Obama Asserts Executive Privilege Over DOJ Gun Runner Scandal

President Barack Obama has exerted executive privilege over documents related to the Fast & Furious gunrunning operation, stepping into the stand-off between Attorney General Eric Holder and House Oversight Chair Darrell Issa. 

The Oversight Committee is demanding previously undisclosed documents about the DOJ’s response to Fast and Furious, a gunrunning operation in which U.S. agents allowed guns to “walk” across the border and into the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. 

Obama’s move today is surprising —this is the first time that he has invoked executive privilege — and comes on the same day that the Oversight Committee is set to vote on whether to hold Holder in contempt over the Department of Justice’s involvement in the botched operation. 

Holder has so far declined to turn over the documents, and an attempt to break the stalemate failed last night after Issa rejected Holder’s offer to brief members of Congress on those documents. Obama’s executive privilege order will protect the Fast & Furious documents from being subpoenaed by Congress