Exceeds time it took Warren Commission to produce report on JFK murder
“I will certainly await the report that comes out of the inspector general and I will assure you and the American people that people will be held accountable for any mistakes that were made in connection with Fast and Furious,” Attorney General Eric Holder testified in a November 8 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
This leads to the questions of why it’s taking so long, and if the end result will be indicative of the self-serving stonewalling and foot-dragging the Department of Justice has exhibited throughout congressional investigations of “Project Gunwalker.” As things stand, Holder has been able to play the OIG card every time a question he does not wish to answer comes up.
“In February,” Holder wrote in his prepared statement for the December 8 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing, “I asked the Department’s Acting Inspector General to investigate the matter…”
When in February?
HOLDER: One of the things that I did early on was to ask the inspector general to look into this. I was -- I was hearing from inside the Justice Department one set of facts. I was hearing from members of Congress and members of the media something else. And it seemed to me that given this disparate information that I was receiving that an investigation needed to be had, and on February the 28th I asked the inspector general to begin an investigation.
But not, it seems, in writing, that is, in any way that can evidently be traced back to him and exactly what his instructions were, and to whom.
HOLDER: I'll -- I'll answer that. I was, in fact, the person who requested, ordered the inspector general to begin this investigation.
I don't think I did that in any written form. I think that was transmitted from me either through my chief-of-staff, through the deputy attorney general, to the I.G. There might be a writing that exists in that regard, but I don't think that I signed off on anything actually…
… The inspector general's office had looked at this whole question of -- of gun trafficking before and it seemed logical to ask them to expand their inquiry and look into Fast and Furious.
As I said, (inaudible) any writing from me, but I can check, but I don't think there's any writing from me that exists with regard to...
“I have a good relationship with the inspector general,” Holder revealed. How good seems a legitimate question to explore, especially since, illusory administration assurances of independence notwithstanding, certain conduct on the part of OIG is worth a much closer look. Especially since, as this column reported last March, Sen. Charles Grassley expressed no confidence and asked that investigation of ATF’s Fast and Furious policy be removed from the Justice Department Inspector General.
Why? Because of deliberate indifference it had already shown to a whistleblower putting his neck on the block to come forward with revelations about ATF-sanctioned gunwalking:
[T]he DOJ-OIG was aware of the allegations long before the Attorney General’s request and did nothing. Agent Dodson had already contacted the DOJ-OIG in December, just after Agent Terry’s death. He received no reply. After contacting my office, Agent Dodson contacted DOJ-OIG again, and still received no reply. No one from the office contacted him to gather information about his allegations until after my staff contacted the Acting Inspector General directly on February 1, 2011. Given that the DOJ-OIG initially failed to follow-up, it might have an incentive to minimize the significance of the allegations in order to avoid the appearance that its own inaction contributed to the problem in the last few months.
Adding to concerns about the true independence of the OIG? Holder’s professional and political relationship with Acting Inspector General Cynthia A. Schnedar:
Ms. Schnedar has long and close ties to Mr. Holder. According to her biography on the Justice Department website, she became assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. in 1994. Eric Holder had become the U.S. attorney in Washington the previous year, so he in effect was Schnedar's boss from 1994 until 1997, when he left to become President Clinton's deputy attorney general. Holder would become a key player in the scandalous pardons of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich and members of the Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist group known as FALN.
But during Ms. Schnedar's tenure before Holder had departed, it happened that they had ended up working a number of cases together. According to the LexisNexis website, there were at least fourteen of them, usually at the appellate level. For Holder, it was more than just "in name only"; in some of those cases, they apparently co-filed legal briefs.
Then there is this disturbing revelation that Schnedar’s OIG gave secretly recorded tapes of conversations between ATF Agent Hope McAllister and the gun store owner who sold the weapons found at the Brian Terry murder scene to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, itself a subject of the investigation.
In fact, resigned Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke has admitted “that he leaked a document aimed at smearing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson, an Operation Fast and Furious whistle-blower.” And damningly:
Burke admitted he leaked the memo in a Tuesday afternoon letter to Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar.
Adding to the incestuous conflict of interest Eric Holder himself requested documents on behalf of OIG—something they were capable of doing but did not.
It’s also essential to look at what the OIG itself says about their priorities, that is, the goals of their investigation,from their “Semiannual Report to Congress”:
The OIG is reviewing ATF’s firearms trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious, and other investigations with similar objectives, methods, and strategies. The review is examining the development and implementation of the investigations; the involvement of the Department (including ATF, the Criminal Division, and USAOs) and other law enforcement or government entities in the investigations; the guidelines and other internal controls in place and compliance with those controls during the investigations; and the investigative outcomes.
In other words, no mention of violations of U.S. or international law—and with a heavy emphasis on the phony “Bush did it too” meme...
Are there any serious doubts the OIG report will end up reflecting the conflicts reviewed above, and will result in no prosecutions of administration officials? Are there any serious doubts it's instead just giving Holder a way to eat up the clock and confuse the issue?
Curiously, as of today, DOJ operative Schnedar has now taken more time than the Warren Commission did to produce its report on the Kennedy assassination. That investigation, which took 303 days, was established on November 27, 1963 and their 888-page findings were delivered to President Johnson on September 24, 1964.
Today marks the 303rd day of the OIG being “asked to investigate” Fast and Furious. Does anyone really believe the report they eventually get around to producing will answer all our questions?
Or any of the really important ones?
Also see:
- A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner. Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
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Project Guntalker
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I joined Mark and co-host Georgia State Representative Sean Jeguson during the second half of the first hour. Click here to listen.
And click here for Hour 2 and here for Hour 3.
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Spead the word
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