House Committee Accuses Obama, Holder of Hiding Fast and Furious Facts
Give the Terry family the truth
The House Oversight Committee lashed out at former President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder for obstruction over the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. A cartel member used a gun from the ATF and DOJ’s Operation Fast and Furious to kill Terry in December 2010.
From Fox News:
The House Oversight Committee also Wednesday released a scathing, nearly 300-page report that found Holder’s Justice Department tried to hide the facts from the loved ones of slain Border Patrol Brian Terry – seeing his family as more of a “nuisance” than one deserving straight answers – and slamming Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Fast and Furious.
“[Terry’s death] happened on Dec. 14, 2010, and we still don’t have all the answers,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, committee chairman, said of Terry’s death. “Brian Terry’s family should not have to wait six years for answers.”
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“More than five years after Brian’s murder, the Terry family still wonders about key details of Operation Fast and Furious,” the committee’s report states. “The Justice Department’s obstruction of Congress’s investigation contributed to the Terry family’s inability to find answers.”
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) told the Committee that the DOJ and ATF regularly tried to obstruct the investigation and intimidate the whistleblowers who provided evidence of the operation:
“The Department of Justice and ATF had no intention of looking for honest answers and being transparent,” said Grassley, now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch supporter of whistleblowers.
“In fact, from the onset, bureaucrats employed shameless delay tactics to obstruct the investigation.”
ATF Agent John Dodson, one of those whistleblowers, confirmed Grassley’s testimony. He relayed to the Committee that the DOJ has “tried to discredit him by subjecting him to internal investigations, putting him under surveillance, denying him promotions and ostracizing him.” Fox News continued:
“That decision, the single act of standing up and saying, ‘What we are doing is wrong’… instantly took my standing from being that of an agent of the government – to an enemy of the state,” Dodson said. “ATF and DOJ officials implemented an all-out campaign to silence and discredit me… Suffice to say, the last six to seven years at ATF have not been the best for me or my career.”
Terry’s mother Josephine even testified before the Committee. From Cleveland.com:
Josephine Terry, whose border patrol agent son, Brian, was killed in a 2010 gunfight with drug traffickers in the Arizona desert, said probes into his death have been plagued by “cover-ups and deceptions from the very people he served.” She said many of those who spearheaded the gun sales operation got Justice Department promotions and awards.
“Only one possible motivation remains for all of those involved who have covered up Operation Fast and Furious,” said Terry, who testified beside a photograph of her deceased son. “That is to conceal their own shame and disgrace; quite possibly their crimes.”
Did the DOJ Know?
The testimonies by Dodson and Grassley confirm parts in the report that alleged Holder’s DOJ knew about Fast & Furious:
Grassley’s and Dodson’s testimony reinforced findings of the report, which states that the Justice Department knew before Terry’s death that the ATF was “walking” firearms to Mexico and knew the day after the agent’s death that Fast and Furious guns were involved in the shootout — despite denying these facts to the media. It goes on to state that the Justice Department’s internal investigation focused more on spinning the story to avoid negative media coverage than looking into lapses by either the DOJ or ATF.
Several emails revealed in the report appear to indicate that some Justice Department staffers were working to keep information from political appointees at the department.
“I don’t want to jinx it but it really is astounding that the plan worked — so far,” former Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote in an email to Holder, according to the report.
Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson reported these facts over and over during the investigation. In October 2011, she reported documents showed that Holder received briefings about the operation.
Frustration With Trump’s DOJ
To the dismay of the Committee, Attorney General Jeff Sessions “rejected a request from the House Oversight Committee to testify on a Justice Department operation from the Obama era, and will not answer any questions or send officials in his stead, the committee announced Wednesday.”
From Cleveland.com:
Chaffetz and several Democrats said they were upset by a Trump administration directive that federal agencies should ignore information requests from members of Congress, apart from Republican committee chairmen. They observed that Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley began the “Fast and Furious” investigation before he was a committee chairman.
“The Trump administration should acknowledge and respect the constitutional oversight role of every member of Congress regardless of party because we do our oversight in service of the American people – like the Terry family,” said Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch.
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Comments
Ah, so it’s Yrumps fault!!
Typo, or are you filling in for Rags today?
So what? All Congress does is investigate but nothing ever comes of it. I want to see some of these people behind bars, but it doesn’t seem that’s ever going to happen.
Yes. Jail time is the test. The rest is noise for the benighted living between the coasts.
It won’t till we dump the GOPe from holding leadership positions in OUR majority.
Hey, we impeached clinton, didn’t we?
I hope you mean the criminal Congress Critters too!
First off, BRAVO, for this ‘bulleted’ format style of presenting the information.
Secondly, is Mary single? Just kidding! I’ll behave.
Third, NOW republicans find their stones to attack the outrageous abuses of power from the vile administration of former Pres. Lie All the Time?? When these gutless wonders get an indictment from DOJ, wake me up.
Meanwhile, methinks this is more worthless ‘repeal obamacare’ bullsh!t in this matter that will go nowhere.
D) These swamp rats want this new administration, mired in its own turmoil, and with a crippled DOJ, to backhand a previous AG when Congress did NOTHING for the last 6 years?? HAHAHAHAHAHA
That’s no swamp. That’s a sewer!
Its’ our sewer to flush. And we need to flush it.
Trump knows how to handle psychopaths such as they are.
First rule: Ignore them.
Mexico should seek extradition.
Any sign of life from Congress is generally a good thing.
Just don’t expect too much.
but…but.. but… Trump hurt James Comey’s feelings! That’s worse than Watergate, right????
And Trump gets two scoops of ice cream. That was a serious charge too.
And the MSM yawned
Per the Hill’s report, there is some additional info….
“The Justice Department on Monday sent a letter to the House Oversight Committee, explaining that ongoing litigation by committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) prevented the testimony, and saying that the department would not answer questions from other members while in “settlement discussions” with Chaffetz.
“Under these circumstances, we are not in a position to provide additional information in response to your questions, nor to have a Department witness testify about them at a congressional hearing,” the Justice Department wrote.”
So, the DOJ is not refusing to ever testify – just not at this point in time.
Credit where credit is due. The meat of the investigating on Operation Fast & Furious was done by “citizen journalists” (a.k.a. bloggers) David Codrea and the late Mike Vanderboegh, and was originally reported at Examiner.com (David’s authorship there has ended and Examiner.com has deleted his account, but you can still view “A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker'” [link to part 1 of 10] on the Wayback Machine).
Mike and David were the ones who put ATF and DOJ whistleblowers in contact with Sen. Grassley’s office, and who made enough noise that Sharyl Attkisson took note and did her reports.
We the People would never have heard of “Project Gunrunner” or “Operation Fast & Furious” without the dogged investigation and efforts of David and Mike.
Don’t forget clean up atf, that was where the first post occurred. IIRC it was only about 2 or 3 sentences.
atf needs to be disbanded. The leadership is worse than the criminals they’re supposed to be chasing.
Fire the brass, put the field agents into different law enforcement groups.
And not to forget “Operation Wide Receiver”, “Project Gunrunner”, “Operation Castaway”, et al.
http://cleanupatf.org/forums/
Yes, indeed, and thanks for the reminder. 🙂
I’m (somewhat) willing to forgive “Operation Wide Receiver”, not because it was run under the G.W. Bush administration, but because at the time it was an innovative proof-of-concept experiment. I’m somewhat willing to forgive it because they pulled the plug on it quickly when it turned out to be a failure.
The Obama administration’s “Project Gunrunner” and “Operation Fast & Furious”, on the other hand, ostensibly were re-attempts at the failed Wide Receiver concept. However, nothing changed except the scale. This means the brass knew it would fail, and yet they dumped 10-20 times more guns and resources into it, letting them “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Which makes me believe — and I’m not alone in this — that F&F’s stated purpose wasn’t its intended purpose.
I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again: Can a sitting president turn over to Congress documentation previously withheld by a previous president under a claim of executive privilege? I would think the answer “Yes”, because the claim is based on a president’s judgment, and one president’s judgment, legally speaking, is as good as any other’s, so a subsequent president should be able to reverse an earlier president’s decision (as Trump has been unraveling Obama’s executive orders).
Yes. The privilege belongs to the current president, whoever he may be.
Show of hands……..anyone recall the last time inept Rino pols nailed a crooked Dem?
What’s the statute of limitations on these crimes? I wonder if they’re making a show of investigating crimes that can’t be prosecuted.
Uncovering the trail of high-level Democratic obfuscation, corruption and chicanery is a worthy—even vital—goal, even if none of the miscreants are explicitly punished for it.
Though of course Agent Terry might think differently.
It depends on whether they seek prosecution, and for what.
They could make a case for a lot of things. Aiding/abetting murder (Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, both killed using “walked” F&F guns), conspiracy to commit murder, various war crimes (arming the criminal enemies of an allied government), conspiracy against rights (18 U.S.C. 241, for letting the guns out there deliberately so that they would show up at future crime scenes and justify further restrictions on the Second Amendment), and even treason (providing aid to America’s enemies).
AFAIK, conspiracy against rights has no statute of limitations, but I may be wrong. I know for a fact that murder (in all its forms), war crimes, and treason have none.
But I don’t seriously expect any prosecutions for any crimes to come of all this “investigating”. Maybe I’m too cynical, but inaction is SOP on Capitol Hill.