Gunrunner: New documents show top level DOJ officials knew about Fast and Furious

  Earlier today Darrell Issa sent Eric Holder yet another letter and if you are like me your first thought was here we go again: Darrell Issa sends Eric Holder a letter demanding Eric Holder comply with the subpoena or else, Eric Holder will deny or ignore the request, and Darrell Issa will back down and send him another comply or else letter in the near future. We have seen this exact scenario play out several times, but that is not what this letter was about and it does offer us some hope that the Oversight Committee will take action sometime in the near future.

  Darrell Issa has obtained new documents which he claims show proof that, contrary to Eric Holder’s claim that Fast and Furious was an operation carried out by rogue agents in the field, top Injustice officials did in fact know about the deadly operation.

“The Committee has obtained copies of six wiretap applications in support of  seven wire intercepts utilized during Fast and Furious,” Issa said in a Tuesday  letter to Holder.

Issa said those wiretap documents “show that immense detail about  questionable investigative tactics was available to the senior officials who  reviewed and authorized them.”

  Darrell Issa has now concluded this means Eric Holder provided the Oversight Committee with false testimony:

On February 8, 2012, Senator Grassley, Congressman Meehan and I wrote to you  requesting the Department’s assistance in obtaining the wiretap applications  from Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa wrote to Holder. “We did so because we  believed their contents would shed additional light on senior Department  officials’ level of knowledge of the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and  Furious.”

“Other than having acknowledged receipt of the letter, the Department has not  responded to the February 8 request,” Issa continued. “In a May 15, 2012 letter,  the Deputy Attorney General reiterated the Department’s position that the ‘inappropriate tactics used in Fast and Furious … were not initiated of  authorized by Department leadership in Washington.’”

“We now know that statement is false,”

  Darrell Issa continued:

Each application included a memorandum from Assistant Attorney General Lanny A.  Breuer to Paul M. O’Brien, Director, Office of Enforcement Operations,  authorizing the wiretap applications on behalf of the Attorney General,” Issa  wrote to Holder. “The memoranda from Breuer are marked specifically for the  attention of Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor for Operation Fast and Furious

  Notice the language Darrell Issa is now using: we KNOW this testimony was false, and wiretaps were ordered on BEHALF OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL. Gone are words like “we believe” and “it appears,” replaced with words of certainty.

  Two things appear abundantly clear at this point: One; Eric Holder has no intention of complying with the subpoena, and two; it is all but certain he has perjured himself in sworn testimony before the Congress. It seems to me as if this letter may be a formality and was issued to Eric Holder as a last ditch effort before he is served with contempt papers to get him to willingly volunteer the information Darrell Issa has been seeking for over a year. I expect the next communication from Darrell Issa to Eric Holder to included a contempt charge and anything short of that will be more disappointment.

  The time for action is now and I hope that this is the final step before the Oversight Committee moves forward with contempt charges. I am trying to remain positive that justice will be done, but it is growing increasingly difficult.