Fast and Furious: The Growing ATF Scandal

An investigation is happening. Two, actually. The Inspector Generals of the Justice Department and Homeland Security are both investigating.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57439420-10391695/homeland-security-ig-investigates-fast-and-furious/

 

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/21/marco-rubio-calls-for-eric-holder-to-resign/

Rubio calls for Holder to resign.

 

Close - - but not quite:

Jimmy Carter only invoked Exec Privilege once in 4 years.

George HW Bush only invoked Exec Privilege once in 4 years.

Barack Obama has invoked Exec Privilege once in 3.5 years

 

Serious question here:

Suppose the Contempt of Congress citation gets passed. Forget for a moment if you think that is a good thing or a bad thing; assume it is passed.

When the government takes someone to trial for Contempt of Congress, the government is represented by the Department of Justice - - as was the case in the recent Roger Clemens goat rodeo.

Eric Holder is in charge of the Department of Justice...

What could go wrong?

 

The other issue in the screechfest category is that the right-wing talking point about why Fast and Furious happened is that it was a plot by the Obama administration to create an environment where he could take away our guns. The Daily Show had a bunch of clips of Republican politicians and commentators saying just that.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/21/fast-and-furious-inside-joke.html

Again, I'm not sure how these moves the needle on anyone except the most conspiracy-crazed right-wingers, who already hate Obama. Was this an ill-conceived operation that went horribly wrong? Oh, yeah. Was this a plot by Obama to enact gun control? I have a hard time believing that. So what they're saying is, a president who has made zero push on restricting gun rights conceived of a crazy operation involving Mexican drug lords killing people with American guns so he could get the country to rally to his behalf? Really?

 

Strongly worded editorial in the Times:

 

Hard to understand how Executive Privilege even applies here, since they're asking for internal Department documents, not White House documents:

 

I believe Holder offered to "brief" them on the documents, not let them look at them.

 

How did it apply when the Bush administration claimed executive privilege in refusing to release information about the Pat Tillman friendly-fire killing?

It's executive privilege. It's discretionary.

 

Sorry for the confusion. Below is today's Times editorial:

I wonder why their opinion has changed between the earlier editorial, and this one. What's different?

 

Maybe the Times realized it's readership doesn't give a rat's ass about this so-called issue, either.

 

Maybe. But, maybe that's because the Times has treated this whole story as nothing but a political squabble from day one:

http://bit.ly/L8BWk2

Look at the articles & headlines. Charlie Savage and the Times have been carrying the President & Holder's water on this for a year and a half already.

It would be hard for them to now admit there's something to this, beyond politics.