Free Republic

Whether Democrat or Republican, do you really want your private tax information leaked with impunity? On March 9, 2010, around 10 a.m., I announced my plans to run for senate representing Delaware. Later that same day, my office received a call from a reporter asking about my taxes. It’s since come out, after a halting and unenthusiastic investigation, that a Delaware Department of Revenue employee named David Smith accessed my records that day at approximately 2 p.m. — out of curiosity, he says. That these records ended up in the hands of the press is just a coincidence, the IRS...

Amazingly, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew doesn't think it's "appropriate" for him simply to ask the IRS's chief counsel (and President Obama's political appointee) William Wilkins what he knows about the targeting scandal. Obviously, it's much easier to continue to insist that there's "no evidence" of wrongdoing if one goes far out of one's way to avoid learning any potentially unwelcome facts. Jack Lew Refuses To Answer If William Wilkins Has Been Asked About IRS Targeting

While criticism surrounding Operation Fast and Furious has so far focused on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, three other federal agencies knew about the operation and some of their agents tried to stop it, according to the former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tucson. Tony Coulson, the DEA’s agent in charge of Southern Arizona during Fast and Furious, says many federal field agents knew the ATF was walking guns to Mexico, but supervisors told them to back off when they objected. “Clearly, we went too far,” Coulson said. “The question we had among rank and...

The Justice Department withheld records about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s role in healthcare reform, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said Tuesday. Smith pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to provide documents and witnesses about Kagan’s time as solicitor general and her role in preparing to defend President Obama’s healthcare reform law in court. Republicans have clamored for Kagan to recuse herself when the Supreme Court takes up a case challenging the law. Smith said in a letter to Holder that the Justice Department has refused to comply with his requests for documents and interviews about Kagan’s involvement. But...

Where oh where did Corzine’s $630 million go to? The search and rescue teams are all about the mighty financial institutions madly trying to find $630 million of customers money that stupidly and unethically and perhaps illegally was commingled with MF Global’s own capital in order for the firm to stay in business and avoid that deadly credit rating reduction that was one of a number of kisses of death. Is it at JP Morgan? At first, it was announced to be resting easily and safely at the House of Morgan. But, apparently not.

“Congressional Republicans are trying to expand the scope of questions over the disastrous ATF gun-sting operation ‘Fast and Furious’ to Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano, asking her why she never investigated even after suspected guns showed up at the scene of a dead U.S. Border Patrol agent,” The Washington Times reports. “Napolitano responded that her immediate concern was finding the killers of Agent Brian Terry and that she didn't know until the spring of this year that there were indications his death involved weapons that were part of the federal gun trafficking probe,” Politico explains. The first day of...

A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don’t exist. The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist,” rather than citing the relevant exemption. The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who’ve called it “Orwellian” and...

Operation Fast and Furious was a BATF led operation that sold guns to the drug lords in Mexico through intermediaries in a supposed attempt to track the guns and the channels feeding the drug lords. Trouble is, the program actually put over 2000 high powerewd rifles, including 50 caliber sniper rifles, into the hands of the Drug Lords and was not effectively tracking them. Over 1500 of them are still "missing." Ultimately, the Gun Stores involved and the agents themselves became whistleblowers because of their concerns that our own government was, in effect, arming the Mexican Drug Cartels. As a...

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars. In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad...