The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this morning to examine the allegations of misconduct against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and decide whether he deserves to be impeached.
Lawmakers on the committee summoned Koskinen to answer accusations from the House Oversight panel that he failed to preserve documents Congress requested, and didn’t tell the full truth about Lois Lerner’s erased backup tapes, but the IRS chief will not be appearing at the hearing.
The IRS issued the following statement:
“When the committee announced this hearing, he was returning from China after meeting with tax administrators of 43 nations,” the statement reads. “The committee’s quick timetable left him without the time to fully prepare for Tuesday’s hearing. In addition, he also has been preparing for a previous commitment to appear before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday.”
One of the guns funneled to Mexico via the Obama administration’s fatally flawed “Operation Fast and Furious,” was found at Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s hideout in Mexico, sources confirmed to Fox News Tuesday.
The weapon found is a “.50-caliber rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter.”
After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house where Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.
When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said.
Federal officials told Fox News they are not sure how many of the weapons seized from Guzman’s house actually originated in the U.S. and where they were purchased, but are investigating.
Out of the roughly 2,000 weapons sold through Fast and Furious, 34 were .50-caliber rifles that can take down a helicopter, according to officials.
Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that ‘El Chapo’ would put his guardsmen on hilltops to be on guard for Mexican police helicopters that would fly through valleys conducting raids. The sole purpose of the guardsmen would be to shoot down those helicopters, sources said.
This marks the third time a weapon from the Fast and Furious program has been found at a high-profile Mexican crime scene, according to Fox News.
Ironically, the purported purpose of Operation Fast and Furious was to see how high up the chain U.S. guns went in the international drug trafficking, crime syndicate Sinaloa Cartel. Now we know.
The operation involved federal agents allowing criminals to buy guns in the United States with the intention of tracking them to the drug cartel in Mexico.
Instead, because the guns lacked tracking devices, and because ATF agents were actually blocked from tracking the guns, they wound up in the hands of the cartels, who proceeded to use them with predictable results. Ultimately, the only way for the weapons to be tracked was when they were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico or the United States. The ATF lost track of 1,400 of the 2,000 guns involved in the sting operation. Hundreds of Mexican citizens and at least two Americans have been slaughtered with weapons from this criminally insane program.
Conservatives have long suspected that Operation Fast and Furious was the Obama Administration’s first attack on the 2nd Amendment.
Emails released in 2011 revealed that ATF big shots wanted to use the illegal gun sales in operation Fast and Furious to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3”. The new rule would require U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” The fancy name, Demand Letter 3 comes from the fact that it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information. If that’s how then name projects, why didn’t they name Fast and Furious, “Asinine Project 1?”
Fast and Furious was a sick attempt to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights by selling guns to Mexican Gun cartels. The program was a train wreck whose effects are still being discovered.
In June of 2012, former Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by Congress after he refused to divulge documents for a congressional investigation into the matter. Not that Holder cared. In February of 2013, he told ABC News the contempt vote didn’t bother him at all considering who voted in favor of it.
“It’s something that I think was unfortunate,” Holder said. “I think it’s a result of this kind of partisan sport that I think we engage in here in Washington far too often.” He added, “but I have to tell you that for me to really be affected by what happened, I’d have to have respect for the people who voted in that way, and I didn’t, so it didn’t have that huge an impact on me.”
Now, after three and a half years, a federal judge has finally rejected Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department’s public disclosures about its response to the so-called “gun walking” controversy undercut Obama’s executive privilege claim.
“There is no need to balance the need against the impact that the revelation of any record could have on candor in future executive decision making, since any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted,” Jackson wrote. “The Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold. Since any harm that would flow from the disclosures sought here would be merely incremental, the records must be produced.”
“While the decision doesn’t give us access to all the documents, it is an important step forward,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement Tuesday. “We will continue investigating until we get to the truth.”
A man who works in military intelligence called into the Michael Savage Show, Tuesday, to explain what he knows about how classified data is shared within the government.
“What a lot of people don’t understand is that you can’t just sit at a top secret enclave terminal and type out an email to hillary@pantsuit.com or whatever,” said the caller, who went by “Gary.”
“That room is what is generally known as a SCIF,” he explained.
Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (pronounced “skiff”), a U.S. Department of Defense term for a secure room. It can be a secure room or data center that guards against electronic surveillance and suppresses data leakage of sensitive security and military information. SCIFs are used to deny unauthorized personnel, such as foreign intelligence services or corporate spies, the opportunity for undetected entry into facilities for the exploitation of sensitive activities.
Gary continued, “somebody had to either type that stuff up and redact it, or put it on removeable media – which is not allowed in a SCIF – and they have to remove it from the secure room…to get the information to Hillary.”
There are so many other laws broken other than the fact that she had this (inaudible) on her server,” the spook told the flabberghasted Savage.
These are “very secure, closed networks,” Gary continued after the break.
The classified info had to be copied and removed from the secure rooms on a thumb drive or CD (those types of media are not allowed) in order to get to Hillary’s private Blackberry.
“Rebecca,” another intel op who currently works at the Pentagon, called into the Michael Savage Show when she heard Gary’s call.
She concurred with everything Gary said, calling it “100% accurate.”
Rebecca, a former cryptologist, explained that she works in an “open classified” capacity which is “only secret,” but even though it’s not “top secret,” she has to check her cell phone to get into her office.
Savage asked her how Hillary would have gotten the top secret classified imagery.
“That’s what I can’t understand,” Rebecca said. Because the classified networks are completely separate from the unclassified networks.
“I cannot email from Google to my secret account,” she pointed out.
At the top secret SCIF level, “you have to have additional clearances to get in there,” she continued.
“You can’t even go between top secret and secret. It’s not possible there – they are talking about geospatial information — satellite imagery. That above top secret imagery,” she told Savage.
“What was she sending and to whom?” Savage asked, referencing reports that the emails that triggered the FBI investigation, were about Benghazi.
“I believe there’s something very deep and dark under there,” Rebecca answered.
She added, “with her having professionally wiped those servers numerous times – if they magnetized those drives – we’ll never know from that piece that she turned over. If they did a professional situation where they magnetized it at the same level that the DOJ does it, that’s going to be hard for any forensics to recover.”
Savage asked her what the buzz among co-workers is about this situation.
Rebecca answered that “we’re appalled,” citing the gross double standard.
And she had little confidence that the Obama FBI would get to the bottom of it.
“I don’t have the faith I wish I did that that will happen,” she said.
“There is one potential where it could happen,” she added, citing a theory that may sound familiar to Nice Deb readers.
“…if there’s something going on in the administration in the big scheme of things that – for whatever reason – they decided they don’t want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee and this would be the easiest way to take her out,” Rebecca said. She added, “that’s pure speculation on my part.”
While sitting in my Vegas hotel last night, I was watching some Democrat operative or another on CNN (I think)–can’t remember his name. He was saying something I am also seeing the Hillary troll force write on social media boards. Just to remind, we have reports coming out from intel IGs and DOJ that it seems that some of Hillary’s emails contained–despite repeated denials–highly classified information and were sent through her off-the-books home server maintained by a company, reportedly, with a shady past. We see her stooges claim that Clinton never sent any email labelled Top Secret/SCI. OK. Folks, please, that ain’t the point. Of course she didn’t send any email with that label on it. Nobody is saying she ran exact copies of State, NSA, CIA, DIA, etc., cables through her server. The accusation, and it seems to have validity, is that she DISCUSSED TS/SCI and other classified material over this unsecure, off-the-books server, AND discussed it with persons not cleared for it. That, my friends, is indeed against the law and punishable by jail.
Hillary Clinton is a liar who does not think the laws apply to her. If I had handled classified information at State the way she did, I would be in jail. Now we will see how our highly politicized DOJ handles the issue.
I, for one, am firmly convinced that Hillary Clinton is guilty of serious crimes of various types. There, furthermore, is no doubt, and no court verdict is needed, that she stands convicted of being a habitual liar. Her public record is strewn with her lies and embellishments. There, likewise, can be no doubt that she is severely ethically challenged, once again, as her public record shows. She is a woman of no achievements for America as Arkansas First Lady, as US First Lady, as Senator from New York, and, most infamously, as Secretary of State. As SecState, of course, she proved a monumental disaster, helping Obama make America and the West weaker and our enemies stronger. Throughout her adult life, she has surrounded herself with some of the most despicable toadies imaginable: people who care nothing about anything except how to use their Hillary connection to grab a slice of that money and power pie.
She is a divisive, hollow, incompetent, money-grubbing, political hack with nothing to offer this country. I am sure she can wrangle a pardon from His Most Exalted Emperor Barack to avoid prison time. She should use whatever influence she has with the Emperor to get such a deal and just go away.
Please, Mrs. Clinton, for once, do the decent thing: leave us be.
According to an NPR(*not a typo) report, federal authorities may be getting ready to step up their “inquiry” into Hillary Clinton’s “unique email arrangement” (as Trey Gowdy habitually puts it.)
“I think that the FBI will be moving with all deliberate speed to determine whether there were serious breaches of national security here,” said Ron Hosko, who used to lead the FBI’s criminal investigative division.
He said agents will direct their questions not just at Clinton, but also her close associates at the State Department and beyond.
“I would want to know how did this occur to begin with, who knew, who approved,” Hosko said.
Authorities are asking whether Clinton or her aides mishandled secrets about the Benghazi attacks and other subjects by corresponding about them in emails.
***
Why is Clinton emphasizing the idea that none of those messages were marked? Because what she knew — her intent — matters a lot under the law. If the Justice Department and FBI inquiry turns into a formal criminal investigation.
Two lawyers familiar with the inquiry told NPR that a formal criminal investigation is under consideration and could happen soon — although they caution that Clinton herself may not be the target.
Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, recently talked to Newsmax TV about the government’s burden of proof.
“They’d have to show that she was responsible for having the information on that server and essentially knew what was on there,” Mukasey said.
Whether or not the emails were labeled as secret, some other Republicans say Clinton should have known better.
Former NSA Director Michael Hayden told the MSNBC program Morning Joe: “Put legality aside for just a second, it’s stupid and dangerous.”
*Even the uber-lib NPR is getting in on this anti-Clinton pig-pile, I notice. This is a really pitiful state of affairs for the Democrat “frontrunner.”
Update:
Monica Crowley has come to the conclusion I came to over five months ago. The Obama White House has given the gatekeepers the signal to close the gates in Hillary’s face. The only question is why.
If Mr. Obama does not want an investigation to go forward, it does not go forward. Witness the scandals involving the Internal Revenue Service, Benghazi, Veterans Administration and Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning. In each case, Mr. Obama claimed he learned about the scandal “from the news.” (That’s interesting coming from a guy who claims he only rarely watches or reads said “news.”)
He then expressed his “outrage” and vowed to “get to the bottom” of each scandal. (Of course, it’s tough to “get to the bottom” of something when you are the bottom of it.)
In those cases, he protesteth too much. His faux outrage was a “tell” that he had no intention of investigating. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, he’s been quiet. Too quiet. That’s a “tell” that he wants this investigation pursued, likely to the point of charging her.
For me the biggest “tell” was the media. The MSM knows how to ignore a story if it’s inconvenient to their chosen narrative. Witness what is going on with the Planned Parenthood videos – and before that – the Gosnell story. Consider how they denied oxygen to the myriad of Obama scandals that have broken over the years, turning major game-changing bombshells into tiny, non threatening flames that die out on their own as soon a more convenient story comes along.
Obama would never have been elected had they have done due diligence to numerous stories about Obama’s past that would have torpedoed his campaign.
Most of these stories are coming from the NYTs and WaPo. The New York Times, as you know, is the House Organ of the Obama White House.
Crowley has a theory about the game plan sounds pretty plausible.
Once Mr. Biden joins the race, he will enjoy the full backing of Mr. Obama. With Mrs. Clinton gone, however, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will have to make it up to Democratic women and the radical left, which is currently flirting with socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.
There is only one person who kills both birds with one stone: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The Democratic ticket will be Joe Biden-Elizabeth Warren. That’s what Mr. Obama wants. And what Mr. Obama wants, Mr. Obama gets.
This is “Game of Thrones.” And Mr. Obama is winning.
As ‘ve been saying all along – Obama wants Lizzie Warren. He’ll settle for the dim bulb, Biden, who can be controlled for one term – and then he’s hoping two terms of Warren.
Grandma will probably be the last one to know it’s all over for her.
Vice President Biden matches up as well or better than Hillary Clinton against top 2016 Republicans in three key swing states, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday morning and certain to fuel speculation of the former six-term senator entering the White House race.
Former secretary of State Clinton is still the front-runner for Democratic primary voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and real estate mogul Donald Trump leads among the GOP, the survey says, but they have the worst favorability ratings and trustworthiness scores of the featured candidates.
So the “leaders” from the two major parties have the highest unfavorable ratings. Yet we’re to believe they have any hope?
Documents released by Judicial Watch Tuesday showed the Department of Justice colluding with the Internal Revenue Service to cook up criminal prosecutions of targeted non-profit conservative groups, begging the question of how the DOJ can possible investigate a scandal that it was involved with itself.
The newly obtained records include an official “DOJ Recap” report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI. The documents also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress.
Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups – or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States – as part of its prosecution effort. According to a letter from then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, “This revelation likely means that the IRS – including possibly Lois Lerner – violated federal tax law by transmitting this information to the Justice Department.”
“These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
In January of 2014, Senator Ted Cruz sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to look into actions by the tax-collecting agency.
Fox News Political analyst Monica Crowly was on Fox News to talk about this weaponization of federal agencies to target Obama’s enemies.
“This now cries out for a Special Prosecutor,” Crowley said. “Because obviously we’re not going to get answers if left to the congressional members of congress -who were trying to get answers, but can’t because the administration continues to stonewall.”
….On conservative websites, anyway. The MSM never had much of an appetite for this one.
Via the Washington Free Beacon, The Washington Examiner continues itsreportingon the Clinton State Department’s efforts to cover up alleged misconduct withnew detailsabout investigations thwarted by agency staff:
State Department officials blocked investigations into potentially embarrassing allegations of misconduct from agency investigators and even inspector general staff during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
A former official in the State Department inspector general’s office who was involved with preparing the sanitized report said agency officials also interfered in probes originating in the Office of the Inspector General.
The suggestions of political interference into investigations conducted at the bureau of diplomatic security first appeared in an inspector general report published in February 2013, just as Clinton was leaving the State Department. A Washington Examiner review of earlier drafts of that reportsuggested potentially damaging passages were removed from the final document. But the State Department official suggests the intervention went further.
The official, who requested anonymity, said the Bureau of Diplomatic Security initially prevented inspectors from reviewing open case files when they began their probe in late 2012.
Read the full report for all the gory deets.
Longtime readers of this blog should not be strangers to this story. I covered these allegations, and the State Dept’s retaliation against whistleblowers extensively in 2013. I’ve been wondering why it hasn’t been brought up until now.
Like so many other Clinton scandals – this one cluster-F alone (in a healthy, sane country) would be enough to derail her pathetic candidacy.
Nice Deb 