House of Representatives Files Lawsuit Against AG Holder for "Fast and Furious" Documents

The "Fast and Furious" scandal took a new turn today when the House of Representatives filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder. In June, a political battle ensued when Holder was found in contempt of Congress and President Obama invoked executive privilege over the documents related to the botched gun operation.

Senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano explained that the lawsuit filed by the House asks a judge to invalidate the president’s executive privilege and have Holder hand over the documents. The court would then look at the documents privately and it would decide which of the 25,000 -- 40,000 documents should be revealed

and which should be retained.

Judge Napolitano noted that this is something that will take a long time, even during the tenure of the Republican-controlled House. He said, “First the judge has to decide if executive privilege applies -- if it does, then he doesn’t look at anything. If it doesn’t apply, then he starts looking at each document individually in deciding which one goes to the House and which one goes back to the Justice Department.”

The judge added, “The last time this happened was when the special prosecutor sued President Nixon, and John Sirica started looking at documents in secret and we know how that ended.”