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(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on September 23, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that by October 22, the Department of Justice (DOJ) must submit a “Vaughn index” listing Fast and Furious materials Judicial Watch sought in its June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)). A Vaughn index must: (1) identify each document withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption claimed; and (3) explain how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption.

Documents obtained through a lawsuit recently issued against the City of Phoenix by government watchdog Judicial Watch reveal a weapon from the Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious was used to injure two people in a 2013 gang-style assault on an apartment complex. When the incident occurred and during investigation afterward, police worked with federal law enforcement agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency in the case, raising suspicions the assault wasn't simply a typical, local gang shootout and prompted questions about the details of where the weapons...

Government watchdog Judicial Watch has sued the City of Phoenix Police Department over documents surrounding a 2013 gang-style assault on an apartment complex. Long-guns, a handgun, empty casings and buildings riddled with bullets were reported at the scene and two people were wounded in the incident. When the incident occurred and during investigation afterward, police worked with federal law enforcement agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency in the case, raising suspicions the assault wasn't simply a typical, local gang shootout and prompted questions about the details of the...

In light of a federal judge denying a request from the Department of Justice to delay the release of a long-sought after Fast and Furious document list, the sister of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Kelly Terry-Willis, doesn't find the timing of Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation to be a coincidence. "I do not find it a coincidence that Eric Holder chose now to resign after Judge Bates denied the request from the DOJ to delay the release of the Fast and Furious documents. I personally think Eric Holder was really hoping that the documents would never be made public to...

U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates has denied a request from the Department of Justice to delay the release of a list of Operation Fast and Furious documents being protected under President Obama's assertion of executive privilege. The list, better known as a Vaughn index, was requested through a June 2012 FOIA filing by government watchdog Judicial Watch. When DOJ didn't respond to the FOIA request in the time required by law, Judicial Watch sued in September 2012, seeking all documents DOJ and the White House are withholding from Congress under executive privilege claims. President Obama made the assertion...

Full title: Federal Court Denies DOJ Motion for Delay, Orders Release of Fast and Furious Documents List to Judicial Watch by October 22 “The government’s arguments for even more time are unconvincing.” – U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on September 23, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that by October 22, the Department of Justice (DOJ) must submit a “Vaughn index” listing Fast and Furious materials Judicial Watch sought in its June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit...

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged payments by Drug Enforcement Administration personnel to an Amtrak employee are being investigated by the Justice Department inspector general's office. The announcement by Jay Lerner, a spokesman for the IG's office, follows the disclosure by Amtrak's inspector general that DEA paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers that the drug-fighting agency could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network. The Amtrak IG's report says that under a joint drug enforcement task force that includes the DEA and Amtrak's own police agency,...

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to provide Congress with a list of documents that are at the center of a long-running battle over a failed law enforcement program called Operation Fast and Furious. In a court proceeding Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set an Oct. 1 deadline for producing the list to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Justice Department says the documents should remain confidential and President Barack Obama has invoked executive privilege in an effort to protect them from public disclosure. …

Narco-Villain “El Chapo’s” Arrest Packaged for Media Consumption Posted by Bill Conroy - March 1, 2014 at 4:25 pm Former DEA Supervisor Contends Guzman’s Capture Was An “Arranged” Event The recent capture of the notorious Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization, was not what it appeared to be, according to a former DEA supervisory agent who still has a deep network of contacts in Mexico. Guzman’s takedown, despite the media script portraying it as a daring predawn raid, was, in fact, an “arranged thing,” claims the retired DEA agent, Hector Berrellez, who led the...

National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea noted last week that a new General Accounting Office report has found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lacks the resources to effectively investigate one of their highest stated priorities--firearms in the hands of those prohibited by federal law from having them. Specifically, the GAO report draws the conclusion that the BATFE is unable to efficiently pursue "delayed denial" investigations, in which a person ineligible to own a firearm under federal law is permitted to do so anyway, because the criminal background check did not turn up any disqualifying information in...

In an unprecedented move Thursday night, the House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that prevents the Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Just after midnight, the vote won with 219 ayes, including an unexpected 49 Republicans and 170 Democrats. It’s the first time Congress has approved a major marijuana law reform, which shows the changing tide of marijuana policy in the United States—and suggests a new day is rising in the war on drugs. A similar measure failed in Congress six previous times, receiving the most votes (165) in 2007. But with data showing three...

In a historic vote, Congress voted to support states on legalized medicinal marijuana. The measure will not allow the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to spend federal funds to interfere with states that have legalized medicinal marijuana. "The states have spoken, the American people have spoken and now for the first time the U.S. House of Representatives have spoken on allowing medical marijuana," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the sponsor of the measure, in a press conference on Friday.

An alleged associate of a Mexican drug cartel has been charged in a conspiracy that distributed more than 100 kilograms of cocaine in the Philadelphia region, federal prosecutors said today. Prosecutors say it was Jorge Bautista-Banda’s job to launder the illegal drug proceeds, depositing the money in $8,000 increments at Center City banks. By depositing amounts less than $10,000, prosecutors said Bautista could avoid having to file currency transaction reports.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was openly irritated both with Attorney General Eric Holder and with the U.S. House of Representatives over whether executive privilege allows Holder to withhold documents on Operation Fast and Furious. But she also signaled she would rule against Holder in part, making it likely that Congress—and the public—could learn the truth about a gun-running scandal that ended with a murdered federal agent. Berman began today’s hearing in Washington, D.C.’s federal district court with an opening statement about this case “concerning the suspected illegal flow of firearms from the United States to Mexican drug cartels.”...

May 06, 2014 05:12 PM EDT by Peter Black The director of the Drug Enforcement Administration is furious about a bill that would lower the mandatory minimum prison sentences for federal drug offenses, arguing that harsh prison terms are "very important to our investigations." DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart slammed the Obama administration's Smarter Sentencing Act at a hearing last week, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that her experience suggests that reducing minimum sentences would have severe consequences—although she wasn't particularly specific about what those consequences would be. Like Us on Facebook "Having been in law enforcement as an agent for...

DEA raids woman`s Shorewood home after she shops at garden center Posted: Apr 12, 2014 CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A woman in the southwest suburbs says she woke up to find armed DEA agents pointing guns at her -- all because she shopped at a hydroponic garden center. Angela Kirkling was driven out of her bed in Shorewood at gunpoint. The DEA had started investigating her because she had made a purchase at a hydroponics shop. Agents say they thought she was growing pot indoors. Police had also been digging through her garbage and tracking her electrical bill.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s decades-long battle against the federal government over grazing rights has heated to the point where militia groups have joined in and taken up spots against the feds who’ve circled his land — and talk is, they’re not afraid to open fire. A spokesman for the one of the militia groups said as much to local 8 News Now: I’m not “afraid to shoot,” he said. Margaret Houston, Mr. Bundy’s sister and a cancer survivor, said at a town hall gathering this week that the situation “was like a war zone” and that she felt “like I...

Earlier this week the Arizona Republic editorial board published an opinion piece titled, “Dennis Burke should've been celebrated, not sanctioned.” The board portrays the former U.S. Attorney and Operation Fast and Furious ring-leader as a whistleblower and victim rather than holding him accountable for his extensive and reckless actions during his time in office. Consider the following a direct response. Between 2009 and 2011 when Operation Fast and Furious was active, Dennis Burke and his Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley refused to prosecute nearly every straw purchaser case handed to them citing “no probable cause.” One of those straw purchasers...

ATF Meets Congress' Deadline for Fast & Furious Info  Some materials "highly redacted" by Sharyl Attkisson April 1, 2013 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Director Todd Jones today met a 5 p.m. deadline to provide Congress with some information related to disciplinary action, or lack thereof, against key players involved in ATF’s Fast and Furious gunwalking case. That’s according to an official with the House Oversight Committee who says committee members haven't yet thoroughly reviewed the materials but that they are often “highly redacted.”  Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) set the deadline in a letter...

A federal anti-drug task force obstructed an internal investigation and retaliated against agents who cooperated with investigators, the Justice Department Inspector General said in a report issued Wednesday. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Program (OCDETF), a multi-agency task force within the Department of Justice, put in place protocols to limit what the department’s inspector general could learn. Agents were told to answer investigators’ questions but not elaborate. They were also told by superiors that information given to the Inspector General could be tracked back to agents, and all documents released to the IG were required to be reviewed...