It’s Been Over 7 Years And DOJ Is Still Stiffing The Terry Family

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The family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has been waiting over seven years for the Department of Justice to release documents related to his death. As this tweet by former Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) makes clear, they will have to keep waiting.

That Attorney General Jeff Sessions continues to hide the role of the Department of Justice in the death of Agent Terry is unconscionable. It was what we expected from his predecessors. Frankly, for this and so many more reasons, it is time for Sessions to be sent home to Alabama.

The Terry family was promised back during the presidential campaign by Donald Trump he would get them justice.

They are still waiting.

If you would like to send a message to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, here is the link.

Tweet Of The Day

The tweet of the day comes from BearingArms.com editor Bob Owens. This was in response to a tweet by former Attorney General Eric Holder.

You can see Holder’s full tweet below:

Lest we forget, Holder was found in Contempt of Congress for withholding documents (among other things) during the hearings into Operation Fast and Furious.

As to “acting on command”, one must wonder what current Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s marching orders were from President Obama that she passed on to FBI Director James Comey. Hmm?

She Approves Of Dead Mexicans, Gun Running, And Murdered Federal LEOs

Hillary Clinton is one of the most shameless politicians of this era or any era. If an endorsement or ad will get her just one more vote, she’ll go for it. It doesn’t matter if the person making the endorsement was the most partisan, the most contemptible, the most brutally corrupt Attorney General since the founding of this Republic. A man whose fingerprints were all over an operation to run guns to Mexican cartels so as to build support for gun control. A man who was found in Contempt of Congress. A man who said he supported voting rights but dismissed charges of outright voter intimidation against favored groups. A man who used the Department of Justice as a shakedown machine against corporate America.

Of course, I’m referring to former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Living in western North Carolina, 3/4’s of our broadcast TV comes from the Upstate of South Carolina. I was watching Jeopardy! last night when the ad below came on with Holder’s endorsement of Hillary. The two themes pushed were gun control and voting rights. These are themes that play well with black voters and Hillary needs to lock down the black vote to stave off Bernie Sanders.

Who cares if the endorser and his minions were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the murders of two Federal law enforcement officers, the deaths of a minimum of 300 Mexican nationals, and the arming of Mexican drug cartels through smuggled guns?

Hillary doesn’t. All she cares about is getting one more vote.

Day Two Of Project Gunwalker At Lynch’s Confirmation Hearings

The second day of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Loretta Lynch featured nine witnesses who touched upon a number of things. There were the “Loretta was a great US Attorney and I felt fortunate to work with her comments” from attorney David Barlow and former FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedaryck. There was the “Loretta comes from a good Baptist family” testimony by Rev. Dr. Clarence Newsome. There was the testimony from law professor Stephen Legomsky that said he was “the” expert on immigration law and Obama’s actions on making illegal aliens legal was OK with him.

Then there was what I consider the meat of the day:  the witnesses who described just bad the Department of Justice has gotten, how it has screwed people over, and how it has looked the other way at the abuses of power by the White House. Catherine Englebrecht of True the Vote described how the dogs of war were unleashed on her when she filed applications for non-profit status for two organizations. These “dogs of war” include the IRS, OSHA, the FBI, and BATFE. Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee discussed how the Department of Justice under Eric Holder was actively hostile to local law enforcement. He discussed how Holder and DOJ made the situation in Ferguson, Missouri worse by inserting itself where it had no business. Professor Nicholas Rosenkranz of Georgetown and the Cato Institute spoke about the role of the Attorney General in providing legal advice to the President and how Eric Holder has failed in this regard.

Then there was the testimony of Sharyl Attkisson and Professor Jonathan Turley. They were the bookends, so to speak, as they began and ended the testimony for the day. Leading off was Ms. Attkisson who described how she had been targeted by the Justice Department for her factually accurate reporting on
Operation Fast and Furious (among other things).

When I reported on factual contradictions in the administration’s accounts
regarding Fast and Furious, pushback included a frenzied campaign with White
House officials trying to chill the reporting by calling and emailing my superiors and
colleagues, and using surrogate bloggers to advance false claims. One White House
official got so mad, he angrily cussed me out.

The Justice Department used its authority over building security to handpick
reporters allowed to attend a Fast and Furious briefing, refusing to clear me into the
public Justice Department building.

Advocates had to file a lawsuit to obtain public information about Fast and Furious
improperly withheld under executive privilege. Documents recently released show
emails in which taxpayer paid White House and Justice Department press officials
complained that I was “out of control,” and vowed to call my bosses to try to stop my
reporting.

Let me emphasize that my reporting was factually indisputable. Government
officials weren’t angry because I was doing my job poorly. They were panicked
because I was doing my job well.

While the testimony of Ms. Attkisson was damning, I think the testimony of Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University was even more damning of the Justice Department under Eric Holder. Turley admitted he voted for Obama and supported many of the Administration’s policies. Turley is a DC insider. He appears on Sunday morning talk shows, he writes op-eds, he goes to the insider cocktail parties, and he rubs elbows with the powers that be.

Turley submitted a 26-page written testimony accusing the Justice Department of being the architect of the effort to expand the power of the presidency beyond what was Constitutional. He says that they actively attempt to block legislative authority and Congressional oversight. The most egregious example of this, in Turley’s opinion, and the one that best captures the obstruction of Congress in recent years is Operation Fast and Furious. Turley devotes seven pages of his testimony to it.

However, the controversy that best captures the obstruction of Congress in recent years is
the response of the Obama Administration in the Fast and Furious investigation. The
reason that Fast and Furious is particularly illustrative is for a couple of salient factors.
First, no one (not even General Holder) defends the Fast and Furious operation, which
proved as lethal as it was moronic. It is a prototypical example of a program that is
legitimately a focus of congressional oversight authority. A federal agency was
responsible for facilitating the acquisition of powerful weapons by criminal gangs,
including weapons later used to kill United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in
December 2010. Congress has investigated not only the “gunwalking” operation, but
also what it saw as concealment and obstruction, by the Administration, in its efforts to
investigate the operation. Second, Congress had ample reason to expand its investigation
after the Justice Department sent a letter on February 4, 2011 stating categorically that no
gunwalking had taken place. It was not until December 2011 that Attorney General Holder informed Congress that it had been given false information and the letter was
formally withdrawn. Congress responded by expanding the investigation into the false
information given to it by the Executive Branch and the months of delay before Congress
was informed of the misrepresentation of the facts underlying Fast and Furious. Finally,
the position of the Justice Department on withholding documents has, in my view, been
facially invalid and lacking in any credible good-faith interpretation of the executive
privilege.

Turley goes on to say that one of the most troubling aspects of the Justice Department’s behavior has been its refusal to prosecute the House of Representative’s contempt citation against Eric Holder.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Fast
and Furious
investigation was not just the withholding of non-privileged material but the
later refusal of the Justice Department to submit the alleged violation to a grand jury—
despite a historic vote of the House of Representatives finding General Holder in
contempt. The decision to block any prosecution was a violation of a long-standing agreement between the branches and represents a serious affront to the institutional
authority of this body.

He goes on to attack the Obama Administration’s circular reasoning cited for withholding requested documents saying “I have had criminal defense clients
who would only envy such an ability to cite the basis for a criminal charge as the defense
to a criminal charge.”

I don’t think any of the testimony given in day two of the hearings will derail Ms. Lynch’s confirmation as the next Attorney General. I really have no doubt that she will be confirmed. I see this testimony as more an airing of grievances and an attempt to put the Administration on notice that a Republican-majority Senate – unlike the Democratic-majority Senate run by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) – is watching them.

Biggest Failures Of His Tenure?

Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder named as the biggest failure of his tenure – the lack of more gun control. Moreover, it “weighs heavily” on his mind.

“I think the inability to pass reasonable gun safety laws after the Newtown massacre is something that weighs heavily on my mind,” Holder said during an interview aired on CNN.

I can think of things that should weigh heavier on his mind like 300 dead Mexican nationals and 2 Federal law enforcement officer. And as Katie Pavlich reports, Project Gunwalker AKs were still being found at Arizona crime scenes as late as 2013.

Holder goes on to say:

“And the thought that we could not translate that horror into reasonable — I mean, really reasonable gun safety measures that were supported by the vast majority of the American people is for me something that I take personally as a failure,” he said, “and something that I think we as a society should take as a failure, a glaring failure, that I hope will ultimately be rectified.”

While Holder may look upon this as a failure, those of us who believe that 20,000 existing gun control laws is more than enough (and less would be better) would look upon it as one of the few accomplishments of his reign at DOJ. If Holder really wants to look at failures, he should look at how his tenure at Justice has politicized that department far and above anything that could have been dreamed up by Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell.

Off To The 2014 Gun Rights Policy Conference

I leave in a couple of hours for my flight to Chicago to attend the Gun Rights Policy Conference. It has been a momentous week leading up to the conference.

First, Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain said he would be recommending pre-trial intervention for Shaneen Allen. This comes after the Attorney General John J. Hoffman “clarified” his directive to prosecutors regarding the prosecution of legally licensed visitors to the State of NJ who ran afoul of their onerous laws. And it formally happened yesterday as Ms. Allen stood before NJ Superior Court Judge Michael Donio “who formally put on record that she had been entered into PTI, and that all motions have been withdrawn and all pending court dates — including an Oct. 20 trial — suspended.”

As for Ms. Allen herself, she had this to say:

“I have no words for how I feel,” Shaneen Allen said outside the courtroom. “I won’t be going to jail and can stay home with my kids and get back to my life.”

That includes finding work after losing her three jobs as a result of a felony charge hanging over her head.

Now, she wants to head to nursing school — a plan detoured after she was arrested and jailed for 46 days after she was stopped on the Atlantic City Expressway with her gun.

Frankly, I don’t think this would have been the outcome if she hadn’t been such a sympathetic figure AND if Ray Rice hadn’t gotten a slap on the wrist after brutally knocking out his wife-to-be. It also goes to show that politicians can find ways to act correctly if the heat is high enough.

Second, Alan Gura chalks up another win for the Second Amendment with a case from Pennsylvania.  Binderup v. Holder involved a guy who lost his Second Amendment rights for sleeping with the wrong woman. Dan Binderup had pled guilty to a the misdemeanor crime of “corruption of a minor” which could have carried a five-year sentence. He got a fine and probation. However, under Federal law, you lose your Second Amendment rights if the crime could carry a penalty of more than a year. Dave Hardy give a good explanation of that here. It is a shame that Jefferson Schrader didn’t live long enough to see this decision.

Finally, Eric Holder resigned as Attorney General of the United States. I was so busy with work yesterday I didn’t know about this until the Complementary Spouse came home and told me. As the editorial headline from Investor’s Business Daily said, “Holder’s Exit Not Fast Or Furious Enough”.

In a just world, Eric Holder would be headed to prison. As it is, he’ll become just another Obama Administration alumnus getting his multi-million dollar payday from some business or law firm that wants an “in” with Obama.

More will be written about Holder’s departure in the coming days but right now it is my own departure for Chicago that is more pressing.

UPDATE: After having my first flight cancelled at 8:45 this morning, going to the airport (5 minute drive) and waiting a half hour for a United ticket agent, getting rebooked out of Greenville-Spartanburg, driving to GSP, waiting 3 hours, and then having my second flight cancelled at 4:00 pm, attending this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference will be nothing more than a fond dream. It sucks but it also is a good lesson in the fragility of technology. Who would have thought one suicidal man could have wreaked so much havoc?

Comment Of The Day

The comment of the day comes from an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily. The subject of the editorial was the supposedly lost emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner. She is the IRS official who “took the Fifth” before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with regard to her actions against Tea Party groups. Lerner has also been charged with contempt of Congress but the prosecution of that charge would have to come from the Department of Justice run by Eric Holder.

With regard to Holder, the editorial had this to say:

As in Watergate, more than a few individuals warrant prosecution and incarceration. But that would have to come from Eric Holder’s Justice Department, an organization shown to be as corrupt as the IRS.

Watergate’s John Mitchell was the first attorney general to be convicted and imprisoned due to illegal activities. We suggest that he shouldn’t be the last.

I quite agree. I can think of many reasons that Attorney General Eric Holder should be tried but first and foremost among them would have to be Operation Fast and Furious. Unlike Watergate, two Federal law enforcement officers and over 300 Mexican nationals have been murdered as a result of those guns walked by ATF agents. 

Fat Chance Of This Happening

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Bullet Points for November 18th, a coalition of groups has requested that Attorney General Eric Holder apply the “‘sporting purposes’ exemption to the definition of armor piercing ammunition set forth in the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA).”

The letter accuses ATF of sitting on petitions from ammunition manufacturers for exemptions for ammo made from materials such as brass and copper. While these materials fail the composition test set forth by the Gun Control Act of 1968, the law does provide an exemption for products clearly intended for sporting purposes. Long range target shooting and hunting would both clearly be sporting purposes.

The letter from these groups (seen below) makes a good case for why such ammo should be granted an exemption. That said, I don’t think there is a chance in hell of Eric Holder pushing ATF to act on these petitions. Not only is Holder anti-gun, he tries to portray himself as pro-cop which would cause him to rule out any ammo that could be considered “armor piercing”. It is a sham but it is what it is.

Not Just Walmart Should Be Called

Walmart was the largest of the retailers invited (or summoned as the case may be) to meet with Vice-President Joe Biden’s “gun violence” (sic) task force. A number of other large firearms/sporting goods retailers were at the same meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder held on this past Thursday. It is my understanding that the National Shooting Sports Foundation had requested to be at the same meeting as they represent many independent gun shops but the request was refused.

They included:

Academy Sports and Outdoors
Bass Pro Shops
Big 5 Sporting Goods
Cabela’s
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Dunham’s Sports
Gander Mountain
Sportsman’s Warehouse
Wal-Mart
National Retail Federation

Sen. Chuck Schumer has announced he is contacting them to “voluntarily” stop selling semi-automatic rifles with bad cosmetics while Congress debates a new assault weapon (sic) ban. As Schumer notes:


“Since the Sandy Hook shooting, the sales of assault weapons are skyrocketing,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) told The News.

“We have no idea how many people [buying the guns] are mentally ill, or how many are felons,” he continued. “If Congress passes measures to reduce availability of these weapons, those efforts could be undermined by the purchase of thousands of weapons before then.”

Just like it has been suggested that we call Walmart and express our concerns lest they think it is in their best interest to screw gun owners, I’d suggest we call the rest of the retailers on this list. If Schumer can contact these companies, then there is no reason that we as consumers shouldn’t as well. I have assembled contact information for all of these companies as well as other relevant information.

When you call be respectful and polite but be firm in your stance. You don’t need to argue but merely state your case. Make sure the company knows that you’ll refuse to do business with them in the future if they cave to pressure from the Obama Administration on guns. This is different than a corporate decision decides to stop selling a product due to the profit margins.

Academy Sports and Outdoors

Customer Service: 888-922-2336
Corporate Offices: 281-646-5200
Kevin Chapman is Sr. VP for Store Operations 

Academy’s headquarters is located in Katy, TX. They were bought by buyout firm Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts in 2011. Academy has 131 stores in 11 states. They hold 145 FFLs.

Bass Pro Shops

Customer Service: 800-227-7776
Corporate Offices: 417-873-5000

Johnny Morris is the founder of Bass Pro Shops which is headquartered in Springfield, MO. I suggest contacting Larry Whiteley, Manager of Communications at 417-873-5022. His email is lwhiteley@basspro.com. He heads their public relations staff. Bass Pro Shops holds 53 FFLs.

Big 5 Sporting Goods

Customer Service: 800-898-2994
Corporate Offices: 310-536-0611

Big 5 is headquartered in El Segundo, California. Steven Miller is the CEO. Shane Starr is Sr. VP for Operations. Big 5 is a publicly traded company (BGFV) which trades on the NASDAQ Exchange. They have 413 stores in 12 western states. They hold 389 FFLs.

Cabelas

Customer Service: 800-237-4444
Corporate Offices: 308-254-5505

Cabelas is headquartered in Sidney, Nebraska. They have 40 destination stores in 23 states and 3 Canadian provinces. Thomas Millner, former CEO of Remington and the Freedom Group, has been CEO of Cabelas since 2009. Scott William is the Ex. VP and Chief Marketing Officer. Joe Arterburn is Corporate Communications Manager (308-255-1204) Cabelas is a publicly traded company (CAB) and trades on the NY Stock Exchange. They hold 31 FFLs.

Dick’s Sporting Goods

Customer Service: 877-846-9997
Corporate Office: 724-273-3400

Dick’s Sporting Goods is headquartered in Corapolis, PA. They are publicly traded on the NY Stock Exchange under the symbol DKS. Edward Stack is the CEO and Lauren Hobart is the Chief Marketing Officer and Sr. VP. Dicks has 511 stores in 44 states. They hold 470 FFLs.

On December 18th, Dick’s caved to the perceived pressure after the Newtown shootings and “suspended” sales of all AR-15s in their stores. They also cancelled the pre-orders for the special AR-15 made just for them by Troy Defense. I would suggest calling the corporate offices and letting them know what you think of their corporate cowardice.

Dunham’s Sports

Corporate Offices: 248-674-4975


Email Link

Dunham’s is a sporting goods chain that is primarily in the Mid-West. They are headquartered in Waterford, Michigan and have 180 FFLs.

Gander Mountain

Customer Service: 888-542-6337
Corporate Offices: 651-325-4300

Gander Mountain is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota and has their customer service operation in Greenville, North Carolina. They have 113 stores in 23 states. They also own Overton’s, Gander Mountain Acadmey, and 3 Forks Ranch. David Pratt is Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO while Steven Uline is the Ex. VP for Marketing. They hold 114 FFLs.

Sportsman’s Warehouse

Customer Service: 800-286-3076
Corporate Offices: 801-567-1000 

Sportman’s Warehouse is headquartered in Midvale, Utah. They operate 32 stores in 17 states. Karen Seaman is their Chief Marketing Officer. She can be reached at 801-566-6681 or by email at kseaman@sportsmanswarehouse.com. They have 32 FFLs. 

Sports Authority 

Customer Service:  800.360.8721
Corporate Offices:  303-200-5050

Sports Authority is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado. It has 465 stores in 45 states. The CEO is Darrell Webb who until recently ran Jo-Ann Stores. Greg Waters is the Ex. VP for Merchandising and supervises store operations. They have 169 FFLs which means only about one-third of their stores carry firearms.

Interesting Location Holder Chose To Speculate On Future

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke to law students today at the University of Baltimore Law School and revealed he isn’t sure about staying on as Attorney General.

Of course, while I suppose it would be possible to replace him with someone worse, it would be tough. The blog of LegalTimes.com says some potential candidates would be Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and S. District of NY US Attorney Preet Brahara.

What I found most interesting is that Holder chose the University of Baltimore Law School to make these sentiments known given its dean is Ronald Weich. Weich, you may recall, was the smarmy representative of the Justice Department who appeared many times before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s hearings on Project Gunwalker.  I wonder if this was a sort of payback for Weich for taking so much heat and lying so artfully before the Committee.