DOJ: Courts Can't Interfere in Obama's Executive Privilege Claim

"Fast and Furious" fight between White House and Congress

The federal courts have no authority to intervene in the dispute that led to President Barack Obama asserting executive privilege for the first time in the context of a Congressional inquiry, the Justice Department argued in a legal brief filed Monday night.

Soon after that assertion of privilege in June, the House voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to a House probe of the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

The Justice Department brief (posted here) argues that the executive branch's decision not to comply with such subpoenas or portions thereof cannot be second-guessed or rejected by the judiciary—a sweeping claim of executive power that aligns the Obama administration with the stance President George W. Bush's administration took in a similar dispute in 2008.

Comments

[Ted Levy]

Very clever! Courts just LOVE being told they can't interfere in Executive office claims...

[Juergen]

Whats about the law at all:

THE REPORT. CANNABIS: THE FACTS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW
ISBN 9781902848204.

Denial of cannabis by Prohibition 'law' premeditatedly inflicts suffering, blindness, and, in many instances, death. Those who maintain any use of life-saving cannabis to be "illegal" should be regarded and treated as perpetrators of the gravest of crimes, and deemed unfit to hold any public office in a democratic society.

Die Verweigerung von Cannabis durch das Prohibitions-Gesetz verursacht vors?tzlich Leiden, Blindheit und fuehrt in vielen F?llen zum Tod. Diejenigen, die das Verbot der Verwendung von lebensrettenden Cannabis als "illegal" zu halten betrachten, sollten behandelt werden wie ein T?ter des schwersten Verbrechens und als ungeeignet angesehen werden ein ?ffentliches Amt in einer demokratischen Gesellschaft zu fuehren.