Posted on 02/06/2007 6:18:29 PM PST by calcowgirl
A Department of Homeland Security official admitted today the agency misled Congress when it contended it possessed investigative reports proving Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean confessed guilt and declared they "wanted to shoot some Mexicans" prior to the incident that led to their imprisonment.
The admission came during the testimony of DHS Inspector General Richard L. Skinner before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, according to Michael Green, press secretary for Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas.
Culberson was questioning Skinner about a meeting DHS officials had Sept. 26 with him and three other Republican congressman from Texas, Reps. Ted Poe, Michael McCaul and Kenny Marchant.
WND previously reported that at that meeting the DHS Inspector General's office asserted it had documentary evidence Ramos and Compean:
2. stated during the interrogation they did not believe the suspect was a threat to them at the time of the shooting;
3. stated that day they "wanted to shoot a Mexican";
4. were belligerent to investigators;
5. destroyed evidence and lied to investigators.
This prompted a startled and angry response from the congressman.
"You lied to me and you lied to all of us," Culberson charged. "Your office tried to paint a picture of Ramos and Compean as dirty cops, and now you come before this committee and tell us you never had the information to back up those claims."
Ramos and Compean began prison sentences last month after their actions in the shooting of a drug smuggler who was granted immunity to testify against them.
Responding to Skinner's testimony yesterday, Poe said it "explains why DHS has been stonewalling Congress."
"DHS didn't turn over the reports to us to back up their September 26 accusations for one simple reason – the reports never existed," the Texas congressman said.
"Why did it take DHS four months to admit their error?" he asked. "I wonder how much more has DHS told the public and Congress about Ramos and Compean that simply isn't true?"
Poe said he's determined to get to the bottom of DHS's claim.
"I expect this new revelation will lead to a lot more questions before we're done," he said.
Andy Ramirez, who has been involved with the case as chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, told WND the DHS's actions "represent obstruction of justice, and they should be held in contempt of Congress, and, if possible, prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
"This admission today is yet more proof of how they are willing to distort the facts, as I have charged all along, in order to ensure a conviction," he said.
Interesting question.
Ping!
LOL - at least now you are admitting there was a beating.
Yeah, he'll never get a third term if he keeps acting like this. /sarc
Sutton -- the prosecutor -- and Gonzalez are personal friends. Gonzalez recently promoted Sutton.
We can only speculate why they are doing this.
If it was clinton, I would say that the job of the Border Patrol at that time was to arrest small independent drug dealers but let the big guys through, because clinton had been in the drug smuggling business most of his life, and collected a percentage of the take from the stuff coming through Mexico.
I don't think that's true of our current president.
The only explanation I can think of is that this drug smuggler has friends high up in the Mexican government, and the Mexican government demanded that the Border Patrol agents should be punished as a matter of Mexican American friendship and good will. No doubt Bush might have carelessly said, sure, go ahead, if they're guilty then they should be punished, and some overly zealous functionaries then started pulling some really corrupt stuff.
Bureaucracies can sometimes work that way. Word comes down from above and gets bent and twisted in the process. And I can't think of a more bloated bureaucracy than Homeland Security.
I have to say that this latest business doesn't really surprise me. I was never convinced by the weak "evidence" that these two agents were guilty. It just smelled wrong that an armed drug smuggler was being treated like some kind of innocent victim of injustice.
We may never know why this happened, but clearly an injustice has been perpetrated, and it needs to be fixed, quickly.
The warden is laying very low and refusing interviews with people like BOR... AND denying an MD to Ramos to check the state of his injuries.
It doesn't necessarily have to be under oath. It's lying during an investigation of a matter within the oversight jurisdiction of the legislative branch. If the investigation in accordance with House Rules, there may be a criminal case here.
ack!
Hey, Mark was on this also.
Duncan Hunter set up a bill and got over 76 sponsors to try for a congressional pardon but all up in the air.
Hunter one of the few trying to right this situation
Bingo! I got to witness the mess on 15 this morning because of illegals running from the BP!
Why? This seems like an easy question. I believe, and have thought for some time, that the government wanted to send a message that Border Agents had better not be aggressive in responding to issues of illegals entering the country. They all see that the government will throw any such agent in prison.
This case is turning out to be disgusting. I think there is more to come.
Go ahead and smirk but HLS has his stamp all over it. Think Katrina. If people get mad at him they get mad at Republicans. Who would they vote for then? JAT
And with that ignorant statement, I officially give up. This is a story that defies common sense, reason, and facts. There are too many people who have little interest in the truth, and only care for the cause. And too many others who seem to care for the truth but do nothing to correct the bizarre misstatements of others on their side.
I entered this battle because I want the truth, and you can't get the truth if lies are given the time of day.
I was warned that it was a pointless task, but I thrive on pointless tasks.
But even I have my limits, and I have reached them.
Don't take this personally, your comment isn't even that odd. But to deconstruct why it is an ignorant claim would take linking to too many other stories, and quoting too many things, to be worth it to me anymore.
If the pro-BP-agent folks ever come up with a fact, they will get their way -- I have little doubt that the system will work. I further doubt the agents will be pardoned unless the facts break the way the defense wants them to break, which I don't expect to happen.
But I certainly would be pleased to find the smuggler a scumbag liar, and the two BP agents innocent. Unfortunately, I can't join the conspiracy because to do so I apparently have to destroy the lives of literally DOZENS of other fine men and woman who work for our government, all of who have been called lying scumbags and worse in the "cause" of freeing these two men. And I simply don't buy the consipiray theory.
My point in all this has been to back you all down from sensationalist claims. If you could refute my points, your arguments would be so much stronger, and you might get mainstream media attention.
My fear is that this, like so many other far-right zealous causes, will only make republicans look more stupid. In an odd way, the more proof you all can find, the less likely that is (although I still don't see the logic in essentially condeming all the people you need to win over in order to get your way).
Truth be told, a blind man could make a hole in one, and maybe the defenders will turn out to have a case. I doubt it, I won't mind it, but they aren't getting there with the arguments and stuff they've thrown around so far.
But don't stop, just try to stay in the real world guys.
Might want to also include the gov. in the state where it occurred
Since a doctor has not seen him none of us know how serious his injuries really are or how it's being spun to the media by the warden in hiding.
I used to think that too. I did a little reading on it and found that thought to be outdated based on how they do it today.
As far as I could determine, the current process provides that an electronic record of the testimony is kept (in audio). It is only transcribed to text by the court reporter if someone requests it, and agrees to pay for it based on a predetermined price. I presume that's where the $3 dollars per page estimates come from. The court reporters make money by selling transcripts--that's why they also don't make any of them available online. Theoretically, this court reporter didn't even start the job until the first transcript request was filed on November 16, 2006.
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