Posted on 04/12/2012 12:39:01 PM PDT by NoLibZone
t was seven months ago that federal agents with guns drawn raided the Gibson guitar factories in Nashville and Memphis. A half million dollars worth of Indian rosewood and ebony was seized under the premise that it had been imported illegally. The feds also took a number of guitars and computer hard drives. The factory was shut down for the day and employees told to go home.
Yet after all this time, the Department of Justice has shown no sign that it will file criminal charges against Gibson. What’s more – it has been almost 3 years since federal agents first raided Gibson (November 2009), seizing a quantity of wood from Madagascar. No decision on criminal charges in that case either.
Meantime, the DOJ has blocked a civil court case in which Gibson was appealing to get its wood back while the criminal investigation proceeds. Or doesn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
...but you should see Holder’s basement entertanment room “Man Cave!”
It’s got the neatest Indian rosewood and ebony Bar.
All of the wood that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife guys were worried about was confiscated and is sitting somewhere rotting away. Nice job!
I luv all of these people who are soooo naive to what this government has done. Who knows, this guy might be an Obama supporter. They can't? Well they are & nobody stands up against them. Banana Republic.
Amazing that the DOJ has time for this but nothing for the Black Panthers, who actually put out a bounty on a man’s head...
I haven't followed this very closely, but I'm pretty certain they don't have any jurisdiction over this CFR. That sounds like USFW made a MAJOR mistake, if that's the case.
They have no case but infinitely deep pockets and can drag this out almost forever. The ‘tactic’ is SOP for all govt agencies bend on punishing someone for whatever reason they feel like. The ATF does this all the time. In their case guns taken are generally stolen (ie lost) or damaged. Almost anyone (even liberals) can easily see this is wrong. Unless radical changes are made Gibson should come to peace w/ loosing their property and move on. They’ll spend more on lawyers fees than the goods are worth. Perhaps they can recoup it when it comes up at a govt auction for pennies on the dollar. Then again the govt may just decide to burn it all.
I think that would explain why no criminal charges have been brought against Gibson. They didn’t do anything wrong. I just watched this segment on FOX. I didn’t know that USFW had “raided” Gibson TWICE.
Correct. There's no incentive whatsoever for this to be handled with any expediency. In fact, there may be perverse incentives that result in the slow processing of this issue (ie: an audit of how many cases they have open, or an inventory of seized products).
You don't want to get yourself mixed up in any type of bureaucracy. In the Gov, everything works exactly opposite of the way it does in private industry.
Why wouldn’t this administration go after a Made in America company? They keep digging a bigger and bigger hole yet by some mysterious power the people who are supposed to report the news honestly and fairly keep filling up the holes for Obama.
Stating the obvious....I absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you all that this is political; has ZIP to do with wood.
Martin’s CEO, by the way, is a big lib supporter. Not so with Gibson execs.
The idiots who ordered, planned, and executed this Nazi-like raid should ALL be not only fired, but prosecuted and put behind bars.
The last time we discussed this here, someone said that he was an Obama donor. I don't know for sure myself.
They’re probably trying to send a message. What that message is, I don’t have a clue. As a guitar player alone, even though I don’t own a Gibson, this makes me angry. Being a Conservative however and understanding the purpose of this current government, I just shake my head and wait for the next one.
LOL - nice case
Then Martin’s executives should be challenged with the suspicion that this is cronyism in enforcement.
Most of Gibson’s guitars are made in America; just that the more expensive ones probably use exotic woods from around the world for custom guitars. The work is done in America though. If you played guitar, left handed, you should try my Mexi-made Strat, then an American-made Strat.
Nope. All the guitars are made with the same wood. The wood is NOT the violation. The violation has to do with holes drilled into one piece of wood on the guitar. The holes have to be drilled by the country we have some trade agreement with (I forget which one it is, maybe Spain) and then imported. American companies are not allowed to drill them here. Something like that.
Probably the Lacey/CITES regulations. It's hard to tell though, because there's a lot of missing and confusing information in this story. Which, (although I'm a known critic of reporting) isn't necessarily unexpected in dealing with the GOV.
A well oiled machine our government is!
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