Last Thursday, Brady Campaign acting director Dennis "What People?" Henigan (and doesn't Henigan object to acting directors?) asserted in the Huffington Post that the "gun lobby" has "distanced itself from reality," in suggesting that "Project Gunwalker" was intended to justify more "gun control":
Indeed, the gun lobby has so distanced itself from reality on the issue of gun trafficking to Mexico that it now claims that the ATF's misguided "Fast and Furious" operation, in which ATF allowed some 2,000 guns to move from the U.S. to the cartels in an effort to get at cartel leaders, was itself a conspiracy to justify the rifle reporting rule. In the paranoid universe of the gun lobby, there was no trafficking of guns to Mexico until ATF authorized it during the Obama Administration to justify more gun restrictions.
Never mind the fact that we have documented proof that "gunwalked" guns were used to justify the rifle sales reporting requirement, as we have discussed--again and again. We have even discussed the Brady Campain's defense of that indefensible behavior. By peddling the ridiculous notion that "Gunwalker" was "an effort to get at cartel leaders," Henigan has earned his place among the ranks of Gunwalker Underpants Gnomes (ask Jon Stewart if he has an extra hat, Dennis).
Henigan's timing turns out to have been more than a little unfortunate, because the day after his Huffington Post piece, Patrick J. Cunningham, of the Arizona U.S. Attorneys Office, announced (through his own attorney) that he will "take the Fifth," rather than provide substantive testimony at the deposition to which he has been subpoenaed (scheduled for tomorrow) by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
In other words, what Henigan refers to as an "absurd theory" is real enough that a federal official is now taking desperate evasive action to save not his career (he is resigning this week), but to stay out of federal prison. This is not to suggest that exercise of the Fifth Amendment-protected right to avoid compulsion to incriminate oneself should undermine the presumption of innocence pending proof of guilt that is the cornerstone of the American justice system.
The fact that a DoJ official feels the need to avail himself of that protection, though, bodes ill for those who would dismiss this scandal as a paranoid "conspiracy theory." National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea puts it this way:
This could be huge: The monolithic front presented by the administration is crumbling. Career law enforcement personnel are in fear of being charged as criminals and are looking to protect themselves. That could mean ultimately implicating higher-ups, as opposed to falling on their swords and taking one for the team.
"Project Gunwalker" was not a "botched" operation--it was a massive crime, perpetrated by our own government, to justify attacking our Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human rights. And now is the time to hold those responsible to account.
See also:
- A journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part One
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker-Part Two
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Three
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Four
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Five
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Six
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Seven
- A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Eight
- Official Correspondence on the Project Gunwalker Scandal.
- Sharyl Attkisson's stories on CBS
- 'Gunwalking' to forcible citizen disarmament tyranny--compelling new evidence
- 'Gunwalking' for stricter gun regulation, not a conspiracy theory
- No conspiracy theory: 'Gunwalker' being used RIGHT NOW to justify more gun laws
- 'Conspiracy theory' goes mainstream--'Gunwalker' was for 'gun control'
- CBS bombshell: documents show ATF used Gunwalker to push for new gun control
- Brady Campaign defends 'never letting a (manufactured) crisis go to waste'
- Breaking: Issa subpoenas AZ US Attorney Criminal Division Chief
- FINALLY. Fifth Amendment Time in the Gunwalker Scandal. FOX breaks the story I knew was coming yesterday: "Federal official in Arizona to plead the fifth and not answer questions on 'furious'"
- AZ US Attorney Criminal Division Chief to plead the Fifth
- Fast & Furious follow-up: Cunningham to take Fifth!
- The earthquake irony of ‘Taking the Fifth’ in Fast & Furious
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