ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper once again proves why he should be the permanent host on ABC’s This Week. Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sat down with Mr. Tapper for an interview about Operation Fast & Furious. It was a great interview, and Mr. Tapper allowed Chairman Issa to answer the questions fully without interruptions.
Chairman Issa revealed he was sending a letter to President Obama explaining why the exercise of executive privilege is wrong in this case. Executive privilege cannot be invoked to cover up a crime. It has been shown over and over again that many Department of Justice officials have lied to Congress. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and 300+ Mexicans are dead. As Chairman Issa pointed out, the essential questions are, “Did you know, when did you know, what did you know?”
It was very smart of Chairman Issa to bring up his horrible relationship with President Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He even called for Mr. Gonzales to resign.
Mr. Tapper also allowed Chairman Issa to explain how they got to this point. They agreed to a meeting on June 19, and Mr. Holder was going to show up with 1,300 pages of requested documents.
“They came with nothing. Not even an offer in a form of a piece of paper. What they said orally was, ‘We will brief you. We will then give you the information we believe supports that briefing, but you have to first agree to dismiss your subpoenas and your contempt,” said Chairman Issa.
“You can’t play liar’s poker when you’re looking for who killed somebody, when you’re looking into this kind of a crime, and when you’re looking into the cover-up. Remember, it was deny, delay, and recuse.”
The 7,600 pages the DOJ have handed over are so heavily redacted they’re useless. Chairman Issa showed Mr. Tapper a bunch of papers that are completely blacked out. That’s not compliance. The DOJ cannot say they complied when they give the committee useless documents.
But it didn’t end there. Mr. Tapper brought up Fast & Furious with the round table and Hilary Rosen didn’t disappoint!
“You know, Eric Holder has shown a lot of backbone in the Justice Department and the Republicans hate it,” said Ms. Rosen.
Yes, to Ms. Rosen all of this is a distraction to keep Mr. Holder from doing what he was hired to do. She also repeated Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s claim that this is because of Mr. Holder’s opposition to Voter ID laws.
Representative Xavier Becerra decided to switch the topic from Fast & Furious to the awful economy. That is how you can tell Fast & Furious is a very serious topic. Usually Democrats are eager to avoid President Obama’s economy, but when it comes to Fast & Furious, they quickly jump back.
Overall, though, it was a great job by Mr. Tapper. ABC News viewers finally received a report on the huge story that is Operation Fast & Furious.
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