Congressional leaders to Obama on Delphi scandal: Turn over documents or claim executive privilege

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp challeneged President Barack Obama to turn over documents related to the Delphi pension scandal, hinting that a claim of executive privilege could be the White House’s only available legal avenue to avoid disclosure.
“The White House is withholding documents and has failed to provide a legitimate reason,” Camp told The Daily Caller exclusively on Thursday. “The president and his lawyers should either claim executive privilege and be prepared to defend it for each and every document or turn over the documents without further delay.”
White House spokesman Eric Schultz would not answer when The Daily Caller asked if Obama will invoke privilege to avoid releasing the documents. Congressional investigators hope to determine who in the administration made decisions that cost 20,000 nonunion Delphi retirees their pensions during the auto industry bailout. Those workers’ unionized colleagues, meanwhile, saw their pensions preserved and made whole.

White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler suggested in an Oct. 12 letter to Camp that the president could indeed invoke executive privilege as a route to disregard congressional document requests.
“Your request for all EOP [Executive Office of the President] communications implicates longstanding and significant executive branch confidentiality interests,” Ruemmler wrote, “an encroachment upon [sic] which is unnecessary at this time.”
Obama has used executive privilege to keep documents from Congress before: This summer, after House oversight committee chair Rep. Darrell Issa investigated the Operation Fast and Furious scandal for more than a year, Obama invoked executive privilege to conceal documents about the failed gunwalking program.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/26/congressional-leaders-to-obama-on-delphi-scandal-turn-over-documents-or-claim-executive-privilege/#ixzz2AOh6sSGc