Rep. Issa’s March 30 deadline for ATF documents looming

• By Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
• March 28th, 2011 10:42 am PT

   Acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson has until Wednesday to provide several key documents requested by Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in the congressman’s probe of the Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious.

=============================================================

BULLETIN: Sen. Charles Grassley today sent yet another letter to ATF Director Melson, this time regarding the link between a suspected gun trafficker in Texas and the death of ICE agent Jaime Zapata in a highway ambush in northern Mexico in February. This column wrote about that incident here, and discussed the case against suspect Otilio Osorio, who purchased a gun that was recovered at the Zapata murder scene.

   As this column noted at the time, Osorio was arrested only after a gun known to have been purchased by him was recovered at the Zapata crime scene.

   We will discuss this new development further tomorrow.

==============================================================

   So far, according to a committee source, Melson has not responded to the letter, which was dated March 16. (Nor has there been a response on Melson's behalf from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, who sent the now-infamous letter to Sen. Charles Grassley back on Feb. 4, “respectfully” requesting the Iowa Republican to back off in his Gunrunner inquiry, which had been launched following the slaying of Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry. Grassley had sent two letters to Melson, who did not respond; Weich replied instead.) Asked what happens if Melson does not respond, the source said, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

   Grassley is Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He started snooping into the Gunrunner controversy in late January, which this column wrote about here and here.

   Rep. Issa, a six-term Republican from California’s 49th District, took over the helm of Oversight and Government Reform with the change in power in the House in January. This column reported his entry into the controversy here.

   Mr. Issa was direct in his letter to Melson: “Recent media reports have raised grave questions about your department’s handling of operations involving gun trafficking into Mexico…”

   “It has been brought to my attention that you are not cooperating with congressional inquiries about Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa wrote.

   Issa reminded Melson about Sen. Grassley’s recent experiences, and about the senator’s frustrations. And just to demonstrate that he knew exactly what he was looking for, Issa provided Melson with a list of specifics, excerpted here:

1.      Documents and communications relating to the genesis of Project Gunner(sic) and Operation Fast and Furious, and any memoranda or reports involving any changes to either program at or near the time of the release of the DOJ-OIG report about Project Gunrunner in November 2010.

2.      A lost of individuals responsible for authorizing the decision to “walk” guns to Mexico in order to follow them and capture a “bigger fish.”

3.      Following the fatal shooting of Agent Brian Terry, did ATF conduct an investigation of the circumstances of his killing? Did you determine whether the two guns found at the crime scene were permitted to cross into Mexico?

4.      Is ATF aware what weapon was responsible for the death of Agent Brian Terry?

5.      All documents, including e-mails, relating to communications between the ATF and the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) who sold the weapons to Jaime Avila, including any Report of Investigation (ROI) or other records relating to a December 17, 2009 meeting to “discuss his role as an FFL during this investigation.”

6.      A copy of the presentation, approximately 200 pages long, that the Group 7 Supervisor made to officials at ATF headquarters in the spring of 2010.

7.      All documents, including e-mails, relating to communications regarding Operation Fast and Furious between ATF headquarters and Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William D. Newell, Assistant Special Agents in Charge Jim Needles and George Gillette, Group Supervisor David Voth, or any Case Agent from November 1, 2009 to the present. The response to this request should include a memorandum, approximately 30 pages long, from SAC Newell to ATF headquarters following the arrest of Jaime Avila and the death of Agent Brian Terry.

8.      All documents and communications related to complaints or objections by ATF agents in Phoenix about letting straw buyers with American guns enter Mexico.

   A check with Sen. Grassley’s office this morning revealed that he has had no luck getting a response from Alan D. Bersin, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, to whom Grassley wrote, also on March 16, asking about a very curious incident involving gunrunning suspect Jaime Avila last summer. Avila is one of about three dozen people indicted in the Gunrunner operation earlier this year. He was arrested in December on the day after the Terry shootout occurred, and just hours after the border agent died from his wounds.

   “CPB officials,” Sen. Grassley wrote, “allegedly stopped Jaime Avila near the border in the spring or summer of 2010. He allegedly had the two WASR-10 rifles in his possession that were later found at the scene of Agent Brian Terry’s murder, along with over thirty additional weapons. CBP officials contacted ATF or an Assistant United States Attorney who allegedly instructed CBP to allow Avila proceed without seizing the weapons.”

Avila is one of 20 defendants named on just one of the Gunrunner indictments announced back in January.

   As noted by this column here last Friday, CBS News’ Sharyl Atkisson interviewed now-retired former ATF attaché to Mexico Darren Gil, who appears to have been deliberately shut out of the Gunrunner operation. Gil said he was told by his supervisor that the operation had gotten the nod from someone at the Department of Justice. Who?

And Don’t forget to visit:

KeepAndBearArms.com

GunVoter.org

OpenCarry.org

GunDigest.com

Hunting-Washington.com

GunnersLair.com

TheHighRoad.org

Northwest Firearms.com

GunRightsMedia.com

ArmedPoliteSociety.com

WaGuns.org 

VISIT THESE GUN RIGHTS EXAMINERS ON-LINE:

Atlanta Ed Stone | Austin Howard Nemerov | Boston Ron Bokleman | Charlotte Paul Valone | Cheyenne Anthony Bouchard | Chicago Don Gwinn | Cleveland Daniel White | DC Mike Stollenwerk| Denver Dan Bidstrup | Des Moines Sean McClanahan |Detroit Rob Reed | Fort Smith Steve D. Jones | Knoxville Liston Matthews | Los Angeles John Longenecker | Minneapolis John Pierce | National David Codrea | Seattle  Dave Workman | St. Louis Kurt Hofmann | Tucson Chris Woodard | Oakland Yih-Chau Chang

 ALSO VISIT:

SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

‘Winning Firearms Freedom One Lawsuit at a Time’

CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

READ:

America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age

These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns

Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns

Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities

Probe reveals tensions at DHS

Emails obtained by Rep. Darrell Issa's committee reveal tensions at DHS. | AP Photos

By: Jake Sherman March 29, 2011 06:22 AM EDT

Tensions have flared between career bureaucrats and political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security’s Freedom of Information Act fulfillment operation, according to agency emails and other documents obtained during a probe by a top House investigative committee that will come to a head at a hearing on Thursday. The documents, and interviews conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, paint appointees and bureaucrats as at odds with one another, with a senior appointee even calling one worker “a lunatic.” The new documents, which are part of an inquiry into political meddling in the FOIA division, don’t appear to show outright wrong-doing at the agency. But during the course of the investigation, California Repblican Rep. Darrell Issa has alleged that political meddling at the agency has led to delays in responding to requests, and could violate a law that forbids “arbitrarily or capriciously” withholding information through FOIA. One example of the sniping is detailed in emails and documents obtained by POLITICO. In a 2009 email, Amy Shlossmann, Secretary Janet Napolitano’s deputy chief of staff, called a FOIA employee “a lunatic” and instructed her staff to attend a presentation by a career employee “if nothing else, for the comic relief.” William Holzerland, the career employee charged with teaching the political appointees about FOIA, said Mary Ellen Callahan, the chief privacy officer at DHS, was “kicking me under the table, saying move [the presentation] along” because Sholssman was “bored and looking at her BlackBerry.” Issa, in a statement to POLITICO, said “political appointments are supposed to infuse federal agencies with leaders and advocates for the President’s key initiatives.” “This clearly isn’t happening at DHS where political appointees are throwing up roadblock after roadblock against efforts to open up government,” Issa said. “Given the president’s rhetoric on transparency and FOIA, it’s incredibly dysfunctional that the political appointees at DHS have such hostile attitudes to career FOIA professionals and President Obama’s directive on FOIA.” The Associated Press reported Monday that it obtained emails where DHS FOIA officers called political vetting of requests as “crazy” and “bananas,” for creating extreme delays. The AP reported that Callahan wanted to change the process, which allegedly had her giving fulfilled FOIA requests to political aides. The Associated Press has also reported that it took months to obtain agency emails related to the Christmas Day bomber in 2009. The news service said the number of emails DHS produced didn’t add up, something the agency denies.  Much of this will come to a head Thursday, when Callahan testifies in front of Issa’s committee. The investigation represents Issa’s first, and most direct, inquiry into the Obama administration.  Callahan has told aides on the committee that there were “competing priorities of the front office,” which is sometimes made aware of FOIA requests so it can respond to lawmakers and others “versus the kind of singular focus of the FOIA office … to process the FOIAs.”  Shlossman, likewise, in testimony to Issa’s committee staff in March, said that the relationship between political appointees and career employees “to this point and the exchanges that we had I don’t think you could describe as productive.”  A DHS source said that the June 2009 meeting took place before new procedures were put in place to work out some kinks with the FOIA process. Furthermore, DHS acknowledges tension within the agency, but notes they have cut the FOIA backlog by 84 percent.  A spokesman for DHS, Matthew Chandler said that fewer than one percent of FOIA requests were flagged for review by an appointee. Those that were, were done so to ensure the agency was prepared to answer questions from the press and Congress and so department attorneys had relevant information for ongoing cases.  “When the Obama administration took office in January 2009, the new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security was faced with a FOIA process that had resulted in the worst backlog in the U.S. government,” DHS spokesman Matthew Chandler said. “In order to expedite the processing of requests and reduce the backlog, DHS officials took steps to increase accountability and transparency.”  Chandler also that the relationship between the two wings was particularly important because some requests involved documents from the Bush-era DHS.  “This was especially relevant as they pertained to documents generated during the previous administration,” he said. “In no case did this process inhibit documents from release under FOIA and only attorneys and other FOIA professionals determined the substance of redactions.”