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Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee today was, in the main, a re-run of past appearances before Congress. He kept the stone wall firm and tight, while angrily denying he was running a cover-up, and accusing investigators of running “political gotcha games.” Here’s Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) cutting to the chase, and asking Holder how many more U.S. Border Patrol agents would have had to die as part of Operation Fast and Furious before the Attorney General would finally take responsibility: Holder continued his “incompetence defense” of insisting that he really doesn’t know anything that...

“There will be no Fifth Amendment Theater tomorrow of the Phoenix US Attorneys being forced to say their ‘I-don't-wannas’ in front of the cameras,” Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars files in an exclusive report today from Washington, DC. There will be only one panel of one -- Eric Holder. This is viewed by many who have been following the investigation as a serious mistake. Said one, "More simple browbeating of Eric Eric Holder without dramatic new evidence to impeach his story is going to look petty, mean and impotent. Perhaps. After all, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform...

Philosophers and poets have argued for at least three millennia about who is more valuable. Poets claim they tell tales that inspire men to do things they would otherwise never accomplish. But philosophers argue that this requires the acceptance of obvious fantasies, thus leading men away from the truth. Judging by what Attorney General Eric Holder has been asking Congress and the American people to believe regarding what and when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious, we think he is telling tales that lead away from the truth. Fast and Furious is the Justice Department program that allowed thousands...

It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, goes the old Washington cliché. In the case of the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, it’s both. As Attorney General Eric Holder gets ready to face more congressional grilling Thursday, something’s clearly rotten at the Justice Department. The stench goes all the way to the top — to Holder. Friday, the feds disclosed documents that show that despite Holder’s claim during congressional testimony that he’d only learned of F&F “a few weeks” earlier (a claim later amended to “a couple of months”), he has known (or should have known) about it all along...

The attorney general's claim regarding when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious conflicts with the released communications.The Department of Justice released hundreds of documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious late Friday afternoon, including a series of emails that strongly suggests that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself in congressional testimony. The crucial email exchange began at 2:31 a.m. on December 15, 2010, with a message from an unidentified DOJ source to “OIOC SIT” and “SITROOM”: On December 14, 2010, BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol Operations 18...

Issa Demands Access to Second US Attorney who Supervised Operation Fast and Furious WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa demanded in letter to Attorney General Holder that the Justice Department make Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office Assistant United States Attorney Michael Morrissey available to speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious. His supervisor, Patrick Cunningham, has stated he will exercise his Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any questions pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious – such an assertion is extremely rare and suggests possible criminal culpability...

Better get that Fifth Amendment warmed up! Last week, the Criminal Division Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona, Patrick Cunningham, stunned the House Oversight committee by announcing he would take the Fifth and refuse to testify before them about Operation Fast and Furious. Now House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has sent a letter(PDF) to Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding access to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey, another key player in the Fast and Furious scandal and cover-up, who reported to Cunningham. Cunningham’s assertion of Fifth Amendment privilege “suggests that the Department has jeopardized public safety and the...

“Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa demanded in [a] letter to Attorney General Holder that the Justice Department make Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office Assistant United States Attorney Michael Morrissey available to speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious,” a release issued moments ago by the committee reveals: His supervisor, Patrick Cunningham, has stated he will exercise his Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any questions pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious – such an assertion is extremely rare and suggests possible criminal culpability on the part of a high ranking...

Congressman Darrell Issa has raised the temperature on his investigation of Operation Fast and Furious after Patrick J. Cunningham, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not testify Tuesday. In a Tuesday letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Issa called Cunningham’s “broad assertion of the privilege” a “startling development” in the investigation. The implication that Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the Department’s culpability. The significance of these developments cannot be overstated, and this assertion raises...

Why is this man smiling? He's taking the Fifth, of course. There are rumors floating about regarding the three Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Phoenix during the Fast and Furious clandestine operation, one of whom, Patrick Cunningham, has already resigned and claimed Fifth Amendment protections. I am reliably informed by an investigation insider that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will have an announcement on this in the morning. Look for it to involve some real Fifth Amendment Theater.

The chairman of a House committee investigating the failed “Fast and Furious” operation demanded on Thursday that the Justice Department make a key federal prosecutor in Arizona available for questioning about “his role in and knowledge of” the controversial gunrunning probe. Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made the demand in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., saying Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey played an “integral part” in Fast and Furious and has information not available from other sources. Mr. Morrissey’s supervisor, Patrick J. Cunningham, chief of the...

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, goes on Fox News to discuss next week's hearing on Operation Fast and Furious. Patrick Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, will plead the fifth amendment during next week's committee hearing," the committee YouTube page video caption reads. Cunningham's reported pending resignation was the subject of a WarOnGuns blog report, followed the next day by Chairman Issa issuing a subpoena to compel his testimony after he backed out of voluntarily complying with the Committee's requests to...

Last week, Patrick Cunningham, chief of the criminal division of the Arizona US Attorney’s office, informed Darrell Issa’s House Government Reform and Oversight Committee investigating Obama Administration involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, that he would be pleading the 5th Amendment in his scheduled February 2nd deposition before the committee. (1) Cunningham worked with Arizona US Attorney Dennis Burke who resigned last year after his involvement in Fast and Furious had made him a prime subject of congressional investigators. Document dumps and Eric Holder’s testimony before the House committee in December have made the tactics of the Department of Justice...

“[A]s a professional courtesy,and to avoid needless preparation by the Committee and its staff for a deposition next week, I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself,” attorney Tobin Romero, representing Patrick J. Cunningham, chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, advised House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa in a January 19 letter obtained by William LaJeunesse of Fox News. Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the...

The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico. Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection. Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent...

The chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona has cited his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in refusing on Friday to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in its ongoing investigation into the failed “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation. Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and committee chairman, said the prosecutor, Patrick J. Cunningham, had been subpoenaed by the committee to testify on Tuesday but his attorney notified the panel that Mr. Cunningham intended to exercise his right not to incriminate himself at his scheduled deposition. “The assertion of the Fifth Amendment by...

WASHINGTON, DC – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced the issuance of a subpoena to Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona. Mr. Cunningham's repeated refusals to testify voluntarily have forced the Committee to use compulsory process. "During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious," Chairman Issa wrote to Cunningham in a letter informing...

Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa is back on the Fast and Furious trail and announced the issuance of a new subpoena today to Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S Attorney's Office for Arizona Patrick Cunningham. Cunningham was asked politely to voluntarily testify before the committee about Operation Fast and Furious, but refused. In a letter sent to Cunningham announcing the subpoena, Issa doesn't mince words, saying Cunningham approved tactics used in the lethal program. Cunningham was scheduled for an interview with Issa today but canceled after implying he was willing to cooperate with the investigation,...