Holder Testimony: Issa Attacks, Dems Push Gun-Control
Perhaps the greatest sparks of the day came when Issa questioned Holder. Issa took issue with what he considered a lack of candor and cooperation from Holder and DOJ, saying in his opening statement:
The president says he has full confidence in this attorney general. I have no confidence in a president who has confidence in this attorney general. … Mr. Attorney General, the blame must go to your desk.
Issa added that he did not believe DOJ was actually interested in finding out who murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose murder was one of the precipitating factors in the current scandal:
They are not looking for who killed Brian Terry, but are more interested in maintaining plausible deniability.
Holder later claimed that there has been an indictment in the Terry murder case but said he could not comment further as the case was under court-ordered seal.
Issa expressed frustration at the difficulties inherent in getting Holder and his deputies to agree to testify before his committee.
Do I need to serve a subpoena on yourself, Lanny Breuer, and the other people under direct investigation by my committee? Or will you agree to come voluntarily in the January time frame before the committee?
Issa threatened Holder with contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over any documents generated after February of 2010. Issa asked Holder if he was aware he was potentially standing in contempt of Congress for refusing to release documents requested by the committee without giving a constitutional reason to have done so. Holder responded:
We will respond as other attorney’s general and other Justice departments have done.
Issa retorted:
John Mitchell responded that way too.
Mitchell was Richard Nixon’s AG during Watergate. Holder fired back by referring to the Joe McCarthy hearings:
As they said in the McCarthy hearings, have you no shame?
It was clear that Democrats and Holder were in damage control mode, trying to both salvage Holder and to use the operation to call for more gun control while blaming Republicans. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), attacked this strategy:
You screwed up, you admit you screwed up, but don’t use your screw up as an attempt to extend your authority.
Holder is coming off like a less “manly” version of
Janet Reno. He’s got to go and soon…
If God is kind to conservatives, this whole thing will really blow up around September-October of next year, enabling us to get rid of the vast majority of lefties in Congress, not to mention the one in the Oval Office.
A prediction. Holder will retire for “personal reasons” and the other lackeys will be promoted, transferred, etc. to more urgent jobs. Issa and his committee will be painted by the MSM, if they pay any attention to it at all, as the usual Republican hacks who are in the pocket of the NRA and the Dems as champions of reasonable gun regulation. The public’s awareness of this travesty will have soared from the present two percent to maybe three percent and by September the whole thing will be long forgotten and the readers of these pages will be stewing in their usual frustration while bracing for the possibility that Obama is about to be re-elected. On the other hand, I hope you are right but I ain’t bettin’ it.
He will surely seek to spend more time with his family.
Most of the responsible agents that were in AZ at the time have already been reassigned-buried-to other offices so they can avoid any scrutiny.
you cynical bastard. how dare you be so accurate? wish you are wrong but I bet heavily on your theory.
Unfortunatly, the Really Lefty Lefties in Congress (McDermot, Pelosi et. al.) live in districts that would re-elect them even if they appeared on stage with Satan Himself and announced they were supporting the End of the World (distributing the death and distruction equally) and an end of the Bill of Rights in the United States as Policy Goals.
I said most, not all.
But, we’re getting rid of Barney’s Fwank, that’s a good start.
I’ll let the lefties have 5 seats in the House if we can have the other 430.
Con buddy – anyone who actually thinks there will be a legitimate election next fall is out of their gourd. Even Rush Limbaugh is now on this point. The Socialists are AT BEST a few months and maybe only a few weeks from doing a coup de’ tat on WE THE PEOPLE.
Why do you think Barry is taking his extended vacation in Hawaii? He’s resting up (and maybe flying the coup long enough to miss the fireworks).
Some combo of terrorism and war with Iran is going to give Der ObamanFuhrer his Reich-stag fire – his opening to declare Marshall Law. Freedom no longer can depend on the results of the ballot box to save us from tyranny. It now rests where it began: on the courage of citizens bearing arms. You’d better have your powder dry, campers. Gun Walking and Fast and Furious were about prepping an army to attack us from within.
I fear for my Country, too, but this kind of stuff is getting really tiresome. As I’ve pointed out on PJM before, the XXth Amendment sets a date certain for the ends of the terms for Federal elected officers, Pres., VP, and Congress.
They cannot legally extend those terms. Congress can’t, the President can’t, and the Courts can’t. The States are responsible for elections, and they can’t be barred from holding them. If all elections were somehow avoided, on the 3d of January we’d go down to 66/7 Senators or less, and on the 20th of January, precisely at noon, the current President would leave office, to be succeeded by the President Pro Tem of the Senate, who would need to be sworn in. He would then be President and Commander in Chief, and as long as the Armed Forces and the rest of the government’s sworn officers followed their oaths of office, we would have a functioning US government.
As long as we have a functioning government under the Constitution, any talk of armed revolution is insane. As long as that government proceeds according to that Constitution, to include immediately getting a legitimate Congress seated, we still have the rule of law. If…IF…someone(?), to include the previously seated elected officers, were to interfere with that replacement, and if…AND IF…the Armed Forces, the bureaucracy, the courts, and the state governments joined and supported that interference, then we talk revolution.
All this tough, macho B S about our guns and our combat service and so on, does nothing but discredit our efforts to replace the current Socialist crowd in DC.
The United States Government, with the Constitution as it’s base, is still functioning- it’s errors are our errors in not paying attention, staying informed and staying involved. It’s officials are the ones We the People elected. It’s time to make changes while we can, and to get and stay attentive, informed and involved. If we lose this, we will not see it’s like again. Even a successful revolution would leave us with a ruin- better than a despot, but still a horrible mess. Go ahead and keep your powder dry, just stop bragging about it.
Amen to ConservativeWandere @2.
Holder is lying, plain and simple. He may want to audition for the role of Manuel (from Barcelona) in Fawlty Towers. Manuel’s signature line was: I know nothing.
The real question is, what does the President know and when did he know it? Now that would be an interesting question, come September 2012.
Finally, Patrick Richardson, I have asked Bob Owens if he went through the recent Friday night document dump from DOJ. Have you perchance had an opportunity to do so?
Jack,
I’ve been attempting to get a copy of the docudump unsuccessfully. I would very much like to do a few key-word searches on it.
Pat
Pat – Thanks!!
I am not sure about Manuel using that line, but Sergeant Shultz from Hogan’s Heroes most definitely used the line “I know nothing”
It’s always fun to watch a juvenile get scolded. Especially one who thinks he’s so smart and so slick that he can’t get caught or held accountable.
But in his own mind, he actually believes that it’s bad for the citizens of this nation to own guns. Whether that’s driven by Marxist ideology or a more simple belief that “people are too stupid” to have them in that they do dumb things and must be controlled. Either way, the end result is the same: SOMEone has to be in charge and make sure the people are controlled.
Holder is the quintessential example of a prime number in socialist behavior though. He feels his moral superiority trumps the law and also believes, perhaps incorrectly, that he will never “burn” for any misdeeds because, after all the diktat came down from the top. From his lord and master, Obama and the Obamanauts in his cabinet. Meanwhile, there are names yet to come out (as they did in the Nixon debacle) and those people are sweating it for fear their name will come up and also be called.
Then, the next stage is the finger-pointing. It’s doubtful that Holder will implicate Obama as Obama is his only ticket for rescue in the form of a pardon. But since the trap is closing in around him, look for him to implicate others in the hog pen. He’s already tried (twice now) to compare it to republican malfeasance and failed. But that has to do with his inability to understand the very laws he’s sworn to protect and uphold.
He’s probably been like this his whole life. Immune, black and protected by it, used as a shield as well as a vehicle for advancement.
There is no fun in this. It is necessary, but pure sorrow. We are witnessing highly educated lawyers defending themselves against felony charges. It will grind on until they debate the meaning of the word, “is”. Lawyers are masters of mixing truth and falsehoods into a believable soup. But when high officials are exposed as simply lying, it is just ugly.
The enforced regulation of fire arms under our Constitution is worthy of debate, but Fast and Furious had noting to do with this topic. Fast and Furious is simply crimes commited within our government. Both parties, all Americans, must face this evil, and correct it. Or lose the thrust of the widows, orphans, and decent people, on both sides of a border.
Agreed on the unfortunate state of affairs within our government. I was simply expressing delight that Holder is findingout that the American people aren’t willing to put up with his attitude and lawbreaking. And it is a joy to watch him squirm, in spite of it being a sad state of affairs overall.
These crimes were, and to all visible evidence continue to be, committed by public employees for their own political purposes. They have willfully broken their oaths, utterly dishonored themselves, and severely damaged the ability of all Americans to trust any future occupant of their offices.
Department of “Justice” will become standard punctuation.
They acts were entirely to benefit their party’s goals, to eviscerated the Constitution’s inconvenient restrictions on the power of the government to legally impair the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.
To further that aim, they conspired to arm identified enemies of the United States and Mexico, an ally. These programs have directly resulted in the murders of HUNDREDS of Mexican nationals. Some were doubtless career criminals, but most no more than innocent victims. The victims leave behind children, parents, family and friends, whose mourning and loss can’t be alleviated.
The criminal DOJ have NOT cooperated with a Congressional investigation examining the depth, scope, and span of their taxpayer-funded malfeasance. Instead they have misled and flat-out LIED.
Impeachment ought to be the least of their worries. MUCH harsher penalties must be exercised.
Since there isn’t a “like” button yet, I’m “liking” your comment!
Department of Justice… like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
How about extradition to Mexico to stand trial for hundreds of murders as an accessory before the fact? I hear Mexican jails are splendid this time of year, Nothing like that dreary institution in Terre Haute.
Never “burn,” eh? There’s always room under the bus for the usefully discardable.
Kinda sounds like another hypocrat oops I mean democrat. “It depends on what your definition of is is” Bill Clinton.
The arrogance is palpable. “If” they really get shafted in Nov. 2012, (and friends it is still an open question?) will they leave office? or will we have to throw them out? And what are these really nasty “Alinskyite’s” attempting to do in secret? They are planning something! in addition to the summers forth coming riots union thuggery etc.
At the end of the day, we need to remember Alinsky et al. is all about one thing and one thing only, tearing down Democracy big “D” small”d” and replacing it, we and “US” with their Socialist utopia- with themselves at the top and in total control. Then the “INDIVIDUAL” our societies weakest link & at one & the same time our most important – IS WHOM THEY FEAR MOST!; will finally in their eyes be controllable. 2012 its only about Democracy v Socialism. WE DARE NOT LOSE!
Check “6″
First posted on 5/4/11
Rep. Issa Sir please stops the playing of political games with the lives of all the agents in the field. The Attorney General Eric Holder and the Acting Director of the ATF Kenneth Melson have both told you to Kiss their A@#es and that your committee and the congress are inconsequential. Sir stop the he said she said Washington political Bull Sh%& and go to the Speaker and demand that the Impeachment process be started. How many more lives of good men and women must be lost before you and the rest of our elected representatives start making the hard choices we sent you to congress to do and that you asked for?
We are still waiting!!!
Lets not beat around the bush. This All about guns. Everything these elites do revolves ultimately about guns. It is guns that give these elites their power. It is guns that they fear. It is guns that they must, if they are to take over my country, have in order to rule with an iron fist. It is guns that they must take from the populous in order obtain that absolute power. It is guns they understand like none other are the real power behind anything. It is guns this system of government now lives by. It is guns that they use to enforce everything.
And it is guns in the hands of We The People that they fear most.
Any thing else is a cheap side show.
I watched the hearing on tv and if anything stood out it was the D/R partisanship. How one committee could have the stupidest Democrats in Congress (Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Sheila Jackson Lee, John Conyers, and others) is simply amazing. Democrats were working overtime to cover-up the cover-up. Republicans kept boring in on Holder trying to drag the truth out of him. Holder weaseled, lied, and quibbled. One good dramatic moment was Issa’s assistants stacking half-a-dozen file boxes of supoenaed Fast-and-Furious emails on the table and Issa hounding Holder about why not one single email had Holder’s name on it. After several rounds of questions by various Republicans, Holder finally admitted that DOJ had not turned over all the demanded material to Congress, and, furthermore, had no intentions of doing so. Holder was reminded that The President’s executive privilege does not extend to him. You can watch the entire thing on the Judiciary Committees website here:
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_12082011.html
Thank for the link, I caught a bit of the hearings on Fox News website, but wanted to hear more. It’s a national disgrace that the MSM is not covering this story completely and fully. We’ve got an Attorney General calling people McCarthyites, we’ve got all sorts of Congressmen calling for Holder’s resignation, calling him a liar, etcetera. We’ve got several hundred dead Mexicans, we’ve got a dead Border Patrol agent, we’ve got millions of dollars of laundered money – where’s the full media blitz, like with that News of the World scandal? Or the Herman Cain sexual allegations? Does anyone believe that those stories are more salacious, more exciting? Complete and utter bollocks.
Holder later claimed that there has been an indictment in the Terry murder case but said he could not comment further as the case was under court-ordered seal.
There has been an indictment in the Terry murder. The press release in the “sealed” indictment is still available on the FBI website.
http://tinyurl.com/8xkcxv9
This is what happened after the camera’s were turned off:
Rep. Matthew Hoy (R-Hoystory): (Responding to Holder “shameing” congress and the committee.)
“Shame? Shame!? Hundreds of Mexicans are dead. Border Agent Brian Terry is dead. The department that you have authority over allowed more than 2,000 guns to cross the border into the hands of violent drug cartels and you have the gall to chide elected representatives of the American people who seek to hold you to account for your lawlessness?
Shame?
Your deputy submitted a letter to Congress that you withdrew only after subsequent disclosures proved it to be full of lies. You can split legal hairs about there being no “intent” to deceive Congress when that letter was originally submitted, but as time goes by that claim begins to look flimsier and flimsier.
Shame?
We found out just days ago that that ATF officials sought to use the violence in Mexico and the fact that U.S.-bought guns were showing up at crime scenes in that country as a pretext to push for further restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. You, of course, were ignorant of this.
Shame?
It’s been the better part of six months, or maybe 9 or 12, depending on the quality of your memory and the meaningless difference between “weeks” and “months” in your concept of time, since you knew about this operation and not a single individual has lost their job, let alone has had charges filed against them for violations of federal laws.
Hundreds are dead as a direct result of actions undertaken by your subordinates and you wish to shame Congress?
Mr. Attorney General, if you had any integrity. If you had any honor, you would fire those most responsible for this travesty and then resign yourself.
The only person in this committee room who should be feeling shame is you and what you allowed—either by design or by neglect—to happen in Operation Fast and Furious.
Chairman: Member’s time has expired.”
” the legal difference between lying and misleading was state of mind, and here there was no intent to lie”
I guess that’s a NEW Standard as Lying goes.
It wasn’t in effect when we were hearing about “The 16 Words” from Bush’s State of the Union address.
It’s is so funny! Remember, when it comes to tracking the terrorist on jihad, state of mind, ideological intent, has nothing to do with behavior. Only objective behavior counts for profiling, not the subjective understanding of the Muslim going postal on jihad. We don’t want to hurt their feelings before we shoot them. However, lying to congress under oath is not dependent on establishing behavioral facts, but on Holder’s state of mind. Holder wasn’t lying while jerking congress off, because Holder wasn’t thinking of lying while lying. See? It all makes sense, really truly. Holder was just doing pre-cognitive behavior, like snail leaving a slime trail.
Didn’t Holder advise Clinton to say “depends on what your definition of is is”?
To Barack Obama and Eric Holder, two men with no shame, it’s acceptable that hundreds of Mexicans died because in their pursuit of gun control through idiotic policies. After all, they’re just Mexicans.
Crisis as a means
Lets not beat around the bush. This All about guns. Everything these elites do revolves ultimately about guns. It is guns that give these elites their power to enforce their will. It is guns that they fear. It is guns that they must, if they are to obtain absolute power, posses in order to rule with an iron fist. It is guns that they must take from the populous in order obtain that absolute power. It is guns they understand, as no other people, that are the real power behind anything. It is guns this system of government now lives by. It is guns that they use to enforce everything.
It is guns our founders foresaw as the ultimate line of defense of our Liberty against tyranny.
And it is guns in the hands of We The People that they fear most.
Any thing else is a cheap side show.
Holder must be given credit where credit is due. He readily admits facts when they are not such as to be harmful to himself and his staff. But when the facts would cause a contrary outcome, he claims the liar did not have the requisite state of mind to actually tell a lie, or that prior attorneys general refused to provide requested documents under the same circumstances. In reality, “the end justifies the means” is the clandestine slogan – apparently for this entire administration. Holder never bends from this Marxist concept.
Holder’s and the administration’s seeming complicity in “Fast and Furious” will never be proven without appointing an independent prosecutor with a highly competent staff. If the truth does not come out, “Fast and Furious” will forever be a huge, bloody stain on America’s history.
This is a pretty stupid argument, on the part of the Democrats. If I get the parsing correct, they are (correctly) noting that disseminating false information unknowingly isn’t lying…it’s being mistaken. Lying is knowing the truth, and telling something contradictory to it instead, for the purpose of fooling the person you’re speaking to. Typically, the way you tell the difference between the two is in the details. If the person who told you the untruth benefitted from the telling, and if he’s being evasive about the circumstances, you can bet he actually did lie. If on the other hand he’s contrite and apologetic, you know the guy just screwed up. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide which choice Holder’s made: the fact that he’s still trying to benefit from the supposed increase in violence in Mexico, due to guns he sent there, ought to be a good indicator of what’s going on.
C’mon Holder…if you’re going to lie to our faces at least be entertaining…..can we at least get you to say…”I know nothing…..nothing” like sgt shultz from Hogans Heros?…God knows…your bosses (Col Klink and Obama)are at the same imcompetent levels.
“The depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is”… deja vu!
Indefinite military detention for U.S. citizens now in the hands of a secretive conference committee December 8, 2011 – by Donny Shaw http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2447-In…
Let’s see if I understand this correctly: They use the police to make straw-man purchases, breaking the law, and move guns to gangs in Mexico –and this is the pretext for seeking more gun control legislation?
Now we’re hearing that they laundered money for the drug gangs as well. Will they use this as a pretext for more financial reporting because of they broke the law here too?
My head is spinning. Congress can’t be that stupid, can they? Oh, wait…
It is not the Congress, although they are stupid (Dems) but at least showing some spine (GOP), but it is this administration. Specifically the DOJ which is more concerned with granting privileges to illegal aliens and minorities than protecting Americans.
This is the result of an out-of-control marxist administration with a bunch of fringe-lunatic, marxists in control of the DOJ.
I’ve posted else where that an Impeachment Caucus, for lack of the proper term, should be started as soon as practicable, before the nasty election process itself grinds along as November 2012 looms larger.
The international implications of Bill Clinton’s oral sex in that space near the Oval Office, and that infamous video of him tugging at the definition of “…is…” probably resulted in not much more than knowing smirks from overseas.
However, the international implications of those dangerous arch hypocrites Obama and Holder are indeed deeply serious and should be negated and or reversed as soon as possible.
The protected/shielded arrogance and “attitude” of those two is a living, continuing disgrace to our nation.
As a hastily added afterthought to those who will quickly remind us that a two-thirds majority of the Democrat-controlled Senate is required for conviction, I’d add that the presiding Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a countervailing element insuring against a complete early dismissal of charges.
Granted, the mainstream media is yet another obstacle, but let’s give credit where credit has been shown in the past, with a skeptical public squirming in the face of well presented evidence by respected legal minds in the House.
This ain’t any issue of oral sex, this is in our best national interest to rid ourselves of Obama and Holder. Their advisers will dribble away in due course.