Hat tip to Squid
Here is another priceless response to a California constituent's letter from Senator Dianne Feinstein, this time on Eric Holder and Fast and Furious.
From: senator@feinstein.senate.gov> To: (deleted) Sent: Wed, Mar 7, 2012 10:29 am Subject: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message Dear (deleted)
Thank you for your letter urging that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder. I appreciate the time you took to write and welcome the opportunity to respond. As you may be aware, Attorney General Holder testified at a Department of Justice Oversight hearing beforethe House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011. At that hearing, Congressman Darrell Issa(R-CA) asked Mr. Holder when he first learned of Fast and Furious. Mr. Holder responded, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks." Additionally, when Representative Jason Chaffetz asked the Attorney General when he learned of Fast and Furious, Mr. Holder reiterated that he was unsure. On November 8, 2011, during a Department of Justice oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee,the Attorney General elaborated on his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. In response to a question from Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Mr. Holder clarified that he became aware of "Fast and Furious" in February 2011 and could have been clearer in his testimony before the House. After reviewing the Attorney General's testimonies, it does not appear to me that he perjured himself. Mr.Holder's uncertainty about the dates he learned of Fast and Furious—which he himself admitted—does not, in my view, rise to the level of perjury.
As the Attorney General has acknowledged, there were problems with Fast and Furious. You may be interestedto know that the Department of Justice Inspector General is currently investigating the operation and hopefully that investigation will provide a comprehensive analysis of what went wrong and how the ATF can avoid similar problems in the future.
***(Yeah. Holder's long-time friend and associate, who is holding on to 80,000 documents that have not been released to Congress in spite of repeated requests.)
Continued.....
While we may have different perspectives on this particular issue, I respect your opinion. If you have further comments or questions, feel free to contact my staff in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841 or visit mywebsite at
http://feinstein.senate.gov. Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein United States Senator Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the nation are available at my website, Feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list. Click here to sign up. And please visit my YouTube,Facebook and Twitterfor more ways to communicate with me.
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I'll tell you "how the ATF can avoid similar problems in the future. We have to purge
these corrupt officials in the Justice Department who concocted this insane scheme to
begin with.
6 comments:
I never cared much for Feinstein, but on this matter, she is entirely correct.
I knew Fousesquawk's coverage was partisan wishful thinking, but I didn't know how utterly innocent the facts on the ground showed Holder to be until I read the closing paragraphs of this letter.
Thanks for sharing it, Gary.
Siarlys,
Jeeeez.
Why don't you write a letter to Feinstein.
Because she's not my senator. I have two of my own, who need some straightening out.
Feinstein is, of course, decidedly anti-gun, and a stone left-wing Democrat, so her support of anti-gun/anti-Second Amendment Holder relative to a scheme which might/will impact the gun rights of law-abiding Americans is a given.
Does no one else see the irony here?? In the Heller gun case, the Bush Administration supported the concept that the Second Amendment protected individual, not collective, gun rights and, as I recall, so briefed/argued before the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS decision in Heller established definitively that at least as far as DC residents were concerned, such was the case.
Subsequently, the McDonald /Chicago case essentially involved whether the Second Amendment applied to, or was “incorporated”, to equally apply to the various States.
Interestingly, then Solicitor General and current SCOTUS associate justice Kagan did not even file a brief in this very significant case which dealt with ensuring that already decided fundamental rights were extended to all Americans.
The irony is that while this Administration did nothing to protect gun rights of U.S. citizens, it simultaneously, directly or indirectly, depending on what you read, knowingly furnished guns to Mexican drug cartels, the members of which who have no Second Amendment rights of their own, at least in Mexico. I’d call that ironic, among other things.
When a citizen sues a state, and the federal government does not weigh in, it means no federal interest is seen to exist. Fine well and good, the court made the decision everyone knew it would make, without a peep of protest from the Obama administration.
Obama spoke highly of the McDonald decision when it was issued, so we know where he stands.
I have no idea if elwood is accurately characterizing Feinstein, but she has some reason to be skeptical of bearing guns in dense urban areas, having become mayor after a county supervisor (and former police officer) snuck a gun into city hall and killed the mayor, then set up his Twinkie defense by walking down the fall and throwing in a fellow supervisor who was gay for good measure.
Maybe the moral is that Moscone and Milk should have been packing too.
Siarlys--there you go again (yes, I know I am quoting Reagan).
Help me out here a little bit. What Federal interest existed in the Heller case that did not exist in the McDonald case?? Seems to me there would be a Federal interest in ALL citizens enjoying a fundamental right.
And if you would check it out, you would learn that virtually without exception, when more law-abiding citizens, even in dense urban areas, have guns, the rates of violent personal crime (homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault) go down while the rates of property crime (burglary, auto theft) go up. I guess it depends on which you would rather have.
And yes, it is at least somewhat, if not quite, likely that the moral may well be that if either Moscone or Milk had also been packing, one or both of them might still be alive (or at least have died from other causes) and the shooter dead. I can see absolutely no possibility of any other outcome. Again, I guess it depends on which you would rather have.
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