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The top deputy to Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday amid revelations that Operation Fast and Furious scandal guns were used to harm Americans in Phoenix in 2013, a development top congressional Republicans say President Obama’s administration sought to cover up. ... Holder, the attorney general, has failed to cooperate with the Fast and Furious congressional investigation led by Issa and Grassley. Holder was voted, on a bipartisan basis, into both criminal and civil contempt of Congress—a first in the history of the United States for a Cabinet-level official—after he failed to provide documents to Issa’s committee...

Judicial Watch announced today that it received from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) a “Vaughn index” detailing records about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. The index was forced out of the Obama administration thanks to JW’s 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 federal court had ordered the production over the objections of the Obama Justice Department. The document details the Attorney General Holder’s personal involvement in managing the Justice Department’s strategy on media and Congressional investigations into the Fast and Furious...

For years the White House has argued it had nothing to do with Operation Fast and Furious while it was active and certainly wasn't involved the fallout and cover-up that followed after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in 2010 by Mexican bandits carrying guns from the lethal program. Now years later, a Vaughn Index describing Fast and Furious documents being held from the American people and Congress under President Obama's assertion of executive privilege shows White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett played a key role in Attorney General Eric Holder's changing testimony to Congress. More from Judicial Watch: Practically lost in...

President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was a key player in the effort to cover-up that Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about the Fast and Furious scandal, according to public records obtained by Judicial Watch. The information is part of a Department of Justice (DOJ) “Vaughn index” detailing records about the gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious. JW had to sue the agency for the records after the Obama administration failed to provide them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A federal court ordered the DOJ to provide the records over the agency’s objections. Yesterday...

President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was a key player in the effort to cover up that Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about the Fast and Furious scandal, according to public records obtained by Judicial Watch.The information is part of a Department of Justice (DOJ) “Vaughn index” detailing records about the gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious. JW had to sue the agency for the records after the Obama administration failed to provide them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A federal court ordered the DOJ to provide the records over the agency’s objections. Yesterday...

The Obama administration is claiming executive privilege over more than 15,000 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, including correspondence between Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife, according to records received Wednesday night by the watchdog group Judicial Watch. Last month, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release to Judicial Watch the list of documents, known as a “Vaughn index,” that it is withholding from the public, calling its requests for further delays “unconvincing.” The 1,307-page Vaughn index lists 15,662 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious that the Obama administration is asserting executive privilege over—the first...

Via Guy Benson, the key point is the lying, not the fact that they’re putting dangerous people who have no right to be here back onto America’s streets.After all, they do that all the time. The new records, including spreadsheets and hundreds of pages of e-mails, offer the most detailed information yet about the people ICE freed as it prepared for steep, across-the-government spending cuts in February 2013. They show that although two-thirds of the people who were freed had no criminal records, several had been arrested or convicted on charges more severe than the administration had disclosed…A spreadsheet...

(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.

Full title: Judicial Watch Sues DHS for Records Relating to January 2014 Solicitation of ‘Escort Services’ for ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ In January, ICE sent out a request for a contractor to “provide unarmed escort staff … for on-demand escort services for … unaccompanied alien children … There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total …” (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on October 16, 2014, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking “any and all records” relating to a January 2014 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) request for...

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...

The final results are in, and the Arctic ice cover reached its sixth-lowest extent this year in the era of satellite recordkeeping, dating to 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. While 2014 nudged last year to No. 7 on the list, the overall seasonal loss between the high and low points – March 21 and Sept. 17 – was the least since 2006, the center said. The total areal coverage, 1.94 million square miles, was significantly higher than the 2012 nadir – 1.32 million square miles – but the center said that overall ice is vanishing...

The reward for surviving last winter’s frigid temperatures and record snowfall, several states are learning, is drastic price increases for road salt—in some cases, five times as expensive as last season.And that’s even if they can get it. Replenishing stockpiles is proving challenging, especially for some Midwestern states, after salt supplies were depleted to tame icy roads last winter. Price increases of at least 20 percent have been common in several cities, including Boston and Raleigh, North Carolina. …

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...

As the Left is pushing amnesty like never before, and illegal aliens are staging regular protests at ICE locations, illegal aliens are also getting more brazen on our Southern border. Attacks against our border agents are way up, but this weekend’s move was unprecedented, as Mexican illegals coordinated a violent confrontation against outmanned agents. A crowd of more than 150 illegals pelted Border Patrol agents with rocks and bottles — injuring several agents — as they tried to cross into the U.S. illegally in the San Diego sector, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The incident happened Sunday in...

As federal officials grapple with a crisis-level influx of Central Americans who are showing up at U.S. borders, NBC 7 Investigates found at least three immigrant families released to a Santee shelter kept in deplorable conditions. According to a contract provided to residents of the “House of Hope,” the home is an outreach ministry of the Faith Family Christian Center, run by Pastor David Barrett. Conditions inside the “House of Hope” A resident led us through the shelter on Prospect Avenue, navigating our news crew through piles of bedding visibly covered in flies, fleas and maggots. At least eight, bedraggled...

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. …

Cristian Alexander Zamora. (Police mugshot.) (CNSNews.com) -- Court records show that Cristian Alexander Zamora, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was charged and fined for driving without a valid driver’s license in Texas in 2011– which was two years before he and an accomplice allegedly used a machete and a baseball bat to murder a 16-year-old Texas high school student. Zamora, 22, and 19-year-old Ricardo Campos-Lara, also an illegal alien from El Salvador, are currently awaiting trial in federal court in Houston, for killing Klein Forest High School sophomore Josael Guevara in the Sam Houston National Forest. “On Sept....

The Obama administration broke the law when it released thousands of illegal immigrants, more than 600 of whom had criminal records, last February as a result of poor planning and micromanagement from Washington, according to an internal audit released Tuesday that says things have not improved in the 18 months since. Compounding matters, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gave bad information to Congress, initially blaming the looming budget sequester, rather than the agency's own budget pressures, the Homeland Security inspector general concluded. In the new report the IG does clear top Homeland Security officials of accusations they pressured ICE...