Monday, 14 November 2011 15:50
Instead of offering his resignation as a growing chorus of critics has demanded, Attorney General Eric Holder (left) is going on the offensive over his alleged perjury and the growing scandal surrounding the Obama administration’s deadly “Fast and Furious” program that supplied weapons to Mexican drug cartels.Meanwhile, Holder is also calling for more gun control while attacking Congress for shedding light on the alleged government criminality. But Republicans and some Democrats are still pursuing the truth.
In May Holder testified before Congress — under oath — that he had only learned about the gun-running scheme “in the last few weeks.” But last week, he changed his story after it became well known via the Justice Department’s own documents that his claim was completely false.
“In my testimony before the House committee, I did say ‘a few weeks.’ I probably could have said ‘a couple of months,’” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 8. “I don’t think that what I said in terms of using the term ‘a few weeks’ was inaccurate, based on what happened.”
As it turns out, however, Holder is still not telling the truth. And the evidence that shows it was still available on the Department of Justice’s own website by November 14.
“My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner,” Holder boasted in April of 2009 at an arms trafficking conference in Mexico. Gunrunner, of course, is the very same operation being investigated by Congress after whistleblowers exposed it.
Holder also admitted that a letter sent to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich claiming that the ATF was not deliberately allowing guns across the border was “inaccurate.” But, Holder claimed, DOJ was not lying on purpose — it was the field office's fault.
Still, Senators were outraged that they had been misled. “It’s unconscionable that a federal agency would let such a misleading letter stand for more than nine months,” Grassley said. “The head of the Criminal Division knew it was false, his deputy knew it was false, the whistleblowers knew it was false, the documents suggested it was false, and I discovered it was false — but, if Congress had relied on the department’s official talking points, we still wouldn’t know the truth today.”
In his testimony last week, Holder pointed to an ongoing internal investigation of the program as evidence that something was being done. He promised it never should have happened and that he would hold lower-ranking bureaucrats accountable after the Inspector General concludes his inquiry.
But so far, officials involved in the operation have simply been transferred to other positions. And some have even been promoted, provoking a furor among critics.
In a slight change of tone, however, Holder finally admitted during his testimony last week that the gun-running scheme was “flawed in concept, as well as in execution.” Similar operations must “never” happen again, he added.
“Unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crime scenes both here and in Mexico,” the attorney general said. So far the Obama administration’s weapons have been linked to the murders of at least two U.S. federal lawmen and countless civilians.
Despite the acknowledgments, however, Holder also lashed out at congressional critics. More than a few have called for his resignation, saying he perjured himself and that he is “unfit” for office. One Republican even suggested Holder and other DOJ officials were an “accessory to murder.”
Holder doesn’t seem to think so, though. “I'd like to correct some of the inaccurate, and frankly, irresponsible accusations surrounding Fast and Furious,” he told the Senate Committee. And as part of what analysts called his new “aggressive” strategy, Holder also recently sent an angry letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), who has played a key role in the congressional investigation.
“I cannot sit idly by as a majority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered ‘accessories to murder,’ ” Holder wrote. “Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms.”.. read more at source: TNA
