Grassley: Federal judge should overturn Obama’s Fast and Furious executive privilege claim

“Well, if he [a federal judge] doesn’t [overturn Obama’s executive privilege assertion], it’s going to be the most sweeping abuse of executive privilege in the history of executive privilege,” Grassley said in an interview Tuesday at the Republican National Convention.

The House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal and civil contempt of Congress in June because of his failure to comply with a subpoena for Fast and Furious documents. As the resolutions to hold Holder in contempt were being considered by the House oversight committee – after more than a year of Obama administration stonewalling – Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.

Since the contempt votes, Holder’s Department of Justice ordered the District of Columbia’s U.S. Attorney, Ron Machen, to not enforce the criminal contempt resolution. So, House Republicans are pursuing the civil contempt resolution through a lawsuit against the Obama administration.

The lawsuit seeks to have a federal judge invalidate Obama’s executive privilege assertion and force him to cough up the Fast and Furious documents.