Obama’s Department of Injustice 13

When the officials appointed to see that the law is enforced and justice is done are themselves deeply corrupt, and purposefully unjust in their proceedings; when they cover up their own law-breaking and blatantly lie to the people’s representatives, the rule of law is over. That is what has happened in America under the Obama administration. The rule of law has been contemptuously abandoned by those sworn to uphold it. The constitution no longer protects liberty. Evil men are in charge, exerting their own arbitrary and tyrannical will. Where can the people turn for help?

This column by Jeffrey T. Kuhner comes from the Washington Times:

A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.

Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.

Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false. Such a vast operation only could have occurred with the full knowledge and consent of senior administration officials. Massive gun-running and smuggling is not carried out by low-level ATF bureaucrats unless there is authorization from the top. There is a systematic cover-up. 

Congressional Republicans, however, are beginning to shed light on the scandal. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, a congressional probe is exposing the Justice Department’s rampant criminality and deliberate stonewalling. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the department’s criminal division, helped craft a February letter to Congress that denied ATF had ever walked guns into Mexico. Yet, under pressure from congressional investigators, the department later admitted that Mr. Breuer knew about ATF gun-smuggling as far back as April 2010. In other words, Mr. Breuer has been misleading Congress. He should resign – or be fired.

He should be punished by the law. But the criminal division of the Department of Justice will not let that happen. It’s not in the business of prosecuting crime or administering justice. It’s head, the guilty man himself, has seen to that.

Instead, Mr. Holder tenaciously insists that Mr. Breuer will keep his job. …

Another example is former acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. Internal documents show Mr. Melson directly oversaw Fast and Furious, including monitoring numerous straw purchases of AK-47s. He has admitted to congressional investigators that he, along with high-ranking ATF leaders, reassigned every “manager involved in Fast and Furious” after the scandal surfaced on Capitol Hill and in the press. Mr. Melson said he was ordered by senior Justice officials to be silent regarding the reassignments. Hence, ATF managers who possess intimate and damaging information – especially on the role of the Justice Department – essentially have been promoted to cushy bureaucratic jobs. Their silence has been bought, their complicity swept under the rug. Mr. Melson has been transferred to Justice’s main office, where he serves as a “senior adviser” on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. Rather than being punished, Mr. Melson has been rewarded for his incompetence and criminal negligence.

Mr. Holder and his aides have given misleading, false and contradictory testimony on Capitol Hill. Perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power – these are high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Holder should be impeached. Like most liberals, he is playing the victim card, claiming Mr. Issa is … conducting a judicial witch hunt. Regardless of this petty smear, Mr. Holder must be held responsible and accountable – not only for the botched operation, but for his flagrant attempts to deflect blame from the administration.

For years, his out-of-control Justice Department has violated the fundamental principle of our democracy, the rule of law. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation that took place in the 2008 election. Career Justice lawyers have confessed publicly that Mr. Holder will not pursue cases in which the perpetrators are black and the victims white. States such as Arizona and Alabama are being sued for simply attempting to enforce federal immigration laws. Mr. Holder also opposes voter identification cards, thereby enabling fraud and vote-stealing at the ballot box. …

Mr. Holder is fighting ferociously to prevent important internal Justice documents from falling into the hands of congressional investigators. If the full nature of his involvement is discovered, the Obama presidency will be in peril.

Both Obama and Holder should be impeached. If justice can still be done, Holder should go to prison for a very long stretch of time. In Obama’s case, there is no punishment commensurate with the crimes he has committed against the country he was so disastrously elected to lead, but he should be sentenced to the worst the law allows. Then we would know that the rule of law has been restored.

Guns and government hypocrisy 224

Here’s a scandalous story of the present American government doing such positive harm to American interests that it might surprise even those who believe the worst of President Obama and his clique.

Since the very first days of this president’s administration, the drug-fueled cartel violence in Mexico has provided a stalking horse for the gun control agenda. Early on, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder cited Mexican violence as a reason to renew the Bill Clinton gun ban of 1994. After those trial balloons were shot down, the ball was passed to Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who repeatedly has blamed American gun rights for Mexican violence. And more recently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF] cited cartel mayhem as justification for an attempt to mandate the reporting of all multiple long gun sales in border states … effectively creating a registry.

But now, shocking revelations that grow bigger every day completely undercut the argument for additional restrictions. In fact, they illuminate bureaucratic arrogance, recklessness and hypocrisy of the highest order in the hallways of the Obama administration — including the spreading stench of a massive cover-up.

As it turns out, the ATF was already aware of efforts by shady characters to undertake mass gun purchases in border states, because law-abiding gun dealers reported the attempted purchases voluntarily. But ATF agents acting on “orders from Washington” encouraged gun dealers to complete these transactions against the dealers’ better judgment. Worse yet, the guns — thousands of them — then were allowed to be smuggled, or “walked,” into Mexico and into the hands of drug cartels. And worst of all, these guns now are turning up at crime scenes — including where a U.S. federal agent was murdered.

The operation is called “Fast and Furious,” and it’s absolutely appalling — but it’s all true, and there is still much more to come. Attorney General Holder has attempted to deflect the call for an investigation by asking the inspector general of the Justice Department to look into the matter. …

The ATF has been stonewalling inquiries from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and now Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has joined the fray — and he has subpoena power as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. …

To their credit, numerous rank-and-file ATF agents [objected] to the “Fast and Furious” operation from the get-go. Their superiors told them they “have to break some eggs to make an omelet” and then apparently threatened the agents with career discipline if they continued their objections.

The agents also were warned that the operation had been approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department — levels that are populated by presidential appointees, not career law enforcement officials. And now the Mexican government has elevated the scandal into an international incident, launching its own investigation and warning that “sanctions will have to be carried out with the full force of law to (whoever) could have been responsible.”

Barack Obama himself was questioned about the scandal …  He quickly passed the buck, claiming ignorance of the operation and saying, “There may be a situation here (in) which a serious mistake was made, and if that’s the case, then we’ll find out and we’ll hold somebody accountable.” But a presidential effort to pin the tail on the donkey ignores the tremendous scope of “Fast and Furious,” which apparently involved personnel from not only the ATF and Justice but also the Homeland Security and State departments. Any attempt to lay this massive botch at the feet of an individual ignores systemic problems that “Fast and Furious” illustrates in the federal bureaucracy.

Our quotations are from an article by Chuck Norris at Townhall. He concludes by saying:

Proponents of gun control — including the White House — should focus on bringing U.S. government agencies into compliance with our existing laws before pushing new restrictions on the rest of us.

Read it all here.