The struggle between House Republicans and the Obama administration over the former’s investigation into the latter’s failed “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking operation escalated dramatically this week. Will the House probe uncover an Obama administration scandal as profound as Watergate, as some in the GOP believe? Or is it an election-oriented fishing expedition, as White House spokesman Jay Carney contends? In a Washington, D.C., long riven by partisanship, the split over this issue is now as deep and bitter as they come.
“This is about getting to the truth for the American people,” said the Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner on Thursday.
“This is an attempt to score political points,” replied the Democratic administration’s Mr. Carney later in the day.
Two moves on Wednesday helped power this new polarization. President Obama asserted executive privilege to withhold from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested documents dealing with the “Fast and Furious” operation. The House panel then voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
Mr. Obama’s move to try to cloak documents with his executive privilege power infuriated many on the right. The administration has already turned over to Congress some 7,600 documents dealing with “Fast and Furious” – an operation in which federal agents based in Arizona lost track of guns they had allowed criminals to obtain in an attempt to trace them back to gang leaders. But Rep. Darrell Issa (R) of California, chairman of the House Oversight panel, in particular is trying to figure out why the Justice Department sent him a letter in February saying the operation hadn’t used such a “gun-walking” technique – then withdrew that same letter, saying it was inaccurate.
