The parents of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry have broken their silence about the murder of their son with walked Fast and Furious weapons, and have strong words for embattled Attorney General Eric Holder.
In separate interviews, Josephine and Kent Terry lashed out Thursday at those they blame for Brian’s murder — Attorney General Eric Holder, his top assistant Lanny Breuer, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, and those ATF officials who approved, executed and supervised Operation Fast and Furious.
“I think they are liars and I would tell them that,” said Kent Terry from his home in central Michigan. “What would I say to Eric Holder? They would not be nice words.”
Terry is in his 70’s, paralyzed and bound to a chair after an accident 17 years ago. His former wife Josephine lives 90 minutes north near Detroit.
“If they never let the guns walk, maybe Brian would not have been out that day,” Josephine said. “I just can’t believe our own government came up with a program like this that (let) innocent people get killed.”
The Terrys have next to no knowledge of the details of what happened the December night their son was killed in the Arizona desert.
“We’ve heard five different stories, and every time we hear (a new) one, (it) is different. We never got a straight answer.”
It appears that the likelihood of the Terrys or the American people getting answers to questions about the murder is decreasing as well, as the U.S. government has gone the extraordinary route of sealing the murder case against Manuel Osorio Arellanes, one of the gunmen that was wounded and captured during the firefight that killed Agent Terry. The suspect faces 14 charges, including murder, assault, and weapons charges., but now that the case is sealed, it no longer appears in the federal docket.
There is no way to track the case, to know what the evidence is, or when the trail is being held. Department of Justice officials have attempted to thwart or obstruct almost every attempt to gather evidence about Operation Fast and Furious. It seems likely that the sealing of the case by a federal judge was done in order to continue the information blackout, shutting down another possible avenue where congressional investigators could have sought answers to linking questions about allegations of a third, now missing rifle that allegedly came from a Texas gun-walking plot, along with possible details of how the cartels were able to receive and distribute the more than 2,000 weapons that the Department of Justice sent over the border to arm the Sinaloa cartel without any mechanisms for tracking or recovering the firearms.
Republican lawmakers have stepped up their rhetoric as the Department of Justice’s obstructionism continues to grow.
Using some of the most blunt language that Holder critics have used, the House Republicans issued statements in advance of an afternoon news conference during which they planned to say that the attorney general must be held responsible for Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probe.
“After reviewing Attorney General Holder’s conflicting testimonies, uncovered evidence and recently released documents on Fast and Furious, it is clear that he is either lying or grossly incompetent,” said Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). “Either way, he is unfit to serve the American people as the highest law enforcement officer in the land. Mr. Holder can no longer refuse responsibility for the actions of departments under his purview that cost the life of decorated U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and that have put the lives of thousands of American citizens at risk. Eric Holder must resign, and responsible lawmakers and public servants should insist he do so.”
Florida Congressman Allen West joined with other House Republicans in calling for Holder’s dismissal on Tuesday.
Attorney General Holder has proved time and again that he is not capable of being America’s top cop,” said Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) “President Obama needs to realize that Eric Holder needs to be removed from the Department of Justice as soon as possible. If the President does not push Holder out, the President would be complicit in the Justice Department’s attempts to thwart a Congressional investigation of Fast and Furious. This is just another sad chapter in the Eric Holder book of incompetence.”
The increasing calls for Holder’s dismissal come as the Attorney General and the Department of Justice are accused of stonewalling congressional investigators and manipulating the press.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department sought to manipulate reporters’ coverage of Operation Fast and Furious during the days preceding a November 1 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, new emails obtained by The Daily Caller indicate.
Emails between senior Justice Department officials and investigators in the office of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley show that congressional staffers leading the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious requested information about Operation Wide Receiver — a Bush administration program – and other similar cases, more than a full month before the DOJ leaked information to selected media outlets on October 31.
That Halloween document dump from the DOJ seemed calculated to depict Grassley’s investigation as partisan in nature.
It becomes ever more difficult to believe that the Attorney General and the Department of Justice isn’t neck-deep in a cover-up attempt, attempting to dodge political and legal fallout from a plot that has provided weapons used in hundreds of murders, and which promise to be the instruments of death used in hundreds more.
Every new revelation about the plot and its coverup makes it much more politically untenable for President Barack Obama to keep Holder on as Attorney General. How long he will last is now anyone’s guess.
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