I was going to put up a detailed post, but DannytheMan already has one up HERE, that has plenty of detail; and so does PawPaw HERE. Another piece of the puzzle that came out today at among others CNN is that acting ATF Dir. Melson is going to be thrown over the wall as the first sacrificial lamb to appease the masses… But what is truly scary is THIS statement:
“Attorney General Eric Holder will meet Tuesday with Andrew Traver, head of the ATF field office in Chicago, about possibly becoming the agency’s acting director, according to senior federal law enforcement sources, who are familiar with the details of the controversy.”
The scary part is Traver was the Administration’s pick to head the ATF, HERE; the NRA came out (along with many others) HERE, and it fact the recess appointment was NOT made…
But now??? Looks like he’s going to be put in as the ‘acting’ director, regardless of what people say.
Another issue is the attitude of the DOJ people who are still refusing to provide any info, documents, testimony and the fact that both the House and Senate have bills pending that will exempt even MORE people from Confirmation Hearings (e.g. any kind of oversight by Congress)
Here is the GOA alert on it.
As we reported to you on Friday, House Republicans got a royal “drop dead” from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich when he testified before Rep. Darrell Issa’s committee last week.
Weich had earlier written Congress to deny wrongdoing by ATF in connection with allegations that it was intentionally allowing firearms to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. This Justice Department denial by Weich turned out to be false.
Weich had also refused to respond to repeated congressional demands for documents, and documents which he did provide were frequently nothing more than jet-black pieces of paper.
At the committee hearing, Weich told Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he would continue to withhold documents from Congress.
He also refused to answer questions from committee members such as Utah‘s Jason Chaffetz and South Carolina‘s Trey Gowdy.
And, incidentally, Weich refused to provide any information to Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, on the sole excuse that Grassley was a mere “Republican.” If Republicans wanted to exercise their constitutional oversight functions, intoned Weich, they would have to go begging to liberal anti-gun Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy.
So imagine our surprise that the Senate is poised to take up S. 679 — “bipartisan” legislation which would exempt Weich, his successors, and 203 other similarly situated federal officials from Senate confirmation.
One would think it’s important that federal officials who are responsible for telling Congressmen what documents they can or can’t review should be first approved with the “advice and consent” of the Senate.
But for Republican Senator Sue Collins, it’s apparently no big deal. After all, she is a sponsor of S. 679, the legislation to exempt hundreds of officials from Senate scrutiny.
Gun owners who have watched Weich cover up ATF’s anti-gun policies — policies which have intentionally flooded Mexican gun cartels with guns and resulted in the murder of federal law enforcement officers — realize why it is important that the Senate should be able to block liars like Weich.
One strategy note: We do not expect to defeat the Cover-up Protection Act in the Senate where, sadly, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is a cosponsor. But if we do “respectably” well — say, we get 20 votes or so against the bill — it will give us the strength we need to ask that the bill be killed in the House.
The Senate could vote on this bill as soon as Tuesday.
ACTION: Click here to contact your two U.S. Senators. Demand that they oppose cloture on the Cover-up Protection Act.
When you start adding all this up (or at least when I do), it looks like this administration is determined to make all the end runs it can on Congress and everybody else (including us)…
In other news, the Georgia Immigration bill is coming under attack from multiple avenues, much like the Arizona bill, but there isn’t much (if any) pressure on Mississippi which passed a similar bill. More and more states are looking at jumping on that bandwagon, and as MS/GA proves, it’s not just the border states.
Thank You for posting this
Steve
Common Cents
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
Now we have Sen Frank Lautenberg and fellow travelers quoting an AlQaeda spokesman as proof we have lax gun laws. The fact the spokesman is wrong isn’t important, one supposes. And these folks think us 2nd Amendment supporters are loons? Could a case be made the gun grabbers are now aided our sworn enemies, who always try to cause dissension and sap our national will, by repeating their agitprop?
This scandal is just heating up, and there’s no way of telling how far it will reach. Yeah, Holder is talking to Travers, but he’ll never get confirmed, he’s become the poster boy for gun control.
My question is does the scandal reach the Oval Office. Nixon went down for less than this.
This may even soil the sleeves of 0bama before this scandal is done.
CC- You’re welcome.
WSF- Who @#$%% knows… sigh…
Paw- I’m afraid they will put him in as the ‘acting’ like they did Melson. No confirmation required to do that!
ADM- I doubt it, they will keep throwing people over the wall until something ‘else’ gets people’s attention… I don’t think we have time to wait for it to actually GET to his level.