Democrats At Oversight Cover Holder Ass

Yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) convened the sixth hearing on Operation Fast N Furious.  Despite the relentless references to the movie Groundhogs Day, the sixth hearing focused on the ever increasingly contradictory testimony of Attorney General Eric Holder. Newly released documents indicate that the Department of Justice, specifically Mr. Holder had far greater knowledge and involvement in Operation Fast N Furious than previously admitted. 

Attorney General Eric Holder spent the majority of the hearing distancing himself from responsibility for Operation Fast N Furious while essentially demanding respect for his position as the United States top Law Enforcement Official.  Mr. Holder stated, “I’m proud of the work that I’ve done as attorney general of the United States. You should respect the fact that I hold an office that is deserving of the respect.” Attorney General Holder continued to insist as he has in the five previous hearings that he was entirely unaware of the operation until approximately one year ago.

When asked directly what he knew and when he knew it, Mr. Holder hedged his response and became incensed.  He refused to answer the question directly while continuing to assert that he knew nothing of the operation before 2011.  Additionally, Mr. Holder balked at the flat accusation that Operation Fast N Furious was a deliberate and intentional attempt designed by the Attorney General to further restrict if not entirely eliminate 2^nd Amendment rights of American citizens.

Perhaps the most ridiculous comments came from one of Eric Holder’s obvious defenders Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) as she insisted that the Fast N Furious investigation and subsequent hearings are “politically motivated.”  Ms. Maloney criticized the investigation as misguided by stating, “This investigation continues on its vast and curious mission to fix the symptoms rather than the cause of the deadly gun victims on the southern border."  Ms. Maloney seemed as enamored with her own corny turn of phrase while she mocked the investigation as she apparently is with the Attorney General and praised him for his service. 

Ms. Maloney then proceeded to attack 2^ndAmendment rights by insisting that greater gun laws and restrictions should be required in the United States because “Al-Qaeda has posted on its website in the past that ‘if you want guns, go to the U. S. to get your guns!’ ” This writer has been unable to substantiate such a ridiculous claim.

 And the lunacy in the Democrat party continues with nothing but covering the ass of Attorney General Eric Holder and Barack Obama and his failed administration.

All I could to during the hearing was shake my head in disbelief at what I heard coming out of Congressional Democrats mouths.

This entire investigation is about Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry as well as 300 Mexican people who have been murdered because of the Bureau Of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms as well as the Department of Justices illegal gun walking operation. It is not about politics, it is about getting to the truth about who knew what was going on and who ordered this illegal operation and investigators as well as the House Oversight Committee,House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the Homeland Security Committee have yet to get the documents or answers the American people deserve.

There is no question in this investigators mind that a complete coverup is taking place by the Attorney General and others within the Department of Justice.

Let the chips fall where they may.I will continue to investigate this case until I am satisfied that all avenues have been exhausted and those responsible are prosecuted and sent to prison for their crimes.

In closing..I hold no political party affiliation.It does not matter to me on bit what political party someone belongs to.Operation Fast And Furious was contrived in my opinion within the Whitehouse  between Attorney General Eric Holder and Barack Obama,then sent down the chain of command right to ATF Agent Hope McAllister who carried out orders from William Newell the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix, Arizona field office.Newell..McAllister..Voth..Gilette..Cunningham I will attend your trial and sentencing.

There are several others within the ATF and DOJ who are also involved in this illegal operation,they will also be held accountable.

Fast and Furious Investigator

Mother of Murdered Border Patrol Agent: Eric Holder is a "Joke"

• 
• Katie Pavlich
  News Editor, Townhall 
•  
•  After Eric Holder testifed for more than five hours yesterday while refusing to take responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious, the mother of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, lashed out against him, calling Holder a "joke" on the "Justice for Brian Terry" Facebook page.

•  

Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice and ATF for Fast N Furious Documents

Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC — October 12, 2011Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits on October 11, 2011 against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to obtain records related to an ATF “gun-running” operation known as Fast and Furious (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:11-cv-01796)), (Judicial Watch v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (No. 1:11-cv-01797)).Pursuant to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed on July 13, 2011, Judicial Watch seeks the following the following records from the Department of Justice:

• All records of communication, contracts and correspondence between ATF Director Kenneth E.
  Melson and any official, officer, or employee of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) regarding ATF Phoenix Operation Fast and Furious.
• All records regarding, concerning, or related to, the October 26, 2009 meeting/telephonic conference call between DAG David Ogden, Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Lanny Breuer, ATF Director Melson, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michelle Leonhart, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller, and other DOJ officials regarding the Southwest Border Strategy (including, but not limited to, any agendas, minutes, transcripts, notes, or presentations).
• All records prepared for, or submitted to, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding, concerning, or related to, ATF Operation Fast and Furious.

Judicial Watch filed a similar FOIA request with ATF on the same day. Neither agency has responded by the statutorily mandated deadline, prompting Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.Judicial Watch is investigating the genesis of the Fast and Furious operation, which was reportedly discussed during the October 26, 2009, telephonic conference call, as well as information being provided to and/or withheld from Congress.“We’ve asked for basic information and we haven’t received one document from the Department of Justice or ATF regarding Fast and Furious. And, given their dissembling, Justice and ATF are apparently in cover-up mode. We think it is important that an independent investigation of this scandal take place and our lawsuits are a good way to do it,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

DOJ Fast and Furious Document Dump: More Evidence Holder Lied to Congress

by CARRIE JOHNSON

For the first time, the Justice Department has made public a series of sensitive messages that passed to the highest levels of the agency within hours of an ambush that killed a U.S. border patrol agent along the Southwest border in December 2010, igniting a national scandal over a gun trafficking investigation gone wrong.

Justice officials sent the documents to Congress late Friday evening, only a few days before Attorney General Eric Holder isset to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The email messages show the former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis Burke, notifying an aide to Holder via email on Dec. 15, 2010 that agent Brian Terry had been wounded and died. "Tragic," responds the aide, Monty Wilkinson. "I've alerted the AG, the acting Deputy Attorney General..."

Only a few minutes later, Wilkinson emailed again, saying, "Please provide any additional details as they become available to you."

Burke then delivered another piece of bad news: "The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] ... officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

That investigation, dubbed Fast and Furious, was supposed to follow U.S. weapons into the hands of kingpins in the violent Sinaloa Mexico drug cartel, building a big case against the gangs. Instead, it cost Burke his job, got the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reassigned, and has prompted multiple federal probes by Congress and the department's own inspector general.

The Justice Department also sent a letter to lawmakers Friday night outlining several changes they had made within their own ranks and at the ATF: from requiring additional oversight in cases that involve wiretaps and confidential informants to extra procedures at the ATF for putting weapons purchases under surveillance to a realignment at the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix and the ATF itself.

The new documents are certain to stoke the fires among congressional Republicans, who have questioned what the attorney general knew about the botched investigation and asked why the chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, didn't do more when he found out about other questionable tactics used by ATF in gun trafficking probes in the Bush administration.

In a meeting with Mexican government officials in February 2011, for instance, Breuer "suggested allowing straw purchasers cross into Mexico so [police] can arrest and [prosecutors] can convict. Such coordinated activities between the US and Mexico may send a strong message to arms traffickers."

A Justice official, speaking on background, said Breuer's proposal involved coordination between the governments and didn't contemplate agents losing track of guns, as happened in the Fast and Furious debacle.

A few days after the meeting between Breuer and Mexican authorities, the department's attache to Mexico raised this issue, according to an email: "there is an inherent risk in allowing weapons to pass from the U.S. to Mexico. The possibility of the [government of Mexico] not seizing the weapons, and the weapons being used to commit a crime in Mexico."

The attorney general, in testimony to the House and Senate last year, said he feared the Justice Department could be living with the consequences of more than 1,000 guns connected to Fast and Furious that remain unaccounted for years to come.

National Border Patrol Councils Statement On Attorney General Eric Holders Testimony On Fast And Furious

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

By William La Jeunesse & Maxim Lott


 

• 

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Video:Click here to watch more.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED BY FOX NEWS ON APRIL 2, 2009

Holder: Fast and Furious "has become political"

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Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 2, 2012, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (AP Photo)

(CBS/AP) 
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder squared off Thursday with Republicans on a House committee who are demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents about its handling of congressional inquiries into a flawed gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
At the start of a hearing, chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will do what is necessary to force the Justice Department to produce the information.

The attorney general said he will consider Issa's demand. But he said, with one exception, the department was inclined to follow longstanding tradition of withholding internal documents about congressional inquiries in order to preserve the ability to get candid advice from top officials.

"I think you're hiding behind something here," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Holder. "You ought to give us the documents. ... It appears we're being stonewalled."
Family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry sues U.S. government
Dems: DOJ leaders not to blame for Fast & Furious
First convictions from Fast and Furious probe
Burton, a former chairman of the committee, said he would urge Issa to seek a contempt of Congress citation if the Justice Department does not produce the congressionally subpoenaed documents.

Issa has already threatened to seek a contempt ruling against Holder for failing to turn over the documents. The lawmaker alleges the Justice Department is engaging in a cover-up.

"This has become political, that's fine," Holder said later at the hearing, but there is no attempt "at a cover-up." The Justice Department, Holder insisted, "will continue to share huge amounts of information."

Before the hearing started, Issa introduced Holder to federal agent John Dodson, one of the whistleblowers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who first told Congress a year ago about the use of a tactic known as gun-walking in the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious investigation.

The tactic involves allowing suspected "straw buyers" of weapons to walk away from gun stores with their illicit purchases, rather than arresting them there. Instead, agents tried to track the low-level buyers and the guns to smuggling ringleaders and financiers, including Mexican drug gang leaders, who have long eluded prosecution for their role in the flow of guns into Mexico.

ATF's Phoenix division has tried this tactic, with minor variations, in at least four investigations beginning in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. It began three such probes under Mr. Bush before launching Fast and Furious under President Obama. All of the probes encountered problems.

In Fast and Furious, agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers. Some 700 guns connected to suspects in the operation have been recovered in Mexico and the U.S., some at crime scenes, including the one near Nogales, Ariz., where border agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.

A month after Terry's death, Congress began hearing of problems with the probe. Under pressure from lawmakers, Holder has shaken up the leadership of ATF, and the Justice Department's inspector general is conducting an internal investigation of the operation.

After multiple congressional hearings, including six appearances by Holder, Republicans were still voicing outrage Thursday.

Guns that walked in Fast and Furious are going to show up in Arizona "from here to whenever," said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. "We should be sharing information."

On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department will provide documents created after Feb. 4, 2011, the day the department gave incorrect information to Congress about Fast and Furious.
Cole said the department had made an exception to longstanding policy in order to provide material on how the erroneous Feb. 4 letter was created, but he said other documents about the congressional inquiries on Fast and Furious would not be turned over.

Holder said Thursday that prior administrations have recognized that robust internal communications would be chilled if internal communications about congressional requests were disclosed to Congress.

In the Feb. 4 letter to Congress, the department said federal agents made every effort to intercept illegally purchased weapons. But in reality, agents in Fast and Furious employed the risky gun-walking strategy of trying to track the weapons after purchase by small-time, illicit buyers in order to make cases against ringleaders.

Allowing guns to "walk" — "whether in this administration or in the prior one — is wholly unacceptable," Holder said. He said the tactic appears to have been a misguided effort to stem the alarming number of illegal firearms trafficked each year from the United States to Mexico.

A Republican staff memo created for the hearing questioned why federal agents allowed the probe to go on for over a year.

Intercepts from a Drug Enforcement Administration wiretap on one of the suspects provided probable cause for federal agents to make arrests, or at the very least supplied the basis to seize the weapons, the Republican staff memo said. The memo said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not act on this information.

 (CBS/AP)  Agents could have arrested one of the suspects in December 2009 and used his arrest to work their way up the ladder to the two cartel associates, the staff memo said.

"Instead, ATF wanted to get its own federal wiretaps and create its own big case," said the GOP memo. "This decision ensured that Fast and Furious lasted nearly a year longer, with 1,500 more guns being purchased — including the guns bought by another of the suspects in January 2010" found at the Terry murder scene.

Democrats on the committee have pointed out that agents in the case testified that stronger U.S. laws are needed against straw buyers, because cases get thrown out of court, or prison sentences are too short, to persuade the low-level buyers to turn on their bosses.


CBS NEWS

Video Report Of House Oversight Hearing On Fast And Furious Investigation Feb 2, 2012

McHenry to AG Holder: 13 Months After The Fact, What Action Will You Take & When?



Burton to AG Holder: Thousands of Missing Docs, Why Are You Stonewalling Oversight Investigation?



Chaffetz to AG Holder: How Will We Solve Problems Within DOJ If There's Communication Lacking?



Buerkle to AG Holder: You Must Be Held Accountable For Fast & Furious Failure & Agent Terry's



How Can Taxpayers Know Fast & Furious Truth If Holder Won't Deliver the Facts?



Gosar to AG Holder: You Can't Just Slap Someone's Hand & Say 'Don't Do That Again'



Meehan to AG Holder: Getting to the Bottom of Who Knew What & When - Fast & Furious



Desjarlais to AG Holder: Stonewall City - Why Is DOJ Holding Back Information On Fast & Furious?

Fast and Furious: Groundhog Day at House Oversight

By John Hayward

 Holder clings to the stone wall.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee today was, in the main, a re-run of past appearances before Congress.  He kept the stone wall firm and tight, while angrily denying he was running a cover-up, and accusing investigators of running “political gotcha games.”

Here’s Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) cutting to the chase, and asking Holder how many more U.S. Border Patrol agents would have had to die as part of Operation Fast and Furious before the Attorney General would finally take responsibility:

Holder continued his “incompetence defense” of insisting that he really doesn’t know anything that happens at the Justice Department, and can’t recall details about anything relating to Fast and Furious.  He even claimed he never saw some of the subpoenas he’s been ignoring. 

Rep. Buerkle noted the strange silence from our famously talkative President on the subject of Eric Holder and Operation Fast and Furious.  Holder continued to insist he has never discussed Fast and Furious with either Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton… this despite hundreds of Mexican citizens being killed by Holder’s “botched gun walking operation.”  Holder actually tried suggesting to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) that nobody else in the Administration wants to talk to him, because they’re afraid of getting dragged into the politically-motivated Fast and Furious investigation.

Courtesy of The Right Scoop, here’s an amazing exchange where Holder vows to crack down on the people who blew the whistle on Fast and Furious.  Holder later confessed he has never apologized to the completely vindicated whistleblowers whose veracity he had previously questioned.

Although Holder continues to insist he’s a team player and the paragon of transparency, an annoyed Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) pointed out that Holder’s withholding of documents contrasts sharply with the way his predecessors handled subpoena, and called Holder’s tactics “baloney,” concluding that “there are some things hidden on this documents that you don’t want us to see”:

It’s easy to understand Rep. Burton’s surprised reaction to learning that Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division Chief Patrick Cunningham quit just days after taking the Fifth Amendment to escape giving Fast and Furious testimony… or Rep. Darrell Issa’s incredulous response when Holder claimed there’s nothing fishy about Cunningham’s actions.  Happily, Holder promised to continue reviewing Justice Department documents pertaining to Cunningham’s actions, and will hand over anything he decides Congress should see.  Hopefully Issa and Burton know better than to hold their breath waiting for those new documents.

Holder deflected other questions by referencing the antique “internal investigation” into Fast and Furious his department is supposedly conducting – an inquest that has now run for several months longer than the investigation into JFK’s assassination.  He promised that anyone accused of wrongdoing when this epic probe is completed – presumably at some point after the next presidential election, or maybe the one after that – would be “removed from federal service.”

As for the contempt of Congress charges Issa has threatened Holder with, my prediction yesterday was proven true: Holder rejected the February 9^th deadline laid out in Issa’s letter, and will evidently ignore the contempt charges.  

Holder, echoed by Democrats on the Oversight Committee, also took the opportunity to renew their calls for more gun-control laws, which many suspect was the true purpose of Operation Fast and Furious all along.

---

John Hayward is a staff writer for HUMAN EVENTS, and author of the recently published Doctor Zero: Year One. Follow him on Twitter: Doc_0. Contact him by email at jhayward@eaglepub.com.

Calls for Gun Control in Wake of Fast and Furious Ignore Current Law

Attorney General Eric Holder used his testimony before a House committee on Thursday to tout the supposed need for new gun control laws to prevent “gun walking,” or the transportation of firearms across the Southern border. But he – and members of the committee – ignored existing laws that already accomplish Holder’s ostensible goals.

“That is why we need a stronger gun trafficking law,” Holder said in response to questions about recourse against officials who signed off on the gun walking tactic. The tactic was integral to Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed the transportation of roughly 2,500 firearms into Mexico, often with not just the knowledge but the facilitation of federal law enforcement officials, where those guns were given to violent drug cartels.

Many Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where Holder was testifying for the sixth time on Fast and Furious, echoed the attorney general’s calls for greater gun control. Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) touted legislation they introduced, which would make suspected “straw purchases” – the purchases of guns to be handed off to others – illegal.

Holder called that bill “a good place for us to start.”

But neither Holder nor committee members mentioned the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law already on the books that appears to criminalize the precise conduct undertaken by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Operation Fast and Furious.

According to James Steinbauer, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer who wrote the Kingpin Act, an extension of the IEEPA, “it is illegal for any U.S. entity or individual to aid, abet, or materially assist — or in the case of Operation Fast and Furious, to facilitate others to aid, abet, or materially assist — designated drug traffickers.”
Steinbauer detailed some of the law’s intricacies at Pajamas Media in December:

Based on the July 5, 2010, memo to Eric Holder, it would appear that Fast and Furious facilitated the delivery of weapons to — at a minimum — the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, which administers both the IEEPA and Kingpin Act programs, has designated numerous members of the Sinaloa cartel under both programs. IEEPA prohibitions apply to the U.S. government as well as to individuals, and as stated there are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
There is a provision in the Kingpin Act for “authorized” law enforcement and intelligence activities, however the only procedure by which an Operation Fast and Furious program could have been “authorized” under the Kingpin Act was by the U.S. attorney general requesting a waiver (known within the Treasury Department as a Specific License), prior to any such operation being undertaken.

But Holder has repeatedly insisted – and emphasized again today – that he was not aware that gun walking tactics were in use at the time. Simply, he could not have requested a waiver allowing the ATF to walk guns without knowing that the ATF was walking guns.
So laws designed to deter the type of gun walking seen in Operation Fast and Furious – and to punish those who permit it – are already on the books. Additional laws aimed at gun trafficking are therefore unnecessary, assuming, of course, that their purpose is not gun control unrelated to the scandal at issue, but rather to prevent the type of activities that the ATF engaged in, which led to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, and potentially hundreds of Mexican citizens.

Heritage

Holder faults Congress for weakness on gun control

ByJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer

Attorney General Eric Holder attributed the difficulty preventing gun-trafficking into Mexico to weak gun controls laws, when he blamed on the U.S. House, with particular reference to the House investigators asking him about Operation Fast and Furious.

"ATF’s ability to stem the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico suffers from a lack of effective enforcement tools," Holder told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today.

"Unfortunately, in 2011, a majority of House Members – including all members of the majority on this Committee – voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and long guns – like AK-47s – in gun shops in four southwest-border states."

Holder also suggested that the political partisanship is motivating the investigation. "I am determined to ensure that our shared concerns about these flawed law enforcement operations lead to more than worn- out Washington 'gotcha' games and cynical finger pointing," he said.

Washington Examiner

House GOP threatens to hold Holder in contempt over Fast and Furious

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. listens to questions from Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Thursday in Washington. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

 

By Richard A. Serrano

House Republicans investigating the Fast and Furious operation threatened Thursday to seek a contempt of Congress citation against Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., saying his Department of Justice has refused to turn over key documents in the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms gun-tracking investigation and that the Obama administration is trying to hide its involvement in the program that allowed hundreds of U.S. weapons to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Holder in a Capitol Hill hearing that the Justice Department has provided only 6,400 pages of documents out of some 93,000 that they still want -- all a sign to him and his GOP colleagues that Holder and top Justice officials in Washington are trying to suppress evidence that they knew about the gun-walking tactics and may have approved Fast and Furious.

"All these people should be ashamed that they didn’t do as good a job as they should have," Issa said, strongly implying that Justice officials were deeply involved in overseeing Fast and Furious that allowed illegal gun purchases in Arizona in the hope of tracking the weapons to cartel leaders. Instead, some 1,700 guns were lost.

But Holder, testifying for the sixth time about Fast and Furious, insisted that his department is trying to cooperate with the congressional investigation. He said they have responded to three dozen letters from members of Congress and have "facilitated numerous witness interviews." He added, "this has been a significant undertaking for department employees and our efforts in this regard remain ongoing."

The Republican committee members indicated they are leaning toward a contempt citation based on beliefs that the Justice Department had "much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged." They said committee interviews, documents and emails show that in one instance, then-ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson told Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny Breuer that the ATF wanted to launch a "different approach" for stopping U.S. guns from getting into Mexico, and that Breuer considered it a "terrific idea."

But now, the Republicans said in a new report into Fast and Furious, the "ATF blames Main Justice for encouraging Fast and Furious (and) the Justice Department blames ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office for the use of misguided tactics."

LA Times 

U.S. Republicans, attorney general fight over gun sting

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON

(Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday senior Justice Department officials should have known about the controversial tactics that led to a bungled operation to track guns to Mexico because some details were practically at their fingertips.

The Obama administration has been under fire for almost a year about the operation dubbed "Fast and Furious". The program was meant to determine how guns were being smuggled from Arizona to violent drug cartels, but the guns were not fully tracked.

The operation, which ran from late 2009 until early 2011, came to light after two weapons from it were found in Arizona in December 2010 near the scene where U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with illegal immigrants.

While as many as 2,000 weapons were sold by gun dealers to people believed to be serving as straw purchasers for the Mexican drug cartels, fewer than 600 were recovered as of January 2011.

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Representative Darrell Issa, issued a memorandum detailing how other federal law enforcement agents were already tracking drug cartel gun smugglers a year before Terry was killed.

He and other Republicans on the panel said at a hearing that senior Justice Department officials should have also known that guns were trafficked without surveillance from wiretap applications and details they had about a similar sting during the Bush administration known as "Wide Receiver".

"All of those people should be ashamed that Brian Terry is dead because they didn't do as good of a job as they should," Issa said during the hearing.

Lawmakers want to know "how you'll ensure for the American people that this will not happen again," he said.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has acknowledged that allowing guns to go across the border unmonitored was wrong but that he and other senior Justice Department officials and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were left in the dark until it was over and the controversy erupted.
"It's unacceptable, it's stupid, it's dangerous, and not something that this Department of Justice can ever do," Holder told the panel, referring to the tactics used in the operation.

He said two senior aides who knew that guns were allowed to be trafficked during the Bush administration regretted not making the connection to "Fast and Furious".

Holder raised questions about whether the wiretap applications did in fact discuss the tactics and said talking about those documents publicly could violate court orders.

Holder said he expected to hold people accountable in a court of law, with maximum criminal charges, for Terry's murder within six months and possibly by the end of March. He also said whoever authorized the tactics would likely be fired.

Republicans expressed frustration that it was taking so long for disciplinary action.

"You told people that you were mad, you were upset. That to me is silly. You've not taken action, you've not fired anybody," said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

Holder said he had moved ATF personnel around and barred the use of gun walking. Further action against those responsible would have to wait for the Justice Department's inspector general to finish her investigation and report, he said.

"To the extent that we find out who precisely was involved in this or who gave that order, I can assure you that unless there is some truly compelling circumstance, that person, those people, will be removed from federal service," Holder said.

(Additional reporting by James Vicini; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

A Year of Justice Department Stonewalling, Visualized

Over the past year, Congressional investigators and the American people have been denied access to:

• 92% of documents related to Fast and Furious.

• 66% of subpoenaed document categories related to Fast and Furious.

• 48 accounts from Justice Department officials involved in Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious: Holder Says No Attempt of a Coverup at DOJ

• 
 
• Katie Pavlich
  News Editor, Townhall

Capitol Hill -- After thirteen months of investigation into the Obama Justice Department’s lethal Operation Fast and Furious and Attorney General Eric Holder’s sixth time answering questions from Congress on the topic, we are stuck with stonewalling, non-answers and more calls for gun control.

“This committee has lost its patience to wait longer,” Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa said.

It was a tense scene inside the committee room when Eric Holder arrived for his testimony. Unexpectedly, ATF whistleblower John Dodson, who came forward first to expose details of Fast and Furious, along with Issa approached Holder for a brief conversation before Holder took his seat.

(Attorney Geneeral Eric Holder (left) speaks with ATF Special Agent and whistleblower John Dodson (center) and  House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (right). Photo: House Oversight Committee)

(ATF Special Agent and whistleblower John Dodson watches as Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Oversight Committee. Photo: House Oversight Committee)

Attorney General Eric Holder Will Testify Thursday, Feb. 2 Watch Live

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Attorney General Eric Holder Will Testify Thursday, Feb. 2 Watch Live Tomorrow Attorney General Eric Holder will be appearing before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to testify about the Justice Department's failures in authorizing and directing deadly Operation Fast & Furious. You can watch this hearing starting at 6:00 a.m. (PST) by clicking here.  The Congressional investigation of Operation Fast & Furious is of great importance to many Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department he oversees on behalf of the President have been unwilling participants in our efforts to uncover the source of responsibility in this botched gun-walking operation that knowingly allowed thousands of illegally purchased weapons to be trafficked across the border into the hands of drug cartels. Tens of thousands of Justice Department pages that document Fast & Furious have been withheld from Congressional investigators despite the issuance of subpoenas. That disregard is unacceptable.  This week I informed the Attorney General in a letter that if his department continues to obstruct the investigation, proceedings will begin to hold him in contempt of Congress. I discuss this more in the news clip posted below.  Operation Fast & Furious has already claimed the life of at least one and been the source of violent crime on both sides of the southern border. The American people have a right to know who is responsible for it, why the Justice Department let it continue, and why the truth is being stonewalled. Tomorrow we hope to get some of those answers. Remember you can watch live starting at 6:00 a.m. (PST).   Sincerely, Darrell Issa Member of Congress

Smith Presses for Interviews with Senior DOJ Staff re: Fast and Furious

 

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today pressed the Justice Department to make senior officials available for interviews with the Committee regarding the Department’s knowledge of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious following the shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Specifically, Chairman Smith requested to interview Monty Wilkinson, former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, and Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

Documents released by the Department on Friday indicate that the Attorney General’s former Deputy Chief of Staff may have been aware of the connection between Agent Terry’s death and Operation Fast and Furious within days of the shooting. The emails also show inconsistencies between statements by Assistant Attorney General Breuer regarding his reaction to the initial discovery that ATF had engaged in gunwalking.


Chairman Smith: “The House Judiciary Committee and the American people have a right to know the whole truth, not just bits and pieces released here and there over several months.  As Attorney General, you have an obligation to ensure that the statements given to Congress are both accurate and complete. Unfortunately, the documents released by the Department continue to raise serious questions about the validity of statements made by senior Department officials.”  

Last Friday, the Justice Department released 486 new documents to the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees as part of compliance with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee.  The emails show an exchange between Mr. Wilkinson and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke regarding the death of Agent Terry. Mr. Wilkinson claimed to have notified the Attorney General about the death of Agent Terry and then pressed U.S. Attorney Burke for additional details regarding the shooting. U.S. Attorney Burke later notified Mr. Wilkinson that guns found at the scene of the shooting connected back to “the investigation we were going to talk about.”  The investigation in question turned out to be Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Wilkinson replied, “I’ll call tomorrow.”  It is not known if that call ever took place.


Chairman Smith requested that the Department contact the House Judiciary Committee by February 10 to arrange for the interviews of Mr. Wilkinson and Assistant Attorney General Breuer.
A copy of the full letter can be found here.

House Judiciary Committee