House Oversight Committee releases 263 page report on "Fast and Furious"

Obama's "Fast and Furious". https://t.co/om0x3HBiEZ

— Bill Postmus (@billpostmus) June 7, 2017

House Oversight Committee releases 263 page report on "Fast and Furious" https://t.co/em3CJnMA78

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) June 7, 2017

‘Fast & Furious’ Scandal Returns As Judge Forces Release of 20K Pages Of Emails

‘Fast & Furious’ Scandal Returns As Judge Forces Release of 20K Pages Of Emails https://t.co/KVgp3tmhkL via @NYJooo

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) May 22, 2016

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's Sister on Timing of Holder Resignation: "Not a Coincidence"

◼ EXCLUSIVE - Katie Pavlich/Townhall

..."I do not find it a coincidence that Eric Holder chose now to resign after Judge Bates denied the request from the DOJ to delay the release of the Fast and Furious documents. I personally think Eric Holder was really hoping that the documents would never be made public to my family and the American people," Terry-Willis tells Townhall. "Will we ever get the accountability for my brother, Brian, Jaime Zapata and every other person who lost their lives to the guns from this horrific scandal? I don't know, but I have a serious gut feeling when we finally see what is in those documents....the dynamics of this investigation are going to change and hopefully the people involved are brought to justice. Eric Holder can run, but there will be no hiding. The truth always reveals itself."

In a separate statement put out on behalf of the Brian Terry Foundation, family spokesman Ralph Terry says Holder's resignation is welcomed....

◼ GOP to Obama: Don't replace Holder in lame-duck Congress - The Hill

◼ The Eric Holder Tragedy - New York Sun Editorial

The resignation — if that’s what it is — of Attorney General Eric Holder signals the end of one of the most divisive tenures in the history of the cabinet. It was no doubt inevitable after Mr. Holder was determined, in a bi-partisan vote, to be in criminal contempt of the 112th United States House. He became the only sitting cabinet officer in history to be so found. He reacted to the contempt finding with more contempt. From that point on his tenure in office was unsustainable....

We mention that to underline that we are not, reflexively, in the anti-Holder camp. All the greater our disappointment in his conduct of his office. His default in the fast-and-furious gun-running case was the kind of thing for which he should have taken responsibility and resigned; to have instead spent years fighting the investigation was shocking and to have allowed it to get to the point of criminal contempt, which is what the House found him to have committed, is a scandal.

More broadly one can lay to Mr. Holder some of the responsibility for the souring of Mr. Obama’s presidency. The eloquent Illinoisan, after all, had been lofted to office on a huge vote. He was the first African-American president. How unifying his presidency could have been. Yet his attorney general spurned, even mocked, the Supreme Court’s civil rights rulings, took a litigious approach to the border states inundated with undocumented immigrants, and aggravated a divided Congress.

Fast and Furious.

◼ 2012 Emmy Award for Investigative Reporting/2012 Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. Every link. - sharylattkisson.com

Fast and Furious http://t.co/K4WKqlNl9F

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 8, 2014

And not a single prosecution. Incredible. RT @SharylAttkisson: Fast and Furious http://t.co/XYyIbr9PsY

— Michelle Ray (@GaltsGirl) January 8, 2014

Another Deadly Scandal Hits The ATF/Eric Holder/Obama-"Deadly drug cartel shootout with Mexico police linked to "grenade-walking" scandal"

◼ While we were focused on Obama holding the country hostage over the debt ceiling and the funding of the government, it seems another scandal was being exposed! Kudos to a true reporter, Sharyl Attkisson. - DSB

ONE STEP CLOSER TO JUSTICE FOR BRIAN TERRY: Judge Rejects Holder's Fast&Furious Document Cover-Up

◼ 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. - Doug Ross

The most transparent administration in history suffered a defeat Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department's request to dismiss a lawsuit seeking "Fast and Furious" documents hidden by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department after President Obama invoked executive privilege.

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....

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....

Bombshell: CNN report suggests Benghazi coverup worse than previously thought

◼ ‘Phony scandal’ update: Strange Benghazi story gets even stranger - Doug Powers/Michelle Malkin

◼ CNN bombshell: Dozens of CIA operatives were on the ground during the Benghazi attack, agency in panic over revelations - Allahpundit/HotAir

Exit question: What was the CIA doing in Benghazi?

◼ All of this raises even more questions about the extent to which the White House went to keep the truth buried. What really happened in Benghazi? - Twitchy

CIA is polygraphing operatives regularly, in an "unprecedented" attempt to keep Benghazi secrets, sources tell CNN, @DrewGriffinCNN reports

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 1, 2013

◼ Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack - Jake Tapper/CNN

CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.

Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well."

Another says, "You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation."

...In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk.

Then suddenly, there was silence.

"Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you're forced to come before Congress. Now that's all changed," said Wolf.

Lawmakers also want to about know the weapons in Libya, and what happened to them.

Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.



◼ Jake Tapper: Remember when Rand Paul asked Hillary about gun running in Libya? - Twitchy

Nearly a year out from the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, CNN’s Jake Tapper unveiled what looks like an enormous puzzle piece that’s been missing from the “phony scandal.” On today’s episode of “The Lead,” sources told CNN that dozens of people working for the CIA — the agency that ran the annex — were in Benghazi that night, and survivors are reportedly undergoing monthly polygraphs to ensure whatever they were doing there remains secret.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might have trouble recalling things now and then, but Tapper remembers a question put to her by Sen. Rand Paul during the infamous “what difference does it make” hearing.

◼ REP. WOLF: SOURCES SAY CIA WAS MOVING GUNS IN BENGHAZI - Kerry Picket/Breitbart

...“We’re getting calls from people who are close to people who were [in Benghazi at the time] that they were moving guns. So where are the guns?” asked Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), a sub-committee chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Wolf also wonders what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi on that night. Stevens and three others were killed over the course of the attacks.

“Are they in a warehouse somewhere? Some people say they moved on to Turkey and then from Turkey to Syria," Wolf told Breitbart News on Thursday. "Did they fall into the hands of some of the Jihadis?"

"Nobody knows, so I think there are so many questions from the failure to respond to where the guns went,” he stated....



◼ CNN BOMBSHELL! Jake Tapper’s exclusive report about Benghazi and the ongoing CIA cover-up - BNI
◼ Many of us had surmised this — between the ambassador’s strange meetings, the nearby annex, rumors of attempts to recover ground to air missile launchers, etc., — the whole story has never added up. - Protein Wisdom
◼ We all suspected this kind of intimidation was going on but now CNN is confirming it. They are reporting that the CIA is involved in a “unprecedented” effort to keep everyone who was in Benghazi at the time of the attack to keep quiet - Flopping Aces
◼ Related: While Obama slept and then partied in Vegas, wounded Benghazi hero David Ubben waited 20 hours for help - Doug Ross

It is monstrous that the US, once the most open society in the world, has become a Security state and not even for security but for politics

— DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) August 1, 2013

Ruh-Roh: Ambassador Killed by Secret State Department Weapons Program?

◼ Pretty serious stuff here, eh? If the latest reports are true, this is much more serious than who edited the talking points - The Other McCain

A federal judge gave a skeptical reception Wednesday to the Obama administration’s arguments that the courts should stay out of the dispute over the Justice Department’s refusal to turn over some Operation Fast and Furious-related documents to a House committee.

◼ Judge skeptical of Obama in executive privilege fight - Josh Gerstein/POLITICO

Last June, the fight led President Barack Obama to assert executive privilege over the records of the controversial gun trafficking investigation, and to House votes finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson spent most of an hour-and-a-half hearing Wednesday sharply questioning Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ian Gershengorn about the administration’s assertion that a lawsuit the House panel filed last year should be dismissed and the legislative and executive branches of government left to work out their differences by themselves.

“That lack of a judicial role is a deliberate part of the constitutional structure,” Gershengorn insisted, as he urged the judge to stick with the historic practice of the Congress and executive agencies sorting out such fights on their own.

“It has been messy. It has been contentious. It has been political … but it has worked,” he said.

Jackson, an Obama appointee, repeatedly suggested that Gershengorn was giving the judiciary short shrift.

“You keep talking about the two [branches] as if the third one isn’t there,” she said.

Few presidents have dashed so many illusions as Obama.

◼ In the last three years, the president has taught us a great deal about America, the world, and himself. - Victor Davis Hanson/National Review

Before Obama, many Americans still believed in massive deficit spending, whether as an article of fairness, a means to economic growth, or just a lazy fallback position to justify an out-of-control federal government. But after the failure of a nearly $800 billion “stimulus” program — intended to keep unemployment under 8 percent — no one believes any more that an already indebted government will foster economic growth by taking on another $4 trillion in debt. In other words, “stimulus” is mostly a dead concept. The president — much as he advised a barnstorming President Bush in 2005 to cease pushing Social Security reform on a reluctant population — should give it up and junk the new $500 billion program euphemistically designated as a “jobs bill.” The U.S. government is already borrowing every three days what all of America spent on Black Friday. Read the rest.

Darrell Issa Issues 22 Point Subpoena to Eric Holder in Fast and Furious Investigation

◼ "Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," the California Republican said in a statement. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth." - FOX
◼ DETAILS: What he seeks... - Jamie Dupree/AJC
◼ Holder’s honesty before Congress disputed in earlier high-profile cases - Jerry Seper/Washington Times
◼ Issa to Holder: You're Incompetent, Untrustworthy - Newsmax
◼ The subpoena requests all of Holder’s communications on the Fast and Furious operation. It also requests any communications between the White House and DoJ relating to Operation Fast and Furious. - Politico
◼ Darrell Issa subpoenas Eric Holder for Fast and Furious communications - Houston Chronicle
◼ Obama Administration Subpoenaed by House Panel Over Gun Case - Bloomberg Business Week

10 Arizona Sheriffs Demand ‘Fast & Furious’ Investigation – Call For Holder to Step Down or Be Fired (Video)

Sheriffs Want Truth About 'Fast and Furious': MyFoxPHOENIX.com

◼ Sheriffs Want Truth About ‘Fast and Furious’ - Gateway Pundit

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu led the press conference today in Phoenix.
MyFOX Phoenix reported:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and nine other elected sheriffs held a press conference Friday morning in Phoenix.

They demanded the truth from the federal government, and they asked for a special council to conduct a criminal investigation into what really happened during and after the failed operation, which let guns into Mexico.

They believe the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Attorney General Eric Holder bungled the operation and then tried to cover it up.

This week, Holder said he just found out about the controversial operation, but those inside the justice department said that he knew months ago.

The operation allowed guns into Mexico that the ATF hoped to track drug cartel activities.

Some 2,000 guns were sent there, but about 1,400 guns are still unaccounted for.

“In law enforcement, this is unacceptable — the fact that our own government has given weapons — some of these weapons not only semi-automatic, some transitioned to fully automatic, and 50-caliber rifles — rifles my deputies and our deputies don’t even have on the street, and they put them into the hands of the criminals that we’re fighting,” Babeu said.

The sheriffs said they want Holder to be held accountable for the lost law enforcement lives in Arizona and Mexico.

Holder vs White House: Who Is Accountable?

◼ Michelle Malkin: The bloody malfeasance of Eric Holder and Barack Obama; Plus: Who is Acting DOJ IG Cynthia Schendar?

Holder Leading DOJ 'Cover-up' of Fast and Furious Investigation, Cornyn Says Read more on Newsmax.com: Holder Leading DOJ 'Cover-up' of Fast and Furious Investigation, Cornyn Says

◼ Attorney General Eric Holder is leading what looks "more and more like a cover-up" of what he knew about a government-sanctioned gunrunning scheme that allowed hundreds of assault weapons to fall into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels, says one of the key senators involved in the investigation. - NewsMax

"I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.”

◼ “CBS reporter: White House, DOJ reps ‘yelled’ and ‘screamed’ at her over ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal” - Protein Wisdom

Attkisson also said the DOJ and White House representatives complained that CBS was “unfair and biased” because it didn’t give the White House favorable coverage on the developing scandal.

“Is it sort of a drip, drip. And I’m certainly not the one to make the case for DOJ and White House about what I’m doing wrong,” she added. “They will tell you that I’m the only reporter, as they told me, that is not reasonable. They say The Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, The New York Times is reasonable — I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.”

Fast and Furious "Media Exploitation Support"

◼ Holder Lied, People Died - David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner

"New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010," Sharyll Atkisson reports. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.

◼ ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010 - CBS News

◼ Gunwalker: Holder Appears To Be Fast, Furious, and Finished - Bob Owens/Pajamas Media

News documents indicate that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder more than likely perjured himself in congressional testimony about Operation Fast and Furious earlier this year.... A copy of the heavily redacted weekly report posted by CBS News offers direct evidence that not only was the attorney general briefed on Operation Fast and Furious, but that he was briefed on it regularly and was well aware that the program was sending thousands of weapons into the hands of the Sinaloa cartel:

From July 12 through July 16, the National Drug Intelligence Center Document and Media Exploitation Team at the Phoenix Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCTDETF) Strike Force will support the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Phoenix Field Division with its investigation of Manuel Celis-Acosta as part of OCDETF Operation Fast and Furious. This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manual Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.

That excerpt stated what the task force would do in the near future, while the same language was used later in the report to show what the task force had done that week:

From July 6 through July 9, the National Drug Intelligence Center Document and Media Exploitation Team at the Phoenix Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCTDETF) Strike Force will support the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Phoenix Field Division with its investigation of Manuel Celis-Acosta as part of OCDETF Operation Fast and Furious. This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manual Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.

Solyndra’s ‘Green Jobs’ meant well-paid employment for lots of well-connected D.C. lobbyists

◼ Solyndra’s ‘Green Jobs’ Included Employment for D.C. Lobbyists — Including Former Democrat Aides
◼ Solyndra’s new lobbyists: William Weld; Hoyer aide - Timothy P. Carney/Washington Examiner

What led to `Project Gunwalker'?

◼ What led to `Project Gunwalker'? - Pauline Arrillaga/The Associated Press at Breitbart

Ten days before Christmas, ATF agent John Dodson awoke, got his morning coffee, switched on the TV news—and heard the words he had dreaded every day of every month he had been a member of the gun-trafficking investigative team called the Group VII Strike Force.
A Border Patrol agent had been shot dead in a gun battle with suspected bandits. The agent was 40, only months older than Dodson himself, another ex-military man who chose to serve his country by working for the U.S. government....

Seven months later, Fast and Furious has fast become a political thorn for the Obama administration, prompting calls for the resignation of ATF's acting director, stirring the debate over gun control and straining relations with Mexican officials. Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General to look into what happened, and Obama has vowed to take "appropriate actions."

Meanwhile, a parade of ATF agents have come forward, offering astonishing testimony in condemnation of their own employer over a probe they now call embarrassing, shameful, dumbfounding. They include some of the Group VII agents, including Dodson, Casa and Alt, but also another Phoenix-based supervisor, an ATF intelligence specialist and three Mexico-based agents.

"Put bluntly, it is inconceivable in my mind ... to allow firearms to disappear at all," Darren Gil, the former ATF attache to Mexico, testified Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "It is even more inconceivable that a competent ATF special agent would allow firearms to cross an international border, knowing that they are ultimately destined for the hands of the worst of the worst criminals...." (Read the rest)


__________________
EDITOR'S NOTE—This story is based on interviews with ATF agents, past and present; gun dealers who cooperated in Fast and Furious; court records in the Fast and Furious case; the testimony of current and former ATF agents before congressional committees and to congressional investigators; and a review of internal ATF emails and investigative documents assembled as part of the congressional inquiry into Fast and Furious as well as government strategy documents and reports regarding ATF's approach to gun probes.
__________________

Pauline Arrillaga, a Phoenix-based national writer for The Associated Press, can be reached at features(at)ap.org.

◼ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COVERS GUNWALKER - PowerLine

ATF Manager says he shared Fast and Furious Info with White House

◼ Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O'Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: "you didn't get this from me." - CBS

"What does that mean," one member of Congress asked Newell, " 'you didn't get this from me?' "

◼ Let me just list the stuff that we’ve learned this week - Redstate

Issa: Getting to the Bottom of Who Authorized & Knew About Deadly Operation Fast & Furious