AP on DOJ Prosecutor Taking the Fifth in Fast and Furious: The Problem is With the 'Investigation'
Pete Yost's Friday evening story at the Associated Press, also known to yours truly as the Administration's Press, on the latest development in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal (that's my word, certainly not Yost's) has a "this is a boring story, don't read it" headline ("Prosecutor intends to take 5th if called in probe"), followed by an opening sentence which acts as if it has nothing to do with at least 300 Mexican citizens, a slain Border patrol agent, and thousands of disappearing guns.
Yost's opening sentence: "A federal prosecutor in Arizona intends to remain silent if called for questioning in a congressional probe of a problem-plagued gun smuggling investigation." Yep, Yost wants readers who don't get past the first paragraph to believe that it's only the "investigation" that's messed up beyond all recognition, not what happened in the Fast and Furious operation. Here's more from Pete's pathetic piece (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Story Continues Below Ad ↓Patrick Cunningham's decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious was disclosed Friday after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed him.
Republican committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said congressional investigators have information that Cunningham played a role in approving a controversial law enforcement tactic, resulting in federal agents losing track of weapons that later turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S.
In a letter to the committee Thursday, Cunningham's lawyer said his client wasn't even working at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix until 2010, months after Operation Fast and Furious began there.
According to Issa, senior Justice Department officials have told the committee that Cunningham relayed inaccurate and misleading information to department superiors insisting that no unacceptable tactics were used.
... The evidence shows that "my client is, in fact, innocent," (Cunningham attorney Tobin) Romero wrote.
... Cunningham, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix, is resigning his government post effective next Friday to take a job in the private sector.
Note the following:
- Yost really wants to make sure we know that Darrell Issa is a Republican, tagging him as one twice in one phrase.
- The use of the term "law enforcement tactic." What laws are being "enforced" when you give out guns which you know you won't be able to track?
- "Weapons" just sort of "turned up" at "crime scenes." Yost doesn't mention what was also "turned up" -- as noted above, hundreds of dead Mexican citizens and slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
- There's also no mention of who used the "weapons" at the crime scenes, i.e., Mexican drug cartel members, gangsters, and other criminals.
- Regarding Cunningham's resignation, does this mean that he will conveniently end up being out of the reach of congressional investigators, and that he is invoking the Fifth to play stall-ball until he is? Yost doesn't say.
At PJ Media, Bob Owens provides a number of chronological facts Yost could have and should have used if his intention were to inform readers instead of to create an uninteresting story from which no one would learn anything. Owens also recounts how the administration's story has changed over time, something in which Yost and the AP also have demonstrated little if any interest:
Cunningham’s defense seeks to portray him as an innocent man caught in a conflict between the legislative and executive branches of government. He also seems to be the designated “fall guy” in the Obama administration’s recent tactical shift.
Previously, administration officials claimed they were unaware of the gunwalking plot and had no involvement in it. That excuse fell apart when evidence was presented that Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michele Leonhart, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller, U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota/Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee/Acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones, and the top federal prosecutors in the Southwestern border states were all privy to information about Operation Fast and Furious.
The administration has since shifted to what can only be described as an “incompetence defense,” where they are asserting that rogue Phoenix operatives initiated the massive gunwalking plot without their supervisors in Washington, D.C., knowing anything about it — even as the “rogue” agents worked across directorships with DOJ, DHS, the IRS, and the required authorization of the State Department.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense seems to hinge upon the theory that he’s a detached boss more interested in pursuing heavily politicized racial justice schemes than enforcing the law or knowing what his direct reports are engaged in. One has to wonder about how serious the criminal crimes are that the attorney general is attempting to avoid by claiming gross incompetence.
It will be interesting to see if an immunity arrangement can be worked out for Mr. Cunningham so that he can share what he knows about Operation Fast and Furious.
With Cunningham's departure from the Department of Justice, that would seem less likely.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
Any public official eating from
Submitted by Bodini on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:05pm.
Any public official eating from the public feed-trough who takes the 5th should be immediately fired and all legal fees/protections afforded them as a result of their employment should be stripped! He should then be banned from any future government employment and his bar license should be stripped.
That said, any investigation of Demwit wrongdoing is always characterized by the boot-licking Marxist-media as flawed. I would charge this Marxist-media lap-dog with obstruction of justice for intentionally writing the article in such a way as to provide a smoke screen for the corrupt Obama administration..
Agreed
Submitted by Galvanic on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 1:03pm.
And let's not forget that this Administration insists that it is still the most transparent ever.
The fact that a senior attorney in the Justice Department is going to plead the Fifth, and the MSM keeps treating the Fast & Furious scandal as if it's a minor story, is solid evidence of pro-Obama bias in the media.
The Republicans need to air 30-second ads on Fast & Furious and Solyndra this spring.
Obama kept his word about
Submitted by stratman on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 5:30pm.
Obama kept his word about being the most transparent, he just didn't say how. The Obama Administration is the most transparently corrupt administration.
Tom
Submitted by ricklail on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:05pm.
This just makes me more aware that the Injustice Department is trying to hide something. Holder won't tell the truth nor turnover the requested documents. The IQ has been investigating this for a year yet no report.
You know as well as I do this story will never make the MSM unless it is slanted like the AP story.
⇒ It's the coverup
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:10pm.
The Obama Administration's success in laundering money via the sale of guns to narco-terrorists has resulted in the death of at least one Border Agent.
Richard Nixon's "plumbers" broke into a Psychiatrist's office.
I'm just sayin'.
Do your recall anybody during
Submitted by ricklail on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:17pm.
Do your recall anybody during the Watergate hearings taking the 5th?
⇒ Actually
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:30pm.
I think the majority of the plumbers did invoke the Fifth, which raises the question, how involved was Holder's Phoenix official at DOJ with the illegal distribution of firearms to narco-terrorists.
Going along with the "law enforcement tactic" idea,
Submitted by UpNorth on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:19pm.
what tactic allows convicted felons to purchase firearms? This was questioned, by firearms dealers, and they were told to let the purchases proceed. So, the ATFE and FBI were complicit in letting felons buy guns.
My wife works in sporting goods at one of the big box stores, and the NICS system won't even let someone purchase a firearm if the address on their identification isn't current, or if the name of the purchaser is close to someone prohibited from buying a firearm, a hold is placed until the problem can be cleared up. Yet convicted felons were allowed to buy 360 guns?
Arizona is opening a state investigation into the matter.
Submitted by drsamherman on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:25pm.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/jan/21/arizona-...
Arizona's legislature is opening its own inquiry into the matter to see if any state laws were broken. If they were, that puts the matter into a different context. Obama could not protect any of his lapdogs, because his pardon protection extends only to federal offenses, and not state.
I can easily see Arizona's legislature doing a full bore investigation, including taking Holder and others to federal courts to force their testimony in the matter.
Also, if Cunningham leaves federal government service, he no longer has the immunity of being a federal official. I can imagine Arizona is loaded for bear on this one, given the way the illegal immigration issue went down and how badly those morons Holder and Obama offended the state.
I wish them the best of luck. Seeing Eric and Lanny marched into an Arizona courtroom in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits (or better yet-- in pink boxers in Joe Arpaio's prison camp!) would just be sweet.
Doc, you just made my day.
Submitted by UpNorth on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:32pm.
The idea of seeing Lanny and Holder doing a perp walk, in a jumpsuit or pink anything just makes me start laughing.
And, the idea of a state finally sticking it to a fed, for a violation of a law is just too good to even hope for. I would imagine that the FBI will soon be walking the halls of the state capital in Arizona, reminding the legislators that the Feeb's are watching.
Interesting Doc ...
Submitted by Bodini on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 12:45pm.
but I suspect most of the boys in BO's administration already wear pink underwear ... just not as outerwear!
I dont see much coming of
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 1:11pm.
I dont see much coming of this enterprise unless someone high up in the admin is indited.
The reporter uses the word
Submitted by ant on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 1:34pm.
The reporter uses the word 'investigation' to describe this travesty of an 'operation'. What was the investigation' part? Investigating how much corruption and lying are necessary to put the 'boot on the neck' of the 2nd amendment?
Detached?
Submitted by Ashrak on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 4:08pm.
Hardly.
Blaming the underlings doesn't pass muster any more than the other failed excuses have.
Look, it took Fibbie's NICS checks to see the guns sold and it took ATF's leaning on retailers to sell them in the first place. It took Border Patrol , ICE and DEA cooperation (and quite possibly some leaning on state and local entities by DOHS as a while and even DOS) in order for the guns not to be interdicted after sale before they got to the border.
As a matter of common sense, all of this cooperation did not happen all by itself. C'mon now, nothing in government goes so well without being deliberately steered to go that way. It most certainly did not happen by Cunningham's orders, or even Newell's. Low level lackeys simply do not have the ability, much less the authority, to direct multiple cabinet level agencies, bureaus and departments into such serious cooperation. Coordination is self evident and that means it was a top down order, not a bottom up rogue operation.
At the very least, even if the "rogue" is to stick, it has to mean that Janet, Eric, Hillary, Robert and several other department Secretaries went rogue on Barry. It would have to mean that all of them banded together aside from Barry's order or without his knowledge. Yeah, Hillary is that stupid, huh? Sure she is.
Eric is trying to throw underlings under the bus, but he presents, in doing so, that the only believable storyline there is for Barry to throw his entire cabinet, at least most of it, under the bus.
Nope.
This is not going to play any better than the other excuses. It defies common sense just like the others.
Now, Arizona is opening a state level investigation. There wouldn't be any reason to do that officially if there wasn't already something smoking - or burning - at that level. Sure, there is the Joe factor, and there is the Immigration law DOJ suit fiasco but these are not reasons to open a GunWalker investigation.
People have been openly exposed telling outright lies, even right to Congress. Some facts already known are Pythagorean in nature, thus making other facts indisputable, though some try to hush those, going so far as to pretend they do not exist. The example above is along those lines.
The Barry administration ran guns to cartels and the only possible reason for doing so is the further subversion of our Second Amendment recognitions. With the loss that Heller dealt the control lobby, there ha to be a serious move to combat it. The 90% lie was that choice, with GunWalker being intended to fabricate statistics to support it.
Almost a year ago I wrote "I look forward to what NewsBusters participants have to say about this. It cannot get much more ridiculous, or corrupt, than this, imho. This cannot be allowed to be swept under the rug and one member of Congress isn't good enough. Mr. Issa, its time to get serious, Sir." and I reiterate that sentiment this day.
In a matter of days now, we will see if Chairman Iss'as definition of the word "Oversight" is "holding those so clearly responsible accountable" or simply "Looking past, and giving a free pass to, anything the Executive does".
In the last "hearing" we witnessed some "up twinkles", and some "down twinkles" regarding the word "Impeachment". There is no more room for vague implication and there is no more time for dog and pony shows. It is time for Mr. Issa to demonstrate the choice made by him and his party. Either the lid gets blown off this entire debacle on February Second, or, it is being admitted that all those in Washington today, especially those sitting in positions of authority, are actively locking arms together, across aisles and even ideological separations, in order to keep the lid on it as tightly and for as long as humanly possible.
As I have said some very many times in the last year, Brian Terry is owed better than what we have witnessed. His family is due justice and, quite frankly, so too are the rest of us.
Mr. Issa is either on the side of Liberty and the defense of it, or he is not. There is no in between. Come February Second, he will have no choice but to demonstrate which side he is actually on and it will be both his action and inaction showing us all where he stands.
Mr. Issa is quite familiar with sounding the alarm. Soon, we will see if that is the entirety of his character. Either he will continue to market his alarms, or he will exercise the authority that marketing his alarms carried him to. What does oversight mean to you Mr. Issa?
And still the Silent Speaker refuses to talk. What good is a Speaker of the House who refuses to even speak about the biggest and most consequential scandal in our time, possibly in this nation's history? Mr. Boehner how about you "tell us where you are at"? Hmmmm?
We have a Speaker in the
Submitted by ant on Sat, 01/21/2012 - 6:54pm.
We have a Speaker in the House? Who would've known? I've seen rabbits more noticeable and out-spoken, and more courageous.
Water Boarding Anyone?
Submitted by Jerry Mack on Sun, 01/22/2012 - 4:18pm.
A little Water Boarding just might loosen up his lips.