AZMEX F&F EXTRA 14-4-16

AZMEX F&F EXTRA 14 APR 2016

Update on the "document dump". None of those responsible have yet to face justice.

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Oversight Chairman Discusses Fast and Furious Executive Privilege Documents Released By Obama
Katie Pavlich | Apr 14, 2016

http://www.townhallmail.com/ylcrswzfrrbnsfrfnfsqznpggvnggfvzccqwtsbvflbcbb_xcsrcgrjps.html?a=&b=

Last week President Obama finally turned over thousands of Fast and Furious documents to the House Oversight Committee after his 2012 executive privilege claim protecting Attorney General Eric Holder was struck down by a federal judge. As a refresher:

Just moments before Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in contempt of Congress by Republicans and Democrats in June 2012 , President Obama asserted executive privilege over thousands of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. Holder was held in contempt for stonewalling and failing to turn over the documents to the House Oversight Committee. Obama granted the executive privilege request despite claiming to have no knowledge about Operation Fast and Furious when it was active from 2009-2010.

Now, some details about the documents are beginning to emerge, showing the Department of Justice only partially responded to subpoenas from Congress about the gun running operation.

"We had to pry these out of the administration. It was Senator Grassley who actually made the first inquiry," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said during an interview with Special Report Wednesday. "Here in writing they [DOJ] are not complying with the law. They are breaking the law by telling us they're only going to provide a couple of the documents."

"When you have a duly issued subpoena, you must comply with it," Chaffetz continued. "There was a concerted effort here to make sure the Congress never saw the light of day on these documents. They still owe us more."

Operation Fast and Furious was an ATF and Department of Justice program that purposely allowed the sale and trafficking of thousands of weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by Mexican bandits in December 2010 and guns from the operation were found at the murder scene. When Sinaloa cartel leader El Chapo Guzman was captured last year, guns from the operation, including a .50 caliber rifle that was used to shoot at a police helicopter, were found in his hideout. Hundreds of Mexican citizens have been killed as a result of the program and thousands of guns are still missing and being used to carry out violent crimes in Mexico and potentially in the United States.

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Justice Dept. gives Congress documents on Fast and Furious
Eric Tucker, Associated Press Updated 10:25 pm, Friday, April 8, 2016

http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Justice-Dept-gives-Congress-documents-on-Fast-7237582.php

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Friday that it had given to Congress additional documents related to the botched gun-smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious as part of a years-long court dispute.
The Obama administration had for the last four years refused to provide the records to House Republicans, invoking a claim of executive privilege.
But a federal judge in January mostly turned aside that argument, saying a blanket assertion of executive privilege was inappropriate since the Justice Department had already disclosed through other channels much of the information it had sought to withhold. The judge also said the privilege was a valid basis for the department to withhold certain documents.
In a letter Friday, the Justice Department said it was moving to end the legal dispute with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by providing the documents even though it continued to disagree with the order from Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
"In addition, in light of the passage of time and other considerations, such as the department's interest in moving past this litigation and building upon our cooperative relationship with the committee and other congressional committees, the department has decided that it is not in the executive branch's interest to continue litigating this issue at this time," Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs, wrote in a letter to committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican.
House Republicans sued in 2012 to obtain thousands of emails related to the failed effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track guns across the Southwest border. Under that operation, ATF allowed gunrunners to buy weapons in hopes of tracking them and disrupting Mexican gun-smuggling rings.
Revelations of the operation created a political firestorm and set off a documents dispute between then-Attorney General Eric Holder and Congress that resulted in Holder being held in contempt of Congress.
The Justice Department had already produced tens of thousands of pages of documents, but Congress continued to seek records that the department argued it was entitled to withhold.
The department said that, in producing the documents Friday, it had completed its obligations under the court order.
Chaffetz said in a statement that while the department had turned over "some of the subpoenaed documents," the committee remains entitled to "the full range of documents for which it brought this lawsuit." He said the committee was appealing in hopes of getting additional documents.

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