Rep. Elijah Cummings

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Beware The Ides Of July

July 14, 2011 by 1 Comment

Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com who has been done really good reporting lately on Project Gunwalker posted that Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) plan to introduce a new gun control bill on July 15th. According to the ancient Roman calendar, the 15th of July – just like the 15th of March – is the Ides of the month.

U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) will join other members and a leading law enforcement organization for an event Friday, July 15th, 11:00 a.m. at the House Triangle to introduce the “Stop Gun Trafficking and Strengthen Law Enforcement Act,” which establishes a dedicated firearms trafficking statute to empower law enforcement to keep high-powered firearms out of the hands of dangerous criminals, including Mexican drug cartels.

Frankly, other than getting glowing tributes from the opinion pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, I don’t see much of a future for this legislation. It will gain a quick handful of Democrats as co-sponsors and then languish in committee just like Carolyn McCarthy’s HR 308.

As Katie notes,

So let me get this straight, democrats want to punish law abiding Americans and impede on Second Amendment rights with new legislation “to prevent gun trafficking to Mexico,” however, aren’t willing to focus on the ATF and DOJ’s role in deliberately putting high powered firearms into the hands of criminals including Mexican drug cartels?

Katie was the one who broke the story yesterday on the email from Assistant Director for Operations Mark Chait to Bill Newell which suggests that one aim of Project Gunwalker was to build support for the multiple-rifle reporting requirement.

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Of Course He Approves

July 12, 2011 by 2 Comments

Of course Elijah Cummings approves of the new requirement. Asshole.

Cummings Applauds New Reporting Measure to Combat Illegal Gun Trafficking

Washington, DC – Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings issued the following statement in response to Department of Justice’s announcement of the new reporting measure for multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles in select states along the border.

“This is exactly what ATF agents on the ground told Congress — that reporting multiple sales of military-grade assault weapons is a crucial tool to identify and disrupt Mexican drug cartels engaged in gun trafficking. I strongly support ATF’s action, and I plan to introduce legislation with Rep. Maloney to establish a dedicated firearms trafficking statute to provide law enforcement with an additional tool to combat gun traffickers. Congress needs to step up to the plate and empower our law enforcement agents with the tools they need to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals, protect communities on both sides of the border, and to ensure that they are not outgunned.”

Cummings issued an investigative report on June 29 that recommended ATF collect reports of multiple long gun sales based on testimony received from both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials.

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Fisking The Obfuscators

July 1, 2011 by

The Obfuscators, otherwise known as the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, issued a report today entitled Outgunned which sought to shift the blame for Operation Fast and Furious from ATF to gun control laws. As I said yesterday, they are merely diversionary tactics to divert attention from the Obama appointees in the Department of Justice (and maybe DHS) who more than likely authorized this project in order to build support for more gun control in America.

It looks like CNN and the LA Times are buying into it which doesn’t say much for the intelligence and integrity of much of mainstream journalism. CNN took much of what Rep. Elijah Cummings and the rest of Democrats at the “forum” said as gospel and then reported that:

Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told a forum on illegal firearms trafficking he organized Thursday that he knew the recommendations of the new report “will face stiff resistance in Congress and beyond.”

“Before today’s forum even began, it was criticized as a conspiracy to confiscate the firearms of law-abiding citizens, which is ridiculous,” he said.

Cummings also said he and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, would introduce legislation on the reforms called for in the report.

Christine Mai-Duc of the LA Times Washington Bureau ran with an story entitled “Democrats seek crackdown on gun trafficking”. 

Cummings and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said that although the investigation into Fast and Furious was “very important,” they were looking for solutions to the broader problems of gun trafficking in Mexico. In an accompanying report released by Cummings, the Democrats said authorities from the Mexican federal police had told them that as many as 80% of the weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes are traced to the United States.

On a side note, Carolyn Maloney – not be confused with the Queen Bee of gun control, Carolyn McCarthy – is a Greensboro, North Carolina native and graduate of Greensboro College. While my hometown is well rid of her and the people of New York were stupid enough to elect her, she supposedly plans to introduce legislation to “combat trafficking” despite the fact that everything involved in Operation Fast and Furious was already a Federal offense. Go figure.

Fortunately, Bob Owens in an article Pajamas Media tears down the Democrats’ report part by part. He fisks the obfuscators.

Bob notes that Rep. Cummings and the rest of his panel ignore what is at the heart of Project Gunwalker: the deaths of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and the weapons that were allowed to be walked by ATF. Briefly summarizing, the report downplays the serious penalties for engaging in straw purchases, it ignores the role of Obama-appointed U.S. Attorneys and their offices in not wanting to prosecute these crimes, and then they repeat the 90% myth again. They also insist on calling semi-automatic AR-15s and AK-47s “military-grade” weapons based upon their cosmetics and not their performance.

Bob concludes:

“Outgunned: Law Enforcement Agents Warn Congress They Lack Adequate Tools to Counter Illegal Firearms Trafficking” is a purely political document created to advance a dishonest gun control agenda, even in the face of 152+ deaths caused by this same sort of duplicity.

Rep. Elijah Cummings should be ashamed to have issued this report, and he should be pressed to answer for it.

 Indeed he should as should all that are associated with it.

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William Newell, Whistle-Blower?

June 30, 2011 by 4 Comments

William Newell had been the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division and was slated to become the ATF Attache to Mexico. His appointment to the U.S. Embassey in Mexico and his position as SAC of the Phoenix Field Division ended when Project Gunwalker exploded into the national consciousness. As one of the principals behind this so-called attempt to bring down a Mexican drug cartel, it appeared that he would be one of the fall guys.

Newell must have been speaking with George Gillett, former Assistant SAC of the Phoenix Field Division, who abandoned ship earlier this year and became an official whistle-blower. Gillett, who was also deeply involved in Operation Fast and Furious, saw the writing on the wall. Now it is obvious that Newell did too.

Buried within the usual gun control drivel of the House Oversight Committee Democrats’ report “Outgunned” was this tidbit.

Committee staff also conducted a transcribed interviewed of William Newell, the former Special Agent-in-Charge of the Phoenix Field Division. When asked how the lack of a firearms-trafficking statute impacts his work, he stated:

So when you have a firearm that’s taken from lawful commerce into unlawful commerce, that technically is the definition of firearms trafficking, by my understanding or under our definition. So, not having a statute that would address a pattern of activity by a group of individuals that are engaged in some form of diversion of firearms from legal to illegal creates a situation for us where we have to go and look at each individual transaction by a particular purchaser.

What Newell said is actually irrelevant. That he was interviewed by investigators of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is relevant. According to the footnote, he was interviewed on June 8, 2011. It does not say whether his interview was given under whistle-blower status or whether he was served with a subpoena.

From a strategic standpoint, I’m not sure how smart it was on the part of the Democrats to let the cat out of the bag that Newell had been interviewed. He becomes the highest ranking ATF official so far to go on record about Operation Fast and Furious. Knowing that Newell has testified makes it less likely that Acting Director Kenneth Melson will hold back when he is interviewed in July by House and Senate investigators.

If the goal of Rep. Elijah Cummings and the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee was to divert attention from the poltical higher-ups in the Justice Department – who were all put there by the Obama Administration – then they have just failed. If Kenneth Melson is the John Dean of Project Gunwalker, then what is Bill Newell? The Charles Colson or G. Gordon Liddy?

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A Forum And Then A Report? Not For Elijah Cummings

June 30, 2011 by 2 Comments

In the normal course of events, a group holds their hearing, forum, or fact-gathering event and then issues a report even if that report’s “evidence” is pre-ordained. That obviously is just too slow for Rep. Elijah Cummings and the Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who are holding their forum at 10 am this morning.

Thanks to the Washington Post and their admitted plagarist Sari Horwitz, we now have the “report” from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. You see if you write for Pravda on the Potomac and you are needed to attack Project Gunwalker, you get your copy of the so-called report before the rest of us whose tax money paid for it. If you were to check the Minority page of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s website, you would not see this report.

Screen Capture Taken at 8:05 EDT On Thursday, June 30th

You can see the “report” embedded below. Next time you’d think their mainstream media mouthpieces might wait until the actual forum had been held. Jeez!

Firearms Report 063011(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();

H/T Mike Vanderboegh

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Diversionary Tactics (Updated)

June 30, 2011 by 1 Comment

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has come through on his promise to hold hearings on gun control and the ATF. If you will remember from the June 15th hearing into Operation Fast and Furious, he said he would be exercising his right for a Minority day of hearings. From Cummings’ opening statement:

Finally, no legitimate examination of this issue will be complete without analyzing our nation’s gun laws, which allow tens of thousands of assault weapons to flood into Mexico from the United States every year, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, multiple AK variants, and scores of others, some of them landing in neighborhoods like mine, the one I represent in Baltimore. When Mexican President Calderon addressed Congress in May, he pleaded for us to stop fielding a full- scale drug war with military-grade assault weapons.

In order to explore these issues further today, I’m exercising my right under the rules, Mr. Chairman, of the House for a minority day of hearings with several witnesses who will testify about these issues in great detail. I did not think it was necessary to call these witnesses for today’s hearing, but I will work with the chairman on scheduling these hearings in the near future.

Those hearings are scheduled for tomorrow at 10am EDT according to reports in the Houston Chronicle and the website Main Justice. From the Houston Chronicle:

★ Thursday: Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will hold a forum on the flow of illegal guns on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. The forum will be held at 10 a.m. EDT in the Russell Senate Office Building.

Rep. Cummings has not posted a release or notice about the hearings on the House Oversight Committee’s website. However, Main Justice had this to report on the hearing speakers:

Speakers at the minority hearing will include Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), a retired ATF agent, and several gun control advocates.

 It seems Cummings is keeping a tight lid on just who the “retired ATF agent, and several gun control advocates” are. If I had to make an educated guess, the retired ATF agent is probably “Waco Jim” Cavanaugh who just last week had an op-ed in TickleTheWire saying that the ATF director should be not be subject to Presidential appointment and subsequent Senate confirmation. Among the gun control advocates will probably be Paul Helmke in his last hurrah before he leaves as head of the Brady Campaign. Of course, this is just speculation.

This “hearing” will be just another in the diversionary tactics being employed to divert attention from Project Gunwalker and on the “need” for more gun control. The Washington Post’s ridiculous editorial from Sunday could also be put in this category. For a less diplomatic description of the hearings, I think Mike captures it with his headline here.

UPDATE: Well, I was right about Paul Helmke being there but wrong about “Waco Jim”. The complete list of people “testifying” is below:

Senator Charles Schumer (NY)
Michael R. Bouchard, former Assistant Director Field Operations, ATF
Thomas Mahoney, Assistant State’s Attorney Supervisor, Gang Prosecution Unit, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office
Eric Olson, Senior Associate, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Kristen Rand, Legislative Director, Violence Policy Center
Paul Helmke, President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Colby Goodman, Author of “U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico: New Data and Insights Illuminate Key Trends and Challenges”

  Cummings says the aim of the forum – which I suppose means the testimony is not sworn – will be:

Law enforcement officials have testified that improvements to our nation’s gun laws are needed to address this increasingly devastating problem, including enhanced penalties for illegal straw purchases, the enactment of a firearms trafficking statute, and a reporting requirement for the purchase of multiple long guns, such as fifty caliber assault weapons and multiple AK variants.

Cummings will issue a report with recommendations to provide U.S. law enforcement with the tools needed to address gun trafficking.

Recent editorials in the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times reiterate the need for basic, common-sense improvements to assist law enforcement officials counter violence by international drug cartels operating along the southwest border.

You have to wonder if the testimony would be the exactly the same if it was sworn and perjury charges could be brought.

Mike has more on the witnesses and their background especially former ATF official Michael Bouchard.

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“Felony Stupid”

June 16, 2011 by 2 Comments

If you haven’t heard or seen a good rant in a while, here is your chance. The C-Span video below is from the third portion of today’s hearings held by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

After Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich reads his prepared testimony, Chairman Darrell Issa starts to light into him with a vengeance. It was beautiful to see Weich squirm knowing he had to sit there and take it. The relevant parts of the video run from the 7:15 mark up to about 12:47 mark. If the video was able to be excerpted – or if I knew how! – I would have presented that alone.

I was disgusted by the obsequious apology from Ranking Member Cummings to Weich when it was Cummings turn to speak. He certainly never apologized for his behavior in many of the hearings he held when he was Chairman of the Committee and it was not his place to apologize for Issa’s comments. I think darn near anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis would have said much worse and would not have been as restrained as Chairman Issa.