Is it valid? More thoughts from Mark Levin:
The right way to proceed is to hold Holder in contempt by resolution of the House and seek authorization from the House for the Committee, by its Chairman, to proceed by civil action to compel production of the documents. (Holder will not enforce a holding of contempt against himself — and by the way, he should have authorized, say, the assistant attorney general for legal counsel, to handle the contempt matter once the House voted as at that point he is representing his own interests and not those of the nation generally). Chairman Issa should file suit in federal court in DC and seek expedited action. There is no need for Senate action. The use of this procedure has been acknowledged by the Congressional Research Service in a 2007 study. Further, a privilege log should be sought by Issa and ordered produced immediately by the court, in camera inspection done promptly by the judge, and a final order entered compelling production of all documents for which no legitimate reason justifies Executive Privilege.
Everyone who thinks the privilege log exists, raise your hands.
Me, neither.
[Update a few minutes later]
The executive privilege claim is frivolous:
Holder’s letter is a remarkable document. Viewed from a strictly technical standpoint, it is a terrible piece of legal work. Its arguments are weak at best; in some cases, they are so frivolous as to invite the imposition of sanctions if they were asserted in court. I will explain why momentarily, but first this observation: if an opposing party requests documents that plainly are protected by a privilege, a lawyer will routinely assert the privilege, on principle, even though there is nothing hurtful to his case in those documents. On the other hand, a lawyer will not assert a lousy claim of privilege unless he badly wants to keep the documents in question out of the opponent’s hands because of their damaging nature. If I am correct that the administration’s assertion of executive privilege is baseless, it is reasonable to infer that the documents, if made public, would be highly damaging to President Obama, Attorney General Holder, or other senior administration officials.
When you consider this, the awful performance of the Solicitor General before SCOTUS, the number of times that SCOTUS has slapped down this administration, has there ever been a more incompetent administration from a legal standpoint?
“The dog isn’t finished eating my homework” is a new take on a hoary old defense.
I’m sure the shredders are working overtime. The question now isn’t Holder and Obama’s competence. The question is, are those going after them up to the job?
Obama is now tied completely to the results of this investigation.
Obama’s assertion of executive privilege won’t easily cover the earlier documents that Issa is seeking, especially since the Department of Justice is an agency created by Congress and not the Constitution. Congress could entirely eliminate the DoJ if it so desired.
It would be fitting if President Romney made Issa the new Attorney General, and perhaps Issa would tweet “I’m n ur chair!” to Holder.
“Fast and Furious started before Holder. And when Holder found out about it, he put a -stop- to it!”
1) That basically means “Bush did it.”
2) But if Bush did it, that has to mean Obama is exerting Executive Privilege to defend Bush. Because the 140,000 pages would prove it was Bushes’ fault.
Iff.
Every correct-thinking person knows, a priori and ab initio or whatever, that “Bush did it”, hence Rep. Issa’s “witch hunt” is a partisan witch hunt. I think . . .