Video: Issa Comments on the Fast and Furious IG Report and Obama’s Enemies List

With political and GWOT stories dominating the news cycle,  this week, the newly released IG report on Fast and Furious, and ensuing political fallout has been somewhat neglected.

In case you missed it, Oversight and Reform Chairman Darrell Issa went on Fox and Friends, Thursday morning, to discuss the  IG report and the continued need to hold Lanny Breuer and Eric Holder accountable for the cover-up at the Justice Dept.

Issa was also asked about the recent Daily Caller report about collusion between MMFA and the DOJ.

Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller has that transcript:

“Not since Richard Nixon have we seen a president who puts together an enemies list and has a whole team pursuing it,” House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said Thursday morning on the Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.” “That’s what’s happened in this administration. It’s sad. It’s not the America I want to see going forward. I sincerely hope that after the election, regardless, the American people will have made a statement that they won’t tolerate this.”

Issa said he expects Congress will look into whether or not political advocacy organizations like Media Matters should enjoy tax-exempt statuses normally reserved for apolitical charities, too.

“Congress should address that tax loophole for entities that are really not charities,” Issa said, adding that Media Matters “is certainly one of them.”

Issa also said he’d like to see DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler terminated for working with Media Matters.

Yes, please – time to look into tax exempt MMFA – what are you waiting for Congress?

Bret Baier on Fox’s Special Report also interviewed Issa, yesterday.

Issa stated, “Just because you’re not convicted doesn’t mean you’re vindicated,” adding “Eric Holder didn’t do his job, didn’t care enough to even call the family. And today, today finally, one of the people who should have been gone a year and a half ago, resigned, but only after the IG pointed specifically to him, but he also pointed to others and areas in which there’s still more work to be done, including the unsealing of 14 wiretaps – things that the Atty General has fought us on, the documents from post Feb 4th were the reason that the Atty Gen was held in contempt, and the IG said these need to made public.”

Via Jonathan Strong of Roll Call:

It’s been a key subject of dispute throughout the “Fast and Furious” saga but one shrouded in mystery: whether wiretap applications reviewed and approved by senior Justice Department officials should have tipped them off about the dangerous tactics being used in the operation.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who obtained the wiretap applications surreptitiously from a whistleblower, said yes.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Congressional Democrats who reviewed them adamantly said no.

But because the documents were under court seal, the public was only afforded a glimpse of what was in them when Issa inserted a letter that characterized and quoted from them in the Congressional Record.

Now Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, is broadly siding with Issa, saying in testimony before the Oversight panel today that the wiretap applications should have raised red flags to senior officials who approved them.

Asked by several Republican lawmakers at the hearing whether reading the wiretap applications would have indicated that guns were being “walked,” the tactic employed in Fast and Furious, Horowitz said “yes.”

Committee Hearing on IG Report: The DOJ Office of Inspector General Examines the Failures of Operation Fast & Furious:

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing entitled, “IG Report: The Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General Examines the Failures of Operation Fast and Furious” on Thursday, September 20, 2012.

 Rep Gowdy (at 1:01:20) made note at the beginning of his questioning that the DOJ was not vindicated despite what some of the headlines were saying.

 

 

 

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