Gunrunner: Arizona official to plead the fifth and will not testify in front of the Congress on Fast and Furious
I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself
This is his right as guaranteed under the constitution and I do not begrudge him this right, but we all know that most of the time when the fifth amendment is invoked that the person invoking the fifth is guilty of something. How can a person be a witness against himself if he were not guilty of something? A person would not plead the fifth if he had the chance to clear his name and normally I would feel that Cunningham is guilty of a crime, but there just might be more to this story.
In all likelihood Cunningham is guilty of a crime, but was he ordered to commit the crime from above? Was his real crime not speaking out when ordered to commit the crime in the first place?
This is what Cunningham’s lawyer believes, and this is why Cunningham claims he is refusing to testify.
Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly
Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious
Patrick Cunningham believes he is being made the scapegoat by Eric Holder and the “Justice” Department and it appears as if he is worried that if he comes clean about his role in Fast and Furious that Eric Holder will not be as truthful as he and he will take the fall for Eric Holder. So he feels it is best for him not to say anything whatsoever.
This in and of itself is an indictment of Eric Holder–the man charged with upholding the laws of the United States, and the top law enforcement agent in the nation–and the regard in which he is held.
America's Watchtower 
Maybe they should offer him blanket immunity to get to those who gave the orders. if he’s a afraid of incriminating himself, then take it off the table to get to the truth. After all isn’t it the truth we are all after.
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I was thinking the same thing John and maybe that is what he is looking for here. If he is telling the truth about why he is pleading the fifth I would think he would agree to testify with immunity.
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I agree with John – cases like this all too often wind up with a market basket of indictments of low- and mid-level culprits, while the executive wrongdoers escape scot-free. Regardless of his actual culpability, Cunningham may be anticipating such a contingency and setting up his defenses.
On the other hand, it may be that he took a whole bunch of pens and copy paper from the office (or some similarly low-level offense, like bringing lady friends to the office after hours and doing unmentionable things on the office couch, or using the office computer for personal Internet surfing) and is concerned that the activity might come to light. We all know (or should) that on average, we commit a moving violation every four minutes while driving; I’m sure there’s a similar statistic for everyday life, considering the vast size of the federal and states’ criminal codes.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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I have to admit that I didn’t know the stat about the moving violations but I do know that I am guilty of at least one violation every four minutes.
It does sound to me like Cunnigham is setting up his defence because this goes higher than him and he is afraid his testimony will be used to scapegoat him and allow those who are really responsible to walk free.
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Precisely! Perfect.
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This raises more questions than it answers, A stunner that “the fifth” is even up for discussion, but where this leads will be fascinating. Slow but surely we are getting there.
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It gets more interesting with each story that comes to light and I hope that we actually get to the bottom of this someday before it is too late.
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That’s one of the conundrums of the American legal system, Steve – from the perspective of the court, invoking the Fifth Amendment cannot be construed as an admission of guilt in itself.
Take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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You are right TGY, the courts cannot assume that because a person pleads the fifth he is guilty but in the court of public opinion most people think that pleading the fifth means you are guilty of something. In this case it appears as if he is protecting himself from people who are not honest enough to tell the truth about what happened.
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Do you think the government will just leave him out there to swing in the wind?
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If they can, they will.
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Sadly I think you’re right.
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SOmebody has to take the fall and we know it won’t be the higher ups if it can be avoided.
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As I just put this on my Facebook, You “plead the fifth” because you’re guilty of what you’re being accused of. It is no more than a way of avoiding admission of guilt.
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Well, yes, that’s a simplistic way of interpreting someone’s invoking of his or her rights under the Constitution.
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As I wrote in the post; normally I would assume that a person is guilty if they plead the fifth but this has shown me that there are other reasons why people might do so. In this case it appears as if Cunningham is simply protecting himself under the rights given to him in the constitution because there is more at play here. It really has given me another presprective on this issue.
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Thanks for sharing!
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TGY, I don’t know for sure that you voted for you-know-who, but the only thing I can think of that it has ever said that was correct was something like “the only people who don’t tell the truth are people with something to hide”. This is an insanely important constitutional situation that deserves NOTHING BUT the truth. If it isn’t him himself, he knows something about somebody that needs to be held to account. And please explain how those who may well know something importants ability to “plead the fifth” is any more important than the other nine for the individual citizen. Just curious about that.
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Yes, he most likely has information that will be useful in this investigation. He also has rights of his own.
Is it always the case that the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the individual?
We actually recognize emergency exceptions to “the right to remain silent.” This case isn’t one of them. The government may not compel a person to incriminate himself. It may mean that the process takes longer, which can be frustrating to the less patient among us.
On the side, I find it telling that you ‘re pretty certain that someone who stands up for the Bill of Rights probably voted for you-know-who . . . Can we infer from such a Manichean statement, therefore, that those who vote against you-know-who are against the Bill of Rights?
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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Most often when a person pleads the fifth the public thinks this is because he is guilty and simply doesn’t want to incriminate himself, and I am just as guilty, but this story has shown me that this isn’t always the case. In this case it appears as if he has info which is useful to the investigation and why shouldn’t he plead the fifth if he can use it to secure his freedom because he can lead the authorities to a “bigger fish?”
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If today’s report by the Democrats absolving the Obama administration and Eric Holder specifically is not a statement of gross obfuscation, then from this moment forward there are no longer any benchmarks to define what is really a lie and what is not.
Those of us that exercise our abilities to critically observe and comment fully expected a white-wash – and we were not disappointed.
The idea that Arizona State officials and minor Federal functionaries are to blame for the criminally botched Fast and Furious fiasco, is not only deplorable but also a blatant show of contempt for the American people – but then that does seem to be a common occurrence with this administration.
In the outer limits of this administration’s political thought process, their spin doctors and their lackeys in the mainstream media seem more content to show Holder as incompetent – a more acceptable result than any criminal irresponsibility for lying to Congress and the American people. But then incompetence is one of the hallmarks of Obama and his minions..
One expects blatant mis-truths from dictatorships to be common currency. With that thought in mind we might think the Obama administration is in the top 1%. Just my opinion of course….WM
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There is nothing that I can add to what you said. Well said sir!
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