According to Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), NRA tea party Republicans made up the whole Fast and Furious scandal.
“I think this is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” he told the Daily Caller.
On Friday, Matthew Boyle and Michelle Fields added:
Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels.
But the Daily Caller reported that Johnson sang a different tune during the hearings.
Johnson alleged that the "gun show loophole" was far worse than the scandal.
“Now, how many firearms are sold to al-Qaida terrorists, to other convicted felons, to domestic violence perpetrators, to convicted felons, to white supremacists?” he asked the embattled Attorney General.
“How many unlicensed gun dealers, or let’s say, how many weapons, how many assault rifles let’s just say in a given year are sold to such individuals by unlicensed gun dealers at these gun shows and how many of those end up walking away to Mexico? Can you give us a number on that?”
Holder repsonded by saying he didn't, but offered to research the information outside the hearing.
Johnson also blamed the Democratic-controlled Senate for its failure to confirm a head for the ATF.
But he wasn't finished blaming the NRA or those who think the Second Amendment gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms..
“I think the NRA and other Second Amendment rights radicals have confidence that the U.S. will not have a competent ATF head,” he said.
The Daily Caller added:
House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, was up next in questioning and struck back at Johnson’s inflammatory rhetoric. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t take exception to calling the NRA members, millions of them, radicals,” Issa said. “I think that’s an offensive statement and that it’s beneath this committee.”
Hot Air's Tina Korbe noted:
Hmm. How exactly did the Tea Party Movement or the NRA instigate an ATF program to sell firearms to straw purchasers and then rapidly lose track of the weapons?
Honestly, the quote makes so little sense, I don’t know how to respond to it. But, then again, it comes from a fellow who somehow managed to mention “white supremacists” in yesterday’s Judiciary hearing — and who once said overpopulation might cause the entire island of Guam to “tip over and capsize.” What did I expect?
For that remark, Johnson made this examiner's list of the five most memorable quotes made by Democrats in 2010. Video of that quote can be seen here.
More on Fast and Furious at examiner.com can be found here.
Comments