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Politics : Fast and Furious-----Obama/Holder Gun Running Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wayners who wrote (54)	10/12/2011 9:40:52 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 749

Bachmann calls on Holder to resign. Romney dodges. ....................................................................................................... Gunwalker: GOP Hopefuls Weigh In October 11, 2011 by Bob Owens pajamasmedia.com As pressure continues to mount on Attorney General Eric Holder for his role in a plot to arm Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel to support the 90-percent lie, Republican presidential contenders are finally being asked about their position on the scandal. Michele Bachmann told reporters after a town hall meeting Monday morning that if the facts are as they seem, the attorney general must step down: “This is an extremely serious set of facts that we’re looking at,” Bachmann said when The Daily Caller asked if Holder should resign. “There needs to be a full investigation. And surely he should resign … if the facts prove to be what they appear to be.” Bachmann became the first Republican presidential hopeful to call for Holder to potentially step down. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, also campaigning Monday, was asked whether he would call upon Holder to resign over the gun-walking scandal. He dodged the “yes-or-no” question for a painful 35 seconds: “Governor, should Eric Holder resign over ‘Fast and Furious’? That’s a yes-or-no question, governor.” After Romney initially ignored the question, The Daily Caller asked it a second time. Romney wheeled around, took a break from shaking hands, signing autographs and answering voters’ questions, and took 35 seconds to explain why he wouldn’t answer the yes-or-no question. “I do press [availabilities] and then I answer questions, that are important questions, in the length that I want to do,” Romney said. “But what I don’t do is in a group like this is stop and rattle off questions to people just as we walk along.” “So that way,” he continued, “you don’t get the chance to hear the full answer that I’d like to give. So those are important questions. I’ll be happy to address them in a press avail or at the town meeting. But in these events, at events like this I don’t take press questions, because it doesn’t give you or me the chance to have a full discussion of the topic, when particularly it’s an important one like that.” Romney and Bachmann, along with the other GOP hopefuls, will participate in the 90-minute Washington Post/Bloomberg debate tonight in New Hampshire. The furor over Operation and Fast and Furious and other alleged gunwalking operations has escalated significantly since the last Republican debate, and tonight may offer the first chance to see the candidates forced to answer questions about the plot, the administration’s attempts to stonewall the investigation, and whether or not Attorney General Holder should resign. Herman Cain, the long-shot turned first-tier candidate, seems to have the most to gain or lose with his opinion on the scandal. Cain’s position on gun rights has been described as “soft” and a weak point in the conservative businessman’s base appeal. Texas Governor Rick Perry, another top tier candidate, would be expected to take a strong stance, and should be good for a soundbite should the question come about during the debate. Life goes on outside of the 2012 race, and Holder is being excoriated there as well. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa used his strongest language yet yesterday, stopping just short of calling him a criminal: These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011. Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come. Issa’s letter mirrors the thoughts of other public officials and an increasing number of media figures. An unsigned op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner cites the constantly changing series of excuses from the Department of Justice, and calls for Holder to fire his aides or be fired himself. Writing in the Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen described Holder as “Obama’s albatross,” and ripped his entire tenure as U.S. attorney general as a series of catastrophic failures. David Zurawik noted in the Baltimore Sun that the administration’s handing of the gunwalking scandal shows contempt for “real reporters” that actually ask the hard questions. This was a criticism of both the White House and the majority of mainstream media outlets that have done everything in their power to minimize or ignore the story — when they weren’t posting political hatchet jobs on behalf of the administration, as the New York Times and Washington Post have both done. Issa continues to ramp up the pressure on Holder and the Department of Justice, and may issue subpoenas as early as today. Subpoenas would call on Holder to turn over documents he’s so far withheld, to testify under oath again in front of Congress, and would also request communications about the plot from over a dozen senior DOJ employees that may have been involved.

To: Wayners who wrote (54)	10/14/2011 12:54:59 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 749

Is the White House instructing the Justice Department what gunrunner documents to release? In Holder Subpoena, Issa Also Probes White House Press Aide By Jonathan Strong Roll Call Staff Oct. 14, 2011 rollcall.com House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) made headlines this week by issuing a subpoena for documents from Attorney General Eric Holder about a botched weapons investigation, but Holder is apparently not Issa’s only target. A little-noticed provision of the subpoena targets the White House, specifically naming Eric Schultz, a communications aide who was hired in May to respond to media inquiries on oversight matters. Issa issued the subpoena as part of his investigation into a program called Fast and Furious, which whistle-blowers have described as allowing assault weapons and military-grade sniper rifles to transfer into criminal networks. The subpoena demands “all communications” to or from Holder and 15 other top Justice Department officials on Fast and Furious, as well as every weekly update memo to Holder on any topic over a nearly two-year period. Issa contends that Holder may have learned about the program much earlier than he has acknowledged, and the California Republican been conducting a blitz of media interviews making that point. The subpoena also requires Holder to produce “all communications between and among Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and Executive Office of the President employees, including but not limited to Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any other firearms trafficking cases.” “We know there were communications that did go to the White House on Fast and Furious. We’ve been told that they were personal communications that just happened to occur. We wanted an official assurance on that,” Issa told Roll Call on Wednesday, jokingly referring to Schultz as “my friend.” But a GOP source familiar with the committee’s investigation said there was more to the request. “The question is whether the White House has been instructing the Justice Department on what [documents] to release,” the source said. The source added that recent allegations by a CBS reporter that Schultz yelled at her over her coverage of Fast and Furious in part prompted Issa’s questions on the matter, but the source maintained that the inquiry is unrelated to Schultz’s communications with reporters. “This investigation is focused on discussions and communications among officials and not their interactions with outside parties, including reporters,” the source said. This source noted that “there’s nothing necessarily inappropriate about the White House playing some role” but added that the documents produced by the subpoena will provide a fuller picture of what interaction is taking place. A lawyer close to the Obama administration said it would not be unusual for the Justice Department to keep the White House informed of how it is responding to Issa’s document demands or to give the White House a heads-up before documents involving White House personnel are sent to Congressional investigators. But Democrats familiar with the investigation scoffed at the idea that a member of the White House communications staff is telling the Justice Department how to respond to Issa’s document demands. Other portions of the subpoena also appear to reach beyond Holder’s involvement in the program. For instance, the subpoena demands that the Justice Department provide all photographs of the crime scene of the slaying of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and “surveillance tapes recorded by pole cameras inside the Lone Wolf Trading Co. store between 12:00 a.m. on October 3, 2010 and 12:00 a.m. on October 7, 2010.” Both the store and Zapata’s slaying have been linked to the Fast and Furious operation. Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Elijah Cummings assailed Issa’s document demands. “This subpoena is a deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee’s authority,” the Maryland Democrat said. “It demands tens of thousands of pages of highly sensitive law enforcement and national security materials that have never been requested before and are completely unrelated to Operation Fast and Furious. Rather than legitimate fact-gathering, this looks more like a political stunt.”

To: Wayners who wrote (54)	11/11/2011 11:07:44 PM
From: joseffy	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 749

Family of Murdered Border Agent Breaks Silence, Lashes Out at Holder By William Lajeunesse November 11, 2011 foxnews.com Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died almost one year ago. Despite almost daily headlines about the ongoing scandal in the Obama administration, his devastated parents have said nothing publicly about the U.S. program that helped provide the weapons that killed their son. Until now. In separate interviews, Josephine and Kent Terry lashed out Thursday at those they blame for Brian's murder -- Attorney General Eric Holder, his top assistant Lanny Breuer, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, and those ATF officials who approved, executed and supervised Operation Fast and Furious. Shown here are Josephine and Kent Terry, parents of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. This undated photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. Terry was fatally shot north of the Arizona-Mexico border while trying to catch bandits who target undocumented immigrants, the leader of a union representing agents said Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010. "I think they are liars and I would tell them that," said Kent Terry from his home in central Michigan. "What would I say to Eric Holder? They would not be nice words." Terry is in his 70's, paralyzed and bound to a chair after an accident 17 years ago. His former wife Josephine lives 90 minutes north near Detroit. "If they never let the guns walk, maybe Brian would not have been out that day," Josephine said. "I just can't believe our own government came up with a program like this that (let) innocent people get killed." The Terrys watched Holder's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Asked if he wanted to apologize to the family, Holder declined, saying only he regretted what happened. "That shows what kind of a person he is," Kent lamented. "To me, he is not much of a person. I don't know if he has a son. But if he lost his, he would think different." "I sat in a chair and cried," Josephine said. "It was so inhumane. An apology to anybody means at least they are trying to fix it. He didn't." Blasted for his response, Holder did send the Terrys a letter Wednesday saying he was sorry for their loss. While Holder chided Congress for "gotcha games" and "political finger pointing" in its investigation, the family disagrees. They say no administration official ever explained why the ATF knowingly sold guns to criminals. Josephine also claims former U.S. Attorney Burke intentionally misled her, saying in March the whistleblowers' claims were "false," when documents show he knew their claims were true. "Dennis Burke came up to my house and he said, 'No, none of them guns killed Brian. None of them'." Burke, whose office directed the operation, resigned in September. Kent, a former auto machinist, shared a love of cars with his son. When Brian died he shipped his 2006 Corvette from Arizona to Michigan where it sits, untouched, in the garage. The car is immaculate, except for a black smudge on the driver's seat. "That's where his gun rubbed against the leather," Kent said. "I can see him, as I did that day he came home, with the sun shinning in his hair. How do I get closure? I go out to his car. I have a tough time going to the cemetery. He is not supposed to be there. I am. Nobody wants to outlive their son." He said he struggles with the death to this day. "It's just hard. I can't sleep, just thinking about him -- I love him very much." Josephine is strong but also still grieves. Each morning she logs onto Brian's Facebook page and looks at videos he once posted and snapshots of his life. "It brings me a little closure, like he is still with me," she said. Both parents want Holder to resign, citing his response to a question from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who asked if Holder thought it was his responsibility to have known about Operation Fast and Furious. "There are 115,000 employees in the Department of Justice," Holder said. "I cannot be expected to know the details of every operation on a day-to-day basis." To which Kent said: "Holder says he has 115,000 employees. That is his job. If he can't handle his job, he should get out of it." Read more: foxnews.com