SECRET WIRETAPS ROCK DOJ
Posted on 06/29/2012 11:52:14 AM PDT by MindBender26
In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.
The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.
Next, sources in DC say it came, NOT from Cummings, but from leakers inside DOJ. If so, it makes Cummings look very bad. I was at a veterans's fundraising event in Atlanta 4 weeks ago and he was there. He is a very old stumbling, mumbling man, and will be great for our side on TV. Imagine an old, mumbling, toothless, black, non-gramatical Bobert Byrd and you are on target.
Next, anytime you an get the word "wiretap" into a story, you get the public's sttantion.
We are quickly getting into the "what did you know, when did you know it" phase here.... and anytime you get there, individuals and their private lawyers begin looking for "deals."
House of cards, and with Obama/Holder's refusal to come clean, it just prolongs it.... and I love it!
Issa is showing a few of the cards he is holding, hoping he can get someone on the other side to fold
good move
I just heard Rush say something to the effect that the wiretaps have something to do with F & F being a rogue op that Holder did NOT know about...
I’m confused...will have to go study some more.
Amazing how willing to lie these guys are at the DoJ. I hope the rank and file still have a sense of shame.
Can 0bama pardon the MOST GUILTY party - himself?
Does anyone know how Fast and Furious was supposed to work?
What was the goal? How was the plan suppose to work? Who authorized it? What went wrong?
These are VERY SIMPLE questions to answer. I would like to see the MSM starting asking these questions.
“I would like to see the MSM starting asking these questions.”
And that’ll be the day pigs grow wings and fly!
Good luck with that!
In the history of recent decades, we are constantly bombarded by the liberal media with dragged-out appearances by Woodward (sometimes Berstein) of WaPo about the utter magnificience of their investagatory prowess and import in Watergate - a third rate burglary turned into a mountain.
In actual fact, these two are two lucky asswipes with actually very little intelligence (Woodward talks like a simp who’s just learned how to speak). Their Pulitzers are on a par with Obama’s Peace Prize in my opinion.
If anyone wants to see what real passion, real work, real determination and real maneuvering for Justice looks like, they need only look at Issa. I hope he gets them, and gets them ‘hang them from the yardarms’ good.
There's no formal detention facility in the House but one of those portable storage locker units would work out well ~ with a port a potty and a garden hose.
He's held people in worse conditions I"d imagine.
Put it on the tourist route so they could come by and look at him.
It shows that those who report directly to Holder knew details of F&F.
I’d say there’s a good chance that someone high up in the DOJ is going to talk in exchange for immunity.
I predict Pierce Bronson will portray Darryl Issa in “All The Presidents Men II”
Not sure, but the President has the ability to unconditionally pardon any Federal crime before or after conviction, and there are no exclusions, so that would logically include himself.
Note my tagline.
“I just heard Rush say something to the effect that the wiretaps have something to do with F & F being a rogue op that Holder did NOT know about...”
I’m afraid that you misheard what Rush said.
Rush was proposing that it would take a rogue element inside the DOJ for Holder NOT to know about F&F - which is not realistic. Holder had to have known.
You may well be right- I am not sure exactly what he said- I should have prefaced it with “I thought I heard...”
It seems unlikely given the way this administration operates that anything that big could go on without Holder knowing.
Looks like Issa’s holding all the trump cards.
As for you Mr. Holder, keep telling the lies as each and every day, the lies become harder and harder to keep track of.
The truth is your worst enemy.
Not to worry. The Justice Department will surely attempt a prosecution.
Drudge must have crashed TheHill.com site with this story.
What was the goal? How was the plan suppose to work? Who authorized it? What went wrong?
The key questions, and the answer is the key fact.
The only logical conclusion consistent with the actions of the F&F agents is that it was suppose to make it appear that American civilian straw purchased guns were smuggled to Mexican drug cartel killers by having them left at Mexican crime scenes.
Trouble is, this is just work that Americans won't do, so Obama, Holder, Justice and ATF simply did it for them using taxpayer paid ATF agents and taxpayer funds to buy and smuggle the guns to the real drug cartels.
That's why there were no arrests, and no tracking of the guns.
No way. F&F was an OCEDETF task force operation, which means it was approved by the top tier of DOJ for special funding, and cooperation between all the other arms of Justice (FBI, ATF, etc). They even sent down word when they approved the OCEDETF application that it was contingent on the local offices reorganizing the operation to meet central DOJ’s approval. Furthermore, federal wiretaps all have to get approved through the top tier of DOJ, so this is just further evidence that this is anything but a rogue operation.
Keep in mind that a good investigator never says everything he knows or suspects. It’s looking more & more like Issa maneuvered the president into that bogus claim of executive privilege. Now he’s boxed in. Holder is out on the limb that’s about to be sawed off. I figure he’s gone before the election — probably before Labor Day.
Speaking of interpretations...
Ann Coulter tweets:
If a Border Agent is killed by a DOJ supplied gun, is that a tax?
Oversimplified for brevity...
The official goal was to identify international smuggling & criminal use of American-originated guns.
The plan was to direct gun dealers to sell to suspicious buyers, knowing the guns would be smuggled across the border. Under GWB, the guns would be stopped at the border (with the imperative NOTHING crosses the border) and perpetrators arrested. Under (well, _somewhere_ under) BHO, the “stop ‘em at the border” imperative was relaxed and the guns allowed to cross, with the intent that they would later be found at crime scenes and, as such, connections could be traced from violent crimes to known and implicated involvees.
Who authorized it is...problematic. Involving federal gun laws, international crime, foreign diplomacy, and other very-high-level concerns, such an operation MUST be known & authorized by no less than Attorney General Holder (for the domestic criminal factors), Secretary of State Clinton (for foreign issues), and President Obama (for joining the two). Thing is, all of them claim to know nothing...but are refusing to release documented proof of who knew what.
What went wrong was that Border Agent Brian Terry was killed with one of these smuggled guns. So were other US agents.
What went wrong was that other US agents were killed investigating this operation.
What went wrong was that the operation could _only_ succeed if people died. Hundreds of Mexicans did.
What went wrong was that certain high-level administrators were not concerned. Accountability was not demanded. Heads did not roll.
And Senator Issa started investigating.
And a number of involved peons blew a lot of whistles. And gave Issa critical documented proof.
And Holder was just convicted of “contempt of Congress” for not cooperating.
And Issa just published detailed documents with Holder’s fingerprints all over ‘em, detailing what Holder claims didn’t happen or didn’t know.
Oh, and some time back at a fundraiser with a gun-control group, BHO made a cryptic comment about working on “something under the radar”.
Seems the _real_ goal was to invoke international outrage over “lax” US gun laws, thus giving a new path to severe restrictions on the 2nd Amendment.
And what went wrong was a lethal illegal operation was authorized and operated from the highest office ... and all eyes are looking there.
The lesson for Holder:
Don’t try to bluff a win with a lousy hand of poker in a no-limits game against someone who would have folded if he didn’t have an unbeatable set of cards.
“What was the goal?”
Create a fake gun crisis in Mexico that would result in gun control legislation being rammed down on the public with media help like ObamaCare was.
Obama can’t pardon himself for Mexican conspiracy to commit homicide charges though :)
-PJ
While the presstitutes in the MSM don't care, the Terry/Zapata families do. Oh, and the 300 (so far) dead Mexican's families probably as well.
In the debate yesterday, Chairman Issa asked for unanimous consent to enter the letters into the record. There was no objection so the presiding officer ordered that the letters be made part of the record. Making this information part of the Congressional Record was an act by the whole House, not simply Congressman Issa.
Except this:
What went wrong was that the operation could _only_ succeed if people died. Hundreds of Mexicans did.
The dead Mexicans was not "what went wrong" - it went exactly as designed by the Executive branch of the US government.
Concerning your responses...
I expect you are all theorizing as the rest of us and I suppose Issa is (create a crisis to legislate).
I do not believe in conspiracies. But if someone simply gave orders to not stop the guns at the border, then that becomes the keystone of the investigation. Who, then, gave that order and why?
Concerning your responses...
I expect you are all theorizing as the rest of us and I suppose Issa is (create a crisis to legislate).
I do not believe in conspiracies. But if someone simply gave orders to not stop the guns at the border, then that becomes the keystone of the investigation. Who, then, gave that order and why?
Conspiracies aside...
That’s the base question Issa is asking and Holder isn’t answering.
Who gave that order aside...
Once across the border, the only way those items would be found again is if people died. Thing is, Mexican authorities were not clued in on the operation, so closing the loop wasn’t really part of the plan - leaving upstanding local police to wonder why illegal American guns were showing up next to dead Mexican citizens.
...which sounds a lot like a conspiracy at work.
Hanlon’s Razor (”Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”) applies in most cases, but sometimes the level of stupidity required to explain the act is so great that Occam’s Razor (to wit “the simplest explanation is most likely”) prevails and we must conclude malice.
Real conspiracies are rare, but they do exist.
Funny. i thought the same thing yesterday. what would cause you leave weapons behind? BY THE THOUSANDS!!
Funny. i thought the same thing yesterday. what would cause you leave weapons behind? BY THE THOUSANDS!!
Funny. i thought the same thing yesterday. what would cause you leave weapons behind? BY THE THOUSANDS!!
I would love to see stocks lining Pennsylvania Ave filled with all these traitors so We The People can show them what we think of them publicly.
I would love to see stocks lining Pennsylvania Ave filled with all these traitors so We The People can show them what we think of them publicly.
After the stock treatment, the ropes should come out.
With the questions you are asking I would assume you are one of those guys in the GEICO commercial. You know, the ones living under a rock.
Go to this site and get an education if your questions are serious. If not you forgot your /sarc tag.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/
No way The only actor that should be considered is John Hamm who plays the part of Don Draper in "Mad Men" on AMC. The guy is a dead ringer for Issa.
They have not recovered thousands, that number came from the gun dealer’s reports of inquiry. The ones that were recovered were dropped from the hands of the guys using them when they were ventilated and proceeded to assume desert temperature.
I gather that the DOJ was doing wiretapping, but who were the targets of the wiretaps?
True, however he could legally avoid being remanded to a Mexican authority.
However, trafficking arms to drug cartels in rebellion against the legitimate Mexican government is an act of war for a national official of his rank, and that is a violation of International Law.
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