February 2nd is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee for questioning on Fast and Furious. This will put him in the hot seat in front of Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and other congressional members like Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who have been steady on Holder’s trail since details of Fast and Furious became public.

Holder’s last appearance before a congressional committee was on December 8, when Issa made it clear how irritated he was over the changing timeline, Holder’s perceived arrogance, and the ongoing refusal to turn over subpoenaed DOJ documents. In one of the best exchanges on Dec 8, Issa looked at Holder and asked, “Have you no shame?” That was also the hearing in which Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), expressed his outrage over the fact that Holder’s DOJ had submitted inaccurate testimony then withdrawn it in an attempt to avoid being charged with providing false testimony.

But a lot has changed since that early December hearing. Most recently, the last minute release of subpoenaed documents which show that Holder learned about Border Agent Brian Terry’s death on the day it happened: a point Holder has heretofore denied. (Emails between Dennis Burke, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, and Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff prove this.) Additionally, other emails in the recently released DOJ documents show that the head of DOJ’s “criminal division, Lanny Breuer, suggested letting some illicit ‘straw’ weapons buyers in the U.S. [to] transport their guns across the border into Mexico where they could be arrested.”

Then there’s Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, who was subpoenaed to appear for testimony on January 24, but pleaded the 5th in order to avoid being “compelled to be a witness against himself.” As a result, a determined Congressman Issa has demanded that Cunningham’s underling, Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney, “speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”

All this to say, as I watch the hearings this Thursday I hope to see the committee place Holder under oath and then ask tough, pointed questions about these and other recently revealed matters. For example, in light of the emails, Holder needs to give a clear and binding answer regarding when he found out about Terry’s death. He needs to explain how the DOJ can claim ignorance regarding “gun running” while their own man, Lanny Breuer, was pushing it as a means making arrests. He needs to explain what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates had with Patrick J. Cunningham between the time Cunningham was subpoenaed and the time his attorney announced he would plead the fifth. And he needs to describe what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates have had with Michael Morrissey at this time regarding the testimony Morrissey is expected to give when he speaks with investigators.

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Houston, we have a problem.

On March 24, 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden made the following announcement: “The President has directed us to take action to fight [Mexican] cartels…and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration’s comprehensive plan.”

Note: From the moment this announcement begins, “the President” and “Attorney General Holder” are both involved in some capacity.

The announcement continued by saying the DEA was going to increase its presence in Mexico and on the border, and that the ATF was using $10 million from the stimulus funds to add “37 new employees and 3 new offices” and “redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days, to fortify its project gunrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico.”

Of course, this dovetails perfectly with Holder’s speech in Mexico on April 2, 2009, where he literally referred back to Ogden’s announcement in describing the focus on the southern border and project gunrunner:

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.  My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.  DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail. (emphasis mine)

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Attorney General Eric Holder is in trouble. The documents that strongly suggest he lied to Congress have been released to the public, and they came on the heels of the secret Fast and Furious recordings that had already blown holes in parts of his Congressional testimony.

As a result, the House GOP is calling for a Special Counsel to investigate whether Holder purjured himself before Congress.

And while it would be great to see Holder handcuffed and frog-marched off to the big house for lying to Congress (should he be found guilty), we make a serious mistake if we bypass an inquiry into the benefits that both he and President Obama were likely hoping to gain from the operation.

Consider Obama: In April 2009 he spoke alongside Mexican President Felipe Calderón about how border violence on the U.S./Mexico border was proof that the assault weapons ban needed to be re-instituted. (Ironically, at that very same time, the Obama administration was preparing to undertake Fast and Furious, which we now know increased the number of assault weapons on the border exponentially.)

Thus, with words that we can now recognize as hypocritical in light of Fast and Furious, Obama said:

“I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment right in our Constitution — the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners that want to keep their families safe — to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know here in Mexico, are used to fuel violence.”

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It was just over two and half years ago that the Obama administration entered the White House under promises of transparency and restoring America’s image abroad. Yet now we know that at the same time they were promising these things, Obama was simultaneously setting aside $10,000,000.00 for operation “Gun Runner” (via the stimulus package) and the ATF was looking the other way while 2,500 guns were sold to suspicious characters in Arizona who were supposed to take the weapons to Cartel members in Mexico.

Now we all know that “Gun Runner” was followed by operation “Fast and Furious,” which quickly proved to be an utter disaster. Run from the top down, from the DOJ to the ATF and FBI, “Fast and Furious” turned out to be slow and impotent. Only 1,300 of the 2,500 weapons sold were recovered and what was supposed to be a sweep of the Mexican cartel turned instead into a gift of 1,200 weapons that we failed to find.

In the aftermath of these operations, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has given testimony under oath indicating that Attorney General Eric Holder pressured him not to speak openly with members of Congress about the operations, Obama has denied knowledge of either, and the crime rate in Mexico has jumped exponentially.

Could it get any worse? Maybe so.

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In the summer of 1985, persons within the Reagan administration sold hundreds of anti-tank missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of an American hostage named Benjamin Weir. For more than a year afterward, hundreds upon hundreds more missiles and missile parts were sold for the release of other hostages being held in Iran as well.

The money received for the missiles was then sent to Contras in Nicaragua to support their efforts against the communist Sandinistas. (The Sandinistas were revolutionaries who had seized power in Nicaragua a year before Reagan was elected president, while the Contras were counter revolutionaries whom persons inside the Reagan administration were relying on to curb the further spread of communism.)

With subtle changes along the way regarding the price paid for the weapons, the way the weapons were delivered, and the recipients of the weapons, the sales to Iran and the flow of money to the Contras continued unabated for over a year.

Then, in late 1986, everything came to light and what we all know now as the “Iran/Contra scandal” was underway. It would result in an independent prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh, charging 14 members of the Reagan administration, 11 of whom were convicted: included in these 11 were “employees of the National Security Council staff, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Reagan was not found guilty, as there was not sufficient evidence that he knew about the sales or the subsequent monies that were sent to the Contras. (There definitely weren’t any speeches wherein he boasted of overseeing the program, as there are with Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder and Operation “Gun Runner.”)

Now, jump to 2011. It’s simply undeniable that Holder is smack dab in the middle of “Gun Runner” and “Fast and Furious.”

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In my previous column I wrote that Congressman Darrell Issa said the Mexican government has called Projects ‘Gun Runner’ and ‘Fast and Furious’ an “act of war”.  After being flooded with numerous media inquiries the Congressman’s office contacted me and said the actual words he used were  “an active war” -not “an act of war”- and he was referring to the Mexican war on drugs not, not Projects Gun Runner and Fast And Furious.

After listening to the audio from our interview several times I must say I find it indistinguishable.  You can listen to the You Tube below and decide for yourself.

You Tube: Darrell Issa interview

The Washington Post is reporting that the words ‘act of war’ were used in a previous interview conducted with California talk show host Rick Roberts a few weeks ago.  Either way over 2500 weapons were inexcusably allowed to walk, two Border Agents are dead, the DOJ is stonewalling Issa’s subpoena requests, and the Congressman should be applauded for his efforts to find out who made the decision behind Projects ‘Gun Runner’ and ‘Fast and Furious’.

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Recently immediately after Congressman Darrell Issa finished giving a speech from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, I caught up with him for his most recent comments on the investigation into the ATF gunwalking scandal known as Projects “Fast and Furious” and “Gun Runner.”

The California Congressman, as many of you know, is Chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the DOJ’s role in the selling of assault weapons to known drug cartel members.  Below is an excerpt from the interview.

You Tube: Issa with the latest from his investigation into the ATF gunmwalking scandal.

“The good news is the dedicated men and women of the ATF and DOJ are breaking ranks and coming in as whistleblowers.  We’ve had numerous voluoluntary interviews that have given us an understanding of what went wrong and an understanding that a decision was made far above their level…”

“Two Border Patrol Agents are dead…this (1,800 weapons sold to drug traffickers) has resulted in an accumulation of hurt and killing that will go on for years…”

“…One of our objectives in the investigation is we have to put confidence back in the system on both sides of the border that U.S. law enforcement does not allow weapons to walk…President Calderone of Mexico is the most cooperative partner on the war on drugs that we have had in years and the Mexican government has called this ‘an active war’.”

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