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".................In one email from March 2011, after being sent a news story about the Fast and Furious investigation, Holder told staff, "I hope there is another side to the story." Later, after the ATF deputy director assured Holder aides that "we did not allow guns to walk," Holder responded to staff with, "Do they really, really know?" That August, Holder was told by staff that about 25 U.S. attorneys was upset that the resignation of Dennis Burke, then the U.S. attorney in Arizona, was announced simultaneously with the reassignment of ATF Acting Director Ken Melson. Holder wondered "why wouldn't we...

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...

The former U.S. Attorney for Arizona could be disbarred, after an investigation found he lied to the Justice Department about his role in trying to discredit the federal whistle-blower who exposed the botched gun-running scheme known as Fast and Furious. An Office of Inspector General report showed that Dennis Burke -- the former chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed as U.S. Attorney for Arizona by President Obama in September 2009 -- lied when asked if he leaked sensitive documents to the press meant to undermine the credibility of ATF whistle-blower John Dodson. The IG report also...

Scandal: A campaign contributor who was an architect of the 1994 assault weapons ban was the mastermind behind the Fast and Furious operation that let guns walk into Mexico, including those that killed two U.S. agents. Shortly after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder's deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson, received an email from U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke telling him just that: "The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: And looky here, folks, from the Cybercast News Service: "Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’" Did you hear that? Let me repeat that for you. Cybercast News Service: "Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’ -- Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack...

(CNSNews.com) – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious. When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona,...

The average American doesn’t have the bandwidth for devilish details about public policy. Politicians know if they “control the narrative”—make an issue as simple as humanly possible—they can manipulate public opinion. Millionaires and billionaires = oppressors. Iraq = not our problem anymore. The public can handle the truth; they just don’t have time for it. They’ve got money to make, kids to raise, bills to pay, football to watch, spouses to deceive, etc. And that’s why, more than a year after ATF-enabled drug thugs gunned down Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the ATF Fast and Furious Scandal is still flying...

It’s easy to tell when Attorney General Eric Holder is about to take part in another bout of prevarication before a congressional committee. Just look for a Friday night, White House sponsored, Department of Justice document dump. This time the White House oversaw the release of some 500 redacted emails and other assorted tid-bits, designed as usual to lead House and Senate investigators precisely where the Obama Regime wants them to go in their investigation of the “gunwalking” Operation Fast and Furious. And one of those emails makes it clear that Eric Holder’s DOJ aide, Monty Wilkinson received news of...

Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment. In the latest Friday night document dump — news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House — congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010. Holder must have known...

To the great annoyance of congressional investigators, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has been dragging its feet turning over subpoenaed documents relating to several inquiries – most infamously the “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, in which American guns were deliberately allowed to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers. DOJ has a habit of releasing these subpoenaed documents in massive “dumps” on Friday night, to guarantee minimal media coverage. Last Friday’s dump weighed in at 500 pages, and turned out to contain some very interesting emails sent in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian...

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...

The Gun Control Monkeys -- ATF & The Joyce Foundation -- Joined at the hip. = Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago's Crime Lab, backed the Police Department while noting that "it would be great if we had more resources and more could be done." She said she understood the argument set forth in the opinion — that people in high-crime areas might believe they'd be safer with a gun in their home. But research shows that gun availability leads to more bloodshed, not less, she said. "I understand the concern about public safety, but that is...

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...

A document the Department of Justice sent to Congress Friday shows that Eric Holder’s deputy chief of staff was made aware on the day of U.S. border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder that a weapon traced back to Operation Fast and Furious killed him. But when asked Sunday, a Justice spokesperson would not would not answer The Daily Caller’s question about whether Attorney General Eric Holder himself was informed of the connection. The documents sent from the DOJ to congressional officials Friday night included a series of emails between former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke and Holder’s then-deputy chief of...

Readers will recall my survey of Dennis Burke's career, Personnel Is Policy," Part One and Part Two. I concluded Part Two with this: Why did the administration pick Burke for the job of overseeing Fast and Furious? What was it about him that made them think he could be trusted with such a sensitive position? His anti-gun politics? His competence in executing the agendas of his superiors? His powerful friends? Why do they sustain him now, even in his disgrace when they are publicly trying to blame the whole thing on him? We will one day find out. But one...

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice dumped documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional officials late Friday night. Central to this document dump is a series of emails showing Holder was informed of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder on the day it happened – December 15, 2010 – and that he was informed the weapons used to kill Terry were from Fast and Furious on the same day. An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010,

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,...

When Dennis Burke resigned his post as US Attorney for the Phoenix district in August it was with the devout hope his role as local overseer of Operation Fast and Furious would be forgiven and forgotten by the House and Senate committees investigating the criminal gun smuggling affair. After all, liberal Democrats consider the “willing” abandoning of power the greatest and most meaningful sacrifice of all, a literal falling on the sword worthy of eternal praise! After such an act of supreme contrition, any notion of additional punishment should be unthinkable, an uncivilized display of piling on! But Burke’s attempt...