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 He has since withdrawn those statements.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

[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.)

[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.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Honestly, every time I see some pundit write about "Dead Mexicans", I read it as if they're rubbing they're hands in glee, cackling "Dead Mexicans! Let's see Obama get out of THIS one! Nyahahahaha!"

Gives new meaning to that whole "never let a crisis go to waste" thing.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

With the not-so-minor problem that the person who said this was in fact a Democrat, and we have the classic example of blatant lies and inventing crises in JFK's use of the Missile Gap. Or for that matter in Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick Bridge, or for that matter the people who were surprised when Obama fulfilled a promise he'd been making since 2007 to prolong and widen the Afghanistan War?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

the person who said this was in fact a Democrat

Indeed. I was intentionally finding a perverse humor in Rahm's statement of a universal political truism that was taken as the most heinous admission of guilt by the Republicans... who then continued to go about living right up to that same truism on a daily basis.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Holder certainly isn't helping his case by trying to cover the whole thing up. Remember, at first he tried to deny to operation even existed.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

True enough, and I'm not even saying that Holder SHOULDN'T be found in contempt. There are rules, and once it was on his plate (whatever his responsibilities before that point) he's supposed to follow them. And certainly, the whole mess gives the lie to this being "the most transparent administration", but we've already figured that out.

I still can't get behind this idea that somehow this makes Obama (or even Holder, really) responsibile for Mexican mass murder, and I can't buy into the conspiracy angles. Doesn't mean I like Holder. I think the guy's dropped the ball all over the place, and frankly he should have fallen on his metaphorical sword months ago.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

The idea that Obama or Holder are responsible for the murders isn't something I really expect is believed by even those making the claim. The thing that is really being investigated is the cover-up. The dead people are just incidental.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Really, when did the GOP start caring about Mexicans.

They respond to it by wanting to deport our Mexicans, even if they're not Mexican. Can't tell you how many times I've heard rich white Floridians rant about how we need to deport Puerto Ricans, for example.