The Fast & Felonious scandal
A new scandal has come up in the Obama administration, where they're accused of supplying guns across the border to Mexico, and Eric Holder is accused of knowing but not admitting (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin):
Update: Mark Steyn says the MSM is ignoring the hundreds of Mexicans whose lives were lost in the fallout.
House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.There's more info available here.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was sending a letter to President Obama on Tuesday arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself, and requesting the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.
The question is whether Holder knowingly made false statements of fact under oath during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious until about April 2011.
"I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks," Holder testified.
The Department of Justice defended Holder in a statement Tuesday.
“The Attorney General’s testimony to both the House and the Senate was consistent and truthful," it read. "He said in both March and May of this year that he became aware of the questionable tactics employed in the Fast and Furious Operation in early 2011 when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and at the time, he asked the Inspector General’s office to investigate the matter."
However, newly discovered memos suggest otherwise. For instance, one memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
Other documents also indicate that Holder began receiving weekly briefings on the program from the National Drug Intelligence Center "beginning, at the latest, on July 5, 2010," Smith wrote.
Update: Mark Steyn says the MSM is ignoring the hundreds of Mexicans whose lives were lost in the fallout.
Labels: Latin America, political corruption, United States
