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U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has set up a faceoff with Barack Obama’s U.S. Justice Department over the agency’s refusal to respond to demands from Congress for information about federal Operation Fast and Furious that apparently maneuvered dangerous weapons into the hands of Mexican drug lords.
Issa today announced the date has been set for the first Project Gunrunner/Operation Fast and Furious hearing, June 13, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“This hearing will examine the constitutional questions raised by both the Department of Justice’s refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena as well as the withholding of documents from a congressional subpoena. It is the first in a series of hearings on Operation Fast and Furious,” his office confirmed.
Committee spokeswoman Becca Watkins said the first hearing is the result of several months of work.
“The Oversight Committee has investigated Operation Fast and Furious since our first letter to the ATF on March 16th,” Watkins stated.
Second Amendment analyst and writer David Codrea of the Gun Rights Examiner says the hearings are starting out right.
“It shows that he wasn’t bluffing when he said … he was serious about getting to the bottom of this and uncovering the truth of the matter,” Codrea declared.
“I think in particular what he has planned for this coming Monday shows extreme promise,” Codrea stated.
The committee will hear testimony from Charles Tiefer, commissioner of the Commission on Wartime Contracting; Morton Rosenberg, former specialist in American public law with the American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress; and from Todd Tatelman, a legislative attorney for the Congressional Research Service’s American Law Division.
Wakins says these men are up first because, “They are subject matter experts.”
Codrea added that these are the right people for the first hearing.
“He’s called in experts on congressional powers and constitutional authority,” he said.
“He has Professor Charles Tiefer who was appointed to his current role as commissioner of the Commission on Wartime Contracting by Sen. Harry Reid. This is a guy with extensive experience and was a part of the U. S. Bosniagate Investigation investigating subcommittee,” Codrea detailed.
“He has extensive experience in investigative processes,” Codrea added.
“Another one scheduled to testify is Morton Rosenberg, a former specialist in American public law with the Congressional Research Service. This is a guy who specialized in constitutional law, particularly the validity of claims of executive privileges before committees,” Codrea continued.
Hear Codrea:
“What you see is Issa’s being very smart at getting people to establish that he has the authority to proceed with these investigations and Justice doesn’t have the authority to continue stonewalling,” Codrea said.
“The third person is Todd Tatelman, an attorney for the Congressional Research Service’s American Law Division. Again we’re talking about someone who specializes in advising members of Congress, committees and staff in areas of congressional laws and proceedings,” Codrea added.
“What Issa’s doing is like any smart architect, he’s building a strong foundation and the structure from the ground up with a quake-proof foundation,” Codrea explained.
Watkins adds that the purpose of this hearing is to break ground on the major area of concern – the DOJ’s lack of cooperation.
“They have not complied with the terms of our subpoenas. This hearing will shed light on the constitutionality of the DOJ’s stonewalling tactics,” Watkins explained.
Codrea says he believes the agency hasn’t complied because officials are hiding something.
“In this case they are protecting, and it looks more and more from witnesses and documentation, like people within ATF and main Justice, who were part of the decision-making to allow guns to walk across the Mexican border and fall into the hands of the cartels,” Codrea explained.
“Then they were involved in the subsequent deaths of not only two U. S. law enforcement agents, but untold numbers of Mexicans,” Codrea said.
He said the decisions “were made high up and people don’t want who made those decisions coming out.”
Codrea adds that several documents indicate Project Gunrunner may point to those in high office.
“There are many documents out there, much testimony and much circumstantial evidence at this point. Of course we’re not going to really know until we [see] documents submitted into evidence and testimony under oath and compare that to other testimony to make sure that everyone is being completely candid and forthright,” Codrea stated.
“What you have here is a cover-up of monumental proportions because it reaches high up into the administration. Whether it makes it all the way to the Oval Office is something that these hearings are going to determine,” Codrea said.
“We certainly have good reason to say it goes at least up to the level of an assistant attorney general. If that’s the case, then it’s very hard to discount the fact that Attorney General Eric Holder was part of the decision-making process,” Codrea added.
Codrea says Project Gunrunner also apparently involves the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The question is still whether the White House is involved.
“That depends on where the evidence points to and whether or not the president was part of the decision-making loop or authorized lawbreaking or participated in some kind of cover-up,” Codrea analyzed.
“The benchmark for an impeachable offense is if it’s ‘High crimes and misdemeanors,'” Codrea said. “Whether or not there’s the political will to go through something like that is premature.”
WND previously reported that Obama’s choice to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth Melson, has ignored all of the congressional subpoenas issued by Issa’s committee.
Issa wrote in a letter to Acting Director Melson that the BATFE chief has refused to answer the subpoenas for no good reason.
In a letter to the ATF director, Issa said, “Absent a valid assertion of executive privilege over the materials sought, I expect you to produce the things identified in the March 31, 2011, subpoena’s schedule by the return date.”
The first member of Congress to begin a probe was Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who sent his first letter to Melson in January.
WND reported earlier when Grassley and Issa had sharp words for the Department of Justice after Attorney General Holder sent a letter denying that the ATF had knowingly authorized the sale of weapons to gun smugglers as part of what has become known as Project Gunrunner and its sub-operation, dubbed Fast and Furious.
In a return letter, the congressmen wrote that the department’s self-exonerating claims were flat-out “false.”
“We are very concerned that the department chose to send a letter containing false statements,” wrote the congressmen. “The department sent a letter on February 4, 2011, claiming that … ‘ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.’ When questioned in transcribed interviews last week in Phoenix, agents with first-hand knowledge of ATF operations contradicted that claim.”
“We are extremely disappointed that you do not appear to be taking this issue seriously enough to ensure that the department’s representations are accurate, forthcoming and complete,” the legislators wrote. “We will continue to probe and gather the facts independently, as it has become clear that we cannot rely on the department’s self-serving statements to obtain any realistic picture of what happened.”
The program run by the ATF reportedly allowed guns purchased in the United States to be smuggled into Mexico for the purpose of tracking them to high-ranking members of Mexico’s drug cartels. The White House to date has disavowed knowledge of the procedures.
As WND has reported, officials on both sides of the border are fuming over the operation, which is being blamed not only for the infusion of hundreds of guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords but also provision of the weapon that killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
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