Fast and Furious: Prosecutions Coming?
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa indicated on August 23 that the five Department of Justice officials the committee held responsible for Operation Fast and Furious may face criminal charges.
Speaking with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, Issa discussed allegations that Deputy Assistant ATF Director William McMahon was “double-dipping,” drawing both a full-time salary from the ATF and a second full-time, six-figure salary from J.P. Morgan. The arrangement is suspicious, considering the controversy over McMahon’s role in Fast and Furious and the ATF’s persecution of whistleblowers who sought similar arrangements. J.P. Morgan was one of the Obama administration’s top donors in 2008 and was shielded by President Obama when it lost two billion dollars through poor investments. The close relationship between the administration and the concurrent salary for McMahon is a significant ethical conflict: it presents the appearance of the Obama administration using a prominent donor to funnel “hush money” to a highly placed official involved in a scandal, one which threatens President Obama and several cabinet officials.
While speaking of the controversy, Issa indicated that McMahon and other Fast and Furious co-conspirators would be referred for criminal prosecution:
“This is somebody who our reports said perjured himself before the Congress,” Issa charged. “We don’t understand why J.P. Morgan would hire somebody who’s lied to Congress, that will probably be referred for criminal prosecution.”
That could be taken as a good indicator that four other officials identified along with McMahon as culpable in a July 31 Joint Congressional Staff Report are also being looked at with legal action in mind, and a better indicator that what they can exchange in terms of information about higher-ups could mitigate their risks.
In addition to McMahon: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix field division William Newell, Assistant Director for Field Operations Mark Chait, Deputy Director William Hoover, and Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson could face criminal charges for the operation, which sent more than 2,000 guns to violent Mexican drug cartels and has been blamed for the deaths of more than 300 Mexican citizens. U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Agent Jaime Zapata also were murdered with Fast and Furious guns. ICE Agent Victor Avila was seriously injured but survived the attack that killed Zapata.
The families of Terry and Zapata have filed wrongful death suits against the government because of the gunwalking operations, and Avila has joined the Zapata family’s suit.
Interestingly, the Zapata/Avila weapon was not technically a “Fast and Furious” weapon; it originated in one of two alleged Texas-based gunwalking plots. The two Texas gunwalking plots join other alleged gunwalking plots from across the country: the West and Southwest, Florida, the Carolinas, and the Midwest (where a plot dubbed “Gangwalker” based in Indiana may bear much of the blame for the out-of-control gun violence in Chicago) were all possible locations of other operations.
About darned time! This is a CLEAR indicator of what happens when a Law Enforcement bureacracy becomes politicized and goes against the better judgement of agents with field experience and a concern of the constitutionality of their actions! Just read the book by Katie Pavlich and it makes my blood boil when people try and claim that G.W.Bush administration ran the same program. There were TWO glaring differences. Bush’s operation was ran with the cooperation of the Mexican authorities,and the guns weren’t allowed to vanish before arrests were made! That’s because Bush’s goal wasn’t for more opressive gun control measures, but the Obama administrations goal clearly was! So Obama was criminaly negligent or criminaly compicit….take your choice!
“We don’t understand why J.P. Morgan would hire somebody who’s lied to Congress because we major in see no evil,hear no evil,speak no evil incompetence here.This Fast and Furious goes all the way to the top but we won’t go there.
Even though many Americans see the Banker Washington cabal at work we refuse to admit it because our pockets are lined with the same graft.
When I say ‘may’ face prosecution that’s only to throw a bone to the useful idiots who really think we will ever do anything.
We have to protect our partners and that is why I use the word ‘may.’
Try and remember our long drawn out sham dealing with the criminal head of DOJ and how corrupt Washington is never held accountable and always given a pass.
It’s so easy get away with this charade with our useful idiots who think we Republican are any different or have a spine.”
I’ll wait til someone actually goes to trial before celebrating. Honestly, I don’t think anything more than a slap on the wrist and a possible early retirement at taxpayers expense will come of this. Government pukes are government pukes no matter which side of the aisle they set on or which branch of the government they “work” for. Until I see impeachment proceedings against Obama and his entire cabinet, I remain skeptical.
Exactly.
So, genius, how are you planning to get that two-thirds vote for conviction in a Democrat-controlled Senate? Without the votes in the Senate, Impeachment in the House is like peeing one’s pants in a dark suit; gives a warm feeling and nobody notices.
I’ve never peed my pants in a dark suit so I’ll defer to you on that. And trying to introduce impeachment proceedings would, in my opinion, be just about as effective as holding Holder in contempt. Neither is going to accomplish anything but at least you let the country know where you stand.
Refer them for prosecution to whom? The Justice Department? That would be a joke. Can they refer them to a real court somewhere?
When AG Giuliani is sworn in next January, things just may be a little different.
This is necessary.
Don’t get your hopes up. 0 will probably pardon the entire lot on 1/19/2013.
Can someone ‘splain for me again how a pre-emptive pardon works? If there are no specific charges prepared, it seems more like absolution than pardon.
You can’t pardon some one who has not been convicted..
Can Obama really pardon someone for lying to Congress?
From what is known, it is reasonable to assume that in several years, if Romney is elected, Mr. W. McMahon, and others will be in penitentiaries. If Obama is elected, Mr. W. McMahon will be enjoying an executive position at J.P. Morgan, while receiving income from the U. S. taxpayer.
Either option will come as a result of a department charged with upholding justice. The future option will be directly caused by the near term dissemination of truth, knowledge, or not, by America’s media. If they remain largely silent, one of the greatest evils in American history, may slide, unknown, into history.
It will rank with Walter Cronkite’s reporting of our losing the battle of the Tet Offensive in ‘Nam. Many historians tied his falsehood to the loss of the first war in US history.
For two generations, there has been a charge, by talking heads, that our polity has substituted criminal prosecution for differing policy viewpoints. Apparently there is some basis for this conduct.
‘Will Barack Hussein Obama’s Lawless AG Holder Finally ! Fall?’ – http://www.adinakutnicki.com , plus several other related commentaries can be found at my blog.
Refer them for prosecution?
Um, yeah, I’m sure Eric Holder will get right on that.
I see only two ways someone actually faces REAL prosecution for F&F:
1. Someone inside with hard facts and documentation blows a big whistle. Even then, it won’t happen if Obama is re-elected.
2. Some nutcase assassinates both Obama & Biden, Boehner is quickly sworn in as President, and his first act is to order U.S. Marshals’s office to swoop in and preserve all files and documentation at the (in)Justice Department, and they actually manage to get there before Holder’s people can sanitize the place.
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
Small fry, the real sharks are still getting away!
The prosecutions if there are any will not go high enough to reach those really responsible and therefore will be token and meaningless. We all know this goes to the highest level of the administration, even to the usurper.in the cover-up if not in the operational details. We will be waiting Rep. Issa and we will not forget or go away!
Watch Holder be tossed under bus by McMahon rather than serve a long prison sentence. They all should go to prison, and take Obama with them.
The only one who can toss Holder under the bus is Obama, whose declaration of Executive Privilege in the matter seems to imply that Holder can drag him umder the bus with him.
The American people need to throw this entire infestation under the bus in November!
Once again Republicans are plagued by having to “be nice.” It ain’t fittin’, ain’t proper, but it is necessary that some state law charges be brought against grunt-level federal employees who were involved in F&F. When you catch and hold a federal “lifer” by his/her mortgage payment and retirement, the heart and mind follows. Confronted with taking the rap or giving up their boss, grunt-level employees will make the right decision. Then you just have to work your way up the org chart. Overcharge, threaten, leak damning information about their wife, their ancestry, their sexual proclivities. Tell them point blank that if they don’t give it up, you’ll make it up.
When we restore a legitimate government an have some of the political-level criminals safely ensconced in federal penitentiaries, we can make it up to the federal employees who get trashed as collateral damage in this, but it has to be done this way. The higher-ups know they’ll never miss a day’s pay. Even if they have to be fired from their federal position, they’ll go to work the next day in some front group or major contributor business. As long as you keep it at that level, they’ll just lie and stonewall and if it gets too tough on the Administration, they’ll take one for the team and start their new job the next day. Unfortunately, you have to be willing to hurt little and relatively innocent – to the extent that “just following orders” is innocent – federal employees to force them to start giving up their bosses.
In other words, do what the DEA and FBI do with organized crime figures — reduce charges if they turn State’s evidence.
Is it only small fry? Will referrals fizzle out? I don’t know but I certainly appreciate Bob Owens shining the light on this. If something goes awry I’m confident he’ll be there to inform.
BRING UP CHARGES, SIT BACK AND WATCH HOW MANY TURN ON HOLDER, W.H. ETC………
The higher-ups know they’ll never miss a day’s pay. Even if they have to be fired from their federal position, they’ll go to work the next day in some front group or major contributor business. As long as you keep it at that level, they’ll just lie and stonewall and if it gets too tough on the Administration, they’ll take one for the team and start their new job the next day. Unfortunately, you have to be willing to hurt little and relatively innocent – to the extent that “just following orders” is innocent – federal employees to force them to start giving up their bosses.
Let’s not forget about the hundreds, if not thousands, of Mexicans who died because of the decisions and actions of these men under the direct supervision of Eric Holder, who is under the direct supervision of Obbie Kenyobe.
I nwish Pres Caldaron would go after these turds in Obama admin for being accomplises to murdering hundreds of his citizens. Would love to see them serve time in Mexican jails where they wouldn’t have the privledges they have in American ones. Put them in general population