The list of criminal behavior by this administration continues to grow. Only by the American public lighting a fire under the posteriors of their congresscritters is any real “change” going to be effected.
The other shoe has dropped in the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, and it has landed on Eric Holder’s doorstep. Members of Congress are calling for his resignation, and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for a special prosecutor to investigate the affair.
Holder’s resignation would be a good start. But if there is anyone in Washington who doubts that the White House not only knew about the illegal ATF project but was up to its elbows in it, that person must be in an hypnotic trance deep inside the CNN Washington bureau.
There is mounting evidence that far from being a rogue operation by a few ATF agents, the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking project had the backing of officials at the highest levels in the Obama administration.
Email messages between Justice Department officials and ATF managers made public last week by CBS News show that Attorney General Holder was well aware of the ATF operation in mid-2010, almost a full year earlier than previously admitted. This means Holder lied to a congressional committee. Why did he lie and what else has he been lying about?
Holder’s complicity in the ATF scandal is only the latest in a series of cases showing pervasive corruption inside the Department of Justice. The first case was the outrageous dropping of the prosecution the Black Panther Party for blatant, well-documented intimidation of Philadelphia voters in the 2008 election. The “Fast and Furious” scandal is remarkable only in its scope and sheer audacity – and the ugly byproduct: the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
The evidence of DOJ involvement and support for the illegal ATF operation also shows clearly that the White House was also aware of it. Again, there are some obvious and inevitable questions that flow from this fact, questions enterprising journalists are beginning to ask. For example, how could the White House be “aware” of the operation and not call a halt to it – unless it had the approval of the West Wing? If the president approved of the operation, what were the motives behind it?
It is worth remembering what brought on Richard Nixon’s impeachment and eventual resignation. It was not the Watergate break-in itself, because there was never any evidence that Nixon personally had prior knowledge of the break-in. But he did participate in the cover-up, which is a felony; it is obstruction of justice.