Bloggers Who Broke Fast and Furious Story File Ethics Complaint on Holder With DC Bar

David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh graphic via Buzzfeed, art by John Gara.

PRESS RELEASE

3 July 2012

An ethics complaint against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been filed by David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh with the Office of Bar Counsel, Board on Professional Responsibility of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Codrea and Vanderboegh are the two bloggers who first broke the news of the Fast and Furious scandal in December 2010.

Said Vanderboegh, Eric Holder believes that he will escape serious consequences of the congressional investigations of the Fast and Furious scandal simply by running out the clock on his tenure. We intend this ethics complaint to place him on notice that his lies and malfeasances will follow him until justice is done.”

Read the letter at the link.

Read also Buzzfeed’s surprisingly even-handed story on Codrea and Vanderboegh: “Meet The Camo-Clad, Gonzo Bloggers Behind The Fast And Furious Story.”

Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea are rarely mentioned in connection with what is perhaps the highest-profile law-enforcement failure of the Obama Administration. Their central role in unearthing the story, though, is a classic example of the kind of new media cycle in which news bubbles up from outlets few traditional reporters read or would even feel comfortable crediting. Before their first report on the story on December 28, 2010, Vanderboegh of “Sipsey Street Irregulars” and Codrea of examiner.com were gun-rights activists who curated small bands of loyal followers with a live-free-or-die ethos. (A few days before publishing the post that set the investigation of Fast and Furious in motion, for example, Vanderboegh wrote about a TSA parody video called “Grandma Got Molested at the Airport”.)

“It has been,” said Vanderboegh, “the fight of my life.”

David Codrea’s Journalist Guides:
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Volume Four
Volume Five
Volume Six
Volume Seven
Volume Eight

UPDATE:

Dave Workman: Holiday fireworks as Grassley reveals crucial ATF memo:

Late Tuesday afternoon, Senator Charles Grassley revealed a crucial memo from a field agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that reinforces suspicions that the Justice Department knew information in a controversial letter to the senator was false.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, which may be read here, Grassley asks who saw this memo, allegedly forwarded to Justice Department headquarters one day before then-Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich sent the infamous letter insisting that the ATF had never allowed guns to be walked.

If Holder remains true to form, as asserted in this video produced by the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, he will claim no knowledge or simply not reply.

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!