June 21, 2012

NEWSMAX

GOP Open to Talks Before Contempt Vote

June 21, 2012

House Republican officials say they're willing to negotiate an end to a potential constitutional confrontation in a document dispute, but only if the Obama administration turns over more emails and memos related to the flawed "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking operation.

The dispute got a little nastier Wednesday. A House committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, the Obama administration invoked a legal stance that could prevent turning over the documents and the confrontation was elevated to the White House and the top House GOP leadership.

House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the House would vote next week on accepting the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's contempt of Congress vote.

Committee officials who would conduct any negotiations in the coming days for Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said they're looking for at least some additional documents on Fast and Furious — plus some "signs of good faith."

The latter could include substantive responses to future committee requests for documents, reforming the approval process for wiretap applications, acknowledging mistakes in misleading Congress about Fast and Furious, taking whistle-blowers seriously and producing a log of documents to be turned over, according to the officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the issue by name.

The administration, for its part, would have to abandon the president's assertion of executive privilege — a legal position that attempts to protect internal executive branch documents from disclosure. If the administration maintains that stance, it could lead to court fights that could take years to resolve.

Read more: GOP Open to Talks before Holder Contempt Vote


TOWNHALL
Terry Family: Holder and Obama Compounding Fast and Furious Tragedy, Protecting Themselves
by Katie Pavlich
June 20, 2012

Josephine Terry with Gov. Jan Brewer

The parents of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed by illegal wielding Fast and Furious weapons, have released a statement surrounding today's events:

"Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to fully disclose the documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious and President Obama's assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth. Our son, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by members of a Mexican drug cartel armed with weapons from this failed Justice Department guntrafficking investigation. For more than 18 months, we have been asking our federal government for justice and accountability. The documents sought by the House Oversight Committee and associated with Operation Fast and Furious should be produced and turned over to the Committee. Our son lost his life protecting this nation, and it is very disappointing that we are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious."

AMERICAN THINKER
Fast and Furious Falling Apart 
by Russ Vaughn
June 21, 2012

When BATF agents first blew the whistle on what is now known as Operation Fast and Furious, the rationale offered by DoJ for such an evidently foolish operation was that it was designed to allow BATF to track and prosecute the leaders of the Mexican drug cartels.  As more information surfaced from the Mexican government and the BATF's Mexican bureau chief specifying that none of them knew anything of this operation, many of us who were paying a bit closer attention to the case immediately smelled the first foul scent of corruption.

The fatal flaw in DoJ's explanation was this: if the Mexican authorities had not been brought into the operation, nor even the BATF's own agents authorized to operate in Mexico, then the proffered DOJ justification made utterly no sense, for the simple reason that once those walked guns hit the south side of that border, there was absolutely no process in place to track them to their supposed targets.  Therefore, DoJ was patently  misrepresenting its motive.  Why?

For those who keep a constant wary eye on the left's never-ending war on our 2nd-Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the increasingly fishy smell emanating from Washington led to connecting the dots back to the year-earlier revelations in the liberal media that weapons being used in Mexican crimes were traceable back to American sources more than 90% of the time.  That false meme had spread quickly through the major liberal media, along with calls for stricter gun control laws in this country by...guess who!  How about our president, our secretary of state, our attorney general, and other notable Democrats, for starters?

Read more: http://bit.ly/Mj8vxn