Freedom Line Blog

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano may have perjured herself twice in testimony before Congress about what she knew about the Fast & Furious scandal, and when she knew it.

In a new book by Human Events political editor Katie Pavlich, sources tell the author that Napolitano was lying when she told Congress – twice – that she never discussed the illegal gun-walking scandal with Attorney General Eric Holder and Dennis Burke, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona.

According to Pavlich’s sources…

• “There are five emails linking [Napolitano] to [Attorney General Eric] Holder.  They go back two days after it happened – the first email was two days after Brian was killed.” (Referencing the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s by Mexican drug cartel members armed with at least one Fast & Furious gun.)

• “…Napolitano was briefed regularly by an agent from another of her agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.” (ICE was involved in Fast & Furious because it has jurisdiction over the U.S.-Mexico border and thus had to sign-off on guns walking over the border.)

• “There was an ICE agent assigned specifically to be the co-case agent of Fast & Furious.  He had to [file] an ICE report that either mirrored or referenced every ATF report that was done.”

Based on the preview, Pavlich’s book seems like a must-read for anyone appalled by the disregard for the rule of law and basic safety manifested by the Secretary for Homeland Security and the Attorney General.

When all the facts are known, the fall-out from the Fast & Furious fiasco will likely be huge.  From Human Events:

Pavlich makes a strong case that when people are finally charged with crimes, Napolitano will have to answer for her perjury to Congress.

“Let me tell you something about Janet,” another source said to the author. “Janet will be lucky not to go to prison.”

Another weekend, another document dump from Eric Holder regarding Fast and Furious.  Last Friday Holder’s Justice Department released information about 500 emails that show Holder knew about Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder on the day Terry died.  Other emails indicate Holder was aware of the botched gun-tracking program’s connection to Terry’s death.  Per Michael Walsh at the New York Post:

That information came in a series of e-mails in which the former US attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke, discussed the F&F’s first fatality, agent Brian Terry, with a Holder deputy. The e-mails were sent in the early hours of Dec. 15, 2010, the day Terry died of wounds received the day before in a shootout 18 miles inside the US border, near Nogales.

The deputy, Monty Wilkinson, responded: “Tragic. I’ve alerted the AG.”

Burke, an anti-gun fanatic whose appointment as US attorney in 2009 roughly coincided with the start of F&F, goes on to tell Wilkinson later that day: “The guns found in the desert near the murder of the BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store.”

That’s right. The government’s top law-enforcement officer has been turning a blind eye to a cancer in his department for more than a year.

In what Fox News calls “the first big break in what has been a unified front in the [Eric Holder’s Justice Department’s] defense of itself in the [Fast and Furious] gun-running scandal,” the number two DOJ official in Arizona is claiming through his lawyer that Holder & Co. are making him the fall guy.

“Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” the letter to Issa says.

Read the entire article here.

Here at CFIF, we’ve spent months chronicling the confluence of incompetence, deceit, and political opportunism that is Eric Holder’s Justice Department, whether it takes the form of the Fast and Furious scandal or the administration’s transparently partisan staffing of the department’s Civil Rights Division. Now, without a coherent counterargument, the Attorney General is essentially pulling the fire alarm. From the Daily Caller:

Attorney General Eric Holder accused his growing chorus of critics of racist motivations in a Sunday interview published in the New York Times. When reached by The Daily Caller Monday morning, the Department of Justice provided no evidence to support the attorney general’s claims.

Holder said some unspecified faction — what he refers to as the “more extreme segment” — is driven to criticize both him and President Barack Obama due to the color of their skin. Holder did not appear to elaborate on who he considered to make up the “more extreme segment.”

“This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” Holder said, according to the Times. “Both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

The seriousness of Eric Holder’s failings as U.S. Attorney General came to a well-deserved head yesterday during tough questioning before the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee.  Though Quin has spotlighted several other kinds of abuses worthy of investigation by Congress, the Judiciary Committee’s focus was on the growing number of lies and distortions given by Holder’s Justice Department to congressional investigators about the Fast and Furious operation that let over 2,000 guns intentionally “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Under withering questions from Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R- WI) about what it means to lie to Congress, Holder tried to dodge:

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) drew Holder’s attention to internal emails showing anti-gun rights bureaucrats and political appointees speculating about using the failure of Fast and Furious fiasco as an after-the-fact reason to extend gun control regulations:

Most disturbingly, Holder acknowledged that no one in the Justice Department knows how many guns are actually out there, but that the repercussions will be felt “for years” in both the United States and Mexico.

For all his failures as Attorney General, the Fast and Furious scandal should be the one that brings Eric Holder’s tenure to an abrupt end.  President Barack Obama should clean house at the Justice Department over the Christmas break by firing Holder and those lieutenants involved in the serial lying to Congress.  If not, House Republicans should explore impeachment proceedings against Holder.

As I said in my column this week, Holder’s statements and actions amount to perjury and obstruction of justice.  In his misleading testimony before Congress and in numerous refusals to share information that when shared was later acknowledged to be false, Holder has proven his reputation and career are too intertwined with Fast and Furious to make him an unbiased administrator searching for the truth. Most importantly, he’s proven he won’t tell the truth when asked under oath. If an everyday American must face consequences for perjury and obstruction of justice, so too should the Attorney General.

I am so glad Ashton posted this latest outrage from the flagrantly corrupt, thuggish, Obama/Holder (In)Justice Department. If a Republican administration had done this, every editorial page in the United States — EVERY ONE — would have been yelling bloody murder about the trampling of the public’s right to know, etc.  Every major newscast would be lead with this story. Cue the dramatic music about the cover-up indicating that a crime MUST have been committed, and cue the race for someone to append the most clever “-Gate” ending as a name for the scandal.  But if Obama does it…. yawn.

This is serious. It appears criminal. And it must not stand. Go back and read Ashton’s post and the backup documentation. It’s an outrage.

How’s this for a breach of the public’s trust?  From Judicial Watch:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,000 guns which have been used in numerous crimes. In Terry’s case, five illegal immigrants armed with at least two semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and Terry got hit.

The report goes on to say that Border Patrol officials have been kept out of the loop on why the Mexican national charged with killing Terry has yet to be tried almost a year after the murder.

Just before the court documents were sealed, the Washington Times published an article showing why U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and others responsible for the Fast and Furious scandal want the details of Terry’s murder under wraps:

A now-sealed federal grand jury indictment in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry says the Mexican nationals were “patrolling” the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.

At least two of the Mexicans carried their assault rifles “at the ready position,” one of several details about the attack showing that Mexican smugglers are becoming more aggressive on the U.S. side of the border.

According to the indictment, the Mexicans were “patrolling the area in single-file formation” a dozen miles northwest of the border town of Nogales and — in the darkness of the Arizona night — opened fire on four Border Patrol agents after the agents identified themselves in Spanish as police officers.

Two AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene came from the failed Fast and Furious operation.

Imagine if some corrupt machine politician tried to keep in the dark a metropolitan police department on why politically appointed prosecutors were delaying justice for a mafioso cop-killer and sealing his records.  The cops – and the public – wouldn’t stand for it.  Neither should the Border Patrol and the American people.

H/T: Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard

It’s official: Eric Holder is now a campaign issue.  GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry says that because of Holder’s false statements about his knowledge and oversight of the Fast and Furious fiasco, the U.S. Attorney General should resign or be fired immediately.

This is a welcome development to those of us at CFIF who have been calling for Holder’s ouster for quite a while.  With the Solyndra scandal looking increasingly likely to take down Energy Secretary Steven Chu, it would be a shame if by comparison Holder held onto his job since someone actually died under his watch.

At least they gave him a chance.  Only after watching U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s defiant responses to congressional interrogators did the parents of the late Brian Terry say that Holder needs to go.

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.”

Indeed.

World Net Daily reports that a rediscovered C-SPAN video shows Eric Holder’s deputy linking the un-stimulating Recovery Act to funding for Project Gunrunner, a sister program to ATF’s Fast and Furious ‘gun-walking’ scheme to track guns sold to Mexican drug cartels.

Here’s the money quote from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden:

“Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration’s comprehensive plan. Those steps include the following: DOJ’s Drug Enforcement Administration, which already has the largest U.S. drug enforcement presence in Mexico with 11 offices in that country, is placing 16 new DEA positions in southwest border field positions .., uh, field operations, specifically to target Mexican trafficking and associated violence,” he said.

“The DEA is also deploying four new mobile enforcement teams to specifically target Mexican methamphetamine trafficking both along the border and in U.S. cities impacted by the cartels,” he continued.

“DOJ’s bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees and three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico,” he said.  (Emphasis added)

The date of the press conference: March 24, 2009.  That’s fifteen months prior to the June 2010 memos that earlier this week showed Holder lying to Congress about when he was first aware of the ATF programs.

Holder has no credibility left.  It’s time to fire him, immediately.

Fox News reports that ATF’s Fast and Furious botched gun-tracking operation to Mexican drug cartels didn’t stop at encouraging private gun owners to sell to known criminals with assurances of surveillance.  Six months before Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered with one of these weapons, ATF supervisors in Phoenix directed field agents to sell the guns directly.

The result was the same as when the guns came from private sellers: no surveillance was initiated by ATF to track the guns.  Instead, the buyers for the cartels were allowed to store them in a stash house and ship them south with impunity.

These are the kinds of revelations that get bureaus like ATF shut down.  Could it also be the scandal that sinks Attorney General Eric Holder, the man who oversees ATF’s operations?

Read the whole story here.

The ATF’s “Project Gunrunner” and “Operation Fast and Furious” scandals continue show a cover-up by high-ranking officials in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.  The most recent revelation was the emergence of tapes secretly recorded by an Arizona gun dealer who grew suspicious of ATF’s ability to intercept guns deliberately sold to Mexican drug cartels.

Howard made the tapes in March 2011 after a meeting he and his attorneys held with federal officials. In that meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley continued to insist the guns Lone Wolf sold were stopped and seized before reaching Mexico.

But ATF officials are quoted in a Washington Post article and the Spanish language daily La Opinion saying just the opposite — blaming Lone Wolf for “selling guns to the cartels” with no mention that Howard was operating under the federal government’s direction, encouragement and approval.

In related news, the Mexican government is seething because ATF brass and supervisors at Justice chose not to inform relevant officials of the gun-walking program.  After learning of the operation from news reports following Border Agent Brian Terry’s murder, the Mexican Attorney General said, “In no way would we have allowed [the selling of guns to drug cartels], because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans.”

And an affront to American integrity as well.

In what can only be described as a near-criminal lack of discretion, ATF management saw fit last Sunday to promote three agents who supervised the Phoenix office’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking fiasco to senior positions in Washington, D.C.

The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF’s deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency’s Phoenix office.

H/T: Townhall

Writing for Big Government, AWR Hawkins asks the obvious question about the political hot potato being passed around by President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and interim ATF director Ken Melson – none of whom claim any “substantive” knowledge about a federal program to arm Mexican drug dealers.

In other news, on July 5^th Jack Tapper (ABC News) peppered Obama’s White House Press Secretary with questions about “Fast and Furious” in front of the rest of the press reporters, but the most substantive answer that Jay Carney gave was: “The president takes this very seriously.” (In all fairness to Carney, he’s clueless because Obama keeps him clueless.)

Look folks, this is ridiculous. Where is Chris Matthews? Where is that Keith guy who used to work for MSNBC? Where are all the freaks who wanted to hang George W. Bush in effigy for supposedly-lying about Iraq?

Why are they silent in the face of so great a cover-up?

Probably because the “Gunrunner” and “Fast and Furious” projects have too many inconsistencies to tolerate; better to just ignore them.  A liberal president presides over the intentional escalation of a narco-fueled civil war.  His celebrated AG fails yet again to faithfully execute his oversight responsibilities.  And the man charged with ensuring that alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives don’t fall into the wrong hands is at the head of a bureaucracy actively peddling the most lethal one (guns) to obtain the others.

With Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry killed as a result of guns used in the ATF program, isn’t it about time to get an updated (and much more accurate) version of “Bush lied, people died”?

It is beyond outrageous that, at the last minute, the Obama administration is trying to stop the execution of a brutal rapist-murderer in Texas today, completely ignoring the precedent in an earlier case (Medellin) — on the grounds that the poor abused rapist/murderer wasn’t told he could contact the Mexican embassy (he was a Mexican national) before proceedings against him began.

Having looked at this, I tend to agree that the failure here to contact the embassy was a harmless error and that, unlike in countries that use summary executions and have no other procedural safeguards, this guy has had PLENTY of opportunity to have his arguments heard. I see no legal reason to halt the execution and no moral reason to pass the proposed law that would block such executions while federal courts review the cases. (In short, the legislation would give foreign nationals GREATER rights to escape scot-free than the already significant protections in law for American citizens.)

Methinks the Obama administration should worry less about protecting Mexican killers and should worry more about having given weapons to other Mexican killers who used the weapons to murder American border personnel.