Rep Issa | Rep Cummings
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Sen Grassley | Pres Obama & AG Holder |
A single internal Department of Justice email could be the smoking-gun document in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal — if it turns out to contain what congressional investigators have said it does.
The document would establish that wiretap application documents show senior DOJ officials knew about and approved the gunwalking tactic in Fast and Furious. This is the opposite of what Attorney General Eric Holder and House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings have claimed. [Well you don't think Holder or Cummings would do anything to put the POTUS in any sort of bad light, do ya?]
It appears that email would also prove senior DOJ officials, likely including Holder himself, knew in March 2011 that a Feb. 4, 2011 letter from the DOJ to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley falsely denied guns were permitted to “walk” into Mexico. The DOJ allowed that false letter to stand for nine more months, only withdrawing it in December 2011. [Hindsight is a 20/20 picture of beauty, in this case. What has casued me to lose all faith in ANY politician has been brought about in this case alone. There was a time I truly believed there were a FEW good ole American Patriots still hanging around the watering holes in D.C., but that is simply a terrible assumption on my part. As I read the history books about the men and women who worked so hard to get this new form of government going, my blood pressure starts lifting the skin on my bald head. Our forefathers gave not only their lives to fight the British, the French and the Spanish to build this country, but many gave ALL their worldly possessions and wealth. They sold what they had and gave the money to help finance out military. They died as broke beggars. Today, there isn't ONE politician that would do that. Instead, they do everything they can, legal or illegal, to build their large bank accounts, portfolios, and lands. How sad that so many gave all and today it's turned into get all you can while the getting is good. It makes one want to go hunting and the trees in D.C., I hear, are full of squirrels.]
During the June 24 broadcast of Fox News Sunday, House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa cited the email as a “good example” of a specific document his committee knows Holder is hiding from Congress. [I've wondered.... doesn't the House Oversight Committee have the power to issue or have issued a search warrant? If so, why wasn't that step put into place. Rep William Jefferson of LA had a search warrant issued and they went through his D.C. office as well as his house and office in LA. What's the difference here???]
“The ATF director, Kenneth Melson, sent an e-mail. And he had said to us in sworn testimony that, in fact, he had concerns,” Issa said. “And we want to see that e-mail because that’s an example where he was saying, if we believe his sworn testimony, that guns walked. And he said it shortly after February 4, and [on] July 4. When he told us that, we began asking for that document.”
But the details of it surfaced first when Grassley mentioned it for the first time publicly during a June 12 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Holder was testifying.
“He [Melson] immediately sent an email warning others, ‘back off the letter to Sen. Grassley in light of the information in the affidavits,’” Grassley explained.
Ken Melson, now the former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, purportedly sent that email to several DOJ leaders in March 2011. According to Grassley, Melson wrote that he had reviewed the wiretap applications — the same documents Cummings and Holder claim do not show senior DOJ officials knew of or approved gunwalking tactics in Fast and Furious.
“ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson described reading those same wiretap affidavits in March of last year,” Grassley told Holder during the Senate hearing. “He said he was alarmed that the information in the affidavits contradicted the public denial to Congress.”
It appears Republican congressional investigators first learned of the Melson email’s existence on July 4, 2011, when Melson chose to give a lengthy deposition on Fast and Furious without DOJ and ATF lawyers present. Grassley told Holder during the Senate hearing that congressional investigators first requested that the DOJ provide Congress with that email during July 2011, shortly after Melson made his then-secret trip across town to Capitol Hill.
The wiretap documents themselves are under federal court seal, leaving Grassley and Issa to tussle with Holder and Cumming about what they might show. Issa has said a whistleblower provided copies to his committee.
Holder has declined to ask the federal judge who sealed them to unseal them. The March 2011 Melson email, then, may be the only legal way — without violating a court order — to document the agreement of some senior Obama administration members with Issa’s and Grassley’s characterizations of the documents.
Melson’s email could also prove that although senior DOJ officials knew in March 2011 that the Feb. 4, 2011 letter was false, they chose to continue misleading Congress with gunwalking denials for several months. [And there is no perjury charges??? You mean if we're called before a Congressional hearing we can lie and suffer no consequences???]
“We need to see it [the email] to corroborate his testimony,” Grassley said during the June 12 hearing. “But the Department is withholding that email along with every other document after Feb. 4, 2011.”
Grassley pressed Holder on the question of how DOJ had the authority to withhold Melson’s email from Congress, a full week before President Obama indicated that he would invoke executive privilege to shield requested documents. At that time, Holder claimed the Melson email would not be protected by executive privilege. [And you believed him??? Sen Grassley and Rep Issa seem to be a couple of bricks short of building a brick wall, sometimes. Obama, Holder, Napolitano, all the Obama administration are liars and it's such a well known FACT. The 'word' of a man used to be something that was held is honor because many times a man's word was alll that he had. Today a man's word is less important than a septic tank that's over running. And even more so when it comes to the clowns in government.]
“On what legal ground are you withholding that email?” He asked. “The president can’t claim executive privilege to withhold that email, is that correct?”
“Well, let me just say this: We have reached out to Chairman Issa to work our way through these issues,” Holder filibustered. “We have had sporadic contacts and we are prepared to make – I am prepared to make – compromises with regard to the documents that can be made available. There is a basis for withholding these documents if they deal with the deliberative …” [Having watched, on CSPAN, all of the proceedings that was available to me, I never one time saw Eric Holder answer a question forthrightly, that was asked to him, in regards to any important document, meeting, or exercise. NEVER!! The republican committee members were always stone-walled and had to stop him and move on to another question. Of Course when a democrat member had their turn, they never asked any truth seeking questions. Especially Cummings and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. It was pure racism whenn they were interviewing Holder. They spent their time telling Holder just how great of a job he was doing (but didn't add the great job he was doing was covering Obama's behind). They never asked any 'hard' questions that would uncover a truth. But then Holder and Obama are pure liars and they, I do believe, think they are telling the truth when they are lying.]
“But not on executive privilege?” Grassley interrupted.
“No,” Holder responded.
Holder spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler wouldn’t answer when The Daily Caller asked her if the DOJ was planning to provide the Melson email to Congress.
Here's a case that has been going on for almost two (2) years. Sen Grassley and Rep Issa have, in my opinion, NOT done all they could have done or done what they have done in a timely manner. They've let Holder and Obama run them in and out of the rabbitt hole and avoid doing what they should have done just to 'get-a-long'. Patheic!! If we ever find one politician who truly has any backbone, it will be a day that the whole world should stop what they are doing and celebrate. There were a few new congress critters who were voted in during the 2010 elections
