Obama administration invokes executive privilege on Benghazi probe?

Hiding Something. Gun Running? thought Nothing to see here?

This is what’s known as trying to eat your cake and have it too. Democrats, let by ranking member Elijah Cummings, have repeatedly claimed that the select committee is unnecessary and redundant on the point of the attack itself. Chair Trey Gowdy has repeatedly stated that the scope of the committee goes far beyond the attack, to review of the policies that led the consulate to be vulnerable and State and the military unprepared to deal with the consequences. This response tries an even narrower argument than Cummings uses by claiming the ARB provided a definitive answer to the attack, which is (a) absurd and (b) beside the point. Congress has the right and the duty to oversee all government-agency functions and performance, and not just in the case of an attack.

The invocation of executive privilege raises the stakes. Executive privilege only covers the President, and his immediate advisers while they are being consulted by the President in an area of executive authority. Susan Rice, Obama’s national-security adviser, would be covered by executive privilege only when in consultation with the President, but not when she’s consulting with Hillary Clinton or officials at other agencies over which Congress exercises oversight. Otherwise, the use of the privilege would get so abused as to render any sort of checks and balances on the executive moot.

A resort to executive privilege in this case either suggests that Barack Obama himself got involved in dealing with these issues as they arose and that documentation would expose the debate over policy and responses … or that the White House simply thinks it can use executive privilege at any time to block access to records to which Congress is entitled. The use of executive privilege to protect Eric Holder in the Operation Fast and Furious probe provides evidence of the latter. This looks like a blanket attempt to stifle the Select Committee in the same way that Holder managed to stall out the probe into ATF/Department of Justice actions in the gun-running scandal. At the very least, though, that allows Gowdy to keep the probe running and make the point that it’s the White House stretching it out with their refusal to cooperate and share material that even administration officials admit they’ve never provided to Congress.

See the Rest at:

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/07/01/obama-administration-invokes-executive-privilege-on-benghazi-probe/?