Thursday, June 28, 2012

Today is a milepost only in the Gunwalker investigation. Hold all applause until the end of the scandal.

It's done. In truth, I never thought we'd get this far.
Holder's defiant.
Here's Issa's "Statement on Bipartisan Vote Holding Attorney General in Contempt over Refusal to Produce Fast and Furious Documents."
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a resolution holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his refusal to produce Operation Fast and Furious documents subpoenaed last October. The vote on H.Res. 711, making a finding of contempt, was approved by a vote of 255 to 67. Seventeen Democrats crossed party lines to join the majority in the finding of contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder. The House is also scheduled to vote later today on H.Res. 706, authorizing civil action in courts to compel production of subpoenaed documents. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued this statement following passage:
“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.
“The Congressional inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, and the cover-up by Justice Department officials of wrongdoing, has been a fair and fact based investigation. False and partisan allegations by the White House and some congressional Democrats about the Oversight Committee’s efforts were undermined by the votes of 17 Democrats. These Members resisted the pressure of their own leadership and the Obama Administration to support this investigation on the House floor.
“Claims by the Justice Department that it has fully cooperated with this investigation fall at odds with its conduct: issuing false denials to Congress when senior officials clearly knew about gunwalking, directing witnesses not to answer entire categories of questions, retaliating against whistleblowers, and producing only 7,600 documents while withholding over 100,000.
“I greatly appreciate the ongoing efforts of Senator Chuck Grassley, his staff, and other Senators on the Judiciary Committee who have pressed the Obama Administration for the full truth. Senator Grassley began this investigation and has been a full partner throughout it. I must also recognize the hard work done by many of my colleagues here in the House – without their efforts the Justice Department’s stonewalling would have succeeded.
“My message to my colleagues and others who have fought for answers: We are still fighting for the truth and accountability – for the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, for whistleblowers who have faced retaliation, and for countless victims of Operation Fast and Furious in Mexico. Unless President Obama relents to this bipartisan call for transparency and an end to the cover-up, our fight will move to the courts where we will prevail in getting the documents that the Justice Department and President Obama’s flawed assertion of executive privilege have denied the American people.”
Been getting a lot of congrats from various quarters, some quite surprising. Now, it seems, I'm not so dangerous to talk to. I tell all of them, "Hold all applause until the end of the scandal." Because if you think this is done, it's not. Much more fighting for the truth and justice for the victims of Gunwalker looms. As always, our job is to ferret out the inconvenient truths and stiffen the spines of people who ought not need it. But I would be lying if I wasn't just a little bit proud of what we've accomplished so far.

15 comments:

markofafreeman said...

Thanks, Mike. A job well done.

TotC said...

There is credit for much of this that you have not received. I've been following this pretty much since you started reporting on it. And while I don't comment on this story, I have heard folks like Tom Gresham credit you and David Codrea with breaking this story. I'll pray for you and please, keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Why wouldn't he be defiant? The charge goes to an obama appointee and campaign contributor.

Do you really think this twirp is concerned?

drjim said...

Good to see you back blogging again, Mike. You gave us all quite a start there for a while.
I'm pretty dense about this stuff, but what happens now? If you or I were "In Contempt of Congress" we'd be in the slammer so fast it would look like we'd evaporated about as fast as.....well....pretty fast.
Does this vote have to go through review? Is there a sentencing procedure? Does Holder just promise to be good, and it all goes away?

gettimothy said...

You are an inspiration.

THANK YOU!

Anonymous said...

You have a lot of reason to be a little proud. I hope you are getting better. We need you and a whole lot more MEN just like you. It is indeed Black Thursday. We live to fight another day. God bless and keep the USA.

Anonymous said...

You sir have a lot to be a little proud of. I hope you are getting better! We love you and need a lot more MEN like you. It is indeed Black Thursday. God bless and keep the USA!

Anonymous said...

You have had Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin and Michelle Bachmann all saying it looked like a planned attack on the 2nd Amendment on FOX News in primetime. Rush Limbaugh has been pounding the same message for the last three weeks, and Ann Coulter wrote an article. The cat is out of the bag. Nice work.

Anonymous said...

Mike, hope you are feeling better.

You are right, it is not over but a major step was taken today.

And as we saw with the catastrophic ObamaCare ruling, the war is continuing on many fronts.

We will win just as long as we don't give up.

Thank you again!

Jensko said...

Congrats to you and David for a job well done. It was a long road you traveled thus far, with many more miles to go. Stay the course and we'll keep praying for you both.

rdf67 said...

Bravo Zulu, Mike and Dave. Shows what a couple of bloggers can do.

By going for and getting the "two-fer" of both criminal and civil contempt, if the DOJ delays on the contempt (and generate a second contempt charge of a US Attorney), Issa has enabled a civil charge to go forward to a Judge who will probably look at the documents in camera (with Issa's attorney) and pick and choose what actually meets the EP standard. October would be a good release date. Meanwhile, Issa intends to subpoena more DOJ officials and probe - perhaps there is a man with a family who doesn't want to join Holder in infamy. Wish they had brought the Contempt earlier but no one thought Boehner had the courage to back Issa. Thanks for the Wire Tap Apps or we would still be waiting, whoever you are. Nothing like proof that something is rotten in Denmark.

Interesting how the press makes a point (talking point) of the fact that no one interested in this issue as much as the economy. That was before Judge Roberts challenged all of America by saying their voice, not his, needs to be heard on ObominableCare. Nov 6 - we need to get people to vote - thanks Judge Roberts for the wake-up call.

CowboyDan said...

If EH has id'ed 140,000 documents as beibg pertinent to the investigation and turned over 7,600, that's132,400 by their own count to be examined by a judge as either covered/not covered by EP. That's a lot of paper. That's 27 CASES of paper to look at.

If he managed to read a case per day, and that's a quick read, it would be a over a month before he could rule on all of them. Hopefully, he'd be able to release them piecemeal and not just dump them all on the committee staff at the end of July.

Either way, it's going to be a long summer for some folks. If EH is in jail, he forfeits his pay and allowances, right? Mrs. Holder won't like that a bit.

TPaine said...

I am truly surprised that this has finally happened, but in no way am I holding my breath until it's over. HOlder will still be holding out for a very long time, and it will take federal marshals with handcuffs to prove to me that Holder will be held accountable.

Wake me up when that happens.

Anonymous said...

Hey, check out these pages;
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r112:1:./temp/~r1124CboPK:e283095:

and
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r112:1:./temp/~r1124CboPK:e293381:

Issa summarized wiretaps in May24 letter to EC, got it into the record...
Nice

Anonymous said...

Many thanks to you Mike for tirelessly pursuing the Gunwalkergate story.