A U.S. District Judge ordered the Justice Department Wednesday to give Congress a list of law enforcement documents on a failed program called Operation Fast and Furious. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson gave the DOJ until Oct. 1 to produce these papers to the House's Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

However, the Department of Justice said President Obama "invoked executive privilege" to protect the content of the documents and they should stay confidential.

These files are sought after since they might shed light on the DOJ's actions in delaying admission that federal agents had used a law enforcement tactic called gun-walking. The strategy happens when agents allowed illegally-purchased weapons to be transported freely in order to track them to high-level traffickers.

While in theory the tactic sounds promising, it is not without risks and the Department of Justice has long prohibited its practice. However, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used this exact type of approach in Arizona with poor results in Operation Fast and Furious.

Agents lost track of nearly 2,000 weapons, many of which were later found connected to crimes in the U.S. and Mexico. A few of the guns were found in December 2010 at the scene of the murder of border agent Brian Terry in the border city Nogales.

The breach of this executive privilege is raising concern at the Department of Justice, who said there are communications in the case that need to remain private. Congress is trying to determine why there seems to be communications saying gun-walking did not take place and then retracted.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Emily Pierce said: "we are pleased the judge recognized that executive privilege includes a deliberative process beyond presidential communications."

If Congress is able to gain access to that privilege log, it "will bring us closer to finding out why the Justice Department hid behind false denials in the wake of reckless conduct that contributed to the violent deaths of border patrol agent Brian Terry and countless Mexican citizens," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House panel, said according to Fox News.