them for it.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The mere fact that this is a political move doesn't also mean it's not the right one.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh we already know how much the GOP cares about this issue. See the degree to which they cling to Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, two people a respectable party with political sense wouldn't touch with an 800 and a half foot pole. The problem with this is that when the concept begins under Bush but blows up under Obama, the problem is that the concept was flawed from the get-go. If Holder is held accountable, so should Bush's last attorney general and the Bush Administration morons that came up with this idea to start with also be strung up by their Buster Browns, unless a government operation going bad in a lethal way is somehow worse under a Democrat than a Republican.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

What's this contempt procedure? Why do you guys have it all so complicated? Just hang the guy or something!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Do you agree that marijuana should not be a "schedule one" substance?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Calling me a partisan hack Democrat is rather hilarious. To me this is all like the "But Bush/Obama didn't declare war, illegal, unconstitutional, sure to summon the Elder Gods from the depths of the sea to eat our souls" comments made whenever the other party occupies the executive branch. To apply this principle fully, every military operation since Korea would be called into effect in a giant trial culminating in the largest mass execution in US history. Hence, it will never fully apply and it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The manufacturer of the weapon made their profit from the weapon and it served its primary function when it killed a human being.

The details are always dirty. Its beyond partisan. Its beyond countries. Its beyond species. Who ultimately "authorizes" us to fire our weapons?

Why do we presume other lives are ours to ruin for profit?

Wait until selling weapons to radical muslims blows back on us....oh wait.

But with F&F, I think anything less that full transparency is criminal. Oh, and Free Bradley Manning! Consistent enough for ya?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Which remains to be seen.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

HAHA LOL HURR !

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

I get it, dude, I do. Your team commits murder and you have to give it a pass, because the other team could profit from your team's being held accountable. Can't have that!

Democrats love to claim that it's a false equivalency to compare them to Republicans. The truth is you'e trapped in a false dichotomy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The bigger truth is that the GOP, which treats Oliver North as a real hero, has no room to target Holder for the same actions they hold North as a hero for. It seems that selling guns to bad people to break the law is not an evil thing so long as the bad people in question are sold those guns by Republicans. If people died from those same weapons, again no big deal. Just like how Donald Rumsfeld removing Saddam from the terrorist sponsors list so he could build his illegal chemical weapons arsenal has no relevance to the Iraq WMD issue and the seriousness of the threat an Iraq with those weapons would have been.

[404.livejournal.com]

Ollie North has been old news for 25 years. You need some new schtick.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

Good thing Oliver North didn't sell to criminals to try to prove that US Private Gun Selling Is Bad(tm). Because that could be an equivalent.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think prohibition in general is stupid.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Were waiting for the mexicans to shoot him with his own weapons. Seen some people wishing for that anyway...

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

OK, so that's it, then. Because the Republicans are corrupt, the Democrats can't be prosecuted.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Can Mexicans shoot well? I thought they mostly use machetes and cans of gasoline.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Ok I'm confused then.

If that is the case why is Iran-contra a reason not to nail Holder?