{"id":4130,"date":"2011-07-18T21:11:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2011\/07\/18\/melson-doj-response-to-fast-and-furious\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:15:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:15:32","slug":"melson-doj-response-to-fast-and-furious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=4130","title":{"rendered":"Melson:  DOJ Response to Fast and Furious Investigation Intended to Protect Political Appointees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:17261,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/oversight.house.gov\\\/images\\\/stories\\\/Other_Documents\\\/2011-07-18_DEI__Grassley_to_Holder-DOJ_-_ATF_re_July_6_letter_from_DOJ_re_7-5.pdf&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/oversight.house.gov\\\/images\\\/stories\\\/Other_Documents\\\/2011-07-18_DEI__Grassley_to_Holder-DOJ_-_ATF_re_July_6_letter_from_DOJ_re_7-5.pdf&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Attorney General Eric Holder is not as politically astute as I previously thought despite having been groomed by the Clintons. If he were more politically astute, he would have known better than to make a career bureaucrat the fall-guy for Operation Fast and Furious because they are exceedingly adept at in-fighting. Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson is currently serving in a slot set aside for a political appointee.&nbsp;However, Melson&nbsp;had been a career employee of the Department of Justice&nbsp;from 1983 until 2009 when he was appointed Acting Director with the understanding he would return to the career service. He didn&#8217;t get to the Senior Executive Service on talent and good looks alone.<\/p>\n<p>When Melson was made the designated fall-guy, he balked. Moreover, he began to talk to Congressional investigators which led to today&#8217;s 10-page&nbsp;letter to Holder from Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley asking about &#8220;the smoking gun&#8221; so to speak. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Chairman Issa and Senator Grassley Press Attorney General Holder with Key Testimony<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley today pressed Attorney General Eric Holder about the Justice Department&#8217;s unsatisfactory responses and lack of cooperation with an investigation into the highly controversial Operation Fast and Furious. A letter sent by the two lead investigators highlighted testimony indicating internal disputes within the Justice Department and a statement from the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that the Justice Department is attempting to protect its political appointees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was very frustrating to all of us, and it appears thoroughly to us that the Department is really trying to figure out a way to push the information away from their political appointees at the Department,&#8221; ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson said of his frustration with the Justice Department&#8217;s response to the investigation in a transcribed interview.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Department should not be withholding what Mr. Melson described as the &#8216;smoking gun&#8217; report of investigation or Mr. Melson&#8217;s emails regarding the wiretap applications,&#8221; wrote Issa and Grassley. &#8220;Mr. Melson said he reviewed the affidavits in support of the wiretap applications for the first time after the controversy became public and immediately contacted the Deputy Attorney General&#8217;s office to raise concerns about information in them that was inconsistent with the Department&#8217;s public denials. The Department should also address the serious questions raised by Mr. Melson&#8217;s testimony regarding potential informants for other agencies.&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The<a href=\"http:\/\/oversight.house.gov\/images\/stories\/Other_Documents\/2011-07-18_DEI__Grassley_to_Holder-DOJ_-_ATF_re_July_6_letter_from_DOJ_re_7-5.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> full text of that letter can be found here<\/a>. It is very interesting. The letter and Melson&#8217;s testimony leads one to believe that an active cover-up is in process at DOJ and that documents have been created after the fact.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Eric Holder is not as politically astute as I previously thought despite having been groomed by the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[749,1135,3695,3553],"class_list":["post-4130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chuck-grassley","tag-eric-holder","tag-kenneth-melson","tag-rep-darrell-issa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6993,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130\/revisions\/6993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}