Scandal: The truth about how and why Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration may yet come out as a court lets a lawsuit proceed.
The lawsuit was brought by Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after the president asserted executive privilege to prevent records about the administration's response to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun-running scandal from being turned over to Congress.
The administration's position was that the oversight committee's demand for information and documents was settled by a Feb. 4, 2011, letter to Congress in which Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch, in response to the investigations by Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Fast and Furious "gun-walking" program run out of ATF's Phoenix office, stated that the "allegation that ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons . . . is false."
The Justice Department refused to turn over any documents after the date of the letter, contending there was nothing more to see and Congress should just move on.
When Oversight sued to get those documents, the administration argued that if the lawsuit were allowed to proceed, every new request for documents would be unjustifiably subject to litigation.
Later, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, in another letter to Congress, wrote: "Facts have come to light during the course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4 letter contains inaccuracies." That letter was formally withdrawn. In other words, the Justice Department lied to Congress in covering up "Fast and Furious."
President Obama's supposed regard for the rule of law hit a new low when, on the eve of a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over these and other documents, he granted his AG's 11th-hour request to hide sought-after documents on Operation Fast and Furious using executive privilege.
"I write now to inform you that the president has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-Feb. 4, 2011, documents," Deputy AG Cole said in a letter that Issa received just before a scheduled hearing and vote. It apparently was not mentioned in a last-minute meeting between Issa and Holder the night before.
Judge Jackson's ruling made it clear that her decision was not on the merits of the lawsuit but on the absurd notion that allowing the suit to proceed would somehow threaten the separation between branches of government and inundate the courts with litigation in subsequent disputes.
"The court rejects the notion that merely hearing this dispute between the branches would undermine the foundation of our government, or that it would lead to the abandonment of all negotiation and accommodation in the future, leaving the courts deluged with subpoena enforcement actions," Jackson wrote.
Two weapons used in the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on Feb. 15, 2011, came from suspects who were under ATF watch but not arrested at the time.
And two Fast and Furious AK-47-type rifles were recovered from the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010, when he was shot by illegal immigrants who were smuggling drugs.
Just what is in those documents that Obama and Holder so desperately want to hide? The Terry and Zapata families and the American people deserve to find out.
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2 comments:
Actually there are two scandals within Fast & Furious, the first is obvious, in that the ATF should have never been allowed to initiate the operation in the first place.
The second scandal has to do with how U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was armed the night he was murdered. Terry and his team were members of BORTAC, which is an elite organization within the Patrol. These are real tactical field operators. In addition to Terry superb training in BORTAC, he was also a former Marine.
If you were ordered to go out and seek an encounter with border bandits, know to be armed and very dangerous, would you load your weapon with less than lethal loads? Terry fired a beanbag round when he engaged the bandits??? Who ordered him to load beanbags? Was someone looking for a live trophy prosecution?
Now David Aguilar, former national chief of the U.S. Border Patrol is in a business partnership with Dennis Burke,the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona. Burke's office supervised Fast & Furious. In the middle of an interview by investigators, questioning Burke about his involvement in Fast & Furious, Burke vomited in his waste paper basket.
Actually there are two scandals within Fast & Furious, the first is obvious, in that the ATF should have never been allowed to initiate the operation in the first place.
The second scandal has to do with how U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was armed the night he was murdered. Terry and his team were members of BORTAC, which is an elite organization within the Patrol. These are real tactical field operators. In addition to Terry superb training in BORTAC, he was also a former Marine.
If you were ordered to go out and seek an encounter with border bandits, know to be armed and very dangerous, would you load your weapon with less than lethal loads? Terry fired a beanbag round when he engaged the bandits??? Who ordered him to load beanbags? Was someone looking for a live trophy prosecution?
Now David Aguilar, former national chief of the U.S. Border Patrol is in a business partnership with Dennis Burke,the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona. Burke's office supervised Fast & Furious. In the middle of an interview by investigators, questioning Burke about his involvement in Fast & Furious, Burke vomited in his waste paper basket.
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