Justice Dept. seeks to dismiss Fast and Furious suit

WASHINGTON The Justice Department on Monday night sought dismissal of a lawsuit by a Republican-led House committee demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder produce records about the botched law enforcement probe of gun-trafficking called Operation Fast and Furious.

President Barack Obama has invoked executive privilege and the attorney general has been found to be in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents that might explain what led the Justice Department to reverse course after initially denying that federal agents had used a controversial tactic called gun-walking in the failed law enforcement operation. The tactic resulted in hundreds of illegally acquired weapons purchased at Arizona gun shops winding up in Mexico, where many of them were recovered from crime scenes. Two guns in Operation Fast and Furious were found on the U.S. side of the border at the scene of a shooting in which U.S. border agent Brian Terry was killed. In a Feb. 4, 2011 letter to Congress, the Justice Department said that agents made every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico, which turned out to be incorrect. Ten months later, the department withdrew the letter.

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In its court papers, the Justice Department says the Constitution does not permit the courts to resolve the political dispute between the executive branch and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that is seeking the records. The political branches have a long history of resolving disputes over congressional requests without judicial intervention, the court filing said.

If the lawsuit is allowed to go forward, "countless other suits by Congress are sure to follow, given the volume of document requests issued by the dozens of congressional committees that perform oversight functions," the Justice Department's court filing stated. "This case thus illustrates vividly why the judiciary must defer to the time-tested political process for resolution of such disputes."

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The fallout from "Fast and Furious"

The Justice Department cited a Supreme Court ruling which said the court lacked jurisdiction to decide a challenge brought by several members of Congress to the constitutionality of the line item veto law.

In the current dispute over records from Operation Fast and Furious, the House asked the court to reject a claim by the president asserting executive privilege, a legal position designed to protect certain internal administration communications from disclosure.

The failure of Holder and House Republicans to work out a deal on the documents led to votes in June that held the attorney general in civil and criminal contempt of Congress.

In Fast and Furious, ATF agents abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased, often as soon as they were taken out of gun shops. Instead, the goal of the tactic known as "gun-walking" was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks. Federal agents lost track of many of the guns. The operation identified more than 2,000 illicitly purchased weapons, and some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered.

[ammo17]

why isn`t this man and the people of his INJUSTICE DEPT. being prosecuted in civilian courts for murder of the border patrol agent,treason for giving aid to the enemy,over two thousand assault rifles to the drug cartels and mass murder of innocent mexican civilians???

[Patrickdh10]

Get that corporate stooge Holder out of there Mr. President. We need a man dedicated to enforcing the laws of the U.S. and going after corporate corruption,organized crime and tainted politicians. Not someone to go out and bust pot smokers and protesters implementing stupid ideas like F&F.

[Martha12345]

It needs to go to trial. Let the whole story come out. Enough is enough.

[lifeduringwartime]

Pro Second Amendment and proud of it, it is the one and only thing that keeps us free. This F.&F smells to high Heaven, and about the dumbest move and plan the Justice Dept. has ever done.

[realpatriot1776]

this major failure of American justice is as bad as Watergate, people have died as the result of this unsupervised policy, criminal neglence would be a charge if this had occurred in the private sector, and because of the abuse of powers and the exec. order we have another case which is blemishing tha American image, the other main case is when a criminal action occurs (illegal entry) is it legal or normal to reward the criminal action by rewarding the individuals (12 million) with entitlements of Food, Housing and health-care, criminal actions, as defined are illegal entry into properties which are not yours, our justice dept. has looked the other way far to long, they have created victims, of citizen that are not receiving aid, because criminals are draining the funds, we are a laughing stock of all countries by neglecting our own, and taking care of criminals,

[Rick03466]

The body count continues to climb, ( confirmed so far at 258 more suspected) Mr. Holders defense, I didn't know that 3 agencies under my control combined their resources to sell guns to Mexican Drug Lords. In short he said , I am incompetent.
In stead of dismissing and incompetent employee Mr Obama, channels Richard Nixon and arrogantly declares Executive Privilege.
SCUM

[realpatriot1776]

exactly but how to open the eyes of those that enjoy having scum hang on them,

[austincoog]

Some of these libtard commenters must be imbeciles to think that the Congressional hearings were for political gain. An American and over 300 Mexicans (and counting) are dead thanks to this ATF/JD debacle and after over a year, AG Holder had not fired anybody nor held anybody accountable for their murders. Like Benghazi, there is another cover-up by the Administration to hide the truth,and Rep. Issa by law is bound to investigate to find the truth(versus what Obama/Holder claim). This will only get worse for Holder when No Mo Bama happens after the election.

[robert1129]

Whoever believes that ISSA and the rest of the GOP is not doing this for political gain is one sick puppy. All of this will blow over and be forgotten after 11/06/2012.

[Martha12345]

Let both parties do it to each other. Crooks are crooks, regardless of political party.

[Xbeing]

Robert, seriously... the fact that several key Democrats voted with the Majority of the House of Rep stands to reason that it's more about truth, than Political Opposition.

But pretty sure, your view is tainted by yours. Keep in mind, Watergate still hasn't "blown over", nor did Clinton's affairs, nor Bush's exaggerated intel.

In fact, if Obama wins the election, expect this to take center stage, along with the botched security in Libya.

[aicohnx3]

Apparently the justice department thinks we elect a king not a president. Congress has oversight responsibility and when the executive branch refuses to cooperate the judiciary must do their jobs & adjudicate the dispute. End of story.