Posted on 06/07/2012 10:04:52 PM PDT by neverdem
Big news about the Obama Administration's “Fast and Furious” scandal broke earlier this week, when the House Oversight committee finally got its hands on some of the documents it subpoenaed long ago – specifically, a set of wiretap applications that prove high officials at the Justice Department were very well aware of the deadly “gun walking” tactics that put American weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers. Attorney General Eric Holder has always maintained that knowledge of these tactics did not reach the upper echelons of his department.
The revelation of documents shredding Holder's claims stirred some in the Republican leadership to begin taking the idea of filing contempt of Congress charges against the Attorney General more seriously. Justice sent a letter to the House Republican leadership on Tuesday, offering to work out a deal for releasing some of the “Fast and Furious” information covered by those long-defied subpoenas. As House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said in an angry letter challenging Holder's honesty, it's increasingly clear why he doesn't want congressional investigators to see the documents he is refusing to hand over.
It turns out that Issa didn't get those bombshell wiretap applications because Holder suddenly decided to comply with the subpoenas, and dribble out some useful material. It seems the House Oversight committee has a “mole” in the Justice Department, who surreptitiously gave the wiretap documentation to House investigators.
In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Issa said he would not reveal the identity of his source for the documents, pointing out that other “Fast and Furious” whistleblowers have experienced retaliation from their superiors, particularly at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives:
On Thursday, The Hill reported that Justice is angry about the document leak, although no decision about finding and punishing the mole has been made yet:
“Chairman Issa's letter makes clear that sealed court documents relating to pending federal prosecutions being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California have been disclosed to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in violation of law,” wrote Deputy Attorney General James Cole to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Issa this week.
“This is of great concern to us,” the letter added.
There isn't much chance that Justice will file any sort of charges against Issa or the rest of the House Oversight Committee, but the whistleblower who handed over the sealed documents could be prosecuted, and ultimately imprisoned. House Oversight members have been careful not to release specific information from the sealed documents to the public.
Leaving the mole alone would make Justice look bad. The Attorney General's excuse for defying congressional subpoenas has always involved claiming that an internal DOJ investigation into Operation Fast and Furious is still ongoing (and has now ostensibly been in progress far longer than the investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination.) Also, he says the requested documents are relevant to ongoing criminal prosecutions, which would be ruined if judicial seals on the documents were violated.
If either of these defenses is to be taken seriously, the whistleblower has jeopardized both the fabled “internal investigation” and those criminal prosecutions, so he or she must be found and punished. It remains an open question who the Justice Department might still be trying to prosecute in relation to Fast and Furious, since one major component of the outrage is that most of the high-value targets were already well-known criminals. Some of them actually turned out to be FBI informants. Several were caught and released by ATF on multiple occasions. How can every scrap of the paperwork mountain House Oversight wants Holder to hand over be tied up in an active criminal case that was in progress over eight months ago, when the subpoenas were issued, and is still percolating along today?
On the other hand, if Justice roots out the House Oversight source and levels serious charges, it's likely to enrage both members of Issa's committee and the Republican leadership. It might even draw the attention of a press corps that has generally worked very hard at not noticing the Attorney General of the United States misleading Congress to cover up an operation whose true goals remain the subject of debate, and whose result was hundreds of dead Mexican citizens, plus slain American law enforcement agents.
It is vitally important to learn who initiated this program, and why. It's equally important to pin down exactly when top Justice officials, including Eric Holder himself, became aware of "gun walking" tactics, and why they didn't put a stop them instantly. It could not be more clear that Holder will never produce documented answers to those questions voluntarily.
I pray to God, Holder and Obama will pay for this.
Holder and his gang of corrupt attorneys have no respect for the law, Congress, or the American people. They have made other DOJ employees embarrassed to say who they work for, and there are a lot of good, decent Americans in DOJ.
However, Obama, Holder, Perez and Perilli have corrupted the organization to the point that it looks like Al Capone’s political organization in Chicago, including crooked cops, judges, politicos.
Why am I not surprised?
Chicago, Obama, Jarrett, Axelrod, Danny Davis, Bobby Rush, Michele, Duncan, etc. Any questions?
It’s a shame that the greatest patriot in our Justice Department is a mole. There’s your medal winner, Obama.
In other news, the zer0/holder regime will not allow a special prosecutor to investigate recent military leaks that seem to promote zer0 as the election 2012 proceeds...
That's outrageous. According to the article, the justification for prosecuting such a person would be that they were interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation, which of course, is a complete lie. There is no investigation. Holder is simply using that excuse to block the release of the subpoenaed documents.
That man needs to be up under the jail.
But what happens if Obama loses in 2012 and they lose their powers? Would it be too late to investigate and prosecute?
I have a feeling that the mole, if discovered, will be getting the full Vince Foster treatment rather than a prosecution. I hope not, but I wouldn’t put anything past these people.
Let's hope that everyone's watching everyone at this point. If I were that mole, I'd come out publicly this very second, just to keep some daylight on me. These cockroaches need darkness to operate.
Yes! I want to see jail time for these criminals!
Time to send boehner packing. This should need exactly NO thought on a contempt citation for holder. NONE.
On this side of the border it's violations of the RICO Act. In Mexico and Honduras it's state-sponsored terrorism.
What else would you call heavily arming international criminal syndicates within a foreign country wherein that country is in a death struggle with those syndicates?
Especially when it goes beyond thousands of assault rifles to include grenades, RPGs, shoulder fired rockets, anti-aircraft guns, night vision equipment, body armor and special deals to bring their drugs onto our soil with legal impunity?
Not to mention the just-revealed news that the rip crew that killed BP Agent Brian Terry was there with DEA and FBI assistance and approval to attack and kill a rival cartel's smuggling crew.
Let's not leave out the FBI and DEA laundering millions of dollars for the drug cartels by setting up bank accounts for them that they otherwise couldn't do.
It's organized, it is spread through every Federal LEA and it violates numerous domestic laws and numerous statutes and treaties that deal with foreign nations. Yet none of it has been officially sanctioned. It's the FedGov acting like mafiosa.
0bama, Holder and Hillary Clinton are all deeply involved in this and it is state-sponsored terrorism. These Chicago machine Marxist thugs are dragging our country down to the level of Tehran and Pyongyang.
John Boehner and his staff regularly review comments on their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/johnboehner
Umm...that’s exactly why we don’t want him fired.
Definitely some merit to that survival strategy. Tough call though.
“Not to mention the just-revealed news that the rip crew that killed BP Agent Brian Terry was there with DEA and FBI assistance and approval to attack and kill a rival cartel’s smuggling crew.”
Whoa! Got a link for this?
FBI Criminal Informant Complicit in Brian Terry’s Death (PJM Exclusive)The rip crew was in Peck Canyon that evening with the intention of stealing money and drugs from a specific shipment of which they had prior knowledge.
(snip)
The rip crew knew to be in Peck Canyon that December evening because a CI working for the FBI found out about a smuggling run — from the FBI.
(snip)
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — through its own CIs and communications intercepts — was also aware of the planned assault.
Neither the DEA nor FBI warned Border Patrol about the expected criminal activity.
(snip)
The federal government will still not reveal if one of the two WASR-10 AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles located near the scene — provided to the Sinaloa cartel via Operation Fast and Furious — was the weapon that put a bullet through Brian Terry’s heart. The existence of a third recovered gun, an SKS carbine, has been disputed by the FBI despite the fact it had been talked about openly in the beginning of the investigation among federal agents.
Multiple sources tell PJM that this third weapon “disappeared” because it was the weapon carried by the FBI CI who ran the rip crew. When it was recovered near the scene of the murder and subsequently traced by the ATF, it traced back to the FBI CI via the gun shop in Texas where it was purchased.
The Wookie is burnt out on this gig anyways.
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