The House leadership including Speaker John Boehner sent a letter yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder “demanding full cooperation with the ongoing investigation into the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation and the death of Border Agent Brian Terry.” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was interviewed about this letter by Ginny Simone of NRA News.
Issa speaks to the issue and to the letter in this interview.
Despite not being able to pass a budget in three years, some stuff still does get done in the US Senate. Yesterday, the Senate passed by unanimous consent and without any amendments HR 2668 – the Brian A. Terry Memorial Act. This act will rename the Border Patrol station in Bisbee, AZ, the Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station, in memory of the fallen Border Patrol agent.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) who had this to say on the Senate’s action:
“All of Washington mourned with the Terry family when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry gave his life in the line of duty in 2010. Today we stand just as unified for the purpose of honoring and preserving his legacy.
“The unanimous support with which the Brian A. Terry Memorial Act passed the United States Senate is a tribute to Agent Terry’s career of service to our country and to the Border Patrol’s distinguished history of intrepidity and sacrifice for the sake of homeland security.
“We recognize that Agent Terry’s untimely passing is a tragedy that never should have happened. And while we continue to pursue answers regarding the circumstances surrounding his death, we resolve that his example of bravery and sacrifice will never be forgotten – especially in the city of Bisbee, AZ where he served.”
In his Gun Rights Examiner column today, David Codrea speculates that the bill’s passage may create a political dilemma for President Obama.
“When the bill reaches Obama’s desk, I expect him to invite Brian Terry’s family to the signing,” Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com writes.
That creates an interesting dilemma for the President, particularly because of Terry’s mother calling his Attorney General Eric Holder a “coward” and a “joke,” and especially since the slain agent’s parents filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department and ATF that “seeks $25 million dollars in compensation for Terry’s death.”
David wonders among other things if the White House indeed will invite the Terry family to the signing ceremony or will the lawsuit be used as a reason to just quietly sign the bill without press or family there.
Richard Serrano of the LA Times is reporting that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been given the green light by the GOP House leadership to pursue a Contempt of Congress citation against Attorney General Eric Holder.
The 48-page draft citation is being drawn up by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Top committee officials recently met for most of a day in the House speaker’s office and were given the green light to proceed toward a contempt citation, according to sources who declined to be identified.
If adopted by the GOP-led House, the contempt resolution would be sent to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington or perhaps an independent counsel in an attempt to force the Justice Department to provide tens of thousands of internal documents to the committee.
According to Serrano’s sources, the draft citation says that Holder “obstructed and slowed” the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.
As Katie Pavlich says in her post on this contempt citation, “It’s On.”
I hope they are right as this will be more fun than ridiculing Obama for eating dog.
UPDATE: It seems that CBS and the LA Times might have been a bit premature in their forecast of a contempt citation in the works. Either that, or the Republican leadership has chickened out yet again. If I was a betting man, I’d go with the latter and not the former.
From Matt Boyle at the Daily Caller:
After the initial reports, a House Republican leadership aide told The Daily Caller that the LA Times and CBS reports were inaccurate. The GOP leadership aide said that “while there are very legitimate arguments to be made in favor of such an action [holding Holder in contempt], no decision has been made to move forward with one by the Speaker or by House Republican leaders.”
Initially, a spokesperson for Issa refused TheDC’s request for comment. But just hours after TheDC published a story detailing the appearance of infighting between Issa and Boehner, a House oversight committee spokesperson backed off and said the LA Times and CBS reports were inaccurate as well.
“The Justice Department has not fully cooperated with the investigation into gunwalking that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious,” the committee spokesperson told TheDC. “The House Oversight Committee continues to make necessary preparations to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt if the Justice Department refuses to change course and stop blocking access to critical documents.”
“While the committee continues to move toward consideration of contempt, it is important to note that the next step in the process of contempt must be made by the Oversight Committee,” the spokesperson added. “Reports, based on anonymous sources, that decisions for consideration of contempt on the House floor have already been made are inaccurate.”
Throw into the midst of this an accusation from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that Darrell Issa has political motivations with the possible contempt proceedings. Of course, coming from the likes of Elijah Cummings who has viewed his role in the hearings as to protect the Obama Administration and to promote more gun control, this is rich.
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.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has released Chairman Darrell Issa’s prepared opening statement for today’s hearings into Operation Fast and Furious.
Chairman Issa Hearing Preview Statement
Over the past year, the ATF program known as Operation Fast and Furious has been the subject of a joint investigation by this committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who serves as the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When this investigation began, the Department of Justice took the position that allegations by whistleblowers about reckless tactics and decision making in this operation were false.
Late last year, after months of investigation, the Justice Department finally acknowledged the allegations were true. Fast and Furious was both reckless and flawed.
The Justice Department, however, has been less than forthcoming in cooperating with the efforts of Congressional investigators to determine exactly what happened and who was responsible:
• The Justice Department has delivered fewer than 8% of the 80,000 documents we know it has identified as being related to this flawed operation.
• It has refused to allow investigators access to numerous witnesses who participated in the operation – one witness, after being served with a subpoena, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to protection against self-incrimination rather than answer questions.
• Justice Department now asserts that many documents pertaining to internal discussions and decision making about its response to Operation Fast and Furious are off-limits to investigators.
The American people deserve better from our nation’s top law enforcement agency. Thursday’s hearing will feature the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Eric Holder, who will be asked to explain his decision to withhold this factual evidence from investigators. What he is concerned this information would reveal? Why is the Department trying to keep its internal discussions about Operation Fast and Furious from after February 4, 2011 secret? Why did it take nearly nine months for the Justice Department to acknowledge its earlier denials were false? Why did senior Justice Department officials who knew about and received briefings on the operation fail to stop it? Should Americans have confidence in their chief law enforcement agency even though these same officials remain in their posts?
There is now broad bipartisan agreement that the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has exposed a serious and deadly failure of government. We know that the life of a brave Border Patrol agent has been lost along with countless Mexican citizens who have been victimized by guns from Operation Fast and Furious. Attorney General Holder has acknowledged that the danger created by Fast and Furious will continue for years.
This hearing is not about controversial struggles between gun control advocates and supporters of the Second Amendment. It is about the unifying, and what should be bipartisan, expectation that the Justice Department be held to a high standard and that those who failed to meet this standard should be held accountable. I look forward to Attorney General Holder’s testimony.
Much of the hearings and much of what has been released has been about incompetence which is a start but doesn’t go far enough. I would suggest that this operation could be more accurately be considered a subversion of the Constitution. I may be jaded but I don’t think a reasonable person would conclude that such a Keystone Cops approach to the Mexican drug cartels was ever meant to work. Rather it was meant as a way to build support for greater and greater gun control measures. If one reads John Ross’ Unintended Consequences or Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign and Domestic which are fiction and then compare Operation Fast and Furious to them, the similarities become downright eerie.
Mike Vanderboegh has seen the briefing paper from the Committee titled “Main Justice: Extensive Involvement in Operation Fast and Furious.” Buried within it is evidence that leads to involvement by the FBI in parts of this operation or a concurrent operation called Operation Headshot.
So, since October the committee staff have been aware of the FBI sanitized version of the “one-armed man” and his brother who were their confidential informants, who provided the money to the straw buyers and whom the FBI have been protecting ever since Brian Terry was murdered. But does the Committee draw the obvious conclusion? Have they aggressively probed the FBI on Operation Head Shot? If this pathetic entry is any indication, no, they haven’t. The FBI, it seems, is off limits.
So now you have a troika of agencies – ATF, DEA, and FBI – involved to some degree in Project Gunwalker. Such coordination of effort among agencies doesn’t just happen without a controlling hand from above in Main Justice. This leads me again to say this wasn’t about the cartels but rather about building the case for more gun control. This administration is the most Machiavellian since Richard Nixon and it fits their under the radar approach to these issues.
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.
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.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was on Hannity last night to discuss Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. One of the things he said was this is not going away until they get the truth from Eric Holder. You know, I believe Issa when he says that. No matter how much Holder and the Obama Administration stonewalls, this isn’t going away and it isn’t going to get any better for them.
Tom Gresham on last Sunday’s GunTalk Radio show reiterated his prediction that Holder will be gone by the summer so as not to be an issue in the fall Presidential campaign. He well could be right.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has introduced legislation that would strengthen the protections granted to whistleblowers in the Federal government. This act, HR 3289 – The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011, was introduced yesterday and has 3 co-sponsors including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. While the text of the legislation is not yet available, Issa’s office did release this statement about the bill.
WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced the introduction of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (H.R. 3289). The legislation will strengthen provisions of the Whistleblower Protection Act, originally enacted in 1989, for federal government employees who expose abuse, mismanagement, or criminal activity in federal agencies and programs.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is an original co-sponsor of the legislation, as are Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who sponsored whistleblower protection enhancement legislation last congress. Similar legislation was approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month. You can read a copy of the House legislation here.
“Whistleblowers play critical roles in exposing wrongdoing in government,” said Issa.”Federal employees who discover waste, abuse and mismanagement in their agency need to be able to alert agency leaders and Congress without fear of reprisal from supervisors, and within the confines of the law. This legislation establishes new protections for those who seek lawful ways to address abuse of taxpayer dollars.”
When enacted, the legislation will:
- close judicially-created loopholes in existing whistleblower protection law;
- extend whistleblower protection rights to some 40,000 airport baggage screeners;
- increase avenues for intelligence community whistleblowers to safely and legally expose waste, fraud and abuse at intelligence agencies;
- create specific protection in the law for scientific freedom;
- ensure a permanent anti-gag statute to neutralize classifications like “classifiable,” “sensitive but unclassified,” “sensitive security information” and other poorly defined security labels;
- establish consistency with other remedial employment laws;
- strengthen the Office of Special Counsel’s ability to seek disciplinary accountability against those who retaliate, and provides the OSC with authority to file friend of the court briefs in support of whistleblower rights cases appealed from the administrative level;
- create a pilot program to extend whistleblower protection to non-defense contractors.
The legislation will be considered at a business meeting of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday November 3rd at 9:30 a.m.
Given the retaliation that we have seen against such ATF whistleblowers as John Dodson, Vincent Cefalu, and Jay Dobyns, I think this legislation is an overdue step in the right direction.
Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com did a story a week and a half ago about ATF Agent Jay Dobyns who, after successfully infiltrating the Hell’s Angels, received death threats, threats against his family, and had his house burned to the ground. These threats were ignored by the then head of the Phoenix Field Division William Newell. When Dobyns filed a complaint, Newell retaliated against him. As Pavlich notes as to why this matters:
So why does this matter? Newell was the brainchild of Operation Fast and Furious in the ATF Phoenix Field office. Newell is also the agent who was in regular contact with a member of the White House national security team, Kevin O’Reilly, about the lethal program. Newell also said he would conduct Operation Fast and Furious again, despite two Americans and hundreds of innocent Mexicans dead as a result of the program.
Newell used Dobyns as a test run, to see just how much he could get away with in his management position within ATF before getting reprimanded. Considering nobody was held accountable for the mistakes made in handling death threats against Dobyns, Newell knew he had the green light to do whatever he wanted, at the highest levels of corruption. The Dobyns case empowered him. Newell was protected and defended for ignoring violent death threats against a federal agent, he had free reign to do what he wanted. This gave Newell everything he needed to get away with Operation Fast and Furious, which started in Fall 2009.
If Newell and Gillett had been reprimanded and/or fired when they should have been, we may never had a Project Gunwalker and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry could well still be alive. That sounds like as good a reason as any to see HR 3289 pass and be signed into law.
In an interview with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) characterized Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as recalcitrant and a reluctant witness. She testified before the House Judiciary Committee where she was grilled about Operation Fast and Furious by a number of Republican members of the committee.
Napolitano, at one point likening the questioning to a cross-examination, said repeatedly she only learned of “Fast and Furious” after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December. She emphasized the operation, conceived and run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “was an ATF operation,” under the auspices of the Justice Department, not her department.
Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxbusiness.com”>video.foxbusiness.com</a>
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