Most. Corrupt. Administration. Ever.

Cross-​posted at Haemet.

10 AM EDT: dead­line set by the Con­gress for pro­duc­tion of Fast and Furi­ous doc­u­ments from Eric Holder. Fail­ure to pro­duce said doc­u­ments could result in Holder being cited for contempt.

10:15 AM EDT: Barack Obama exerted “exec­u­tive priv­i­lege” over those doc­u­ments.

Okay, Con­sti­tu­tional Law Pro­fes­sor, let’s get down and do some real con­sti­tu­tional law. The sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers does enable a Pres­i­dent to exert exec­u­tive priv­i­lege over doc­u­ments when they are going to a branch of gov­ern­ment that has no use for them. (As but one exam­ple, George Wash­ing­ton invoked exec­u­tive priv­i­lege over doc­u­ments relat­ing to a treaty, when sub­poe­naed by the House, because the Sen­ate, not the House, is the sole leg­isla­tive body respon­si­ble for the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of treaties.)

Nev­er­the­less, “I’m the Pres­i­dent so what I say, goes” is not a per­mis­si­ble means to block Con­gres­sional inves­ti­ga­tion. In U.S. v. Nixon, the Supreme Court denied then-​President Nixon’s invo­ca­tion of exec­u­tive priv­i­lege. It held that absent par­tic­u­larised cir­cum­stances (involv­ing national secu­rity, mil­i­tary, or diplo­matic secrets), exec­u­tive priv­i­lege does not bar the pro­duc­tion of doc­u­ments at a crim­i­nal trial. While such mate­r­ial may not be made pub­lic (and should be sub­ject to in cam­era inspec­tions, where pos­si­ble), a Pres­i­dent can­not sim­ply refuse to hand it over, cit­ing gen­er­alised concerns.

So Obama, please let us know exactly how Fast and Furi­ous will impli­cate national secu­rity (except to cause vio­lence at the bor­der). Please. Because it seems as if it’s not a diplo­matic issue with another nation, not a mil­i­tary issue, and not tend­ing to harm national secu­rity in a par­tic­u­larised manner.