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related: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/21/parents-murdered-border-agent-brian-terry-accuse-obama-officials-hiding/
From: The Heritage Foundation Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 Subject: Ask Heritage: Operation Fast and Furious: When Will We Know the Truth?
@ 2012, The Heritage Foundation
Conservative policy research since 1973
Conservative policy research since 1973
On the night of December 15, 2010, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot and killed by an untraceable assault weapon that was deliberately handed to Mexican drug lords by U.S. officials via Operation Fast and Furious. Ever since, the Terry family and Americans across the nation have asked how this could have happened. And ever since, Attorney General Eric Holder has stonewalled Congress in its attempts to find these answers. Yesterday, President Obama joined this stonewalling effort, asserting executive privilege over many of the documents about the operation that Congress had subpoenaed but still had not received.
Executive privilege is legitimate when properly invoked. But even then, the Supreme Court has maintained that it is not absolute. The Department of Justice (DOJ) must provide a compelling rationale for each assertion. Shielding wrongdoing has never been a qualifying rationale.
First, the Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon (1974) held that executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing. The courts held that [President] Nixon's purported invocation of executive privilege was illegitimate, in part, for that reason. There is reason to suspect that this might be the case in the Fast and Furious cover-up and stonewalling effort. Congress needs to get to the bottom of that question to prevent an illegal invocation of executive privilege and further abuses of power. That will require an index of the withheld documents and an explanation of why each of them is covered by executive privilege?and more.
(Click on the cartoon to see it full size.) It is now up to Congress to ascertain the specific reasoning for executive privilege with every withheld document. Even in the unlikely case it is determined that this was a proper invocation of executive privilege, the administration is still not off the hook to inform Congress of what they know.
Gaziano explains further:
[T]he President is required when invoking executive privilege to try to accommodate the other branches' legitimate information needs in some other way. For example, it does not harm executive power for the President to selectively waive executive privilege in most instances, even if it hurts him politically by exposing a terrible policy failure or wrongdoing among his staff. The history of executive-congressional relations is filled with accommodations and waivers of privilege. In contrast to voluntary waivers of privilege, Watergate demonstrates that wrongful invocations of privilege can seriously damage the office of the presidency when Congress and the courts impose new constraints on the President's discretion or power (some rightful and some not).
President Obama now owns the Fast and Furious scandal. It is entirely up to him whether he wants to live up to the transparency promises he made four years ago, or further develop a shroud of secrecy that would make President Richard Nixon blush. If the stonewalling continues, and the privilege is not waived, it will be up to the American people and the media to demand the reasoning for the cover-up.
It is also time for the media to begin responsibly covering this scandal. For more than 16 months, only a handful of reporters have appropriately researched the facts and sought answers. Most members of the national media would not even acknowledge the existence of the scandal. Reportedly, NBC Nightly News ran its first story on the scandal just this past Tuesday.
The national media must now follow the lead of their colleagues CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson or Townhall's Katie Pavlich and investigate the specific facts and details of the operation and administration involvement. Attkisson, as you may remember, was screamed and cussed at by White House spokesman Eric Schultz in October for asking questions about Operation Fast and Furious.
Answers must be demanded. When was the first time President Obama was briefed on this operation? Given his previous conflicting testimony, when in fact did Attorney General Eric Holder become involved? What exactly did he know and when did he know it?
Despite the fact that Mexico was left in the dark by the Obama administration, this was still an international operation. If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must approve the Keystone pipeline, wouldn't she also be consulted on this cross-border operation?
Liberals will try and pretend this operation that began in mid-2009 is connected to former President George W. Bush's administration. The media should challenge this false assertion. Operation Wide Receiver in 2006 did not remotely resemble Fast and Furious, as National Review?s Andrew McCarthy has ably examined. Mexico helped coordinate it, and there was traceable controlled delivery. Even Holder admitted in testimony that you cannot "equate the two."
We will also hear that this is "election-year politics." The problem with that refrain is that this investigation has been ongoing since early 2011, well before campaign season started. It has been Attorney General Holder's evasiveness that has dragged this process closer to Election Day.
If it were not for conservative media outlets, bloggers, a few dogged reporters and the steadfastness of House Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), this troubling scandal would have been buried long ago.
A brave American border agent is dead. At least 200 Mexicans have been slaughtered with these weapons. Drug violence on the border remains unabated. Now, President Obama is attempting to conceal the facts of what happened. This is an opportunity for Congress and the media to demand sunlight.
The parents of murdered border agent Brian Terry told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday that they think Attorney General Eric Holder and other Justice Department officials are "hiding something" in their response to the botched anti-gunrunning operation Fast and Furious.
The operation let illicit guns "walk" in the hope of tracking them to bigger traffickers, but many of the guns just disappeared into Mexico. Two of those guns were later found at the crime scene where Terry was killed in December 2010 just north of the border. A House panel voted Wednesday along party lines to recommend holding Holder in contempt of Congress for not handing over a trove of documents related to Fast and Furious, and GOP leaders are considering a full House vote. President Obama has asserted executive privilege in keeping many of the documents out of public view.
Holder has not yet been formally held in contempt of Congress. The full House would still need to approve the resolution in order for that to happen --Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., suggested the vote can be avoided if the attorney general turns over more emails and memos about the Fast and Furious sting.
Holder has testified he only found out about Fast and Furious after Terry's death, and he condemned the tactics. But GOP lawmakers have suggested top officials at the Justice Department knew more about the operation than they have said.
Terry's parents, Kent and Josephine Terry, said they are upset that the Obama administration may be preventing them from getting the full story about how their son died.
"They're lying. ... They're passing the buck," Kent Terry told Hannity. "I just know that they're hiding something big. Something happened out there."
The interview comes a day after the Terry's released a statement expressing disappointment with the Obama's administration's latest actions.
"Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to fully disclose the documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious and President Obama's assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth," they said.
President Obama's decision to assert executive privilege over Operation Fast and Furious documents not only failed to delay contempt proceedings against Attorney General Eric Holder -- it raised a whole new line of constitutional questions and challenges about the power of the presidency.
The immediate question was whether the documents contained information so damaging that the president was willing to risk the bad PR by moving to lock them down. GOP lawmakers also questioned whether Obama's assertion was legitimate, later voting in committee that it was not appropriate in this case. And Republicans repeatedly suggested that the White House had tipped its hand, and acknowledged being involved in Fast and Furious discussions by asserting privilege over the documents in question.
The Department of Justice has adamantly defended its response. Holder said Issa, the committee chairman who has led the charge in the House for answers about Fast and Furious, rejected what he thought was "an extraordinary offer."
Wednesday's developments follow a flurry of activity Tuesday, as Holder tried to negotiate a way to avert the contempt proceedings. Issa had earlier indicated a willingness to postpone the vote after Holder indicated a willingness to make compromises and supply some documents in response to House Republicans' subpoena.
Issa had demanded to see a trove of documents on the controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation. He also wants to know who prepared a now-retracted letter from Feb. 4, 2011, in which the department claimed the U.S. did not knowingly help smuggle guns to Mexico, including those found where Terry was killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
also see: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/10/eric-holder-called-cold-hearted-for-sharing-apology-letter-with
In December 2010 US Border Patrolman Brian Terry was killed in southern Arizona by guns that were a part of the failed and stupid ATF operation known as Fast & Furious. A few days ago Attorney General Eric Holder was ask by a Senate Committee if he'd apologized for the killing to the Terry family. Holder responded by saying he had not apologized but deeply regretted the murder of the Border agent. Finally, almost a year later, the Attorney General of the US issued a private letter to the Terry family. Well better late than never Holder you RAT!
Brian Terry, US Border Patrol Agent and HERO! Needlessly killed in Arizona! In that letter Holder reportedly did apologize to the Terry family. He also reportedly has offered to meet with the family if they so desire. Holder also said that he agreed with the Terry family, in that, the failed operation was "completely unacceptable." Really? Then why did Holder allow it to continue until whistleblowers let the press know what was going on? And here?s something else. Holder's office leaked the "private letter" to the media Thursday before Terry's parents both had a chance to read it. Ah yes, it's all about damage control now isn't it. Anyone getting the idea this letter and apology is just a stunt with no meaning behind the apology? The Terry family sure as hell is!!
Hold on to your caps comrades because it gets worse. Lana Domino who is a Terry family friend has announced that Terry's parents NEVER received Holder's letter!! She said, "He (Holder) never sent a letter." WTF? Maybe he sent it by Pony Express or something. Domino added, "I talk to them daily. They never received an apology. They never received a letter." It this is so then Holder never sent the letter and is lying or someone at DOJ got ahold of the letter and leaked it to the press and "forgot" to mail it. Politico first broke the story on the Holder letter and they reported the letter was dated last Wednesday and was sent on the same day.
Domino said that Holder never attended the memorial for Agent Terry even though there were several that he could have gone to and he never attended the funeral in Michigan either. Domino told the Daily Caller that "Holder's true coldness as a person has finally begun to shine through to the American people!" BTW President Obama DID call the Terry family apologizing for Terry's death not long after the agent was killed by illegal Mexicans working for the Mexican drug cartels in Arizona. And DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano attended Terry's funeral in Michigan as well. Domino says that the president also sent a letter to the Terry family that was hand delivered by Napolitano at the funeral. Holder actually had the opportunity to meet Terry's mother, Josephine, in Washington DC during Police Week. He saw here but chose not to meet her!
Domino also said that Holder could have apologized last week in the Senate committee when given the opportunity to do so by Senator Cornyn but instead Holder responded with a "cold hearted" response like the "person he is." Domino of Holder, "He's as cold as ice." She went on to say that Holder "feels no remorse" and he "put on his lawyer hat, he answered the questions as appropriately as he could to cover his end" during the Senate hearing last week. Domino also told reporters that Holder's only regret was the Terry died and "it opened everybody's eyes to Operation Fast & Furious and it put it to a halt."
Terry family attorney Lincoln Combs has provided an update to Domino's claims that no letter was received from Holder. Combs said Holder emailed his apology to one of Terry's sisters last week.
Terry's family has now responded publicly to the Holder letter reports FOX News. They report that Terry's parents are now lashing out at the people they blame for their sons murder and those people are AG Eric Holder, his top assistant AG Lanny Breuer, former US Attorney Dennis Burke, and all ATF officials who approved, executed, and supervised the botched gun running operation F&F.
Brian's father, Kent Terry, said, "I think they ae LIARS and I would tell them that. What would I say to Eric Holder? They would not be nice words." Terry's mother, Josephine, said that if it had not been for the gun trafficking operation her son might still be alive. She has said, "I just can?t believe our own government came up with a program like this that let innocent people get killed." Well Mrs Terry neither can the majority of Americans! This operation should have NEVER been launched!
The Terry's watched Holder last week when he appeared for a second time before a Senate Committee investigating F&F. They say Holder decline to apologize when given the opportunity by the Senator. Kent Terry told Fox, "That shows what kind of person he is. To me, he is NOT much of a person. I don't now if he has a son. But if he lost his, he would think different." You bet he would. Mrs Terry said she sat in a chair watching Holder and cried. "It was so inhumane. An apology to anybody means at least they are trying to fix it. He didn't!" Yep Terry family. Eric Holder is a pretty PISS POOR EXCUSE for a US Attorney General and human being!!
Last week when he appeared before the Senate committee Holder played games. He blamed Congress for the "hostility" in our nation towards gun control. This COMMUNIST AG we have just can't figure out that it's not Congress. The hostility comes from WE THE PEOPLE who LIKE our RIGHTS! Over 30 in Congress are calling for Holder to resign and millions of the American people want Holder GONE! Yet, BO just won't fire him. Why not?
Terry's mother, Josephine, says she was intentionally misled by US Attorney Burke and that no Obama administration official has ever explained just WHY the ATF knowingly sold guns to criminals and allowed them to walk into Mexico. Mrs Terry said Burke came to her house and told her none of the 2000 guns were used to kill her son. That has turned out NOT to be true. In fact TWO of these guns were found at Terry's murder! Burke resigned from his post this past September.
The Terry family wants Holder to resign. Holder told the Senate last week, "There are 115,000 employees in the Department of Justice. I cannot be expected to know the details of every operation on a day-to-day basis." Kent Terry says, "Holder says he has 115,000 employees. That is his job. If he can't handle his job, he should get out of it." YOU BET!!
I've covered Brian Terry's murder by a group of illegals since day one and, frankly, the LACK of response by Eric Holder is appalling! At least Obama had the decency to issue an apology letter and Napolitano went to Terry's funeral. Where [was] the .... Eric Holder? A Federal Agent was killed and Holder is nowhere to be seen and when we hear from him all we hear is Holder trying to cover HOLDER'S ASS! WTF? I don?t give a damn if he has 5 million employees in the DOJ. As AG he is responsible for EVERY one of them! Obviously Holder cannot handle the job so he needs to GO NOW! He's an absolute DISGRACE to the office of US Attorney General. Holder must be a sociopath as it appears he can turn his emotions on and off at will just like the old Nazi SS officers used to do! Himmler was great at that and he was a 100% sociopathic FREAK!
Holder should RESIGN now? TODAY! And we won't rest until he does! Don't hold out hope of Obama firing him as Holder has been running interference for Obama and his own misdeeds. I encourage everyone to email their Congressman and Senator expressing outrage at Holder's behavior and incompetence. Also demand that your elected reps in Congress DEMAND Holder RESIGN. Let's get Holder OUT of office folks! He's got to go!!
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