White House invokes executive privilege

Today's huge story is that Obama has invoked executive privilege to keep the House from seeing the documents that reveal White House or Department of Justice involvement in the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.
Update 1:  South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy frames the question on the floor of the House of Representativesvia http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=41143

Update 2: Senator Grassley of Iowa: “How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.

Update 3: Writing at Ricochet, blogger Adam Freeman notes: President Obama has invoked "executive privilege" to head off a contempt of Congress citation against Eric Holder for failing to produce documents relating to operation "Fast and Furious," the bizarre DOJ initiative to send thousands of firearms to Mexican drug cartels to see what they would do with them (kill people, as it happens). Read more here: http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Obama-Asserts-Executive-Privilege

Update 4: Mark Levin:
"Executive Privilege is a very important implied executive power, used in various forms since the presidency of George Washington. Therefore, it's misuse and abuse, to cover-up wrongdoing, conceal embarrassing information, or advance a political agenda, diminishes the ability of future presidents to assert it legitimately." Mark gives concrete suggestions as to how the House should proceed: https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-levin/executive-privilege-and-how-the-house-should-move-forward-legally/10150866576635946

Update 5: Let's give some credit to a member of the MSM for her reporting on Fast and Furious. Dan Riehl has this:

CBS' Sharyl Attkisson Exposed Holder's Lying To Congress In Oct. 2011

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS just Tweeted a link to a story of hers from October 3, 2011. You know, CBS of Dan Rather-Gate infamy. Clearly, the broader media has failed to do its job on Fast and Furious, along with who knows whatever else. It shouldn't even be news at this point. Holder should be gone. The liberal media isn't going to be able to sleep through this one now with New Media in town.

WASHINGTON - New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.

On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.

 http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2012/06/cbs-sharyl-attkisson-exposed-holders-lying-to-congress-in-oct-2011.html

Update 6: While giving some credit to CBS" Sharyl Attkisson, let us not forget that it was the blogger at Sipsey Street Irregulars who first broke the Fast and Furious story. He is currently enduring some health problems. Let's pray for him and show him our gratitude.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/