Chuck Grassley

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Grassley On The Assertion Of Executive Privilege

June 20, 2012 by

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has responded forcefully to the White House’s claim of executive privilege for the documents involved in Operation Fast and Furious. He says it now raises even more questions.

Senator Chuck Grassley made the following comment about the President’s action today claiming executive privilege in response to congressional oversight of the government’s Fast and Furious gun-walking program. The congressional investigation began with Senator Grassley’s inquiry into whistleblower allegations that the government had allowed the transfer of illegally purchased weapons found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The Department of Justice denied the allegations to Senator Grassley for 10 months before being forced to withdraw its denial in face of evidence to the contrary.

Grassley comment:

“The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions. How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances. The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”

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Grassley On Contempt Charges For Holder

May 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

With news that a draft contempt citation for Attorney General Eric Holder is circulating among members of the House of Representatives, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who has been doggedly pursuing the facts in Project Gunwalker since it first came to light, released a statement concerning it.

From Sen. Grassley’s office:

Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement after information from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee indicated a possible vote about holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Holder has refused to provide subpoenaed documents related to the congressional investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.

Grassley first began investigating alleged gunwalking in January 2011 after whistleblowers came forward to alert Congress about gunwalking in Arizona. The Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder initially denied gunwalking occurred, but have since withdrawn the denials and admitted that ATF whistlebowers were right to complain about the reckless tactic. Despite the constitutional responsibility of Congress to conduct oversight of the executive branch, the Justice Department has stonewalled every step of the investigation. In fact, the Justice Department has provided 80,000 pages of documents to the Inspector General in connection with its investigation of Operation Fast and Furious, but has provided only 6,000 pages of documents to Congress. The department has provided no legal justification for withholding each of those 74,000 pages.

“The subpoena authority of the House Oversight Committee, and the Chairman’s willingness to use it, helped shed light on Operation Fast and Furious and the Justice Department’s desire to allow guns to walk into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Congressman Issa deserves credit for moving forward on contempt. The Attorney General and the Justice Department are thumbing their nose at the constitutional authority provided to the legislative branch to conduct oversight.

“The Attorney General is facing a real test of leadership here. He has a choice to make. He can force the department to come clean, or he can force a high-stakes political conflict between the legislative and executive branches. It’s past time to hold accountable those public officials responsible for our own government’s role in walking guns into the hands of criminals. The family of Agent Terry deserves more than what they’re getting from this administration.”

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There Are No Coincidences

April 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yesterday, the BATFE held a briefing for the media on the results regarding traces of firearms recovered in Mexico. Reporters that attended this briefing were not allowed any cameras, recording devices, or video equipment. They were only allowed pen and paper to take notes. Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com tweeted after the event that the moment they got into the briefing they were given a flash drive with the statistics.

The data released show that 68% of the guns submitted for tracing originated in the United States. Note that is only the guns submitted by the Mexican government. Moreover, as Larry Keane of NSSF pointed out in a tweet early this morning, no mention is made of the “Time to Crime” stat. Thus, you don’t know if the “recovered” firearms traced are ones from Operation Fast and Furious or from a burglary in El Paso in 1997.

The BATFE released this yesterday regarding the briefing on the traces.

ATF Releases Government of Mexico Firearms Trace Data

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the release of trace information for firearms recovered in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing. Trace information shows that between calendar years 2007 and 2011 the Government of Mexico recovered and submitted more than 99,000 firearms to ATF for tracing. Of those firearms more than 68,000 were U.S.-sourced. More complete information will be available on the ATF website.

U.S.-sourced firearms are guns determined by ATF to be manufactured in the United States or legally imported into the United States by a federal firearms licensee. Since 2007, trace data shows a trend in recovered and submitted crime guns from Mexico shifting from pistols and revolvers to rifles. Law enforcement in Mexico now report that certain types of rifles, such as the AK and AR variants with detachable magazines, are used more frequently to commit violent crime by drug trafficking organizations.

ATF is working with its law enforcement partners at every level and the Government of Mexico to keep firearms out of the hands of gang members and criminal enterprises. The Mexico trace data is the result of information provided by the Government of Mexico to ATF about crime guns recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing.

Firearms tracing provides information on the movement of a firearm from its first sale by a manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain in an attempt to identify the first retail purchaser. This information provides investigative leads for criminal investigations.

The Mexico trace data is not the result of any criminal investigation, or investigations, initiated by law enforcement in the United States.

ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC) is the nation’s only crime gun tracing facility. The NTC provides critical information that assists domestic and international law enforcement agencies solve firearms crimes, detect firearms trafficking and identify trends with respect to intrastate, interstate and international movement of crime guns. The NTC traced more than 319,000 crime guns in calendar year 2011.

ATF is dedicated to reducing firearms trafficking and firearms-related violent crime on both sides of the border.

ATF will also release trace information for firearms recovered in Canada and the Caribbean and submitted to ATF for tracing between calendar years 2007 and 2011.

SayUncle had a post yesterday about how the multiple-long arm reporting requirement for the Southwest border states has now resulted in 123 investigations being started in south Texas. This came from an article on Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the ATF emphasized the use of ARs and AKs “with detachable magazines” by the narco-terrorists in their press release.

Yesterday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) had an amendment adopted to the FY13 Commerce, Justice and Science House Appropriations Bill which “would prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from using federal funds to track the purchases of gun owners who buy multiple rifles within a certain time period.”

From Rehberg’s statement on his amendment:

“While President Obama and his allies in Congress continue to undermine the Constitution, and infringe on our gun rights, I’ll keep fighting to ensure those rights are upheld,” said Rehberg, a member of the Second Amendment Task Force. “The ATF continues the effort to implement new gun control regulations without the approval of Congress, and, tragically, those efforts have included breaking our own country’s laws with the ‘Fast and Furious’ program. My amendment tells the Obama Administration that Congress will not tolerate this.”

The ATF regulation, first proposed in December of 2010 and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 11, 2011, requires federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) to file reports with ATF on all sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles within five consecutive business days if the rifles are larger than .22 caliber and use detachable magazines. The requirement applies to dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but could be expanded to other states using the same obscure regulatory process used to create the rule. Information gathered from the dealers will be kept in a federal database for two years. While Congress passed legislation in the 1990s to allow ATF to track multiple-sales of handguns, they did not intend to expand this regulation to include long guns.

I also think it was no coincidence that BATFE held their press conference as Rep. Rehberg was working to amend the appropriation for their agency which would remove their ability to force FFLs in the Southwest to make reports on certain gun sales. The congressional liaison for BATFE (or more appropriately, agency lobbyist) would have known of these hearings and of Rep. Rehberg’s intent to offer his amendment which did pass.

Nothing happens without a reason in Washington. The BATFE press briefing may be seen as a counter-attack on the critics of that agency for both Project Gunwalker and the Administration’s attempt to use regulatory fiat as a gun control measure.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had this to say in a release about the data given out by BATFE yesterday.

“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal. We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”

Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com who did attend the press briefing has a full report on it here. It seems some of her questions were not able to be answered (or they said they didn’t have the data).

UPDATE II: Larry Keane, General Counsel of NSSF, has a blog post up entitled “The Shrinking ‘Vast Majority’: NSSF Responds to ATF Mexican Trace Report.” It dissects the BATFE report and how some politicians and some in the media have played it up.

On the 90% myth:

But it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that many of the firearms recovered and traced come from the United States. That is because U.S. law requires markings on firearms precisely so they can be traced by law enforcement through commerce. It is sort of like tracing the VIN number on cars on a Ford dealership lot and be surprised to learn that most are Fords. What the 90 percent myth does not account for, and the media turns a blind eye to, and what yesterday’s ATF report does not shed light on, is the fact that you know nothing about the firearms recovered in Mexico but were never traced — like the firearms that the 150,000 or so Mexican soldiers took with them when they defected to go work for the drug cartels over the past several years.

On Time to Crime:

Perhaps what is most interesting about ATF’s report is the fact that it does not discuss the “Time to Crime” (TTC) for the Mexican traced firearms. ATF always gives TTC when it issues a tracing report (click here for an example). Why did ATF omit this piece of information? Because it knows that on average firearms (of all types) recovered in Mexico and successfully traced were on average originally sold at retail after a background check more than 15 years ago.

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That Other O’Reilly

March 30, 2012 by 4 Comments

Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) want to hear what O’Reilly has to say. Not Bill O’Reilly who has the show called The O’Reilly Factor but White House staffer Kevin O’Reilly. This was the person with whom Bill Newell, former SAC of the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division, had back channel communications regarding Operation Fast and Furious. Conveniently enough, Kevin O’Reilly moved to the State Department and is now in Iraq on assignment.

Yesterday Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley sent a letter to Kathryn Ruemmler, Counsel to the President, requesting that Mr. O’Reilly be allowed to testify. They note that Mr. O’Reilly’s personal attorney is willing to let him testify if it is allowed by the White House. Moreover, in a break from normal procedures, they are willing to let him testify by phone from Iraq.

What they want Mr. O’Reilly to testify about is the nature of the back channel communications between himself and Bill Newell.

To this day, Newell has failed to disown Fast and Furious or admit the flawed nature of the program. This failure has raised new questions. Was Newell looking for authorization outside of his chain-of-command in order to continue this deadly program? What did O’Reilly know about the objectives and tactics used in Fast and Furious and with whom did he share his knowledge? These answers are gemane to the Committee’s investigation. O’Reilly is the only person capable of supply accurate answers to them.

Of course, as Dave Workman points out, the White House is denying that they knew anything about gun walking. Eric Schultz, the Associate Communications Director, had this to say to FoxNews:

“White House Counsel is reviewing the letter and will respond as appropriate. But broadly speaking, while some personnel in the White House were made aware of ATF’s efforts to combat gun trafficking along the southwest border, including Operation Fast and Furious, there has been no evidence to suggest that anyone at the White House knew about any decision to allow guns to ‘walk’ to Mexico.”

Schultz is the White House staffer or, as I would call him, the punk, who thought his position gave him the right to berate and curse CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson over her coverage of Project Gunwalker. We have come to find out this is standard operating procedure in the Obama White House when they are seeking to kill a story.

Sen. Grassley was interviewed by Jon Scott of FoxNews about his letter and his efforts to get testimony from Mr. O’Reilly. Sen. Grassley says that they have one side of the story from ATF SAC Bill Newell and they need the other side of the story from Kevin O’Reilly. He also said that they were being stonewalled by the White House and that this continual stonewalling leads one to look guilty of something. He has a point there – if the White House has nothing to hide then they should make Kevin O’Reilly available for telephonic testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I’m guessing it isn’t going to happen.

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Grassley Dismisses Cummings’ Attempt At A Whitewash

February 1, 2012 by 1 Comment

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) today dismissed out of hand the attempt by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and the other Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to exonerate senior Department of Justice officials involved in Operation Fast and Furious.

“The idea that senior political appointees have clean hands in these gunwalking scandals doesn’t pass the laugh test, especially considering we’ve seen less than 10 percent of the pages that the Justice Department has provided the Inspector General. They ignored the warning signs and failed to put a stop to it or hold anyone accountable. Lanny Breuer is a senior political appointee, and he admits to knowing about gunwalking as early as April 2010. Documents turned over late Friday night indicate he was still discussing plans to let guns cross the border with Mexican officials on the same day the Department denied to me in writing that ATF would ever let guns walk. He stood mute as this administration fought tooth and nail to keep any of this information from coming out for a year. It will take a lot more than a knee-jerk defense from their political allies in Congress to restore public trust in the leadership of the Justice Department. The American people want to see those who failed to act be held accountable.”

 In his release he pointed to documents which show senior officials not only knew about it but were involved. They can be seen here and here.

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Sen. Chuck Grassley: Facts Are Stubborn Things

November 30, 2011 by

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is taking exception to statements made by Attorney General Eric Holder and his apologists who are saying mistakes made during Operation Fast and Furious did not directly lead to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. In a release sent out today by his office, he says:

Setting the Record Straight on the Department of Justice Oversight Hearing

“Facts are STUBBORN Things”
“…and whatever our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – John Adams, December 1770

Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder, Nov. 8, 2011

Connection Between Fast and Furious and Agent Terry’s Death

Attorney General Holder to Senator Cornyn: “It is not fair, however, to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast and Furious led directly to the death of Agent Terry.”

FACT
According to the FBI, two weapons were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The bullet removed from Agent Terry matched the caliber of those two weapons, not the caliber of the weapons in possession of the Border Patrol agents, so it appears he did not die from friendly fire. Congressional investigators have asked the FBI to explain its theory of the case, since if there was no third gun at the scene and the bullet didn’t come from the Border Patrol, there must still be an unknown third gun which law enforcement has not yet recovered. It is possible that that third gun is not related to Fast and Furious. However, since two guns walked in Fast and Furious were present, it is possible that a third may have been as well. The two found at the scene were both part of a lot of three weapons purchased by known straw buyer Jaime Avila on the same day in January 2010.

Prior to the purchase of the weapons found at the Terry murder scene, Avila had already been identified by the ATF as a likely straw purchaser at least two-and-a-half months earlier. In November 2009 Uriel Patino, the largest purchasing target in Operation Fast and Furious, brought Avila into a cooperating gun dealer to buy five weapons. ATF received real-time notice from the gun dealer and knew the purchases were significant enough that agents rushed to the store to follow them. However, they arrived too late. Yet rather than going to Avila’s address to question him, ATF opted to sit back. Avila continued to purchase through December 2009 and into January 2010.

When the weapons found at the Terry murder scene were bought by Avila on January 16, 2010, the cooperating gun dealer gave the ATF same-day notice via fax. One business day later, the ATF entered the purchases in their Suspect Gun Database. Nevertheless, the ATF still failed to question Avila the day of the purchase, the day the purchase was entered into the Suspect Gun Database—or at all, until Avila was arrested 11 months later in direct response to Agent Terry’s death. The falsification of forms charge for which Avila was arrested on December 15 could have been made months earlier.

Regardless, by using the word ‘directly,’ Holder seems to be echoing the statement of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer: “The tragic truth is that if those criminals who killed Agent Terry had not gotten the guns from this one source, they would have gotten the gun from another source.” That is hardly an excuse for federal law enforcement to watch criminals collect more than a thousand firearms without acting to stop them.

 The link to all the supporting documents can be found here.

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Grassley On Breuer’s Testimony

November 3, 2011 by 2 Comments

Sen. Chuck Grassley was interviewed by Cam Edwards and Ginny Simone about Assistant AG Lanny Breuer’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Grassley said Breuer was a perfect example of what happens to people who try to stonewall Congress on oversight. He said the longer they hold off cooperating, the more egg they will get on their face when the facts eventually come out as they always do.

Holder and the rest of his cronies should heed this advice but I doubt they will.

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Chuck Grassley On The Released Gunwalker Tapes

September 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

Sen. Chuck Grassley was interviewed by Ginny Simone of NRA News about the secret tape recordings of ATF Agent Hope McAllister and Lone Wolf Trading Co. owner Andre Howard. He made an interesting point that the tapes would need to be shared with the straw purchasing defendants under the Brady Rule at some point. However, he went on to say that the trials were a long way in the future and that due to that they shouldn’t have been shared with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona until then. As it is, he said, this will make their investigation harder.