Issa looks to call back IRS official who refused to testify, says she voided 5th Amendment right
[FoxNews.com]
Published May 23, 2013
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa declared Thursday that the embattled IRS official who refused to testify Wednesday had no right to do so, and is now looking to haul her back before his committee.
Though Issa dismissed her from the hearing room, he questioned at the time whether she had waived her rights by delivering the statement. A spokesman told Fox News on Thursday that Issa had reached a decision.
“After consulting with counsel, Chairman Issa has concluded that Ms. Lerner’s 5th amendment assertion is no longer valid,” spokesman Ali Ahmad said. “She remains under subpoena, the Committee is looking at recalling her for testimony.”
Issa, citing the concerns over Lerner’s comments, never actually adjourned the hearing — where other current and former Treasury and IRS officials testified. He only called it into recess. The thinking among Republicans is that they can still call her back to testify.
On Benghazi probe, GOP’s Issa says ‘Hillary Clinton’s not a target’
[NBCNews.com]
By Carrie Dann, Political Reporter, NBC News
Published: May 12, 2013 (h/t Drudge Report)
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa visits Meet the Press to update David Gregory on the latest developments in his panel’s investigation into the Benghazi attacks.
“Hillary Clinton’s not a target,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on NBC’s Meet the Press. “President Obama is not a target.”
Issa, who heads a panel probing the assault on the diplomatic outpost that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, said he will seek depositions from Benghazi review board heads Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Border Patrol Agent Shot Dead, Another Wounded in Arizona
[Newsmax.com]
Tuesday, 02 Oct 2012 09:28 AM, Associated Press
A U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed and another wounded in a shooting early Tuesday in Arizona near the U.S.-Mexico line, according to the Border Patrol. The agents were shot while patrolling on horseback in Naco, Ariz., at about 1:50 a.m. MST Tuesday, the Border Patrol said in a statement. The agents who were shot were on patrol with a third agent, who was not harmed, according to George McCubbin, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing about 17,000 border patrol agents. “It’s a tragic reminder of the dangers the brave men and women who guard our borders face every day,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who has been investigating gun-running connected to a failed Justice Department operation called Fast and Furious.
“Just last month, I attended a ceremony with agents based at the Bisbee station naming it in honor of their fallen colleague, Brian Terry,” Issa said in a statement. “My prayers are with the family of the agent who lost his life today and his wounded colleague.“Authorities must investigate the full circumstances of this shooting. I urge everyone to think of the families of these agents and avoid drawing conclusions before relevant facts are known.”The shooting occurred after an alarm was triggered on one of the many sensors along the border and the three agents went to investigate, said Cochise County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas.Authorities have not identified any suspects, Capas said. It is not known whether the agents returned fire, she said.The wounded agent was airlifted to a hospital after being shot in the ankle and buttocks, the Border Patrol said. He is in surgery and expected to recover, McCubbin said.
Authorities have not identified the agents who were assigned to the Naco station, about 100 miles southeast of Tucson.
The last U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot on duty was Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits near the border in December 2010. The shooting was later linked to the Fast and Furious gun smuggling operation.
The border patrol station in Naco was recently named after Terry.
The FBI, which also is investigating the shooting, did not immediately return calls Tuesday.
Arizona straddles a major route for Mexican smuggling networks hauling drugs and illegal immigrants north to the United States, and running guns and cash profits back south to Mexico.
The area near where the agents were shot made headlines in February when border agents broke up a drug trafficking network which led to a bust of 15 tons of cocaine and marijuana. In that raid, 12 suspects were arrested.
At the time, police had seized more than 30,000 pounds of marijuana and cocaine linked to the trafficking organization, which had been active for more than 15 years, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
The organization used backpackers and vehicles to run the drugs across the rugged, high-desert borderlands around Naco, in smuggling forays several times a week.
Once in the United States, the drugs were stored at various stash houses in Naco, nearby Bisbee and Tucson, around 100 miles to the northwest.
A report by Univision on Monday uncovered that firearms from the “Fast and Furious” operation were linked to at least two massacres in Mexico and the 57 previously unidentified firearms linked to the botched operation were recovered in sites associated with murders and kidnappings.
In one of the massacres in 2010, a commando of “at least 20 hit men,” according to Univision, opened fire on a party of 60 teenagers in Ciudad Juarez, killing 14 and wounding 12. The assailants were hired by a Mexican cartel. Three of the high caliber weapons fired that night were linked to the Fast and Furious operation, Univision reported.
Univision obtained a list of Fast and Furious weapons and a list containing almost 60,000 recovered firearms compiled by Mexico’s defense secretary and then cross-referenced the data, and got 96 full matches. The 96 firearms linked to Fast and Furious all turned up at crime scenes in Mexico from 2009 to 2010, Univision reported.
Approximately 300 Mexicans have been killed or wounded by Fast and Furious guns, estimates former Mexican attorney general Victor Humberto Benitez Trevino.
Between November 2009 and January 2011, the Obama administration arranged for licensed firearms dealers in Phoenix, Arizona to sell guns to straw buyers, who transferred them to known violent criminals in Mexico. These arms were supposed to lead federal agents in Phoenix to the Mexican criminals who acquired them. Instead, agents lost track of the guns, and in 2010, two were found near the body of slain border patrol agent Brian Terry.
Congressional Republicans have pressed for investigations and a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz skewered the Fast and Furious operation as “seriously flawed” and said agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ignored consider public safety as they let about 2,000 firearms fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels as part of the operation.
The House voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt earlier this year after he refused to turn over certain documents, citing executive privilege.
© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Border Patrol Agent Shot Dead, Another Wounded in Arizona
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Rush: Obama created crimes with gunrunning
[WND.com EXCLUSIVE]
June 20, 2012
‘It was liberalism on parade. It’s who these people are’
Radio giant Rush Limbaugh is coming down hard on the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” operation today, calling it “liberalism on parade” in a misguided attempt to promote stricter gun control in America.
“The whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws,” Limbaugh said.
“It was deceitful. It was sneaky. It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade. It’s who these people are. They want tighter gun laws.”
The White House today tried to undercut a congressional investigation of the scandal in which the Department of Justice allowed guns to be sold and delivered to Mexican drug cartels by announcing tens of thousands of documents were covered by executive privilege.
This afternoon, a House panel voted to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena for the documents, defying Obama’s assertion of executive privilege.
Boehner Is Stalling Holder Contempt Citation On Fast And Furious
[ImpeachObamaCampaign.com]
If Darrell Issa has any thoughts of the full House voting on his Oversight Committee’s citation of contempt against Eric Holder, he will first have to clear the idea with the Attorney General’s staunchest allies and political defenders—Republican Speaker John Boehner, Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Republican Majority Whip, Kevin McCarthy.
Upon the Speaker’s office being provided a draft of the citation last week, a spokesman for the Republican leadership said “While there are very legitimate arguments to be made in favor of such an action, no decision has been made to move forward with one by the Speaker or by House Republican leaders.” (1)
But now it appears these stalwart souls have finally made that decision. They will “…slow [Issa’s] drive to hold the attorney general in contempt over the controversial Fast and Furious program…” for a period of “a month or even longer…” Apparently a year’s worth of testimony and documentation linking Obama Regime operatives to hundreds of deaths and the walking of some 2000 weapons across the Mexican border just haven’t been sufficient to convince Speaker Boehner that something is amiss. (2)
Republican leaders “…still don’t think the case is ‘rock solid…’ ” said an aide to Representative Issa. Of course, the fact that Attorney General Holder has refused to honor subpoenas demanding he turn over an estimated 8000 pages of Fast and Furious documentation might have something to do with Mr. Boehner’s feelings of uncertainty about adequate proof. (2)
REP. DARRELL ISSA WANTS ACORN PROBE TO PREVENT 2012 VOTER FRAUD
[LibertyNewsOnline.com]
Alan M. Gottlieb – AmeriPAC
01-08-2012 11:35 am
Rep. Darrell Issa is demanding a formal investigation into the CRIMINAL fundraising schemes that ACORN’s New York front group used to raise cash for the Occupy Wall Street protestors.
The House Oversight Committee Chairman and leading investigator for the House of Representatives said ACORN is “Engaged in fraud through its participation in the Occupy Wall Street protests. [And may have] solicited donations from union members under false pretenses and misappropriated funds to support the protestors.”
ACORN of course denies this but the evidence tells a very different story. FrontPage Mag (a publication run by conservative David Horowitz) reported, “At an emergency meeting NYCC organizing director Jonathan Westin played semantic games…
Movers and Shakers: Issa Predicts ‘Constant Battle’ With White House Over Economy
FoxNews.com-AP
Published January 02, 2011
AP – In this March 2 file photo, Rep. Darrell Issa takes part in a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Editor’s note: The following is the latest installment in “Movers and Shakers: Republican Leadership in the 112th Congress.” The FoxNews.com series looks at some of the newly prominent House Republicans who will decide GOP and legislative priorities in the next Congress.
Of all the Republicans in line for a promotion when the next Congress convenes on Wednesday, perhaps nobody puts Democrats more on edge than Rep. Darrell Issa.
The wealthy Republican from California, who spent the last session needling the Obama administration with media-ready reports and investigations on everything from ACORN to the stimulus package, is poised to up his game this year when he takes the helm of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The position makes him the de facto congressional watchdog for the administration, this time with subpoena power.
NYTs Touts Lobbyists, WH Adviser As Good Government Types To Pressure Oversight Committee
BigGovernment.com
Posted Nov 17th 2010 at 4:11 pm
by Dan Riehl
Via an op-ed in the New York Times, Congressional Quarterly staff writer, Brian Friel, offers the incoming GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee some suggestions as to what they perhaps should and should not consider investigating next year.
What’s unclear is how Friel determined that two registered lobbyists who lobby the Oversight committee and an unpaid White House adviser should, without full disclosure, be portrayed as 3 of “14 good-government watchdogs — veterans of the oversight process, former public officials, and academics” for purposes of his presumably objective op-ed.
Brian Friel is a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly. The oversight experts consulted were: Joel Aberbach, Steven Aftergood, Ryan Alexander, Danielle Brian, Dan Donovan, Linda L. Fowler, Philip G. Joyce, Donald F. Kettl, David Marin, Conrad Martin, Patricia G. Mcginnis, David Osborne, Andrew Rudalevige, Gerry Sikorski.
David Marin and Gerry Sikorski, are registered lobbyists who actually lobby the Oversight Committee on behalf of their clients. Marin works at the lobbying firm the Podesta Group, which lobbies the Oversight Committee on behalf of General Motors. Sikorski works for the lobbying firm Holland & Knight, which has also lobbied the Oversight Committee. Their clients include the American Arbitration Association and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee and Minnesota.
Clinton’s Role in Sestak Controversy Stirs Questions About His and White House Motives
FOXNews.com
Published May 29, 2010
Former President Bill Clinton acknowledges applause after being awarded the Sons of Italy Foundation’s 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service during the groups annual national education and leadership awards gala in Washington, Wednesday, May 26, 2010. (AP)
Like an aging sports star who can’t stay away from the game, Bill Clinton’s direct role in the firestorm over President Obama’s job offer to a lawmaker for a political favor has raised questions about whether the former president was used and abused by a cynical administration or whether he took advantage of the White House to burnish his legacy.
At the behest of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Clinton tried last summer to persuade Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak to abandon his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter by offering an executive branch post.
But in perhaps a sign of Clinton’s fading influence, Sestak turned the offer down and whipped Specter in the primary last week.
“It’s very clear that President Clinton doesn’t want to leave politics but more importantly that the White House wanted some sort of plausible deniability,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who is calling for an FBI investigation, told Fox News on Friday.
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