Better late than never, I suppose, and this is late in more than one sense. Earlier today, the Department of Justice announced that it would finally give the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee access to documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the bungled ATF program that lost track of thousands of weapons it sent across the border into Mexico. The decision will allow the committee to complete an investigation over a program that was linked to hundreds of deaths, including that of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry:Read more here.
Readers will recall that former Attorney General Eric Holder famously stonewalled Congress on these documents. Barack Obama finally claimed that executive privilege exempted these records from the committee on behalf of Holder, which resulted in a contempt charge against Holder that both ignored. That was a breathtakingly arrogant position; executive privilege usually only applies to the president, who supposedly knew nothing about Operation Fast and Furious. It also doesn’t apply at all on documents dealing with potentially criminal behavior. Other officials had at the very least misled Congress during testimony, and the Oversight Committee had a legitimate claim on those records to pursue those allegations as well as other underlying crimes and malfeasance in the scandal.
It might take months to review the material being released, assuming the DoJ releases it in a timely manner. If the House changes hands in November, there’s a very good chance that Democratic leadership will close the books on OF&F. Late, in this case, might end up being never.
At Town Hall, Katie Pavlich has more.
Operation Fast and Furious was a secret ATF program, overseen heavily at the highest levels at the Department of Justice, which took place between September 2009 and December 2010. ATF agents repeatedly and knowingly allowed individuals working for Mexican cartels to traffic thousands of AK-47s, .50 caliber rifles and handguns into Mexico. The operation ended in 2010 when Agent Terry was murdered and years of coverups surrounding his death and the extent of the operation ensued. Hundreds, if not thousands of Mexican citizens have been murdered as a result of the U.S. government putting guns into the hands of narco-terrorists and a number of firearms trafficked during the operation have been found at additional crime scenes in the United States.Read more here.
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