Fast and Furious documents are not protected by executive privilege, judge rules
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the U.S. Justice Department must release internal documents regarding the Fast and Furious gun-running probe.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected the administration’s claims of executive privilege because much of the information was already made public in an Inspector General’s report. Politico and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) covered the Jan. 19 ruling (PDF).
“Any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted,” Jackson wrote. “The department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold.”
Berman said the documents withheld under the “deliberative process prong of the executive privilege” should be turned over by Feb. 2. She said her ruling did not address, however, whether some sensitive documents could be withheld on other grounds. Her decision encouraged the parties to “resolve the remaining issues with flexibility and respect.”
Berman ruled in a suit filed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee is investigating the government’s botched probe of illegal gun-running that allowed illegal firearms to be smuggled across the border. Two of the guns were found at the site of a gun battle in which a U.S. Border Patrol Agent was killed.
