Jesuit Fast and Furious

 

Attorney General Eric Holdener needs to step down or be fired

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Posted: May 30, 2013 - 4:21pm



As a close friend of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should do the honorable thing and step aside before he adds more fuel to the president’s critics who claim his administration is filled with corruption. If Attorney General Holder does not go willingly, then the president has no choice but to fire him.

Holder has exhibited an unwillingness to admit mistakes and/or inappropriate actions by the Justice Department, of which he is the head.

Holder concocted Fast and Furious, a plan to smuggle guns across the Mexican border and then track those weapons once they were in the hands of drug lords and their armies. This scheme backfired. Murders on the Mexican side of the border using Holder’s guns were horrific. A U.S. Border Patrol officer was gunned down by gangs using Holder’s Fast and Furious weapons.

He seemed to have evaded the political radar on gun running, but took a direct hit when he tapped the phones of the Associated Press, Fox News, CBS and ABC news reporters.

Holder is attempting to duck responsibility for this latest fiasco by conducting meetings with the bureau chiefs of several news agencies in Washington. It’s called damage control.

Excuse me, but it’s a bit late for that. It was one thing to send guns to Mexico into the hands of ruthless drug kingpins, but it was unforgiveable when he authorized the wire tapping of phones, emails, cell phones and other devices used by the media.

Now that bastion of Obama supporters, the press, is crying foul.

The Justice Department is indicating that it will mend its ways. The Daily Beast states: “[F]or Attorney General Eric Holder, the gravity of the situation didn’t fully sink in until … he read the (Washington) Post’s front-page story [disclosing the extent of the (James) Rosen probe], sitting at his kitchen table. Quoting from the affidavit, the story detailed how agents had tracked Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department, perused his private emails, and traced the timing of his calls to the State Department security adviser suspected of leaking to him. Then the story, quoting the stark, clinical language of the affidavit, described Rosen as ‘at the very least ... an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator’ in the crime. Holder knew that Justice would be besieged by the twin leak probes; but, according to aides, he was also beginning to feel a creeping sense of personal remorse.”

Mr. Holder, it’s time to step down.

Keith Hansen


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Highlights From Univision’s Bombshell Fast & Furious Report

October 1, 2012 | | Posted by Doug Johnson

Here’s a summary of some of the new information unearthed in Univision’s Fast & Furious investigation that aired on Aqui y Ahora (Here and Now) last night. Information provided by ABC/Univision:

1. Fast and Furious Guns Used in Infamous Massacre

Mexican military reports show that at least three guns from Fast and Furious were used in the Salvarcar massacre in 2010. A total of 15 people died in that incident, most of them teens. They were gunned down by the Juarez cartel, which mistook the group for rival Sinaloa cartel members. According to one document, the weapons entered Mexico illegally through a border point near Columbus, New Mexico.

2. 57 Previously Unidentified Weapons Surface

Univision cross-referenced the serial numbers off guns used in Fast and Furious against guns seized in Mexico. Nearly 100 of those weapons were used in crimes, and 57 of them were not mentioned in an investigation carried out by the U.S. Congress.

3. Mexico Knew About Fast and Furious

Andrew Selee, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. says the Mexican government was aware of the gun-walking, in spite of releasing a statement saying they were not. William Newell, the special agent in charge of ATF’s Phoenix field division and one of the supervisors of Fast and Furious, told Univision, via his attorney, that the Procuraduria General De La Republica (PGR) in Mexico was certainly aware of the operation.

4. U.S. Gun-Walking Operations Extended to Other Countries

Fast and Furious was not the only ATF operation of its kind that went awry. In Operation Castaway, Hugh Crumpler, a former ATF informant, told Univision News the ATF deliberately allowed guns to pass into Honduras, Puerto Rico and Colombia. Several of those weapons have already been found at crime scenes and in the hands of local cartels. In an email message, the ATF claims that they “found out about the weapons when they had already been shipped.”

5. U.S. Agents Were Attacked with U.S. Weapons

Victor Avila and Jaime Zapata, two U.S. Federal Agents assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, were in the process of transporting surveillance equipment when their vehicle was surrounded by cartel members and shot more than 90 times. Zapata died and Avila was seriously wounded.

Prior to traveling into the region, Avila reached out to a supervisor expressing concerns over security that were backed by a U.S. State Department document which forbade U.S. Embassy employees from traveling in that area. The reason: It was heavily controlled by the Zetas cartel. According to an exclusive interview with Avila, the supervisor did not share his concerns. Three of the guns used in this shootout were also from a gun-walking operation, but not Fast and Furious.

You can see a 9 minute segment of the report below.

There’s a lot more to the report that isn’t yet available. Since ABC and Univision have a news partnership one would suspect that ABC will eventually air some or all of the report. It’s time to take to Twitter to ask every ABC News anchor and correspondent when they will be airing the piece.

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Obama slammed on Fast and Furious in Spanish-language TV interview: Shouldn’t you ‘fire’ Holder? [VIDEO]

Published: 5:16 PM 09/20/2012

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/20/obama-slammed-on-fast-and-furious-in-spanish-language-tv-interview-shouldnt-you-fire-eric-holder/#ixzz27sejJmEL

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Obama Asserts Executive Privilege to Hide Involvement in... 'Fast and Furious'

by Susanne Posel

June 21, 2012
from OccupyCorporatism Website

In a vein effort to cover his tracks and protect his cohorts, President Barack Obama is claiming “executive privilege” regarding Fast and Furious (F&F) documents that expose their operation to smuggle weapons into Mexico by way of US agents that were handed off directly to Mexican drug cartels.

The House Oversight Committee (HOC), headed by Chair Darrell Issa, is flat out demanding that classified and undisclosed documents that show the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Attorney General Eric Holderwere directly involved with the F&F operation.

Just as the Oversight Committee votes on holding Holder in contempt or not, Obama claims a thinly veiled retreat; perhaps to mitigate his exposed connection to the DoJ’s involvement in the ruined operation.

Holder had attempted to subvert responsibility by offering to negotiate with Congress; yet Issa refused, moving forward with a motion for contempt of Congress.

Issa asserts:

“The committee has uncovered serious wrongdoing by the Justice Department. That wrongdoing has cost lives on both sides of the border.”

James Cole, Deputy Attorney General for the DoJ, wrote a letter to Issa acknowledging Holder’s,

“failure to comply with the Committee’s subpoena of October 11, 2011” however they claim they have made an “extraordinary effort to accommodate the Committee’s legitimate oversight interests” and provided “over 7,600 pages of documents and has made numerous high-level officials available for public congressional testimony, transcribed interviews, and briefings.”

The DoJ is choosing to call out their authority and hope to intimidate the HOC into ceasing all pursuant activity.

By citing that the DoJ’s Attorney General has opened an investigation in F&F, and that it is ongoing, supplants nothing. It only ensures by their words that getting caught during a covert operation will “not occur again.”

Holder and Obama have been discussing how to handle the F&F scandal. Choosing to hide under the cover of US presidency has only stood to fuel questions about Obama’s participation, knowledge and role in the operation.

Earlier this week, Holder advised Obama to use his executive privilege card concerning the internal documents of the F&F operations that would,

“have significant, damaging consequences.”

Holder went on to explain that handing over the documents to Congress,

“would inhibit candor of such Executive Branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the Executive Branch’s ability to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight.”

In an effort to downplay Obama’s use of executive privilege, Eric Schultz, White House spokesman said:

“dating back to President Reagan, presidents have asserted executive privilege 24 times. President Obama has gone longer without asserting the privilege in a congressional dispute than any president in the last three decades.”

However House Speaker John Boehner points out that Obama’s choice,

“implies that White House officials were either involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed.”

Executive privilege can be overturned with a court order, however history shows it is resolved mostly through negotiations .

The HOC has decided to hold Holder in contempt for failing to cooperate with their congressional inquiry into F&F.

Holder asserted that the HOC action was,

“divisive” and “does nothing to make any of our law enforcement agents safer.”

He maintains that his job is to “protect the American people” and this Committee is subverting his efforts to execute his job properly.

The family of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed by member of a Mexican drug cartel with guns that the DoJ provided them through F&F, has come forth to respond to Obama’s use of executive privilege.

Their statement reads that,

“President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth.”

The Terry family have been requesting for over a year and a half for the US government to hold those responsible within the government to “justice and accountability”.

They recognize that it is very,

“disappointing that [the Terry family] are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.”

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The Other Consequences of Fast and Furious

By Scott Stewart | July 12, 2012

On the night of Dec. 14, 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot and killed while on patrol in an Arizona canyon near the U.S.-Mexico border. Two guns found at the scene were linked to an investigation being run by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) called "Operation Fast and Furious," sparking a congressional inquiry into the program and generating considerable criticism of the ATF and the Obama administration. Because of this criticism, in August 2011 ATF acting director Kenneth Melson was reassigned from his post and the U.S. attorney for Arizona was forced to resign.

Currently, the congressional inquiry is focused on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has been accused of misleading Congress about what he knew about Fast and Furious and when he learned it. The Obama administration has invoked executive privilege to block the release of some of the Department of Justice emails and memos sought by Congress pertaining to the operation. The controversy escalated June 28 when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for ignoring its subpoenas.

As all Second Amendment issues are political hot buttons, and with this being a presidential election year in the United States, the political wrangling over Fast and Furious is certain to increase in the coming months. The debate is also sure to become increasingly partisan and pointed. But, frankly, this political wrangling is not what we find to be the most interesting aspect of the operation's fallout. Rather, we are more interested in the way that criticism of Fast and Furious has altered law enforcement efforts to stem the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico and the way these changes will influence how Mexican cartels acquire weapons. Read More »

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What Really Happened With Fast And Furious

Monday, July 2, 2012 at 10:00 AM

What really happened with guns and agents on the Arizona border? A big investigative report looks again at “Fast and Furious.”

Attorney General Eric Holder listens to Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., on video screen, while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Operation Fast and Furious. The House voted to find Holder in contempt on June 28, 2012. (AP)

Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in contempt of Congress by the House last week. First time in history Congress has done that. The story behind the vote goes back to Operation Fast and Furious. Holder’s critics describe it as an outrage of botched “gun walking” to Mexico.

A big new investigative report in Fortune magazine says the case for outrage is based on distortions, partial truths and outright lies. We’ll hear from the reporter. And from a top Republican investigator who says the fury is well-aimed.

This hour, On Point: looking again at Fast and Furious.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Katherine Eban, an investigative reporter who wrote a big story on the Fast and Furious scandal for Fortune.

Jason Foster, chief investigative counsel for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley on his Senate Judiciary Committee staff. [NOTE: Here are some additional comments from Foster about Fast and Furious, made after the program aired today.]

From Tom’s Reading List

Fortune “A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.”

Washington Post “But in the eyes of the man who started and oversaw Fast and ­Furious, the operation remains an example of smart law enforcement — an approach that has simply been misunderstood.”

Weekly Standard “Last Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder was called to testify before Congress. His attitude toward  his questioners was by any measure unbecoming of his office. At one point he actually demanded he be “given some credit” for his performance as attorney general. Though, bad as that outburst was, it was slightly less petulant than the earlier insinuation that his critics are racist.”

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Darrell Issa: President’s Executive Privilege Claims ‘Simply Wrong’

Jun 24, 2012 10:05am

(ABC News)

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. said this morning on “This Week” that he will send a letter to President Obama today or tomorrow that “breaks down the points” of why the president’s executive privilege claims are “overbroad” or “simply wrong” concerning documents related to the botched “Fast and Furious” operation.

“There cannot be executive privilege over criminal cover-up or cover-up of crime. Lying to Congress is a crime. We have every right to see documents to say, ‘did you know, when did you know, what did you know,’ including even the president,” said Issa, who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Issa outlined this morning that before the House committee he leads voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, he tried to reach an agreement with Holder.

“They came with nothing. Not even an offer in a form of a piece of paper. What they said orally was ‘we will brief you. We will then give you the information we believe supports that briefing, but you have to first agree to dismiss your subpoenas and your contempt,” said Issa. “You can’t play liar’s poker when you’re looking for who killed somebody, when you’re looking into this kind of a crime, and when you’re looking into the cover-up. Remember, it was deny, delay, and recuse.”

Issa said he is specifically seeking access to a memo or email produced by Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department. The memo, confirmed to exist, is an evaluation of what happened during the “Fast and Furious” operation and, according to Issa, could answer crucial questions relating to his investigation.

On Wednesday, President Obama invoked executive privilege for the first time during his term in office just before a House committee headed by Issa voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide documents related to the failed “Fast and Furious” operation that were subpoenaed more than 8 months ago. The use of executive privilege, while a rarity for the Obama administration, was used 14 times by Bill Clinton and six times by George W. Bush.

Holder is the first Obama administration official to be held in contempt of Congress. For his part, Holder called the contempt vote “extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary.” The full House of Representatives plans to vote on whether to hold Holder in contempt of Congress in coming days. If the full House finds Holder in contempt, the matter would be handed over to the Justice Department and Holder could eventually be prosecuted.

Guns lost in the “Fast and Furious,” operation, which was originally meant to track the flow of firearms between the United States and Mexican drug cartels, were found near the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s killing in 2010, which sparked outrage.

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Fast and Furious scandal: House panel votes to hold Eric Holder in contempt

Video: The House Government and Oversight Reform Committee voted 23 to 17 to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to share documents related to Operation “Fast and Furious.”

A House panel voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt for failing to cooperate with a congressional inquiry into Operation “Fast and Furious,” hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege over related documents.

By Ed O’Keefe, Peter Wallsten and Sari Horwitz, Updated: Wednesday, June 20, 4:55 PM

On a party-line decision, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 23 to 17 to hold Holder in contempt for failing to share documents related to the operation run out of the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives between 2009 and 2011, with the backing of the U.S. attorney in Phoenix. The move makes Holder the first member of Obama’s Cabinet held in contempt by a congressional committee
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The panel’s actions will be reported to the full House, where Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and GOP leaders have scheduled a floor vote for next week unless Holder hands over the documents before then. If passed by the House, the matter would then move to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen Jr., who is an employee of the Justice Department.

After the vote, Holder called the vote a “divisive action” that “does nothing to make any of our law enforcement agents safer.”

“It’s an election-year tactic intended to distract attention -- and, as a result -- has deflected critical resources from fulfilling what remains my top priority at the Department of Justice: Protecting the American people,” Holder said.

Obama’s decision to withhold the documents — his first use of executive privilege in response to a congressional investigation — and the House panel’s vote quickly intensified a long-simmering feud between the White House and Republican lawmakers and set up a clash over the extent of presidential power that may take months to resolve.

Ahead of the vote, Holder said in a letter to Obama that sharing the Fast and Furious documents “would raise substantial separation of powers concerns and potentially create an imbalance in the relationship” between Congress and the White House.

Releasing the documents “would inhibit candor of such Executive Branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the Executive Branch’s ability to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight,” Holder wrote.

Adding to the administration's defiance, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer accused Republicans Wednesday of orchestrating a “taxpayer-funded election-year fishing expedition.”

“Given the economic challenges facing the country,” Pfeiffer said in a statement, “we believe that House Republicans should work with the rest of Congress and the president to create more jobs, not more political theater.”

Executive privilege has been invoked throughout U.S. history by presidential administrations to preserve the confidentiality of information in the face of legislative inquiries. The privilege is qualified, not absolute, and can be overturned in courts. But disputes over access to information rarely reach the courts and are most often resolved through political negotiations, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Before the vote, oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Obama’s move “falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings.”

“If the Justice Department had delivered the documents they freely admitted they could have delivered, we wouldn't be here today,” Issa said.

Aides said Issa learned of the president’s decision just minutes before the hearing began in an e-mail from Justice Department officials.

Congressional committees have held Executive Branch officials in criminal contempt of congress roughly a dozen times in the last 40 years. Usually, administration officials have cited executive privilege in refusing to share information, but eventually turn over requested documents before congressional committees reach the final stages of contempt proceedings, according to the CRS.

The attorney general attempted to stave off Wednesday's vote by meeting late Tuesday with leaders of the House oversight and Senate Judiciary committees to strike a deal that would have Justice hand over requested documents in exchange for the House panel dropping its plans to vote on contempt charges. But Issa declined the offer.

Committee Democrats criticized Issa's decision to move forward and blasted him for allowing the dispute to become a personal attack on Holder instead of a serious inquiry into Justice Department policy.

“We’ve been holding the attorney general to an impossible standard,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the panel's ranking Democrat.

“You accused him of a ‘cover-up' for protecting documents he was prohibited by law from producing. You claimed that he ‘obstructed’ the committee’s work by complying with federal statutes passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president," Cummings said. “And earlier this month, you went on national television and called the attorney general — our nation’s chief law enforcement officer — a liar.”

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) later called Wednesday’s hearing “a kangaroo court” with a predetermined outcome. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) said he had never seen such personal attacks directed at an administration official during his three decades in Congress: “I think this is a major mistake and I really want you to know that this should be discontinued.”

But Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) and other GOP lawmakers said the ongoing inquiry is a legitmiate, serious concern: “The people in my district ask over and over again, who’s responsible for this flawed operation? … We owe this answser to the American people. That is what this committee is charged to do.”

The White House, in asserting a privilege that many Democrats had attacked the George W. Bush administration for using, risked opening itself up to further criticism for secrecy.

Apparently seeking to preempt such attacks, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said via e-mail Wednesday that Obama has shown greater reluctance to use executive privilege than his predecessors. Dating back to Reagan, Schultz said, presidents have asserted the privilege 24 times.

“President Obama has gone longer without asserting the privilege in a Congressional dispute than any President in the last three decades,” Schultz wrote. He said Bush asserted executive privilege six times and President Clinton 14 times – “both of whom protected the same category of documents we’re protecting today.”

The failed talks with Issa were cited Wednesday morning in a letter to the congressman by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, in which Cole cited the administration’s “extraordinary effort” to comply with the House committee’s requests for information and documents and said the congressman had “rejected” offers by the attorney general to accommodate his requests.

In his statement, Pfeiffer said the concerns with the ATF’s gunwalking program began during the Bush administration and that Holder had moved to end the policy. “In fact, the Justice Department has spent the past 14 months accommodating Congressional investigators, producing 7,600 pages of documents, and testifying at 11 Congressional hearings. Yet, Republicans insist on moving forward with an effort that Republicans and objective legal experts have noted is purely political.”

Though Issa's inquiry has the support of House Republican leaders, the face-off with Holder has grabbed attention from the carefully-orchestrated summer plans of GOP leaders to hold votes in the months before the November elections on bills designed to bolster job creation and reduce federal regulatory burdens.

On Wednesday, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the president's decision to use executive privilege “implies that White House officials were either involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed. The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”

Issa scheduled the committee vote after concluding with Boehner and other GOP leaders in recent weeks that the Justice Department was withholding information sought as part of the committee’s investigation into the scandal. Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Issa co-signed a letter last month to Obama asking that Holder comply with the congressional requests for information.

In Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents targeting the Mexico-based Sinaloa drug cartel did not interdict more than 2,000 guns they suspected of being bought illegally, in the hope of later tracking them to the cartel. The ATF lost track of most of the firearms, some of which have been found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.

Two of the guns connected to the botched operation were found at the Arizona site where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

In recent weeks, Issa narrowed his request to the internal Justice deliberations since early February 2011, when Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) first began asking Justice about Fast and Furious. On Feb. 4, 2011, the Justice Department sent the committee a letter denying use of the “gunwalking” tactics used in Fast and Furious. Officials were later forced to retract the letter after whistleblowers came forward and said they had used those very tactics.

Issa also has asked Justice for all documents related to the treatment of the whistleblowers.

Obama’s assertion of privilege is likely to become fodder for his political opponents, who have latched onto the Fast and Furious scandal as a way to accuse the president of trying to avoid congressional scrutiny.

Within minutes of the White House announcement, conservative Web sites lit up with quotes from then-candidate Obama in 2007, who joined fellow Democrats in criticizing Bush administration officials for refusing to testify before congressional committees investigating the firing of U.S. attorneys.

“You know, there’s been a tendency on the part of this [Bush] administration to -- to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place,” Obama told CNN’s Larry King Live then. “And I think, you know, the administration would be best served by coming clean on this.”



Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Obama invokes executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents

President Obama (Paul J. Richards / AFP Getty Images)

By Richard A. Serrano

June 20, 2012, 8:18 a.m. (Pacific)

WASHINGTON — Just as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was about to vote Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena for documents in the flawed Fast and Furious gun-tracking case, President Obama asserted executive privilege and backed up the attorney general’s position in refusing to turn over the material.

The fast-moving events Wednesday morning at the White House and on Capitol Hill significantly ratcheted up a growing constitutional clash between the two branches of the federal government, one that ultimately may not be resolved until it reaches the courts.

The Republican-led committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), will ask the full House for a floor vote holding Holder in contempt and requesting the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., or a special prosecutor to force the attorney general to produce the documents.

“The committee has uncovered serious wrongdoing by the Justice Department,” Issa said of his investigation into Fast and Furious, in which several thousand firearms were deliberately circulated along the Southwest border and ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. “That wrongdoing has cost lives on both sides of the border.”

Moments before the committee hearing, the White House announced that Obama had formally exerted executive privilege in the matter, giving Holder cover from releasing the material to the committee.

“We regret that we have arrived at this point,” Deputy Atty. Gen. James M. Cole told Issa in a letter that arrived on the Hill just before the committee went into session.

He said making the documents public “would have significant, damaging consequences,” but he did not disclose whether Obama has been briefed or had another supervisory role in Fast and Furious.

In a separate letter that Holder wrote to Obama shortly before the committee session, asking for executive privilege, the attorney general said he had “concluded that you may properly assert executive privilege over the documents at issue, and I respectfully request you do so.” Holder also did not mention any involvement by Obama in Fast and Furious.

According to the Obama White House, President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege six times during his two terms, and President Bill Clinton 14 times during his eight years in Washington.

“In fact,” said Eric Schultz, an Obama White House spokesman, “dating back to President Reagan, presidents have asserted executive privilege 24 times. President Obama has gone longer without asserting the privilege in a congressional dispute than any president in the last three decades.”

Republicans said Obama's move raises serious questions.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked how Obama could assert executive privilege "if there is no White House involvement?"

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said Obama's move "implies that White House officials were either involved in the 'Fast and Furious' operation or the cover-up that followed."

"The administration has always insisted that wasn't the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?" Brendan Buck said.

Staff writer Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report

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P.S.

I Wonder: How many fundraiser stops (and teleprompter photo-ops) the president will have today?

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Darrell Issa Calls Hearing On Eric Holder's Conduct Following Fast & Furious Operation

By PETE YOST 06/11/12 02:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON — A House committee looking into a flawed gun-smuggling probe in Arizona announced Monday that it will consider holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress next week for failing to produce some documents the panel is seeking.

The committee has scheduled a contempt vote for June 20.

To date, the Justice Department has produced 7,600 pages of documents to the committee.

Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says Congress needs to examine records regarding the Justice Department's conduct following public disclosures in early 2011 that hundreds of guns illicitly purchased at gun shops on the U.S. side of the border wound up in Mexico, many of them at crime scenes.

The Justice Department says many of the documents deal with open criminal investigations and prosecutions – matters relating to sensitive law enforcement activities that cannot be disclosed.

"The Justice Department is out of excuses," House Speaker John Boehner said Monday. "Congress has given Attorney General Holder more than enough time to fully cooperate with its investigation into Fast and Furious," the name of the flawed law enforcement operation.

Issa said Congress has an obligation "to investigate unanswered questions about attempts to smear whistleblowers, failures by Justice Department officials to be truthful and candid with the congressional investigation and the reasons for the significant delay in acknowledging reckless conduct in Operation Fast and Furious."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, whose investigation first turned up problems in Operation Fast and Furious, said the action by the House committee "is straightforward and necessary. Contempt is the only tool Congress has to enforce a subpoena."

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Slain border agent's family alleges lies over ATF gun program

It says then-U.S. Atty. Dennis Burke falsely told them guns found at the scene weren't part of the failed Operation Fast and Furious.

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010, allegedly by Mexican bandits carrying at least two AK-47 semiautomatic rifles that had been purchased in Arizona as part of the ATF's failed Fast and Furious program. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Associated Press / November 20, 2007)


By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

February 1, 2012, 8:50 p.m.



Reporting from Washington— The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry charged Wednesday that the top federal prosecutor in Phoenix lied to them about the guns found at the crime scene in an attempt to hide the weapons' connection to the ATF's failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.

Terry was killed in December 2010, allegedly by Mexican bandits carrying at least two AK-47 semiautomatic rifles that had been purchased in Arizona as part of Fast and Furious. The operation was intended to catch drug lords using illegal weapons, but the ATF immediately lost track of 1,700 firearms.

The Terry family alleged that then-U.S. Atty. Dennis K. Burke told them last March that the two weapons came from a store in Texas and were not part of Fast and Furious.

The family made their allegations in a "notice of claim" stating that they intend to sue the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department for $25 million. They called the gun-tracking operation "abominable, reckless, nonsensical."

Burke has resigned and has declined to discuss Fast and Furious. But the family's claim notice strongly suggests that the federal government initially sought to keep Fast and Furious under wraps and hoped it would not be linked to the slaying.

Fast and Furious, run by the ATF's Phoenix field office, allowed illegal gun purchases in Arizona in hopes of tracking the weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Capitol Hill became aware of the operation in January 2011 — the month after Terry's slaying — but the program did not become publicly known until early March.

"The Terry family had received lots of conflicting and confusing information about exactly how Brian came to be shot in the back and killed," the claim notice says. "None of it made any sense."

After a memorial service in Tucson in January 2011, the family met with Border Patrol, FBI and Justice Department officials in a hotel conference room. "But the officials gave them almost no information and wouldn't answer the family's questions," the notice says. Two family members walked out.

"The federal officials were obviously covering something up, and their actions only added to the family's grief," the notice says.

In March, Burke met with the family in Michigan, where they live. "But this meeting went even worse," the notice says. "Burke hemmed and hawed, bobbed and weaved, refused to give straight answers, and flat-out lied about what he knew about Brian's death and Operation Fast and Furious."

The notice quotes Burke as saying the fatal bullet would never be found, even though it had already been located during an autopsy. And he told them the AK-47s were "bought from a gun store in Texas and were not linked to Operation Fast and Furious."

In fact, the notice says, "Burke actually knew within hours of Brian's murder that they were purchased from a Phoenix gun shop under ATF surveillance the previous January" — a fact borne out by Burke's emails.

richard.serrano@latimes.com

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Sarah Palin: Fire Eric Holder

CyHawkThoughts: Week 11 In Honor of America’s Veterans

Posted by Guest Posts .
Nov 10, 2011.

By Sarah Palin

It’s tempting to get distracted with the horse race aspect of electoral politics during a primary season. But as pundits talk about “who’s up and who’s down” in the 24 hour news cycle, we must keep our eye on the ball with the Obama administration. They rely on distraction to skirt responsibility, but we’re going to hold them accountable for their corruption and incompetence.

When the stories about Operation Fast and Furious first broke, it sounded too crazy even for this administration.

Why would any government official with an ounce of common sense think it’s a good idea to facilitate the smuggling of thousands of guns into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels? That’s what Operation Fast and Furious did.

You might think Eric Holder’s Department of Justice was setting up a sting operation in which our federal agents would swoop down and arrest the bad guys the minute the guns traded hands. But that’s not what happened. Eric Holder’s DOJ had American gun dealers sell weapons to “straw purchasers” tied to drug cartels without actually following the movement of the guns as they were then sold to Mexican drug lords. They apparently thought this so-called “gun-walking” operation would help them chart the path of gun smuggling, but they didn’t have a plan to actually control the weapons’ movements as the guns were allowed to “walk” into Mexico. All Holder’s DOJ did was arm violent criminals. What manner of fools do we have working in this administration? What’s next? Supplying nuclear weapons components to the Iranians so we can track their activities?

Fast and Furious isn’t just your typical government incompetence. This is a deadly tragedy. U.S. border agent Brian Terry was gunned down with weapons connected to Holder’s debacle. At least 200 Mexican citizens were also killed by criminals using Fast and Furious weapons. We can only imagine how many more people will be murdered by criminals our government armed.

When an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives blew the whistle on this operation, the DOJ leaked sensitive information about him to the press. This week, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, who was ousted in the wake of the scandal, admitted to being the leaker.

And where is President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in all of this? When did he first know about the operation? In his testimony to the House Oversight Committee on May 3, 2011, Holder stated, “I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” But the DOJ’s own documents prove that Holder had been receiving briefings on Fast and Furious for nearly a year before that date. In other words, our government’s top law enforcement official, Eric Holder, lied to the American public. He finally admitted this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee, “In my testimony before the House committee [on May 3], I did say a few weeks. I probably could have said a couple of months. What I said about a few weeks was inaccurate based on what happened.”

When the nation’s highest law enforcement official lies to the American people, he must go.

And if he claims that he didn’t lie, then how else do we explain this situation? He’s either lying or he’s so grossly incompetent and lazy that he didn’t read important life and death briefings from his deputy attorney general and didn’t know about this deadly operation run by people under him. So, which is it? Incompetent, lazy, or lying? No matter which explanation fits, he needs to go.

Holder conceded this week, “I have ultimate responsibility for what happens in the department.” He can prove it by resigning. And if he refuses to resign, then President Obama – with whom the bucks ultimately stop – can prove that he respects honesty, transparency, and accountability in his administration by firing Holder.

I stand with the members of Congress who are calling for Holder’s resignation. I stand with the family members of Brian Terry who are demanding transparency and accountability. Mr. President, where do you stand?


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Former Holder Chief of Staff Nomination to Court Imperiled Over 'Fast and Furious'

U.S. Senate - POLITICS

Published November 15, 2011
FoxNews.com

Attorney General Eric Holder during a news conference to update the attempted bombing in Times Square, Tuesday, May 4, 2010, at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The confirmation of a former aide to Attorney General Eric Holder to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces may be in peril over his response to questions posed by Arizona Sen. John McCain about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.

Kevin Ohlson, who worked as Holder's chief of staff from January 2009 to January 2011, faces a confirmation hearing on Thursday for the post. The panel with jurisdiction is the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which McCain is the ranking Republican and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., is chairman.

In his response Monday to a questionnaire sent from McCain last week, both obtained by Fox News, Ohlson said he knew nothing about the operation while he was at the Justice Department.

"During my tenure as chief of staff and counselor to the attorney general, I took no actions in regard to, had no knowledge of, provided no advice about, and had no involvement in Operation Fast and Furious," he wrote. Ohlson wrote he did participate in a prep session with Holder on Fast and Furious earlier this month before Holder testified to Congress.

In the letter sent by McCain, he wrote that as Holder's chief of staff Ohlson was "in a position to be informed about the Operation, to make decisions regarding the operation, and to know what information about it was and was not provided to the attorney general."

But in his response, Ohlson wrote he had "been informed that routine courtesy copies of weekly reports were forwarded to me that referred to the operation by name, but that did not provide any operational details and did not refer to gun walking or anything similar."

But Ohlson said nothing on the cover sheets of the reports indicated they contained important or sensitive materials and he didn't review them.

The latest response highlights a recurring theme coming from the Department of Justice about Fast and Furious that has raised troubling concerns for Republicans, specifically, that officials there did not get into details or make the effort to look further into the botched gun-walking program.

Fast and Furious was run out of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and aimed to allow straw purchasers illegally buy guns from U.S. shops in order to trace where they went. Hundreds of those guns disappeared into Mexico, and the operation blew up in late 2010 after the murder of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. Two guns linked to the operation were found at the crime scene.

But in response to questions raised about the program, Holder said memos about Fast and Furious addressed to him were never brought to his attention. Holder's then No. 2, Gary Grindler, did receive a briefing on Fast and Furious, but didn't discuss it with others, he says, because the tactics were never mentioned.

Head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division Lanny Breuer said he knew of a different gun-walking case but didn't ask if others were occurring. Breuer's deputies also approved wiretaps in Fast and Furious, but only looked at cover sheets, according to Justice Department officials.

Lower-level attorneys from the department's Gang Unit briefly worked on Fast and Furious as well as other gun-walking cases, but their work never filtered up.

Ohlson left Holder's office in January 2011 to become chief of the Professional Misconduct Review Unit. He said that there was no linkage between his move and Terry's death.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa said the whole case shows that changes are needed at the Justice Department.

Holder "wouldn't even admit that, in fact, Fast and Furious led directly to the death of Brian Terry. He seems to want to obfuscate that," Issa, R-Calif., told Fox News on Tuesday, not referring to Ohlson's replies to the questionnaire.

"That shows that we really need to get some kind of change at the Department of Justice in the AG's office, or we're not going to get the kind of change Americans can believe in."

Fox News' Trish Turner contributed to this report.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/15/former-holder-chief-staff-nomination-to-court-imperiled-over-fast-and-furious/#ixzz1doXCxppB
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Senate votes to end 'Fast and Furious' gun program

Updated: Oct 18, 2011 - 17:46PM

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Andrew Taylor

AP

WASHINGTON -The Senate voted Tuesday to effectively block the Justice Department from undertaking gun-smuggling probes like the flawed "Operation Fast and Furious" aimed at breaking up networks running guns to Mexican drug cartels but that lost track of hundreds of the weapons, some of which were used to commit crimes in Mexico and the United States.

The 99-0 vote would block the government from transferring guns to drug cartels unless federal agents "continuously monitor or control" the weapons. The amendment's sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the vote "just the first step towards ensuring that such a foolish operation can never be repeated by our own law enforcement."

The Justice Department has already stopped the program.

The vote came as the Senate debated a $128 billion spending measure that would fund Justice Department operations and those of several other Cabinet agencies for the 2012 budget year already under way.

Operation Fast and Furious was a gun-smuggling investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives aimed at tracking small-time illicit gun buyers up the chain to major traffickers in an effort to take down arms networks. In the process, ATF agents lost track of many of the weapons.

Fast and Furious came to light after two assault rifles purchased by a now-indicted small-time buyer under scrutiny in the operation turned up at a shootout in Arizona where Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed.

The operation has caused something of a firestorm in Washington and is the focus of an investigation by House Republicans, who have questioned whether Attorney General Eric Holder has been candid about all he knows about the botched operation.

Holder already has called a halt to the practice of allowing guns to "walk" in an effort to track them to arms traffickers, saying in a recent letter to lawmakers that "those tactics should never again be adopted in any investigation."

The operation was designed to respond to criticism that the agency had focused on small-time gun arrests while major traffickers had eluded prosecution.

As recently as 11 months ago, the Justice Department's inspector general criticized ATF for focusing "largely on inspections of gun dealers and investigations of straw purchasers, rather than on higher-level traffickers, smugglers and the ultimate recipients of the trafficked guns."

The IG said some ATF managers discourage agents from conducting complex conspiracy investigations that target high-level traffickers.

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Holder, Issa Spar Over "Fast and Furious"

WRITTEN BY RAVEN CLABOUGH

WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2011 00:00

The controversy surrounding the disastrous Operation Fast and Furious (part of Project Gunrunner) has prompted a congressional investigation which is quickly heating up as more facts emerge. The investigation has led Congress to question Attorney General Eric Holder as to how much he knew of the operation, and how long he was sitting on the knowledge that known Mexican drug cartel members were permitted by the officials of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (still known as ATF) to walk with weapons provided by the ATF. The inquiry has resulted in an exchange of scathing letters between Holder and the investigation head, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif., left). Operation Fast and Furious was launched in 2009 in an effort to target major gunrunners. The stated plan was to follow gun purchasers in the hopes that the suspects would lead the ATF to major heads of Mexican cartels. Unfortunately, some of those same deadly weapons were found at crime scenes in both Mexico and the United States, and were involved in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last year. Attorney General Holder has done his best to distance himself from the failed gunwalking operation. However, one week ago, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, distributed five separate memos from July and August of 2010 addressed to Holder, which cite Operation Fast and Furious by name. The documents implicate Holder, proving he likely knew about the program for at least a year. Republicans contend that memos prove what they have been saying all along: that Holder was aware of Operation Fast and Furious sooner than he indicated. The accusations prompted the Attorney General to ventilate in a scathing letter to Issa and other Republicans, accusing them of “irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric.” In his letter, Holder insisted: I have no recollection of knowing about "Fast and Furious" or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it. Prior to early 2011, I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation. Issa contends, however, that after the release of the memos last week, Holder’s assertions are simply unbelievable. According to Issa, Holder “has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and others knew about gun-walking and Operation Fast and Furious.” Issa called Holder’s lack of honesty “deeply disturbing.” "If Attorney General Holder had said these things five months ago when Congress asked him about 'Operation Fast and Furious,' it might have been more believable," House Oversight Committee spokesman Frederick Hill remarked, adding, "At this point, however, it's hard to take at face value a defense that is factually questionable, entirely self-serving, and a still incomplete account of what senior Justice Department officials knew about gun walking." Holder’s letter provoked an equally biting letter to the Attorney General from Issa which declared in part: The current paper trail … creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful. Your staff … was certainly aware of "Fast and Furious" over a year ago. Issa’s letter offered specifics, including the following: Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your chief of staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on "Operation Fast and Furious" on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach. Pointing to such data as this, Issa is convinced that there was “widespread knowledge” within the Justice Department’s “senior ranks” that “gunwalking [was] occurring.” Issa’s letter accuses Holder of attempting to “shift blame” and “hide behind [his staff] for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer,” Issa continued: Your letter ... did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the department's responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you "must now address these issues" over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about "Fast and Furious." It simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. Appearing on Fox and Friends, Issa asserted, [Holder] wants us to believe that he came to a hearing, having read about some terrible allegations [and] only having just learned of it, and not asking any additional questions, at least the ones in his weekly briefings, that if he read his weekly briefings, he would have known about what he now says he didn’t know. Justice Department officials continue to insist that they have in fact been cooperative in the investigation, and will continue to be. A Department spokeswoman stated, “The department will continue to cooperate with both the inspector general and congressional investigations. In the meantime, what the American people deserve is less partisan showboating and more responsible solutions to stopping gun violence.” Issa has indicated that he will be sending a new set of subpoenas to the Justice Department in order to seek further information. Photo: Rep. Darrell Issa

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CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious

12:55 PM, OCT 4, 2011 • BY MARK HEMINGWAY

The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun trafficking operation. Recently released documents say Holder was briefed about the operation long before he told the Judiciary Committee he was first aware of what was going on. (Holder now claims he misunderstood the question was being asked.)

What's more, CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson -- who's been covering the scandal from the beginning -- says in an interview on the Laura Ingraham Show today that the White House and Justice Department have taken to screaming at her for reporting on the story. You can listen to the full interview below, but here are the key excerpts from Attkisson:

In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman--who would not put anything in writing, I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said, she wouldn't put anything in writing--so we talked on the phone and she said things such as the question Holder answered was different than the one he asked. But he phrased it, he said very explicitly, 'I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.'

And:

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Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."

Finally, Attkisson notes that the White House is claiming that a thorough investigation of the scandal is unwarranted:

[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.

Here's the audio from the interview:

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