Justice Department trying to shield officials in guns scandal
Reporting from Washington — The Justice Department is trying to protect its political appointees from the Fast and Furious scandal by concealing an internal “smoking gun” report and other documents that acknowledge the role top officials played in the program that allowed firearms to flow illegally into Mexico, according to the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF’s acting director, also told congressional investigators this month that the affidavits prepared to obtain wiretaps used in the ill-fated operation were inconsistent with Justice Department officials’ public statements about the program. Justice Department officials advised him not to raise his concerns with Congress about “institutional problems” with the Fast and Furious operation, Melson said.
“It was very frustrating to all of us,” Melson told congressional investigators in a private meeting over the Fourth of July holiday, “and it appears thoroughly to us that the department is really trying to figure out a way to push the information away from their political appointees at the department.”
Not only was the department slow to react, Melson said, but Justice Department officials indicated they did not want him to cooperate with Congress.
Full Story Here:
Justice Department trying to shield political appointees, ATF head says
Lets talk a little bit about the duplicity and hypocrisy that Democrats and Libbers exhibit at every opportunity.
Let’s talk about how the Democrats and Libbers wanted to crucify the entire Reagan administration over the Iran-Contra affair back in the mid 1980’s and how we don’t hear so much as a PEEP from all of these self righteous, tree hugging, Mother Earth, save the whales moonbats over the wrongs committed by the Obama administration and Obama’s minions, specifically, Eric Holder and his ‘down line’ at the DOJ.
Let’s think for a bit about the obstruction of justice than some in the Obama administration are committing and the lives that those individuals have placed in danger.
Where are all over those oh so sincere cries for JUSTICE now that it’s Obama and his band of ne’er do wells under the microscope and facing public scrutiny from at least a few mainstream media sources and many Conservative bloggers.
Why aren’t the Dems and Libbers out protesting in front of the DOJ building and the White House, screaming for answers and demanding that those responsible be immediately brought to justice and thrown in prison for the rest of their natural lives?
I know what I believe the answer to be; it’s because they are afraid of bringing down their precious Obamessiah and his right hand man, Attorney General Eric Holder.
I believe that if it were a Republican President that had ordered these ATF operations, or had signed off on them, or was just by chance the POTUS when his less than sincere head of DOJ DID order these things and DID sign off on them, I believe these things would not be a possibility, I believe they would be an reality and that there would be violence and destruction, much like any other time the Dems and Libbers protest something.
Melson said he wasn’t attempting to shield his agency from its share of the blame. He acknowledged an instance in which his agents failed to intercept high-powered weapons when they could have.
“The deputy attorney general’s office wasn’t very happy with us” at the ATF, Melson said, “because they thought this was an admission that there were mistakes made. Well, there were some mistakes made.”
Somehow, I am thinking that there are those that assumed Melson was going to be a *good soldier* and just fall on his sword in an effort to vindicate those above him that ARE connected to this Fast and Furious debacle.
I think there may be more to Ken Melson than many had imagined.
Justice Department officials denied they were stonewalling the congressional investigation. They said they were cooperating and had been providing thousands of pages of documents and other material to investigators.
OK, we can play the semantics game if that’s what the DOJ wants to do. So, they aren’t *stonewalling*, they’re just delaying their response and input, they are resisting the urge to come clean and get on with life and put this matter to rest.
Refer back to the duplicity and hypocrisy that Democrats and Libbers exhibit at every opportunity.
“Any notion that the department has failed to cooperate with the investigation is simply not based in fact,” said Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman. She added that the department’s inspector general’s office was reviewing the Fast and Furious operation.
The DOJ has their inspector general’s office reviewing the Fast and Furious?
Isn’t that akin to having the fox guard the hen house? The DOJ is supposed to investigate itself and be totally fair in that investigation? Seriously?
“The department, like the committee, is interested in determining whether Operation Fast and Furious was appropriately handled,” Schmaler said.
Please excuse me for breaking out in maniacal laughter when I read that part about determining whether Operation Fast and Furious was appropriately handled.
I don’t know what kind of person this Tracy Schmaler really is, she might be a wonderful human being, but if she has ANY thoughts that Fast and Furious was handled appropriately, she is a total fool, a Dem Libber Kool-Aid drinking robot.
The intent of Fast and Furious was to allow illegal straw purchasers to buy guns so ATF agents could follow the weapons and ferret out gun-smuggling routes into Mexico. But many of the approximately 1,700 weapons eluded tracing — some even before they were shipped over the border.
Nearly 200 of the weapons were later found at crime scenes in Mexico, and two were recovered at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s slaying in Arizona in December.
I am going to close by saying this; whoever thought up Fast and Furious, whoever carried it up the chain of command for approval, whoever approved Fast and Furious and allowed this bastard of an operation to go forward is an accessory in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and only God knows who else that HAS been killed or may be killed with ANY of those weapons in the future.
How about it Dems and Libbers? Where is your outrage over that?
The media and left is more concerned with Rupert Murdoch and the phone hacking scandal where: no one has died; no threats of bodily harm were made during the alleged hacking; livelihoods were not threatened; basically, conversations were hacked.
Why would they worry about an operation where the justice department made gun shops break the law so firearms could flow to drug cartels in Mexico so innocent people on both sides of the border , including a US Border Guard, could be killed with these firearms.
The only way they would have to track these guns were if they were recovered after use in the commission of a deadly crime.
There is no doubt that Eric Holder wanted Ken Melson to take the fall for him, but Melson wasn’t willing to and is on the verge of blowing the lid off of this scandal. If this were a republican administration the media would have been all over this and Holder would have already resigned. But the media and the Democrats are doing all they can to assure that this is hidden as much as possible. Eirc Holder has already lied to the Congress and should be brought up on charges.