U.S. President Barack Obama greets outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at Holder’s portrait unveiling ceremony at The Department of Justice in Washington, DC, February 27, 2015. (Photo: AP)
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided to turn over long-sought documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal under the Obama Administration. The scandal, which was the first among many for the previous administration, resulted in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010.
The settlement agreement, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., ends six years of litigation against the Obama Administration and their seven-year attempt to stonewall the committee.
“The Department of Justice under my watch is committed to transparency and the rule of law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement on the decision. “This settlement agreement is an important step to make sure that the public finally receives all the facts related to Operation Fast and Furious.”
Operation Fast and Furious was supposedly established to “win the drug war” by deliberately walking more than two thousand guns across the southern border to Mexico. However, the program ended up arming the drug lord king pins it was allegedly aiming to entrap. Gun store owners and federal agents objected strongly and whistle-blowers revealed the Obama Administration deliberately violated federal.
When the guns began to show up at crime scenes, to include the gun fight that claimed the life of Mr. Terry, the coverup began.
Estimates peg the number of deaths as a direct result of the gun-running scheme — which evidence indicates was intentional — at a staggering 200 or more. In Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, Townhall editor Katie Pavlich made the compelling case that former President Barack Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder “did willfully and knowingly sanction the program in order to advance their anti-second amendment agenda.”
Mr. Holder became the first top cop to be held in contempt of Congress for his role in the coverup. The U.S. House voted 223 to 217 to hold him in contempt after he perjured himself and later successfully lobbied Barack Obama to claim executive privilege.
When Mr. Holder claimed executive privilege, which was later reversed by a federal judge, he lied to Congress about the quantity of relevant documents. He had claimed there were only several hundred, though persistent efforts have uncovered the existence of thousands of documents related to the gun-running scheme.
In 2014, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the Obama Administration to provide Congress with a slew of documents Mr. Holder had long-tried to keep from Congress. Judge Berman, who was ironically an Obama appointee, set a deadline to produce the list to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The government watchdog committee at the time was headed up by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who said he has no doubt that the decision by Attorney General Sessions does not bode well for Mr. Holder.
“They will show what we already know. That Eric Holder was directly involved in the cover up. He is a lawyer and should be disbarred,” Rep. Issa said. “Eric Holder has systematically obstructed justice not just against the Senate and House but against the Terry family’s legitimate right to know. And then he lied to me personally about all the documents that were necessary to be fully compliant with our requests.”
“A new search is going to allow us to get some of those documents we requested to begin with.”
One of the few claims in connection with the scandal Mr. Holder made that turned out to be true was that guns illegally supplied to drug cartels as part of the gun-running scandal would continue to show up at crime scenes “for years to come.”
In 2014, People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) reported on previously undiscovered documents revealing a 2013 gang-style assault in Phoenix, Ariz., was perpetrated by assailants armed with AK-47s traced to Fast and Furious.
Kent Terry, the brother of the slain Border Patrol agent, tweeted to President Donald Trump on Saturday, asking him to “reopen the books” and get to the bottom of the scandal that cost his brother his life.
“Sir it’s been 7 yrs .my family ask you reopen Obama’s gun scandal that cost my brother his life,” he tweeted. “I talk to you back on the campaign trail here in Michigan and you offered to reopen the books into this senseless scandal .thank you.God bless.”
#FastAndFurious @realDonaldTrump Sir it’s been 7 yrs .my family ask you reopen Obama’s gun scandal that cost my brother his life..I talk to you back on the campaign trail here in Michigan and you offered to reopen the books into this senseless scandal .thank you.God bless
— Kent terry (@terry_superman) March 3, 2018
“We need to find out the truth, exactly what happened, how it happened, why it happened,” Mr. Terry recently said on Fox & Friends” Tuesday. “We need Mr. Trump, President Trump, to unseal the documents, reverse executive privilege so that we know what happened, and that we can hold the people accountable that are responsible.”
(Correction: A previous version of this article quoted Rep. Issa’s comment spelling Terry as Terri. It has been corrected.)
Elaine Tonker / March 8, 2018
It’s about time!!!!!!!!
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