Joe: How is fast and furious going to get out of its well protected bubble with this media and with this administration. It should be in the top ten — but will never get there.
That really is the problem, isn’t it? A brother last week had cited the study that showed that FNC viewers knew less about (certain) news than non-watchers of network news. And, I asked him about Fast and Furious, gun walking, etc. While he can go on and on about Cain’s apparent sexual harassment, etc. instances, FF was ho-hum. I had to remind him what it was all about. Didn’t they do that during Bush (43) too? Well, not really, but close enough that the scandal can be dismissed in that way.
The Dems, including esp. senior management at the DoJ, seem to be trying to punt this down the road beyond the next election, something like how the Nixon people did with Watergate. But, instead of having to push things off and cover them up for maybe 6 months, they have almost two years to cover from when the scandal first hit last winter. I think likely that it is starting to take its toll with the political DoJ management, as evidenced by the reaction last week by AG Holder and his primary deputy AG involved. And, the fact that they would do a Friday document dump, as they did last week, showing how the Department essentially lied early on about the program, at the apparent insistence of former AZ USA Berke (and, we now know a good reason why he is now a former USA, and not the likely Dem candidate for governor, as he was before this).
I don’t see any evidence that the pressure is letting up on the political management of the DoJ here. Sure, Rep. Issa is not calling for AG Holder’s resignation, but that isn’t is place as chair of the investigating committee. Rather, that is what back benchers are for. Keep in mind that gun walking seems to have operated in a number of other states, with other targeted beneficiaries than a Mexican drug cartel. These probably need to be investigated too. Everyone is still apparently going slow in the investigation because of the IG’s parallel investigation — except that the DoJ IG appears to be a Holder protégé from when he was the DC USA under Clinton.
Right now, I expect that if there isn’t a resignation by at least AAG Lanny Breuer, or maybe even AG Holder in the next six months, the Reps in Congress are going to ask for a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the mess.
Possibly making things worse — this article last weekend: Gunwalker: Justice Dept. Violated U.S. Laws Beyond Those Being Investigated suggests that DoJ personnel may have violated the Kingpin Act (21 U.S.C. §§ 1901-08) by shipping or facilitating the shipping of arms to a known drug cartel. This appears to almost be a strict liability type law, where working for a government agency shouldn’t be a shield from prosecution.
We shall see if the Dems can actually punt this into 2013. It should be interesting. Bruce Hayden(Quote)
Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/volokh/mainfeed/~3/pR6Ye6ISaqg/
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.