Posted on 06/20/2012 1:10:05 PM PDT by marktwain
In a second major retraction over its version of the the gun-walking scandal, the Justice Department has retracted Attorney General Eric Holder's charge in a hearing last week that his Bush administration predecessor had been briefed on the affair.
In a memo just released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa senator reveals that Holder also didn't apologize to former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for dragging him into the Fast & Furious scandal that is headed for a major legal clash and likely contempt of Congress charge against Holder.
According to Grassley's memo, Justice said that Holder "inadvertently" made the charge against Mukasey in a hearing.
Here is the full text of the Grassley memo:
To: Reporters and Editors
Re: Second retraction of Fast and Furious Assertions
Da: Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Justice Department has retracted a second statement made to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During a hearing last week, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that his predecessor, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, had been briefed about gunwalking in Operation Wide Receiver. Now, the Department is retracting that statement and claiming Holder "inadvertently" made that claim to the Committee. The Department's letter failed to apologize to former Attorney General Mukasey for the false accusation. This is the second major retraction the Justice Department has made in the last seven months. In December 2011, the Department retracted its claim that the ATF had not allowed illegally purchased guns to be trafficked to Mexico. Sen. Chuck Grassley's letter and the Department's response can be viewed here-1.
In addition, the Justice Department released only one page of additional material prior to the Attorney General's meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. It is a page of handwritten notes by a public affairs specialist for the Deputy Attorney General, which the Department says it "just recently discovered." The notes indicate that when Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein met with senior ATF officials on April 28, 2010, regarding the problem of gunwalking in Wide Receiver, the Deputy Attorney General's public affairs specialist also attended the meeting. These notes can be viewed here-2.
The notes indicate that Fast and Furious was also a topic discussed at the meeting, in addition to Wide Receiver. These notes further corroborate contemporaneous emails in 2010 that show Criminal Division Chief Lanny Breuer and Weinstein seemed to have been more concerned about the press implications of gunwalking than they were about making sure ATF ended the practice. (These emails can be viewed here-3.) The notes also undermine the claim that senior DOJ officials failed to "make the connection" between the gunwalking in Wide Receiver--which Breuer admitted to knowing about--and gunwalking in Fast and Furious. In fact, both cases were discussed by senior Department leadership and senior ATF leadership.
Grassley made the following comment on these developments.
"This is the second time in nearly seven months that the Department has gotten its facts wrong about gunwalking. Attorney General Holder accused Attorney General Mukasey, without producing any evidence, of having been briefed on gunwalking in Wide Receiver. The case Attorney General Mukasey was briefed on, Hernandez, is fundamentally different from both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious since it involved cooperation with the Mexican government. Attorney General Holder's retraction should have included an apology to the former Attorney General.
"In his eagerness to blame the previous administration, Attorney General Holder got his facts wrong. And his tactic didn't bring us any closer to understanding how a bad policy evolved and continued. Bad policy is bad policy, regardless of how many administrations carried it out. Ironically, the only document produced yesterday by the Department appears to show that senior officials in the Attorney General's own Department were strategizing about how to keep gunwalking in both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious under wraps."
Accounable should be accountable.
Gunwalker / Murdergate ping.
You don’t apologize for lying to Congress. Since when? You lose your job!!!
Democrat political lies designed in another ‘EVERYBODY does it’ excuse, meets legal authority in testifying before the Congress. Suddenly the truth matters and Holder could not defend his perjury so he withdrew his political lie.
Add an inept attempt to impugn and slander Mukasey to Holder's growing list of crimes and misdemeanors.
Lies, lies and more lies from this corrupt piece of garbage.
Perjury charges and jail time should be the rallying cry for the day.
I guess the ignorant Dems on Issa’s committee can stop blaming Bush for Fast and Furious now. Really, watching some of their mentally challenged representatives during these hearings ought to make voters back home sick with embarrassment.
“If Fast and Furious started with Bush, unload on Bush. Why are they covering up for Bush? I’m sick and tired of Obama trying to cover up for Bush’s bad deeds!” -Rush
A perfunctory self-serving statement used to correct a lie that he obviously told in a manner that left him legally vulnerable should he be indicted.
Hahaha, now it’s perjury on top of contempt. EXCELLENT
Eloquently stated, and 100% dead on.
I’ve pretty much been glued to Fox all day...and I’m on vacation at the beach.
The vote went well.
They NEED to retract holder and all the criminals around him...with a steamshovel.
Said steamshovel can be found in the operating instructions:
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States...
> ...To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;...
Holder cannot even apologize. Perhaps the administration will be held accounable after all.
That’s why they’ve been stalling for 18 months...to come up with a scapegoat in the Bush administration.
Mukasey needs to file a civil lawsuit against Holder for defamation and making false claims against him.
There are “news” agencies reporting that the contempt citation dissolves when the current Congress goes out at the end of the year.
Any legal experts want to weigh in? This case goes way beyond contempt. What about the murders that occurred because of Fast and Furious?
What about a Grand Jury that brings charges against those responsible for those murders?
Who will answer for those deaths?
Looks like a lack of credibility.
The lie already got around the world before the truth could get its boots on.
I always wondered why we never heard anything more after Janet the butcher reno was held in contempt. I use to think it was big deal. Maybe for reps.
So what if he did? Did he lie to Congress about it? Did he withhold documents?
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