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“Fast and Furious” Blows Sky-High
Powerline ^ | July 6,2011 | Edward Morrissey

Posted on 07/06/2011 1:45:00 PM PDT by Hojczyk

This morning, Issa and Senator Charles Grassley released a letter that they sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder. It is explosive, to say the least. You should read it in its entirety; here are some excerpts:

Yesterday, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson participated in a transcribed interview regarding Operation Fast and Furious and related matters with both Republican and Democratic staff. He appeared with his personal counsel, Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods LLP. His interview had originally been scheduled through the Justice Department to occur on July 13 in the presence of DOJ and ATF counsel. As you know, however, under our agreement Department witnesses who choose to attend a voluntary interview with their own lawyer are free to exercise that right rather than participate with counsel representing the Department’s interests.

After being made aware of that provision of our agreement, Acting Director Melson chose to exercise that right and appeared with his own lawyer. We are disappointed that no one had previously informed him of that provision of the agreement. Instead, Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress.

Issa and Grassley link the Obama administration’s effort to slide Melson out of his position, making him the fall guy for the Fast and Furious operation, with Melson’s complaints to Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the number two official in the Department of Justice, about DOJ’s failure to respond adequately to Congress’s requests for information about Fast and Furious:

However, two days after he told Acting Deputy Attorney General Cole about serious issues involving lack of information sharing, The full transcript of Melson’s testimony, when released, will be a fascinating document. In the meantime, it appears clear that the Fast and Furious scandal reaches to the very top of Barack Obama’s Department of Justice.

(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; democrats; doj; dojisajoke; fastandfurious; gunwalker; holder; holdertruthfile; melson; meltdown; obama
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To: Hojczyk

Umm, is there supposed to be a surprise somewhere in this?

ATF is an unconstitutional entity, they have to skirt the constitution just to exist.
DOJ and FBI have very little more justification to exist, if any.

All Fed. agencies are like cancer, they want to grow in size and power, the only way they can do so is at the expense of their host, the U.S. citizenry.

Time to abolish most federal agencies, and cut any that remain to a manageable size, with NO power to create law without the active participation of congress.

Until we do that, we have no real freedom in this country.


21 posted on 07/06/2011 2:03:21 PM PDT by Loyal Sedition (Loyal Sedition, often described as "To the right of Attila The Hun"!)
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To: Hojczyk

Holder should have been gone LONG AGO, and if America had a fourth-estate media, he would be.


22 posted on 07/06/2011 2:04:02 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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To: Gator113

Calling Helen Thomas!


23 posted on 07/06/2011 2:05:49 PM PDT by pingman (Durn tootin'; I like Glock shootin'!)
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To: Hojczyk

Someone put Holder in a holdng cell.


24 posted on 07/06/2011 2:06:37 PM PDT by 4Speed
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To: Hojczyk

Woodward and Bernstein - or more likely the new crop of liberal wannabes - have jumped on this and are “following the money” even as we speak, right?

Funny, all I hear is crickets.


25 posted on 07/06/2011 2:06:58 PM PDT by Oceander (The phrase "good enough for government work" is not meant as a compliment)
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To: taraytarah

Obstruction of Justice charges should be filed against Eric Holder:

“Mr. Melson also said he was not allowed to communicate to Congress the reasons for the reassignments. He claimed that ATF’s senior leadership would have preferred to be more cooperative with our inquiry much earlier in the process. However, he said that Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress. The result is that Congress only got the parts of the story that the Department wanted us to hear. If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand. That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation. The Department’s inability or unwillingness to be more forthcoming served to conceal critical information that we are now learning about the involvement of other agencies, including the DEA
and the FBI.”


26 posted on 07/06/2011 2:07:24 PM PDT by reagandemocrat
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To: majormaturity
The only way to kill a snake is to cut its head off.

I rather suspect that gutting it and then roasting it over a fire with the head attached would kill it pretty well. Let's try.

27 posted on 07/06/2011 2:08:54 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (If you think it's time to bury your weapons.....it's time to dig them up.)
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To: MrB

We, The People.


28 posted on 07/06/2011 2:09:32 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: bossmechanic
The whole thing was obviously a very stupid idea but why keep digging the hole deeper?

It's the Obama administration's own Watergate.

29 posted on 07/06/2011 2:10:21 PM PDT by 6SJ7 (atlasShruggedInd = TRUE)
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To: Hojczyk

Where there is smoke there is fire...


30 posted on 07/06/2011 2:12:01 PM PDT by Sprite518
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To: Hojczyk
Until it lands on the front page of the New York Times, The Washington Post and the L.A. Times...it hasn't "blown" anywhere.

When the Democrats threw over 400 "ethics violations" at Newt, the NYT attacked him on its front page for 56 weeks in a row. And when he was completely exonerated, nothing. Not a word.

When you say, "Gunwalker", and every news-reading American knows what you're talking about...its a scandal. Until then, its only a story in the conservative media.

31 posted on 07/06/2011 2:13:15 PM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: Hojczyk; All

The evidence gathered by Issa’s oversight committee suggests that the Obama administration may actually have financed the purchases of firearms by known criminals, which then wound up in the hands of Mexican gangs and were involved in murders, including the murder of an American border patrol agent:

“The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities.

While this is preliminary information, we must find out if there is any truth to it.

According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers, which we now know were substantially delayed by the u.s. Attorney’s Office and Main Justice.”

I wonder if any of this will be making the NBC Evening News tonite???


32 posted on 07/06/2011 2:14:25 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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To: Hojczyk

My right field thought while reading this was Boama as the fall guy for Sorros.


33 posted on 07/06/2011 2:14:25 PM PDT by mountainlion (AMERICA LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.)
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To: pingman

LOL


34 posted on 07/06/2011 2:16:34 PM PDT by Gator113 (weak-coward-racist-white hating-lying-traitor= Surrender Monkey in Chief-B. Hussein Obama...)
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To: MrB

“I want to make sure that it is widely known that this program had the specific goal of advancing unpopular gun control laws in America”

Then you had BETTER BE DOING SO YOURSELF, because you won’t be hearing about ANY of this on the alphabet evening news shows....


35 posted on 07/06/2011 2:20:57 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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To: Hojczyk

Shhhhhhhhh!


36 posted on 07/06/2011 2:22:25 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.' - Homer Simpson)
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To: Hojczyk
'

Oh no, a letter from the Hans Blix wing of the Republican party.

37 posted on 07/06/2011 2:22:40 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: bossmechanic
The whole thing was obviously a very stupid idea but why keep digging the hole deeper?

Only a Community Organizer who thinks he owns the press would think he could get away with this by burying it. This is Obama's WATERGATE. We are in the cover up phase where the pawns such as Holder and Ass't AG lie to obstruct justice to protect the king.

Issa realizes that only Obama has the horsepower and stupidity to try something like this, don't you?

38 posted on 07/06/2011 2:28:13 PM PDT by politicianslie (Democrats are COMMUNIST, Repubs are SOCIALIST, and Barry's a Muslim manipulating USEFUL RINO IDIOTS)
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To: Hojczyk

We shall see who rolls over on the terrorist hero boy zero first ay?


39 posted on 07/06/2011 2:29:59 PM PDT by Tigen (I shall raise you one .)
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To: 6SJ7

“It’s the Obama administration’s own Watergate.”

All so Obama could achieve the Democrat Socialist wet dream of taking away the Constitutional Rights of Americans.

TRICKY DICK NIXON DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO DO THAT....


40 posted on 07/06/2011 2:31:35 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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