Sean Sorrentino at An NC Gun Blog has come up with a great idea to put some pressure on the Obama Administration over Project Gunwalker.
Senior administration officials will be answering questions submitted on Twitter and other social media. Sean has pre-written Tweets with some pointed questions about Operation Fast and Furious.
Go here to find out more.
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Location:State Of The Union And The Power Of Social Media
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was interviewed by Ginny Simone of NRA News yesterday. The first topic that came up was the plans for AUSA Patrick Cunningham, head of the criminal section of the US Attorney’s Office in Arizona, to refuse to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee because it might incriminate him.
Asked his reaction, Gowdy said his first reaction was stunned silence “which is pretty hard to accomplish with a Member of Congress.” He goes on to say that he never thought he’d see a Federal prosecutor take the Fifth Amendment. Gowdy served as a Federal prosecutor himself for six years earlier in his career.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced that his committee has subpoenaed Patrick J. Cunningham of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. Mr. Cunningham is the Chief of the Criminal Division of that office.
Issa Subpoenas Criminal Division Chief from Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office
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 him of the subpoena. “Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.
“These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used. In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry. Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as ‘fundamentally flawed,’ this position is startling.”
The subpoena requires Cunningham to appear on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 for a deposition.
It will be interesting to see if the Department of Justice will try to fight this subpoena or will they throw Cunningham under the bus like they did former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke.
According to the letter Issa sent to Cunningham informing him of the subpoena, Cunningham had been scheduled to be voluntarily interviewed by the Committee today and had indicated a willingness to cooperate with the Committee as late as last Friday. To me, his sudden refusal to cooperate would seem to indicate either he has a lot to hide or someone on Holder’s staff at DOJ made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. This one will be interesting to follow.
UPDATE: According to a letter released by Patrick Cunningham’s attorney, he will be taking “the 5th” when he appears before the Committee in response to their subpoena. William LaJeunesse has more on it here.
As I said yesterday, this one will be interesting to follow!
UPDATE II: I’ve had time to read and digest the letter from Mr. Cunningham’s attorney Tobin Romero of the DC law firm Williams and Connolly. Williams and Connolly is ranked as the best white collar defense firm in the United States by the Vault Guide.
Romero asserts that Cunningham is caught in a struggle between the DOJ and the Oversight Committee. Moreover, he says he acted in good faith and did nothing wrong. The draft language he submitted to the DOJ for their response to the Committee in February was approved and then not used by the DOJ.
The most interesting part – other than saying that Cunningham will plead the Fifth – is an indication that he is being thrown under the bus by DOJ.
According to your letter, Department of Justice officials ahve reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly.
David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh put up posts last night indicating that three ATF managers implicated in Project Gunwalker have been relieved of their duties in advance of the Office of Inspector General report. It is also in advance of Eric Holder’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 2nd.
According to reports they received, William Hoover, Mark Chait, and William McMahon have been sidelined pending the outcome of the OIG report. From the Gun Rights Examiner:
William Hoover, ATF’s Deputy Director during Fast and Furious, who was recently reassigned as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office, Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait, likewise reassigned as head of the Baltimore Field Office, and Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations William McMahon have reportedly been sidelined pending the outcome of the anticipated report from the Office of Inspector General. Debbie Bullock a mid-level manager has reportedly been advised that she is now the acting SAC for Baltimore, and will assume Chait’s functions.
As they note, this would indicate that they are implicated in the OIG report – which is supposed to be confidential – and that Eric Holder wants to appear before Darrell Issa on February 2nd saying we’ve cleaned things up. Again, from David:
Disciplinary actions could take momentum away from that (a Special Prosecutor). Sources tell Gun Rights Examiner and Sipsey Street Irregulars that “ATF is going to follow the long-awaited OIG report to a ‘t’: If OIG says XX gets terminated, they are going to terminate.” That this would be treated as a personnel matter, subject to disciplinary procedures, as opposed to a criminal matter, subject to prosecution was the topic of a recent post in this column.
Left unsaid is why these three have been singled out prior to the OIG report being submitted, particularly since their sharing findings with the Department of Justice and ATF subjects of their investigation would violate all principles of independence from influence. If that did not happen, a fair conclusion to assume would be that the process of the investigation itself led those answering questions and providing documentation to an inevitable conclusion. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa wrote a December 7 column claiming Attorney General Eric Holder, scheduled to testify again on February 2, was “protecting staff over ‘Fast and Furious’.”
This latest reported development lends itself to the observation that Holder is protecting something else, and that this is a tactical move in anticipation of the report’s release and his next trip to the Hill.
Do these mid-level managers need to go? Sure but they were not the ones who dreamed this whole debacle up in the first place. It was way above their pay grade and level of Machiavellian intrigue.
Conspiculously missing from this list are Ken Melson, George Gillett, David Voth, and Bill Newell. You have to wonder why?
UPDATE: Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters reports on the changes in the Chicago Tribune here. No mention of either David or Mike.
However, the Federal law enforcement webpage, ticklethewire.com, covers it and gives credit for breaking the story to Sipsey Street. They also have the statement given by Scot Thomasson of ATF concerning the changes:
“Taking into consideration the depth and breadth of the Fast and Furious investigation a decision to detail ATF Deputy Assistant Director William McMahon, Special Agents in Charge William Hoover and Mark Chait from operational positions with oversight responsibilities to non-operational positions was made by the Deputy Director Thomas Brandon. These new assignments will remain in effect pending the outcome of the OIG investigation.”
They also notice that all three had been moved once before as a result of Project Gunwalker.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced today that Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to testify before the full committee on February 2nd.
Attorney General Holder to Testify Feb. 2 on DOJ’s Response to Operation Fast and Furious
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa today announced that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been scheduled to testify on February 2 about the Department of Justice’s knowledge of, and response to, gunwalking that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious. The Attorney General will be asked to address management deficiencies within the Department that occurred both during and after the conclusion of Operation Fast and Furious. This will include the Department’s steadfast refusal to disclose information following the February 4, 2011 letter to Senator Grassley, which the Department has withdrawn because it contained false information denying allegations made by whistleblowers about Operation Fast and Furious. The committee’s investigation has found documentation that numerous members of the Justice Department knew the letter to Congress contained false information both before it was sent and later withdrawn.
“The Department of Justice’s conduct in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious has been nothing short of shameful,” said Chairman Issa. “From its initial denials that nothing improper occurred, to efforts to silence whistleblowers who wanted to tell Congress what really happened, to its continuing refusal to discuss or share documents related to this cover-up, the Justice Department has fought tooth and nail to hide the full truth about what occurred and what senior officials knew. Attorney General Holder must explain or reverse course on decisions that appear to put the careers of political appointees ahead of the need for accountability and the Department’s integrity.”
Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley have led the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. In December 2011, the Justice Department explicitly informed the Committee that it would not deliver subpoenaed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious created after February 4, 2011. In interviews with committee investigators, senior Justice Department officials who had management responsibilities for Operation Fast and Furious have also refused to answer questions about decisions and conversations that occurred after February 4, 2011.
The hearing will occur in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. The start time has yet to be determined.
For more information about the committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, visit the website at www.FastandFuriousinvestigation.com.
The question now is which Groundhog Day will this be. Will it be the one in the movie where Bill Murray lives the same day over and over again or in this case Eric Holder tells the same lies over and over?
Or will it be the one where the mainstream media doesn’t see the shadow of the Obama Administration and finally begins to cover the scandal for what it is – an attempt to promote more gun control on the bodies of hundreds of dead Mexicans and two U.S. federal law enforcement officers?
Only time will tell.
David Codrea in his National Gun Rights Examiner column today examines just who will be held accountable at ATF for the abuses of Project Gunwalker. He concludes:
Does anyone seriously believe the long-awaited Office of Inspector General report will do anything to advance criminal charges that demand prosecution of the perpetrators and prison sentences for the convicted, as opposed to supporting the administration meme that these were mere procedural and judgment lapses, best handled by internal personnel policies and outside of public scrutiny?
CNN, though not as bad as MSNBC, has a well-deserved reputation for pandering to the Obama Administration. Given this commentary by Jack Cafferty where he mentions Watergate in connection with Operation Fast and Furious, I wonder how soon before he receives a curse-filled diatribe of a phone call from Tracy Schmaler of the Justice Department?
UPDATE: Bob’s take on this. He is correct that is moves the issue into wider circulation.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that he testify before the committee on January 24th. He was given a choice of six alternate dates for the hearings in either January or February. He is asked to confirm his attendance by January 3rd.
In the letter, Issa explains that the hearing will cover what senior Justice Department officials could have – and should have – done to prevent a reckless program like Operation Fast and Furious.
The full letter can be found here.
This letter puts the ball in Holder’s court as to whether he appears voluntarily before the committee or he is subpoenaed. If it is the latter, I think it devolve into a test of wills between the executive and legislative branches.
In a New York Times political piece that charitably can be described as utter rubbish, Attorney General Eric Holder blames bloggers and conservative commentators for some of his troubles.
But Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing “Washington gotcha” games, portraying them as frequently “conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was” to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light.
While it is hard not to portray the most devious and political Justice Department since Nixon in a bad light, I would disagree with Holder’s partial explanation of why bloggers portray him in such a negative way. As might be expected, Holder is playing the race card.
Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”
The bigger explanation according to Holder is that we are raving conservative ideologues who oppose him over his stands on the issues. Holder also feels that Republicans are after him as a payback for the way John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales were treated by their Democratic critics.
If it is ideological to want accountability for a program that has led to two dead Federal law enforcement officers and untold numbers of Mexican citizens, then I’m an ideologue as are bloggers like Mike Vanderboegh, David Codrea, Dave Workman, and others who have reported on Project Gunwalker.
Eric Holder needs to go if for no other reason than he is living in a fantasy world. What’s worse is the way Charlie Savage and the rest of the mainstream media excuses this behavior. It is the equivalent of the co-dependency between an alcoholic wife beater and a spouse who refuses to press charges despite repeated beatings. Both are sad, pathetic behaviors.
The fallout from Operation Fast and Furious cost Dennis Burke his position as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona back in August.
More recently, in the Friday e-mail dump that preceded Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, an email from Burke expressed his anger at Sen. Chuck Grassley and his staff over their investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. He called them “willing stooges for the Gun Lobby.” His e-mail went on to say:
No commentary by Grassley on the lax laws, nor greedy gun shop owners, nor careless straw purchasers, and not boo about the evil gun traffickers for the Cartels. Nope. Just demonize ATF w/ a strategically-timed repulsive letter e-mailed to the entire press world before we ever saw it.
Burke later issued a groveling apology over his comments.
It should be noted that Burke is not a newcomer to the business of gun control. In an article in the Arizona Republic about the political ramifications on Arizona politicians for supporting gun control, former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), a supporter of the Clinton “Assault Weapons Ban”, had this to say about Dennis Burke:
DeConcini credits Judiciary Committee staff aide Dennis Burke, now the U.S. attorney for Arizona, for much of the work in developing the ban, which became law during DeConcini’s final year in the Senate but expired after 10 years.
Burke also was Senior Policy Analyst for the White House’s Domestic Policy Council from 1995 to 1997. This time overlaps with when Elena Kagan – now Justice Kagan – served as its Deputy Director. It was during this time that Executive Orders were used to further extend the ban on so-called assault weapons and to implement the Brady Act. Given his prior work on the Assault Weapons Ban in the Senate, it would not surprise me that Burke assisted in this effort.
Looking at Burke’s background and his attitude towards gun rights and those who support them, I see this as even further confirmation that the intent of Operation Fast and Furious from the very beginning was to build support for another so-called assault weapons ban. I just don’t think it was coincidental that Operation Fast and Furious was centered in Arizona as opposed to New Mexico or west Texas where the U.S. Attorneys have long careers as prosecutors.
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