Holder Hearings, Opening Salvo: Issa Goes for the Jugular, Democrats Attempt Smoke Screen for Holder
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Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) opened this morning’s hearings by providing a timeline for Fast and Furious: a timeline that briefly described the role of every law enforcement agency involved. He spoke about the debt we owe Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and agent Terry’s family. And he announced that ATF whistleblower John Dodson was present in the room for the hearings today. (Dodson is the Phoenix agent who risked his career and his life to inform Congress about details of Fast and Furious as they were visible to him on the street.)
Then Issa dug in deeper:
On Oct 11, 2011, after months and months and months of this committee trying to get further documents, we issued subpoenas for documents and were told they’re hard to get. Yet, ten times as many documents have been provided to the Inspector General. Mr. Attorney General, when is the primary investigative committee of congress going to be allowed the same access that the IG has? That the twelve thousand members of the IG have? We ask very little of government by contrast, ?but we believe we deserve those answers in at least as timely a fashion as your own IG gets.
Late Friday night, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released documents that show Attorney General Eric Holder was alerted of border patrol agent Brian Terry’s death the day it occurred- contradicting Holder’s statements when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011. At the time, Holder said he was informed of Terry’s murder only “a few weeks” before the hearing.
Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller has the story:
“An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.”
FN Five-sevens were among the weapons allowed to walk. Photo: Wikipedia
As I wrote in a post for Big Government this past Sunday, January 22, the Arizona’s legislature has decided once more to do the job the feds won’t do, and has launched its own investigation into Fast and Furious. And during an appearance on FOX NEWS this morning, Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin explained why they’ve taken this step. He said that constituents were flooding their offices with questions about the gun-running operation, and he said one recurring question was, “You’re not waiting for the feds [to do something] are you?” He then said the answer to that question was “No.”
Said Tobin:
This is an incident that occurred on Arizona soil, with Arizona business owners, [where we lost] an Arizona agent (Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry), and quite frankly we felt it needed a lot more attention. We felt our citizens needed a place to go to share their stories. Maybe there’s more there. This was a failed program right from the start and I think the idea is to put more light on it.
As Arizona state officials open their own probe into Operation Fast and Furious, the head of the House panel investigating the gunrunning scandal is crying foul over a key player’s move Tuesday to assert his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions.
Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona, was excused from a deposition after refusing to give more than his name and title, Fox News has learned.
Cunningham informed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee through his attorney that he would use the Fifth Amendment protection after being subpoenaed last week to testify in front of congressional investigators regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.
When Obama was running for president in 2008, he promised to “fundamentally change America” – a phrase which lucid Americans took as meaning he was going to bring his leftist agenda to bear on us all. And if Obama has had any success as president, it’s certainly been his success in changing us fundamentally from a nation under law to a nation that often looks lawless. From a nation in which one feels secure into a nation in which more and more people are feeling that their security is in their own hands (literally). And this has led not only to record breaking gun sales since Obama’s election, but also to changes in state laws around the country to make it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry a handgun for their own protection.
As a result of this, Wisconsin, which was one of the few states to not have some form of concealed carry law within its borders, now has one thanks to their much maligned Republican legislature and Gov. Scott Walker. With the stroke of a pen in July of 2011, Walker made Wisconsin the 49th state in the union to allow the concealed carry of handguns. (Only Illinois, Obama’s old stomping ground, continues to deny its citizens this option right.)
FN Five-sevens were among the weapons allowed to walk. Photo: Wikipedia
Arizona’s state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration’s disgraced gun-running program, known as “Fast and Furious,” the speaker of the state House said Friday.
Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws – raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.
It’s a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state’s own set of laws.
A law requiring businesses to check new workers’ legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona’s crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.
Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the Criminal Division of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office, is refusing to testify before Congress regarding the botched federal scheme known as Operation Fast and Furious. The gun-running scandal conceived in 2009 by the Phoenix Division of ATF – a Justice Department agency – was responsible for supplying U.S.weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
The operation which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder now acknowledges was “fundamentally flawed,” occurred under his watch with his Department’s knowledge and approval. The program’s guns have been linked to countless murders in Mexico, and was only shut down after the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in the Arizona desert. The two guns recovered at the murder scene both traced back to Fast and Furious. Watch here as Eric Holder actually refused to apologize to Brian Terry’s family.
A top official with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix, AZ who has repeatedly declined to voluntarily testify to Congressional investigators about Operation Fast and Furious has been subpoenaed, according to the office of Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The development comes as the American firearms industry is gathered here at the Sands Convention Center for its annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, and Fast and Furious is a hot topic. This announcement will make it hotter, primarily because the industry, and particularly gun dealers from across the Southwest, have been blamed by the Obama administration for the flood of firearms heading south to Mexico.
Congressman Darrell Issa
Attorney General Eric Holder will testify about Operation Fast and Furious before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Feb. 2.
According to a release from committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Holder will be asked to testify on what happened during Operation Fast and Furious and how the Department of Justice has responded to the congressional investigation into the program.
Holder’s DOJ recently withdrew a February 4, 2011 letter it sent to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley because it contained false statements.
Holder has refused to comply with a subpoena from Issa’s committee that lawfully requires the DOJ to provide Congress with Fast and Furious documents created after that false letter was sent last year.
A politician is described as a “lame duck” once he or she has been defeated or announced their retirement, and is simply finishing out the remainder of their term in office. And even after Nov. elections are over and a large number of Senate and House members are voted out, the lame duck Senators and House members are usually just that – lame. But occasionally, they are fierce because the defeated office holder is bitter and has approximately two months to wreak havoc with his or her vote before leaving DC. When this happens, ideologues will use the time where they’re completely accountable to voters to score points for their side. We saw this after the Nov. 2010 elections when defeated Senators and House members banded together in late Dec. to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” so homosexuals could serve openly in the military. Yet as bad as this is, the opportunities for a lame duck office holder to attack our freedom grows exponentially when said office holder is in the White House, and when he’s an ideologue who hates private gun ownership, the right to self defense, and the 2nd Amendment.
And this brings us to a crucial point. Namely, that if Obama wins re-election in 2012, he will be awarded four years of lame duck status in which to do anything and everything he wants to lessen our ability to own and use guns. He knows he won’t have to answer for it because he will not be running for re-election in 2016.
