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Showing posts with label US Rep Darrel Issa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Rep Darrel Issa. Show all posts
Chris Wallace, Jon Stewart Examine Fast and Furious, Executive Privilege
Some great video related to "Fast and Furious," everybody's favorite gun running cover up scandal. First, Rep. Darrel Issa on Fast and Furious with Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace. Then, Jon Stewart looks at the issue of Comrade Supreme Leader Obama's claim of executive privilege relating to documents withheld by Eric Holder and the Department of Justice. Stewart calls his examination of the whole sordid affair "Glocks and Spiels," and is followed immediately by a mock game show called "Differentiate Your Party's Assertion of Executive Privilege From the Previous Administration's."
Holder's Cloak Shredded By Issa's Dagger
June 7, 2012 - Sparks flew in a Congressional hearing about Operation Fast and Furious by the House Judiciary committee today. That's the the gun-running scandal that has U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder playing defense. He is accused by Republicans of knowing more about it that he has admitted, and of covering up what they accuse him of knowing. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) laid into Holder during the hearing.
Issa accused Holder of nothing producing enough evidence to the committee.
Angry, he said to Holder that "since May 18th, nothing, nothing has come from your department, not one shred of paper."
Issa then asked Holder, "Have you and your attorneys produced, internally, the materials responsive to the subpoenas?" Holder responded, "We believe that we have responded to the subpoenas," at which point Issa angrily interrupted him.
"No, Mr Attorney General, you're not a good witness," Issa scolded. "A good witness answers the questions asked. So let's go back again." Have you, and your attorneys, produced internally, the materials responsive - in other words, have you taken the time to look up our subpoena and find out what material you have responsive to it or have you simply invented a privilege that doesn't exist?"
Issa has asked the DOJ for the documents, reports The Hill today, "including wiretap applications it used in the botched federal gun-tracking Operation Fast and Furious, for months." He has "taken preliminary steps to move contempt-of-Congress citations against Holder, but it remains unclear if GOP leaders support that move."
ISSA'S MOLE AT JUSTICE:
Issa has a secret weapon against Holder, however. It has been revealed that he has been getting valuable documents from a mole inside of Holder's Department of Justice. "Issa," reports The Hill, "says the documents show top-ranking DOJ officials signing off on the condemned 'gun-walking' tactics used in the failed operation. Senior DOJ officials have repeatedly denied that they approved the botched initiative." The Hill says that Issa has "apparently broken no laws by being given the information" by his mole, and that the documents have not yet been made public.
Related:
Angry, he said to Holder that "since May 18th, nothing, nothing has come from your department, not one shred of paper."
Issa then asked Holder, "Have you and your attorneys produced, internally, the materials responsive to the subpoenas?" Holder responded, "We believe that we have responded to the subpoenas," at which point Issa angrily interrupted him.
"No, Mr Attorney General, you're not a good witness," Issa scolded. "A good witness answers the questions asked. So let's go back again." Have you, and your attorneys, produced internally, the materials responsive - in other words, have you taken the time to look up our subpoena and find out what material you have responsive to it or have you simply invented a privilege that doesn't exist?"
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| Digging for truth at Justice |
ISSA'S MOLE AT JUSTICE:
Issa has a secret weapon against Holder, however. It has been revealed that he has been getting valuable documents from a mole inside of Holder's Department of Justice. "Issa," reports The Hill, "says the documents show top-ranking DOJ officials signing off on the condemned 'gun-walking' tactics used in the failed operation. Senior DOJ officials have repeatedly denied that they approved the botched initiative." The Hill says that Issa has "apparently broken no laws by being given the information" by his mole, and that the documents have not yet been made public.
Related:
Breaking: DOJ Source Leaks Fast and Furious Documents
March 24, 2012 - A developing story this afternoon says that a source at the Department of Justice has been leaking documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal. The source has provided the documents to Congressional investigators, says Fox News."The investigation of Operation Fast and Furious escalated this past week," Fox News reports, which "learned a leak at the Justice Department is providing documents to the Congressional investigators. The scope of investigation also includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which records show failed to tell ATF its own confidential informants were helping finance the illegal gun purchases."
This latest news comes on the heels of the news that Manuel Celis-Acosta, the chief suspect in the ATF’s "Fast and Furious" investigation, had been caught but released at the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2010. The Los Angeles Times reported two days ago that Celis-Acosta "was also stopped and released two months earlier while in possession of a Colt .38-caliber pistol purchased illegally under the gun-tracking operation."
"The revelation that officials twice declined to arrest their prime suspect," says the March 22 LA Times story, "shows that agents were keenly aware of Celis-Acosta’s activities yet repeatedly turned down opportunities to charge him with felony offenses and bring a quick end to the Fast and Furious probe. Instead, the investigation dragged on for months more, with the loss of about 1,700 U.S. firearms on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border."
The leaked DOJ documents, says Anthony Martin today at The Examiner, "would be a major break in the case and would fuel an escalation in the investigation into the scandal in which the Obama Administration placed U.S. guns directly into the hands of Mexican criminals in order to make a case for new gun control laws."
"Fast and Furious was launched Oct. 31, 2009, and ran until a month after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in December 2010. Two Fast and Furious assault weapons were recovered after his slaying near the border," says the LA Times. "The congressional leaders said they learned of the gun arrest from a list of “Overt Acts” of gun-smuggling suspects that was compiled by an ATF official during Fast and Furious."
The ensuing investigation has produced more frustration than information, it seems.
There are some who have accused U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder of obstructing the Congressional investigation of Fast and Furious, some even calling for his resignation or impeachment. In fact, more than 100 members of Congress want Holder to resign.
Republicans are not the only ones who are critical of Holder. The Daily Caller reported yesterday that two House Democrats are now demanding that Holder’s Department of Justice "release findings from an internal investigation into Operation Fast and Furious before the upcoming November election."
Those congressmen are Reps. Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Gene Green (D-TX). The Daily Caller says that they "told The Washington Times’ Kerry Picket that they want the inspector general to release her report before the election to ensure that any officials from President Barack Obama’s administration who are responsible for Fast and Furious are held accountable."
NEW: "Arrest Eric Holder" T-Shirts!
Breaking: Darrell Issa Threatens Eric Holder With Contempt, Demands Fast and Furious Documents
"In a letter to Holder," says Politico, "Issa wrote that “this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress” if Holder and the DOJ didn’t produce documents they demanded relating to the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. Holder has until Thursday, Feb. 9. to comply, according to Issa." More at politico.com...
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| Fast and Furious victim: Agent Brian Terry |
For those of you who still don't know about "Fast and Furious," here's a nice summary by the Washington Examiner:
"Fast and Furious is the Justice Department program that allowed thousands of weapons to be sold in 2009 to known buyers for Mexican drug cartels in the hope that the tainted guns would show up at future crime scenes. The department's cockeyed theory was that the "walked" weapons would enable authorities to tie the drug bosses to specific crimes in the United States and Mexico. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats lost track of the weapons until it was too late."
Too late, that is, for murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry who was killed with one of those weapons. (A second suspect was arrested yesterday for Agent Terry's murder.)
"Now," says the Examiner, "Holder wants Americans to believe an obvious fantasy, namely that he didn't know about Fast and Furious until witch-hunting House Republicans made it a highly charged partisan issue a few months ago. But after reviewing new emails made public by the Justice Department last Friday, it seems clear that accepting Holder's claim at face value would be credulous in the extreme."
In other words, Holder is lying through his pearly whites.
HOUSE VOTES TO DEFUND ACORN, 375-75
Via Andrew Breitbart's Big Government site:
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) offered the Defund-ACORN bill to the Student Loans bill.
The House vote convincingly to cut ALL federal funds to ACORN.
Vote: 375 to 75. Complete results here.
ALSO SEE:
House votes to cut off ACORN funding - Boston Globe
House votes to de-fund ACORN - msnbc.com
ACORN vows to keep fighting after video controversy - The Detroit News
Issa: We're Only at Tip of the Iceberg on ACORN's Criminal Activity - FoxNews video
ACORN was in Boise, but isn't any longer - IdahoStatesman.com
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Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?
Some of you will be shocked by this report. Others of you will say, "Well, this is really no surprise."
Here is the full, still-hot "Staff Report to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform" (PDF, 88 pages) by the committee's ranking member, Darrell Issa (CA-49).
Here is a brief excerpt from the Executive Summary of the 88-page document:
Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act. The report that follows presents evidence obtained from former ACORN insiders that completes the picture of a criminal enterprise.
RELATED:
ACORN's Labor Pains
The criminal case against ACORN
YouTube - Issa: ACORN Is Structured To Be A Criminal Shell Game
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