Thursday, June 28, 2012

Congressman Steny Hoyer is correct.

The Issa investigation to the gun walking charges were seriously flawed.


A journalist has conducted a more thorough investigation than Issa. Katherine Eban didn't need emails to bring real facts to the public.


Fortune magazine reporter Katherine Eban reveals details of her “Fast and Furious” investigation that finds gun walking “proof” unreliable. (click title to entry - thank you)
Eban says, “After six months of investigation, what became clear to me is that the things that Congress was holding up as centerpieces of proof that guns had been walked were, in fact, misconstrued, incorrect, resulted from other motives, other reasons, that there were alternate explanations and that really, this was a case of cherry picking, you know, small phrases, sentences, without any of the context really that you need in order to understand what actually happened in Phoenix Group Seven.”...


Rep. Hoyer pointed out any other contempt hearing before the House took the 87 days in average to reach the floor. Time to allow the House members to prepare for the hearing and understand not only the charge, but, the facts. This is a railroading of AG Holder.

I watched the hearings, Issa never looked for the applications of the ATF activities, he was looking for reason for impeachment. He wanted documents and nothing more. He harassed the AG even when the Assistant AG testified it was not good enough. Issa never called the agents involved to the House floor.


...Ten weeks later, an ATF agent named John Dodson, (click here) whom Voth had supervised, made startling allegations on the CBS Evening News. He charged that his supervisors had intentionally allowed American firearms to be trafficked—a tactic known as "walking guns"—to Mexican drug cartels. Dodson claimed that supervisors repeatedly ordered him not to seize weapons because they wanted to track the guns into the hands of criminal ringleaders. The program showed internal e-mails from Voth, which purportedly revealed agents locked in a dispute over the deadly strategy. The guns permitted to flow to criminals, the program charged, played a role in Terry's death....


The scandal was never going to have the substance enough to bring down the Obama White House so it became a focused effort to 'find a way' to discredit the Holder Justice Department with Right Wing Senators likes Brown demanding his resignation. There was never an adequate investigation by the House. When the Assistant Attorney General said there never was reason for a Special Prosecutor it should have ended, but, the end game was political and not ethical or moral. Unfortunately, the Terry family has been put into the Republican meat grinder and this is the result.


There is no basis for contempt. The guns were not provided by ATF, they were purchased and tracked. So, the facts, even as Issa reports them to the media is incorrect. A contempt of congress charge has to be backed by facts and Issa himself hasn't put forward anything as proof beside rhetoric.


There is a lot more than 200 Mexicans dead and the USA didn't pull the trigger.