This is an important story about Judicial Watch’s complicated and complex investigation into the Obama administration’s deadly Operation Fast and Furious scandal. And this is one story that should be shared far and wide.
Earlier this week Judicial Watch was pleased to announce that we scored a victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding a September 5, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for all records of communications between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on settlement discussions in the Committee’s 2012 contempt of Congress lawsuit against former Attorney General Eric Holder. The contempt citation stemmed from Holder’s refusal to turn over documents to Congress related to the Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal. The appeals court decision was issued last week, on February 12.
On June 28, 2012, Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives over his refusal to turn over records explaining why the Obama administration may have lied to Congress and refused for months to disclose the truth about the gunrunning operation in which the Obama administration allowed weapons to “walk” across the border into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, directly resulting in the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and countless Mexican citizens. The House vote against Holder marked the first time in U.S. history that a sitting Attorney General was held in contempt of Congress.
A week before the contempt finding, to protect Holder from criminal prosecution and stave off the contempt vote, President Obama asserted executive privilege over the Fast and Furious records that the House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed eight months earlier.
Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit on September 12, 2012, for all of the records the Obama White House was withholding from the House of Representatives under its June 20, 2012, executive privilege claims. The House had been separately litigating to obtain the records before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson. We figured, correctly it turns out, we’d have better success in court than the hapless Congress.
Initially, the House lawsuit stalled our litigation. On February 15, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Bates stayed the Judicial Watch case, in part to allow ongoing settlement discussions between the DOJ and the House Committee to continue.
Judicial Watch was skeptical that the “settlement discussions” were serious and that they were merely an excuse to keep the records secret to protect Holder and the Obama administration from any Fast and Furious fallout. Judicial Watch sought records about the alleged settlement talks and sued in federal court for them in September 2013. As last week’s appellate decision details, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that a statement Judge Jackson made in the House lawsuit was a lawful reason to withhold the documents from the public:
“I don’t know what you said. I don’t want to know.” – was “an explicit statement from Judge Jackson instructing the parties to keep the substance of their settlement discussions private,” so “there can be no doubt that there was a valid court-imposed restriction prohibiting disclosure.”
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