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Issa Issues Subpoena To Head Of Criminal Division Of US Attorney’s Office In AZ (update)

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

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.

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If Only The Colonel Were Still Alive

January 20, 2012 by 3 Comments

The Educational Fund To Stop Gun Violence, the 503(c)3 arm of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, has a website called MeetTheNRA.org. Their goal is to publish (out of context) quotes in an effort to discredit current and former members of the NRA Board as being conservative radicals, racists, and insurrectionists.

The screen cap below is from today in their effort to smear the late Col. Jeff Cooper.

What Col. Cooper actually wrote in his Commentaries, Vol. 4, was this:

Clearly propaganda is more potent than truth. Take this matter of Guernica, for example. Pablo Picasso, one of the more significant propagandists of the left, made a very successful point in claiming that the town of Guernica had been flattened from the air by the German Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War − this being an atrocity since the town had no strategic value. This point was accepted by the world press, and is now considered a fact, even for inclusion in encyclopedias.

For those who have access to the official records it is clear that the Condor Legion had been grounded for two weeks prior to the occupation of the city by the Nationalist forces. Moreover, the German light bombers did not have the technical capacity for “carpet bombing,” as later practiced by the Allies in Europe. Most conclusive, however, was the fact that there were no bomb craters in the streets. The buildings were pretty well demolished, but this was done from inside them. It is obviously impossible to flatten a town from the air without hitting any of the streets, but now, to the amazement of the well−informed, the German government is proposing to pay an indemnity to Spain for an atrocity never committed. Such goings on!

Now Col. Cooper served as an officer in the US Marine Corps during both WWII and the Korean Conflict. Moreover, he had a graduate degree in history to complement his undergraduate degree from Stanford in political science. I happen to think that a military officer, especially one trained as a historian, is somewhat more likely to have seen the official reports and to have made sense of them than a hoplophobe like Ladd Everitt who wasn’t even born when Kennedy was killed.

Now I will acknowledge that there is a significant difference of opinion about what really happened at Guernica especially among historians so the Colonel could be wrong in his assessment. Jeff Cooper was reputed to be a man of strong opinions, somewhat cranky and irascible, but brilliant nonetheless. If he were alive today, the intellectual flaying he would have given the small-minded gun prohibitionist hoplophobes at the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence and CSGV would have been a thing of beauty. It is a pity he didn’t live long enough to apply it.

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2012 SHOT Show – Steyr

January 19, 2012 by

I will admit I am a sucker for Steyr products. I have an old Mannlicher-Schoenauer Model 1910 which is one of favorite rifles from the butter-knife bolt handle to the rotary magazine. Their new stuff isn’t bad either.

The guys from Guns and Ammo checked out the Steyr Aug A3 and the Steyr M-A1 pistol in .40S&W. I have never shot a bullpup so I can’t say whether I would like one or not. Nonetheless, the ease with which they were able to take off the barrel for cleaning was impressive.

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2012 SHOT Show – Day 2, Downrange TV

January 19, 2012 by

Michael Bane continues his video coverage of the 2012 SHOT Show. Some of the items he featured for Day 2 are the Heizer Double-Tap derringer, lasers from Crimson Trace, Windham Weaponry, the Sig 938, and a knife from Remington that uses 1911 grips.

Speaking of Heizer, when I was in St. Louis over the holidays I passed a small industrial building near Arnold that said “Heizer”. I am wondering if this was where the Doube-Tap is made or some facility. I’m thinking a request for a factory tour may be in order.