Project Gun-walker and the ATF

[twoguns]

More on the impending contempt of congress vote. I only share the info as I read it. I don't believe any of this means much of anything. If we can not hold the nation's "top cop" accountable then we really are without rule of law. Accountable is not a silly contempt charge. Accountable would be criminal prosecutions for all those involved and serious jail time for the guilty parties.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/11/co...t-and-furious/

[TheF00L]

EDIT:
Forgot source citation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...zVV_story.html


Working behind the scenes to avert the contempt charges....reach a compromise...

Justice Department aims to avoid contempt vote on Holder over Fast and Furious

Justice Department officials are working behind the scenes to avert a vote in Congress next week on contempt charges against Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. stemming from the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.

Justice officials are talking to staffers for Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to reach a compromise on the documents that Issa has subpoenaed on the botched “gun walking” operation. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole offered again Monday to meet with Issa, saying, “We believe that an amicable resolution of these matters is achievable.” He also has offered to meet with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Several other current and former Justice officials said they are skeptical that they will be able to stop the contempt vote.

“This is political theater, and it’s been political theater from the beginning,” said Holder’s former spokesman, Matthew Miller. “There is no evidence that the attorney general or senior Justice officials knew anything about the Fast and Furious tactics. I don’t think Chairman Issa wants a solution. He wants a contempt vote.”

Issa, who has consistently denied that his investigation is political, scheduled a contempt-of-Congress vote for June 20. In a statement Monday, he said Holder “has failed to meet his legal obligations” by not providing documents and other information requested in a subpoena issued in October as part of the committee’s investigation. “This comes after repeated warnings to the Attorney General about the consequences of his continued failure to produce subpoenaed documents related to the reckless conduct that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa said.

If the House committee cites Holder for criminal contempt, it would open a process that requires the House speaker to schedule a floor vote. If passed by the full House, the matter would then move to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen Jr., who is an employee of the Justice Department.
Fast and Furious was run out of the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives between 2009 and January 2011, with the legal backing of the U.S. attorney there. Federal agents targeting the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel did not intercept more than 2,000 guns suspected of being bought illegally, in the hope of tracking them to the cartel. The agency lost track of most of the firearms, some of which have been found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.
Two of the guns connected to the operation were found at the crime scene south of Tucson where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

“Mr. Holder has shown his contempt for our constitutional rights, our border, Arizonans and all Americans,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who is the sponsor of a no-confidence resolution on Holder, which has 114 co-sponsors. “We shall now hold him in contempt of Congress.”
During a House hearing last week, Holder said Justice has cooperated for months with Issa’s committee, providing 7,600 pages of documents and making numerous officials available to testify. Holder has testified eight times on Capitol Hill since the controversy began.

“We are deeply troubled by the prospect that the Attorney General will be cited for contempt by your committee, and believe that such action is unwarranted,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a letter to Issa, one of 11 such letters from national organizations to Issa or Boehner.

Issa is pushing for more documents, saying his committee wants to know whether senior officials knew of the Fast and Furious tactic of allowing guns to “walk.” They cite the 80,000 pages of information given to Justice’s inspector general, who is also investigating the gun operation.
Justice officials say that they cannot give Issa material on the ongoing criminal investigation or the court-sealed wiretap applications. They also said that Holder ordered the inspector general to investigate Fast and Furious when he learned of it.
“The Committee has ignored the fundamental — and undeniable — facts that this attorney general put a stop to the misguided tactics, called for an investigation of this flawed operation and instituted reforms to prevent this from happening again,” Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

[twoguns]

Would you please cite the source for the above article?

[twoguns]

David makes and excellent point about the dangers he and MVB face when this entire story is kept out of the mainstream.

http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2012/0...days-post.html

Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A Note About Yesterday's Post
This one, about CBS...

It has been suggested on one forum by someone with no dog in the fight, and who has not invested thousands of hours of their life with the attendant exertion and financial/emotional strain, that "credit" doesn't matter as long as the story gets out.

That's my point: The whole story is NOT getting out when the mainstream press is what controls the megaphone, and as I pointed out, even Wikipedia deletes all references to we who forced people to pay attention and who continue to expose new facets. Sharyl's done great work, but there is plenty she and Fox and all the other reporters and bloggers have not touched on that is only available on mine and Mike's sites. As I wrote recently, there are also stories I have had to spike recently because we're just not big enough fish to be able to do anything about it if retaliation is the government response, so my sources, with Republican squishiness being among other factors, asked me not to post my finished drafts. As their protection is my priority, I of course complied.

On top of that, there's information Mike and I have that we've not yet disclosed--in some cases big stuff that eats at us, that we're itching to get out, and that we just can't yet, and who knows when we'll be able to? As our best defense--because we are small fry--has always been to make noise, believe me when I say that situation makes me feel very vulnerable, because as long as it resides only with us, it is containable. And we're dealing with people who would engineer guns being walked to Mexican criminals here...

Another person suggested we write a book, but that requires an interested publisher, and an advance so that we can eat in the mean time. Speaking of which, that's the reason I keep asking regulars--you who evidently get value from the work because you keep returning--to share the GRE links, and the reason why getting them out to a larger readership is important--at least to me...

Oh, and there's one other great reason why we should just not sit back and say let CBS be the final word on Guwalker. This one. Moonves could pull the plug at any time.
Posted by David Codrea at 6/12/2012 11:13:00 AM

[twoguns]

Eric Holder is one arrogant little prick.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/12/politi...ate/index.html

Holder rejects resignation call at testy Senate hearing
By Dana Bash, Terry Frieden, and Tom Cohen, CNN
updated 12:56 PM EDT, Tue June 12, 2012


Washington (CNN) -- Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday rejected a Republican call to resign, telling a heated Senate hearing that Republicans were trying to score political points instead of addressing significant issues.

Under attack from the outset by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder rejected accusations he was stonewalling congressional investigators on the botched "Fast and Furious" gun-running sting operation and failing to properly investigate recent leaks of classified information.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, leveled the harshest criticism by accusing Holder of misleading Congress over what he and other top Department of Justice officials knew about the Fast and Furious program and refusing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate leaked national security details in recent media reports.

Holder rested his head on one hand as Cornyn recited a litany of allegations involving the attorney general's performance.

"I'm afraid we've come to an impasse," Cornyn said, adding that Holder "violated the public trust" in his view. "With regret, you've left me with no choice but to join those who call for you to resign your office."

Holder responded by calling Cornyn's allegations "almost breathtaking" in their inaccuracies and said: "I don't have any intention of resigning."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that President Barack Obama maintains "absolute confidence" in the attorney general, which Holder noted Tuesday.

Regarding congressional demands for Fast and Furious documents, including a House committee that plans to take up a contempt measure against Holder next week, the attorney general said good-faith efforts to work with the House panel have failed to reach a deal.

"The desire here is not for accommodation, but for political point-making," Holder said, calling such behavior "the thing that turns people off about Washington."

In what appeared to be a coordinated move, Republicans led by veteran Sen. John McCain of Arizona introduced a motion Tuesday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the classified leaks.

At the Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican senators said Holder's decision to appoint two U.S. attorneys to investigate, rather than a special prosecutor, failed to address the seriousness of the violations and represented a Democratic double standard.

The issue sparked angry exchanges between senators, with Chairman Pat Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, both Democrats, taking issue with arguments by Cornyn and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, that Holder was acting improperly.

In response to Democratic support for Holder on the classified leaks investigation, Graham shot back: "If the shoe was on the other foot, you and everyone else on the other side would be crying for appointment of a special counsel."

Holder earlier offered to negotiate with congressional leaders on turning over documents involving Fast and Furious to avoid what he said could become a constitutional crisis. He later modified his characterization of the problem to a possible constitutional conflict.

"I am prepared to make compromises with regards to the documents to be made available," Holder said. At the same time, Holder said congressional Republicans must be open to working out an agreement.

"I've got to have a willing partner," Holder said. "I've extended my hand and I'm waiting to hear back."

The House Oversight Committee will consider the contempt measure against Holder on June 20, said a statement by the panel on Monday. A vote by the panel could occur that day, and the measure would then require approval from the full chamber.

Monday's announcement escalated a high-stakes, election-year face-off over what Republicans say is Holder's failure to respond to a subpoena for Justice documents on the botched operation.

The Justice Department has acknowledged that the program, which allowed illegally purchased guns to "walk" across the border into Mexico, was badly flawed. Such sting operations have now been prohibited.

The department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which lost track of more than a thousand firearms after they crossed the border, found itself under fire when two of the lost weapons turned up at the scene of the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

Terry's family has been among critics of the Holder Justice Department's handling of the case.

On Tuesday, Grassley raised the matter in his opening statement and again in direct questioning of Holder, noting that questions remain almost a year after three whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee about gun-running.

"Here we are, one year later, and the Terry family is still waiting for answers. They're still waiting for justice," the Iowa senator said, noting assertions by House Republicans that sealed requests for wiretaps under the Fast and Furious program showed top officials in the Justice Department knew about the questionable operation long before so far acknowledged.

Holder repeated what he told a House committee last week -- that he read the affidavits and summaries and found no incriminating information.

"You reach conclusions on the basis of hindsight," Holder said. "I try to put myself in the place of people actually looking at the material at the time."

Holder has testified at eight congressional hearings on Operation Fast and Furious, and he has consistently maintained that he knew nothing about the flawed tactics until early last year.

The chairman of the House Oversight Commitee, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, said Monday that the panel wants documents that explain why Holder and the Justice Department decided months later to retract a February 4, 2011, letter to Congress that denied any knowledge by senior officials of improper tactics in the gun-running sting.

The Justice Department slammed the House committee's Monday announcement, calling it "unfortunate and unwarranted."

"From the beginning, Chairman Issa has distorted the facts, ignored testimony and flung inaccurate accusations at the Attorney General and others, and this latest move fits within that tired political playbook that has so many Americans disillusioned with Washington," said spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.

Both Issa and the Justice Department statement said a resolution still could be reached to avoid the contempt measure.

Last week, Holder assigned assigned U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald C. Machen Jr., a Democratic appointee, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein, a holdover GOP appointee, to lead the investigations into the alleged leaks.

McCain and other Republicans are insisting on a special counsel, contending that investigators within the system would face a conflict of interest in pursuing top government officials.

A recent report in The New York Times provided classified details of what it described as a U.S cyberattack targeting Iran's nuclear centrifuge program sparked the bipartisan outrage.

Other recent possible leaks of classified information included details on the administration's efforts to expand its drone program and Obama's involvement in "kill lists" against militants in Yemen and Pakistan.

The public airing of details surrounding a recently disrupted bomb plot in Yemen by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula also angered intelligence and national security officials.

Republicans noted that some articles cited sources who took part in White House meetings, which they said showed that leaks were coming from administration officials.

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican, repeatedly asked Holder how two U.S. attorneys could effectively investigate top national security issues involved in White House meetings cited.

Holder insisted the attorneys he named were dogged prosecutors would follow any lead, no matter where it took them.

Obama has strongly rejected claims that his White House has deliberately leaked secrets to the media, saying the idea was "offensive" and would put Americans at risk.

Graham, however, said Tuesday that the pattern of the administration was to be uncooperative on issues that might embarrass it -- such as Fast and Furious and now the classified leaks.

Holder responded that the administration has prosecuted classified leaks more than any previous administration.

[TheF00L]

Would you please cite the source for the above article?

Can't believe I did that noob mistake. Here it is and will edit that post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...zVV_story.html

[ForwardAssist]

David makes and excellent point about the dangers he and MVB face when this entire story is kept out of the mainstream.

Gary Webb, anyone?

[ForwardAssist]

The Warning in Gary Webb’s Death


December 9, 2011


Special Report: Modern American history is more complete because journalist Gary Webb had the courage to revive the dark story of the Reagan administration’s protection of Nicaraguan Contra cocaine traffickers in the 1980s. However, Webb ultimately paid a terrible price, as Robert Parry reports.



By Robert Parry

Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his brave reporting, which revived the Contra-cocaine scandal in 1996 and forced important admissions out of the Central Intelligence Agency two years later.

But Webb’s suicide on the evening of Dec. 9, 2004, was also a tragic end for one man whose livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a phalanx of major newspapers – the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times– serving as protectors of a corrupt power structure rather than as sources of honest information.


Journalist Gary Webb

In reviewing the story again this year, I was struck by how Webb’s Contra-cocaine experience was, in many ways, a precursor to the subsequent tragedy of the Iraq War.

In the 1980s, the CIA’s analytical division was already showing signs of politicization, especially regarding President Ronald Reagan’s beloved Contras and their war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government – and the U.S. press corps was already bending to the propaganda pressures of a right-wing Republican administration.

Looking back at CIA cables from the early-to-mid-1980s, you can already see the bias dripping from the analytical reports. Any drug accusation against the leftist Sandinistas was accepted without skepticism and usually with strong exaggeration, while the opposite occurred with evidence of Contra cocaine smuggling; then there was endless quibbling and smearing of sources.

So, to put these reports in anything close to an accurate focus, you would need special lenses to correct for all the politicized distortions. Yet, the U.S. news media, which itself was under intense pressure not to appear “liberal,” worsened the Reagan administration’s fun-house reflection of reality and attacked any dissident journalist who wouldn’t go along.

Thus, Americans heard a lot about how the evil Sandinistas were trying to “poison” America’s youth with cocaine, although there was not a single interception of a drug shipment from Nicaragua during the Sandinista reign, except for one planeload of cocaine that the United States flew into and out of Nicaraguan in a clumsy “sting” operation.

On the other hand, substantial evidence of Contra-related cocaine shipments out of Costa Rica and Honduras was kept from the American people with Reagan’s Justice Department and CIA intervening to head off investigations and thus prevent embarrassing disclosures. The chief role of the big newspapers in this upside-down world was to heap ridicule on anyone who told the truth.

During that time frame of the early-to-mid-1980s, the patterns were set for CIA analysts to advance their careers (by giving the president what he wanted) and mainstream journalists to protect theirs (by accepting propaganda). By 2002-2003, these patterns had become deeply engrained, leaving almost no one to protect the American people from a new round of falsehoods – aimed at Iraq.

Though I was not in touch with Webb in the last months of his life in 2004, I have always wondered if he saw this connection between his own valiant efforts to correct the historical record about Contra-cocaine trafficking in 1996 and the victory of lies over truth regarding Iraq’s WMD in 2002-2003.

In the weeks before Webb’s suicide, there also was the intervening fact of George W. Bush’s reelection – and with it, the dashed expectation that the CIA analysts and the mainstream journalists who played along with the Iraq-WMD fabrications might face some serious accountability. At the moment when Webb picked up his father’s pistol and put it to his head, there must have appeared little hope that anything would change.

Indeed, we are now seeing yet another replay of this systematic distortion of information, this time regarding Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons program. Any tidbit of information against Iran is exaggerated, while exculpatory data is downplayed or ignored.

So, it may be timely again to recount what happened to Gary Webb and to reflect on the dangers of allowing this corrupt disinformation system to press ahead unchecked.

Dark Alliance

For me, the tragic story of Gary Webb began in 1996 when he was working on his “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury News. He called me at my home in Arlington, Virginia, because, in 1985, I and my Associated Press colleague Brian Barger had been the first journalists to reveal the scandal of Reagan’s Nicaraguan Contras funding themselves in part by collaborating with drug traffickers.

Webb explained that he had come across evidence that one Contra-connected drug conduit had funneled cocaine into Los Angeles, where it helped fuel the early crack epidemic. Unlike our AP stories a decade earlier — which focused on the Contras helping to ship cocaine from Central America into the United States — Webb said his series would examine what happened to the Contra cocaine after it reached the streets of Los Angeles and other cities.

Besides asking about my recollections of the Contras and their cocaine smuggling, Webb wanted to know why the scandal never gained any real traction in the U.S. national news media. I explained that the ugly facts of the drug trafficking ran up against a determined U.S government campaign to protect the Contras’ image. In the face of that resistance, I said, the major publications — the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post — had chosen to attack the revelations and those behind them rather than to dig up more evidence.

Webb sounded confused by my account, as if I were telling him something that was foreign to his personal experience, something that just didn’t compute. I had a sense of his unstated questions: Why would the prestige newspapers of American journalism behave that way? Why wouldn’t they jump all over a story that important and that sexy, about the CIA working with drug traffickers?

I took a deep breath, sensing that he had no idea of the personal danger he was about to confront. Well, he would have to learn that for himself, I thought. It surely wasn’t my place to warn a journalist away from a significant story just because it carried risks.

So, I simply asked Webb if he had the strong support of his editors. He assured me that he did. I said their backing would be crucial once his story was out. He sounded perplexed, again, as if he didn’t know what to make of my cautionary tone. I wished him the best of luck, thinking that he would need it.

Continued, http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/09...y-webbs-death/

[twoguns]

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogsp...wins-2012.html

Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Outstanding! Sharyl Attkisson wins 2012 Murrow Award.

Congrats to Sharyl & Company!

(CBS News) The CBS Evening News has won a 2012 RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award in the Video Investigative Category. The awards honor excellence in electronic journalism.

CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, producer Chris Scholl and editor Matt Tureck took home the prize for won for Gunwalker.

Never thought the liberal media mavens would notice.

Issa's reaction: “First on the story, CBS and investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson tenaciously fought to bring Americans answers on Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa said. “In looking into the heartbreaking death of Agent Brian Terry, they’ve remained committed to following the facts. It’s encouraging to see CBS awarded for their important investigative reporting.”

"First on the story," huh? Still, Sharyl has my most sincere congratulations.

Posted by Dutchman6 at 7:30 PM

[steelerfan]

My wife heard an audio clip on talk radio the other day with Holder claiming Bush started "fast & furious" & he was only trying to stop it so basically it's Bush's fault