Thread: FAST & FURIOUS LAWSUIT SURVIVES DOJ MOVE FOR DISMISSAL

FAST & FURIOUS LAWSUIT SURVIVES DOJ MOVE FOR DISMISSAL




by KERRY PICKET
30 Sep 2013,

A U.S. District Court Judge denied the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the House of Representatives’ lawsuit demanding administration documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious gun walking scandal.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released a statement Monday reacting to the decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson:

"This ruling is a repudiation of the Obama Justice Department and Congressional Democrats who argued the courts should have no role in the dispute over President Obama's improper assertion of executive privilege to protect an attempted Justice Department cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious,” said Chairman Issa. “I remain confident in the merits of the House's decision to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt; this ruling is an important step toward the transparency and accountability the Obama Administration has refused to provide."

The Justice Department can appeal the ruling on this motion to dismiss it to the federal court of appeals. However, if DOJ does not appeal Berman's decision, the judge can move forward and ultimately make a ruling on the overall case itself.

The President asserted executive privilege over these subpoenaed documents on June 20th 2012.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...urious-Lawsuit

Federal judge rejects Eric Holder's attempt to keep Fast & Furious documents from House committee investigators

October 1, 2013
Thomas Lifson
American Thinker

The purported "most transparent administration in history" lost another round in its efforts to hide documents form the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Rep. Darrell Issa. Josh Gerstein reports in Politico:

In a ruling Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege to prevent some records about the administration's response to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal from being turned over to Congress.

"This case presents the sort of question that the courts are traditionally called upon to resolve," Jackson said in her 44-page decision, issued more than five months after lawyers argued the issue in her packed courtroom and more than a year after the House committee filed suit. "Dismissing the case without hearing it would in effect place the court's finger on the scale, designating the executive as the victor based solely on his untested assertion that the privilege applies," she wrote. (snip)

The legal fight arose after the Justice Department refused to comply with House subpoenas seeking information about the response to "Operation Fast and Furious," a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives undercover operation targeting gun trafficking along and across the Mexican border.

The decision does not mean that the documents must now be turned over; rather, it means that both sides can argue in court over whether or not executive privilege applies to the documents, as the DoJ claims. The Justice Department had asked the court to dismiss the subpoena, and the court refused.

While we are preoccupied with the government partial shutdown political theatre, what could be a game-changing scandal is waiting in the wings. It is not certain that the House committee will prevail in court, but if it does, we will discover what it is that Eric Holder is so anxious to hide about the government's actions in sending weapons to Mexican gangsters.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...tee_inves.html

Court Says Holder Can't Stop Fast And Furious Truth Search

5 Comments Wed, Oct 02 2013 00:00:00 E A12_ISSUES

Posted 06:19 PM ET

Scandal: The truth about how and why Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration may yet come out as a court lets a lawsuit proceed.

The most transparent administration in history suffered a defeat Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department's request to dismiss a lawsuit seeking "Fast and Furious" documents hidden by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department after President Obama invoked executive privilege.

The lawsuit was brought by Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after the president asserted executive privilege to prevent records about the administration's response to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun-running scandal from being turned over to Congress.

The administration's position was that the oversight committee's demand for information and documents was settled by a Feb. 4, 2011, letter to Congress in which Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch, in response to the investigations by Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Fast and Furious "gun-walking" program run out of ATF's Phoenix office, stated that the "allegation that ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons . . . is false."

The Justice Department refused to turn over any documents after the date of the letter, contending there was nothing more to see and Congress should just move on.

When Oversight sued to get those documents, the administration argued that if the lawsuit were allowed to proceed, every new request for documents would be unjustifiably subject to litigation.

Later, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, in another letter to Congress, wrote: "Facts have come to light during the course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4 letter contains inaccuracies." That letter was formally withdrawn. In other words, the Justice Department lied to Congress in covering up "Fast and Furious."

President Obama's supposed regard for the rule of law hit a new low when, on the eve of a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over these and other documents, he granted his AG's 11th-hour request to hide sought-after documents on Operation Fast and Furious using executive privilege.

"I write now to inform you that the president has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-Feb. 4, 2011, documents," Deputy AG Cole said in a letter that Issa received just before a scheduled hearing and vote. It apparently was not mentioned in a last-minute meeting between Issa and Holder the night before.

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http://news.investors.com/ibd-editor...#ixzz2gWa9pdED

Last Resistance

Posted By Frank Camp on Oct 7, 2013

Fast & Furious Scandal: Obama Is Guilty

Tom Petri said: “As so often happens with Washington scandals, it isn’t the original scandal that gets people in the most trouble – it’s the attempted cover-up.”

The Obama administration has been the most secretive, dense, and corrupt administration in a long time—possibly ever. Without the media acting as watchdogs, most Americans don’t have any idea. If Obama were Republican, you better believe that every American would know every sordid detail about Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, and Fast & Furious. But he’s a Democrat god, so, like, whatever!

Attention to the Fast and Furious gun smuggling case has died out recently, but there was a time when at least Fox News was covering it with some regularity. But now, a new book has been written by one of the primary whistleblowers who had a great knowledge of the case.

According to The Washington Times:

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book for pay, claiming his retelling of the Mexico “gun-walking” scandal will hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency…The gun-walking strategy — part of an undercover case called Fast and Furious — violated ATF’s long-standing policy to interdict weapons from straw buyers…In all, ATF officials permitted more than 1,700 semi-automatic weapons to flow through the hands of straw buyers for the Mexican cartels, with many crossing the border…The strategy, however, backfired when hundreds of the weapons began showing up at crime scenes on both sides of the border, including at the December 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.”

Of course, at the beginning of the scandal, there was erected a wall of denial. After more evidence emerged, some were forced to admit that Fast and Furious was indeed a real operation. But here’s where it gets interesting. Barack Obama claims to have had no knowledge of what was going on. He is claiming plausible deniability–a well-worn political tactic. However, rather than allow the free release of information, the President has used his executive privilege to stop Congress from obtaining more documented information regarding the operation.

The ATF is blocking the publishing of John Dodson’s book, citing potential damage to “morale” as the primary reason. Sure. Combine that with Obama’s refusal to let Congress pursue the truth, and my guilt sense is triggered. It is my experience that the truth needs no cover. In fact, that is almost universally the case, in terms of investigations. If Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are not culpable—as they insist—why invoke executive privilege? There is no need. All of the information that could be damaging to our country has been revealed. The only possible information left is related to personal involvement.

It’s clear to me that Obama and Holder were involved in Fast and Furious. How deeply they were involved is up for debate. But one thing is clear: using the most basic common sense, the denial of publication, plus Obama’s and Holder’s refusal to allow further investigation, points to guilt.

Our President is a liar. Simple.

http://lastresistance.com/3334/fast-...-obama-guilty/