Prominent conservative attorney Jay Sekulow is accusing President Barack Obama of illegally using his executive privilege to help cover up the details of a federal gun-trafficking investigation and to protect Attorney General Eric Holder from a contempt of Congress citation.
“The president has created quite a constitutional showdown and a serious constitutional crisis,” Sekulow told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday, referring to Obama’s assertion of executive privilege over documents related to the Justice Department’s botched Fast and Furious investigation.
Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, called on House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans leaders to press the issue in federal court following a vote by the GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recommending that Holder be held in contempt for refusing to turn over requested documents.
Boehner has said a vote on the recommendation would likely take place in the House next week. If approved, it would mark the first time a sitting attorney general has ever been held in contempt.
Sekulow — who earlier this year raised legal questions about Obama’s handling of recess appointments of judges — insisted the president’s assertion of executive privilege in the Fast and Furious case would not hold up in court because when it is used as part of “a cover-up the privilege doesn’t apply.”
“This is what the American people need to be asking themselves: What is it that is in these documents that they do not want the committee to see?” Sekulow told Hannity.
He said it was unprecedented that an attorney general would ask the president, “Please protect me. I’m about to get in real trouble here because the truth is about to come out.”
“The truth will ultimately come out, but now they’ve got a political issue that is huge,” Sekulow added.
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