Beginning Of The End?

Please note that the header for this article contains a question mark. My guts tell me that it should be a statement rather than a question, but I have to be realistic. On the other hand, I’m older than most of you, and I’m experiencing that sensation of déjà vu all over again. I’m seeing the early cracks in the unified front of Holder and Obama in the Fast and Furious scandal.


President Obama’s recent and highly-questionable executive privilege claim to protect Attorney General Holder’s involvement in Fast and Furious is certainly an indicator of trouble in Obama heaven. News reporters who actually care to report the news have jumped on that as an indication of a coverup.

But having been through Watergate, I see a little-reported and more recent event as much more indicative that the White House of Cards may be coming down. When President Nixon raised executive privilege at the early Watergate stages, it was also a signal of trouble. But it was the burgeoning growth of the extension of that privilege to everyone who knew anything that was truly telling.

That is already beginning to occur with Obama in Fast and Furious. The weak claim of executive privilege (more correctly, communications privilege) has already led the administration into an attempt to block a third-tier former National Security adviser from testifying before Congress. If the privilege is stretched by extending it to Holder’s communications with his deputies and other federal agencies, then attempting to block testimony from a distantly-connected former federal adviser stretches the privilege to the breaking point.

The capsule version is as follows: ATF Special Agent Bill Newell testified before Congress in July of 2011 that he and National Security staff member Kevin O’Reilly had communicated with each other via e-mail and on the telephone. This is not a communication between Holder and his subordinates. It is communication between members of two different federal agencies discussing the ramifications of gun-walking operations and what should or should not be communicated to the Mexican government and Mexican media

Newell had attempted to paint his agency in the best possible light, claiming that any activity in Fast and Furious was solely to bring down the trafficking of guns with the Mexican drug cartels. But under withering examination from several members of the House Oversight Committee, Newell admitted that the agency had “made mistakes.” He also said that he and O’Reilly had attempted to keep their plans between themselves and out of the hands of the White House and the Department of Justice. But he slipped, and admitted that their plan to maintain secrecy had failed and was well-known throughout the Obama administration, including DOJ, as early as 2010.

At that point, no hard evidence of complicity with DOJ or the White House had yet been produced, but Newell was ordered by his direct superiors not to continue testifying. The matters contained in the e-mails and phone calls between old friends Newell and O’Reilly became known, but standing alone would not “prove” anything more than earlier knowledge of the operation than Holder had admitted to. Damning, but not deadly.

Now, the names of Newell and O’Reilly have shown up on potential Congressional witness lists, including the pending contempt of Congress vote that Holder faces. Newell’s testimony is rather narrow, and probably wouldn’t do much additional damage in further Congressional hearings. But O’Reilly was closer to the White House than Newell who was just a Phoenix area ATF agency director. O’Reilly would logically be assumed to be in communication with DOJ and the White House as Fast and Furious began to unravel.

In order to preempt any discovery of O’Reilly’s (and possibly Holder’s and Obama's) involvement in attempting to squelch the impact of the reports of scores of guns disappearing and civilian deaths in the failed sting operation that appeared early on, O’Reilly has been told by the White House that he cannot testify before Congress again. O’Reilly is no longer the National Security adviser to the White House, but in such a matter, the administration feels that any of his words or deeds whether past or present should be covered by the expansion of the dubious executive privilege.

This may seem both minor and technical, but it is not. More significantly, this is no longer insider-politics, nor even simply conservative investigative success. The curious relationship of Newell and O’Reilly, combined with O’Reilly’s previous insider position at the White House, raises some pretty big flags. Flags too big to be entirely ignored. The question “what are they hiding?” is becoming amplified. And it is, of all possible sources, being examined by CBS News.

White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler told a CBS reporter that O’Reilly “will not be made available for Congressional inquiry.” Last fall, O’Reilly was allegedly unavailable because he was on assignment for the State Department in Iraq. At that time, O’Reilly and his lawyers had said that he could not come back for the investigation, but was willing to be interviewed by the Oversight Committee by phone. That offer was quickly squelched by the White House. I can’t help but suspect that both Newell and O’Reilly are viewed by the administration as potential loose cannons.

How important is this? Hard to say, but I go back to Watergate for indicators. Almost everyone, including the press, considered Watergate to be a matter of little importance, with no serious ramifications for the Nixon White House. But then, Nixon started “disappearing” the Plumbers and administration officials who might tie the burglary to the highest levels of government.. Undaunted by being told how insignificant this whole thing was, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein got hold of the story like a pair of bulldogs. They started interviewing administration officials who seemingly had no connection to the Watergate break-in. In other words, they did their job as reporters.

To start with, Woodward and Bernstein latched onto early indications. They asked “why were a bunch of common burglars being represented at their criminal hearings by high-priced lawyers with strong connections to the White House?" Similarly, CBS is now asking why the administration is quashing the appearance of O’Reilly before Congress if he doesn’t know anything of value and could conceivably give exculpatory testimony for Eric Holder.

This is one of the early indicators that a coverup is being perpetrated, and that it goes all the way to the top. Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley have sent a letter to the White House stating: “O’Reilly’s testimony is necessary to allow us to begin to determine the extent of involvement—if any—of White House staff in Operation Fast and Furious. As such, we strongly urge you to reverse your position and facilitate an interview with O’Reilly without further delay.” This is an early indication that the investigators may believe that the coverup doesn’t stop at Holder’s office, but rather goes all the way to where the buck stops.

I'm beginning to wonder at what point we will stop referring to "The Fast and Furious Debacle" and start referring to it as "The Fast and Furious Conspiracy." Maybe we should hire a medium and attempt to communicate with the spirit of Richard Nixon. For now, I simply pray that the reporters' egos and need to be there first with the next "scandal scoop" will overcome their ingrained need to protect Obama and his minions.