Monday, December 5, 2011

Grassley: Why didn't Holder and Napolitano know?

Courtesy of Ben Barrack, who comments:

Consider this to be a 10 minute appetizer for the December 8th House Judiciary Committee hearing at which Attorney General Eric Holder will be grilled by the likes of Darrell Issa and other congressmen. Here, Grassley raises very serious and legitimate questions that are certain to be asked of Holder. In sworn testimony in front of various committees, both Holder and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano allege that they were not made aware of Fast and Furious until February of 2011, despite the fact that Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered on December 15, 2010.

In the recent document dump from the White House, memos and emails prove that high-ranking officials, including Arizona US Attorney Dennis Burke and others knew about the connection within hours of Terry's death. It is also known that Napolitano visited Burke's office days after Terry's murder but maintained she was not informed about the connection. This raises several questions, which Grassley rightly asks in the video below but we might be getting a sneak peak into the strategy of the administration.

Look for Burke and company to be blamed for not reporting the Fast and Furious connection up the chain. That's not believable but it will be interesting to see how Issa and company confront Holder about that narrative. It is already known that Burke has been cooperating with congressional investigators. If he told those investigators that the likes of Holder and Napolitano were informed very soon after Terry's death, Thursday's hearing would be a good time for Issa to bring it up.


Why didn't Holder and Napolitano know?

7 comments:

bondmen said...

Plausible deniability is standard operating procedure for all those who walk on, and regularly cross over, the line separating law from the jungle.

Ashrak said...

IMHO, this is Issa's (along with the rest of the GOP and most especially John Boehner's "leadership") last chance to bring the real deal goods to market. If he and his peers hold back this Thursday, then they will prove beyond any doubt that they have no intention whatsoever of ever bringing any kind of real justice to the Terry Family (or any of the other victim's families) much less accountability to Barry and his Crooked Cabinet.

Mt Top Patriot said...

Plausible deniability is utterly ingrained in the cultural corruption down in that cesspool on the Potomac.
Why oh why are they playing this slow dance on something as insidious and grievous as Gunwalker?
These same clowns had no trouble fast tracking legislation passed this last week that carpet bombed Habeas Corpus, Posse Comitatus and The 4th Amendment.
Theater of the absurd! Drawing out the whole shebang in order for everyone involved to find cover.
Uncovering the truth of Gunwalker is akin to a tempest in a tea pot, it may well be it could bring the entire rotten edifice of this monstrosity of corruption and special interest down. And no matter how ugly or bloody the truth is, no matter how many American's, Mexican's and God knows who else, are dead or suffering because of these maniacs in suits, the Truth will never out. The Truth is so repugnant, so ugly and evil, who in that cesspool can wash the blood and shame off their hands. Guilt by association in a culture of greed, avarice, hubris, treachery, and corruption that dictates the processes of every facet of the entire sphere of this mandarin Nomenklaturer class culture.
If your one of these perfumed princes and princesses, are you all of a sudden going to have a conscience? Grow a set of balls? Discover principle and virtue? After the cultural corruption you have enriched yourself in, in a myriad of illegal and questionable ways, knowing full well the truth of how you are, would get you a noose and pitchforks from a mob of Lilliputians? Fossilization of what happened in Gunwalker, Oklahoma City, and God only knows what else is par. We are like a little harmless lap dog yippin and yappin away at ankles covered in the Kevlar of graft greed and treason. Our masters are gonna throw us a Milquetoast bone here and there, just enough to satisfy a hope that justice will somehow be served. Just enough to string along that forlorn hope of comeuppance.
Like Mr. Mike said, it is a fragile thing, a paper thin porcelain edifice of utter arrogance and disregard, one push in the right way at the appropriate time starts a domino effect of collapse.
The deck is stacked six ways to Sunday against us Ewoks and Hobbits, there is nothing for it but to suck it up and brace ourselves for the tsunami of collapse of a system so rotten the proper fix happens only if it all comes crashing down.
2012? You think a little old thing like a Constitutional election is going to stop this leviathan? The fix is in a long time ago with the advent and ascent of the anointed one. He was right, he was what "so many was waiting for", you and I need not apply.
Obama is the perfect cover for everyone in that shit hole on the Potomac. Crisis as a means? In fucking spades and then some it is. The entire system is a manufactured deliberate crisis as a means. In no uncertain terms has any of this rolling crisis gone to waste either. The conniving and skullduggery got a boost of nitro methane with the usurpers coming. It is a fucking free for all now. They all know the end is nigh. So why not play it and game it for all its worth before it ends.
Take the money and run.
Of course it lands in all our laps. We are the ones who are going to suffer dearly. It is the willing, and unwilling, Lilliputians who are gonna bear this cross. To contend it is We The People who where asleep at the switch, it is our fault for not being vigilant, well you can say that. It is true to some extent. But the real reason is as old as Man himself. Everything this is about stems from either greed or hubris. The fall of Man from grace.
We all have skin in this game, we all sold out just a tiny piece of our dignity at one point or another. And now we are all like the pig, committed.
We all blew the best thing that ever happened on Gods green Earth.
And the party is just warming up.
God help us all. We are going to need it.

Longbow said...

The hearings will be interesting to watch. I'm not holding my breath waiting for true "justice" to be served.

Remember, folks, that each time they get away with it, they become more emboldened. Their minions continue to work for them even while parroting words like "duty", "integrity", "honesty", and saying they take their oath to the Constitution seriously.

I have often heard people repeat the old saying, "An oath to a scoundrel is meaningless.", without understanding its true meaning. Try saying it this way, "To a scoundrel, an oath is meaningless." or, "To a man who has not integrity, an oath is meaningless."

AJ said...

My hopes are high that Issa is going to finally let 'em have it. I sure hope he doesn't disappoint us again.

Bad Cyborg said...

"Grassley: Why didn't Holder and Napolitano know?"

Two words, Senator - plausible deniability. Guys like Holder and Nappy don't get where they are by being laissez faire leaders. Gotta figure they are major control freaks. They also don't get that high up the food chain without knowing how to avoid keep from leaving behind prosecutable evidence.

rdf67 said...

Burke can't remove Weinstein as a target - He was worried in October about upcoming indictments that might expose FNF gun walking. In fact, he wrote,
"Do you think we should try to have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and [the] Tucson case are unsealed?" he asked about his boss, Lanny A. Breuer, head of the criminal division.

"It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but it is a significant set of prosecutions."

James Trusty, acting chief of the department's organized crime and gang section, responded, "I think so but the timing is tricky too."

He said the Tucson case would be ready for indictments before Fast and Furious, and that "it's not clear how much we're involved in the main F and F case."

Either way, he added that "it's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, 'Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there' "

Lately, Weinstein has claimed he was confused when he drafted the letter to Grassley's committee. I guess I am confused - If he knew about it in October of 2010, how come he forgot about it when Burke asked him to? I guess this what Holder calls a "gotcha"!