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Friday, February 10, 2012

Fast and Furious: Deeper and Deeper

Fox News has more details about Fast and Furious coming from retired DEA agent Tony Coulson regarding the inter agency aspect of this scandal.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/10/former-dea-chief-says-3-other-federal-agencies-knew-about-furious/

This case screams out for a special prosecutor, one that is truly independent of the White House and the Department of Justice. At this time, outside of Congress, the only entity "investigating" this is DOJ's supposedly-independent Inspector General Office. Currently, they are holding on to some 80,000 documents subpoenaed by Congress, but not yet released. I suspect those documents hold the smoking guns needed to prove that Eric Holder and the White House were up to their necks in this operation. Those documents are most likely the current equivalent of the Nixon tapes.




"You're catching on."


2 comments:

Squid said...

One wonders why those 80,000 document do not catch fire, simply get stolen or somehow accidentally shredded. After all, look what happened to the Nixon tapes. On the other hand, why not just take the emails that may implicate, out of the pile of 80,000 documents?

Of course, do not count on the MSM to question the hold on the documents. I am still waiting for the L.A. Times to release the Khalidi (pro-Palestinian) tape where Obama gave a support speech.

Squid

elwood p suggins said...

Gary--thanx for posting Tony Coulson's comments. I wholeheartedly agree that we need some independent investigation here, the problem being that as far as I can determine, that is not really possible.

Updating a previous post, we can hardly expect an Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney, DOJ attorney, and/or agency head to do it.

Subject to correction and/or enlightment the best I can figure it is, the truly independent “Independent Counsel” (a la Kenneth Starr) went away in 1999. Back when, either Congress or the AG could request the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to appoint such a counsel, and the AG could not dismiss that counsel except for “good cause”. Again as I understand it, this Independent Counsel morphed into the, yes, “U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel”. There also appears exist another separate statutory ‘Independent Counsel” which is, of course, different from the first aforementioned one above. The problem is that both of these offices, and appointments to them, come under the authority/jurisdiction of the Attorney General who, unlike Janet Reno, is not about to appoint one.

About the only thing left I can see is the possibility of citation(s) for “contempt of Congress“, which does exist but which is essentially fairly toothless. Again, the best I can see, either body of Congress can have an individual “arrested” by the Sergeant-at-Arms and then imprisoned. The longest confinement I can find in recent history was for 10 days. For actual criminal proceedings, which are actually only misdemeanors anyway (max of a year in jail and $1,000.00 fine), it is again necessary for the Congress to, yes, refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the Dictrict of Columbia, who works for the Attorney General, for prosecution. See what I mean?? It is all kind of circular.