Ruling will lead to disclosure of information about documents withheld from House under Obama executive privilege claim that led to Holder contempt of Congress finding
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on July 18, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) must turn over to the organization a “Vaughn index” of all requested Operation Fast and Furious materials from the June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice(No. 1:12-cv-01510)). Judicial Watch sought all of the documents the Obama White House was withholding from the House of Representatives under executive privilege claims.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates lifted a lengthy 16-month delay of this open records lawsuit. This order forces the Obama DOJ, for the first time and by October 1, 2014, to provide a detailed listing of all documents that it has withheld from Congress and the American people for years about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal. The ruling can be found here.
The DOJ opposed the Judicial Watch action, claiming it would interfere with the department’s continuing litigation with the House Oversight Committeeconcerning these Fast and Furious documents subpoenaed in October 2011. In September 2012, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents. In the July 2014 opinion overruling the Obama Justice Department’s request for an almost indefinite hold on Judicial Watch’s legal right obtains this information under the Freedom of Information Act Bates said:
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Judicial Watch keeps on scoring! Now let’s see a home run or two.
The pace of these kinds of suits certainly seems to be picking up. Is it my imagination or are Conservatives finally catching on to the importance of lawfare?
wow that is strange, but It seems all the hard drives on all these machines crashed
I wanna hear them sing that old Jimmie Rodgers song,”In The Jailhouse Now”
As aunt Edna (Nat.Lampoon Vacation) would say:
He shouldn’t even have a license to drive an automobile! He should be BEHIND BARS!
Yeah, so what if they get documents? I’m going to prosecute myself? The Dead Elephants are not going to prosecute me either, ’cause their racism would be too obvious then So, what any of this matter? We have overthrown imperialist America, and you all are just gonna take it.
Holders more than a corrupt liar, he has strategically been placed in this position to run interference for and protect Obama. If you want to destroy this regime, Holder must be impeached first.
Sound of hard drives crashing in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
It’s not the actual documents, it’s only a list of documents. Child’s play for Holder and Obama.
This is just an index of the documents and not the documents themselves, but at least it’s a start.
And who is going to insure that the DOJ will actually list every document that they are withholding? We’re supposed to trust Eric the Witholder to be honest?
I hate being so cynical.
@OneLastTime – didn’t see your comment, I was typing as yours posted.
Eric Holder = Racist
Furthermore, it’s a list of what’s being witheld, and WHY it’s being witheld. From that the judge is going to decide whether it ought to be witheld or not.
Anybody expecting a document release before Jan 20, 2016 is dreaming.
After that? “We di-ent try to go back and prosecute Booosh after HE was out of office you ray-cissts!”
So, yeah. You’re cynical for a reason.
If the list isn’t heavily redacted, all the documents will be.
Yes, this is the Vaughn Index of the records in dispute, but the DoJ must “particularize” each of the withheld documents and if the court/JW should find evidence of withheld “withheld” docs, then that would be the start of perjury and criminal investigation of the DoJ. So, all in all, this is a good day for (lower case) justice.
The GOP is working toward dislodging the DoJ from their comfortable positiion of investigating/preserving themselves from several different fronts. I posted the House Judiciary hearing from 7/30/14 on the BP, the subject is whether or not the Atty General ‘should’ exercise his ‘discrection’ in appointing the equivalent of a special prosecutor, seeing how the DoJ has been and today are embroiled in a clear conflict of interest (one of the tests for DoJ to appoint an independent counsel) because they are under internal “ongoing investigation” of themselves while they are representing the IRS in its case against an external litigant. Yeah, you read that right.
JW’s lawyers, BTW, are clearly superior to the anything the DoJ can serve up. 🙂
Oh, and when the GOP takes the senate in the midterms, holder will tender his resignation to persue “other interests” effective immediately.