2008: Darrell Issa Voted "YES" to Fund Project Gunrunner & Merida Initiative

[kpete]

The Merida Initiative is the, and was the, basis for the 2008 HR-6028 Bill which specifically funded "Project Gunrunner."
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hr6028ih/pdf/BILLS-110hr6028ih.pdf

Darrell Issa pretends he has never heard of Project Gunrunner, yet in 2008 he specifically voted to fund Project Gunrunner.

Apparently, there is more than just a huge connection between Merida Initiative and Project Gunrunner whereby Project Gunrunner funding, per HR-6028, is directly enveloped into the Merida Initiative.

In October 2007, President Bush and President announced the Mérida Initiative, is a Billions of dollar aid package to support Mexico's President Calderón's war on drugs by, among other things, sending military grade weapons and helicopters to Mexico. Project Gunrunner was Legislated into the Merida Initiative through HR-6028 in 2008. After ample Congressional debate on conditionality and appropriations, the US Congress approved the initiative in HR-6028 without any strings attached.

the rest:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/21/1101851/-2008-Darrell-Issa-Voted-YES-to-Fund-Project-Gunrunner-Merida-Initiative

[warrior1]

1. why are we just hearing about this?

I think my head is going to explode.

[Wounded Bear]

2. The byline says it all...

The M$M is asleep at the switch again. It took the DailyKOS to report on this.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

16. That'sb easy. The real mystery is --

Why is President Obama invoking EP over this?

[justiceischeap]

18. Look at any number of threads on this subject and you'll get your answer

I'm guessing someone went over the materials and said, "There's stuff that needs to stay classified" and so he invoked privilege or maybe they haven't been able to go through all the documents and want to be certain nothing that shouldn't go public goes public--like informants names, undercover agents names, etc.

There could be any number of reasons why the President invoked privilege and not one of them has to be nefarious.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

19. That's never been offered as reason by the DoJ

[justiceischeap]

22. But why does the President have to explain his actions?

Why would we question his right to invoke executive privilege unless you think he's doing something wrong?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. Something is wrong. Literally hundreds have been killed by those weapons.

I defend the President on quite a bit including drone strikes based on my assumption he is a good person. I'm not accusing him of anything but the idea that he should invoke EP to protect a persumed Bush-era operation is unfathomable. Hundreds are dead, not because they were accidently in the same house with a wanted terrorists the same time a CIA drone was overhead but because of deliberate actions to provide guns to drug cartels.

We can't even say this was an operation gone awry because so far no one has explained the mechanism by which the guns were supposed to be tracked and recovered which begs the question: were they ever meant to be recovered? It's not like we will/should ever use this sort of operation so they should at least put that to bed.

Hundreds murdered. Progressives got righteously angry about a lot less than this.

[justiceischeap]

24. I'm going to give this administration the benefit of the doubt on this one

and say there is a legitimate reason why the President is invoking privilege and I doubt it's to protect the Bush admins' failed operation. He doesn't seem to be the type of guy to do things that are going to shoot him in the foot. He does plenty of things people don't agree with but he hasn't really made a huge political mistake and I don't see this being the first one he does make.

Who's to say he's protecting Holder or any other politician: as I've stated, he could be protecting law enforcement, informants still in place, undercover agents they either haven't pulled out yet or can't pull out... it could be for any legitimate reason.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

26. What about the hundreds killed?

Somebody has to be held to account.

[justiceischeap]

27. What about the hundreds killed anywhere?

What about the roughly 37k homeless that die yearly in America? Do you truly believe the hundreds that were killed wouldn't have been killed anyway--no matter where the guns came from? This was a stupid idea/operation created by the Bush admin and when Holder saw how fucked up and stupid it was, he shut it down and started an investigation into the operation. Holder did, not Issa or any other republican but Holder himself.

See the post below...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014147977#post104

I am not against our government protecting people over nothing much more than a political witch hunt. People die every fucking day in this country and the world, some of it our government is responsible, some of it it isn't. I'm going to guess the guns used in Mexico would have been obtained elsewhere and you could be complaining about how fucked up Russia is for selling these guns and then trying to track them. Waco shows our government isn't infallible. 9/11 showed our government isn't infallible.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

28. You forgot your sarcasm tag

No one died during Watergate.

[justiceischeap]

29. There isn't an ounce of sarcasm in my post, so no, I didn't forget the tag

And I seriously don't believe this is a Watergate moment, any more than Lewinsky was a Watergate moment for Clinton.

If you had read Holder's reply in the link I sent you, you would see this has nothing to do with Watergate.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

31. No one died during the Lewinsky affair either.

Someone in the government decided arming drug cartels was a good idea to acheive some as yet unknown end. Hundreds are dead. Laws were broken. No one is being held to account and -- per rejection of Nixon's claim -- EP does not allow hiding facts of criminal wrongdoing so Holder's letter is pretty meaningless.

The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III." Because Nixon had asserted only a generalized need for confidentiality, the Court held that the larger public interest in obtaining the truth in the context of a criminal prosecution took precedence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege#U.S._v._Nixon

Laws were broken. *Hundreds* of people are dead. No one is being held to account. And if this is a Bush-era operation then the EP claim is even more befuddling.

[Aerows]

34. Go after Bush first

Since he started it. Then we can discuss it.

I'm mighty sick of people bashing President Obama for policies that began under the Bush Administration and then pretending President Obama suddenly enacted them.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

35. The best way to do that would be to release the documents, no?

[Spazito]

38. The documents the repubs are demanding are limited to last year...

and are around the issue of internal communications after Holder shut the program down. Releasing the documents demanded would NOT involve those who actually instituted the program, voted for it, etc, meaning the Bush regime and the repub congress.

This is a witchhunt done in hopes of shutting down the DOJ, under Holder, from stopping the election fraud tactics being used by the repubs in states like Florida.

The repubs don't give a shit about the deaths, etc, and they sure as hell aren't asking for documents that would expose the bush regime and their own culpability in the program.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

39. Nothing is stopping the DOJ from revealing anything criminal on Bush

except the DOJ.

[Aerows]

40. Issa voted to fund Gunrunner in 2008.

To pretend he didn't know anything about it is absurd. This is a witch hunt, pure and simple, and this entire idea started under Bush. We don't need record releases to prove either thing - it's already public domain.

What is your beef?

[Spazito]

41. The issue you were discussing was the documents the repubs are demanding...

and your post stated, "The best way to do that would be to release the documents, no?". My response is in relation to your post and to provide the facts around the time frame of the documents the repubs were demanding.

As to the bigger issue of documents formulated during the Bush regime, that is not the discussion and, as such, I am not interested in discussing it in this thread.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

42. You stated the docs being subpeoned were limited to last year.

38. The documents the repubs are demanding are limited to last year...

I don't know if you've been misinformed or you're trying to pull one over on me but from what I can see the subpeona was issued October 2011 and it seeks documents going back to March of 2009.

http://www.wsbradio.com/weblogs/jamie-dupree/2011/oct/12/fast-and-furious-subpoenas/

I keep hearing my dad's voice saying when you don't tell me the truth I have no choice but to assume you're hiding something. I've given the president the benefit of the doubt on everything up to and including his conduct of the war. I still believe he is a good man but obfuscation and misinformation serve no purpose and only erode support.

[Spazito]

43. There is definitely misinformation to be found but it was NOT in my post...

This is taken from the letter sent to Issa and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:


"The Honorable Darrell E. Issa
Chairman
June 20, 2012
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
After you rejected the Department's recent offers of additional accommodations, you stated that the Committee intends to proceed with its scheduled meeting to consider a resolution citing the Attorney General for contempt for failing to comply with the Committee's subpoena of October 11, 2011. I write now to inform you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/20/12317893-obama-invokes-executive-privilege-over-doj-documents

Note the relevant date re the documents the President has asserted executive privilege: "POST-FEBRUARY 4, 2011, DOCUMENTS."

The last time I checked that date IS last year.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

45. The cited letter is from DOJ to Issa WRT to the subpeona and which part the claim of EP covers

[Spazito]

46. Exactly and that is what the discussion AND the contempt issue is about...

Holder released thousands of documents to the Committee, it is the documents related to the post-February, 2011 that are at issue.

From the same letter whose link I provided in my previous post:

The Department has provided the Committee with over 7,600 pages of documents..."

I hoped you would have acknowledged that I did NOT provide misinformation in the post where I noted the documents in question WERE limited to last year but, oh well, the facts are provided anyway.

[freshwest]

47. The reasons are explained in the Maddow, Hartmann and Ed videos. Issa had recieved a ton of info.

The only thing left to give was the names of the undercover agents which would have put their lives at risk, because the GOP would have published them.

That is available in threads on DU right now. Those who want to believe that Obama is wrong, will keep playing the Kenneth Starr Chamber game and nothing will change their minds.

Maddow explained the push from the NRA to turn this into a witch hunt which Grayson agrees with in a thread here.

Don't waste time explaining since it's only willful denial of the facts already presented.

Aerows

[Aerows]

49. Exactly

Willful denial is the best way to put it.

Freshwest

[ProSense]

3. Ah, the liberal media! n/t

[Ninga]

4. Lazy media bastards.....or hands tied by corporate ownership??

[SemperEadem]

14. ding ding ding.. we have a winner, folks!

[abelenkpe]

15. Yeah that's exactly it

Has been that way for a long time now.

We really do need to break up big media and big finance. We have anti trust laws.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. The media have done a horrendous job

I haven't even heard a word about the fact Issa is the only convicted criminal serving in Congress. Mr. Self-Righteous seems pure as the driven snow. I don't think it would be that way if Issa was a liberal. They have his rap sheet and mug shot all over our screens.

[Aerows]

5. Oh this is great

I'm sure the M$M is going to absolutely RUSH to bring this up.

I'm convinced the reason no one has reported on this is because they want a gigantic shit-stirring nontroversy to make the election look close.

If Issa voted to fund this, he can't very well say he didn't know about it. God this makes him look like an idiot.

[bluesbassman]

17. With all things Issa, it doesn't take much to make him look like an idiot.

I despise that man. A black mark on California. Unfortunately he's a product of one of our more red counties.

[Retrograde]

25. Who's up against him in November?

Issa's never struck me as the brightest bulb on the chandelier, which is why I'm always surprised when he gets re-elected. Did his district get adjusted this year? And who else will be on the November ballot?

[bluesbassman]

32. Jerry Tetalman - 49th District.

I don't think the district changed. I'm up in the Bay Area, so I'm not real current on SoCal changes.

[Aerows]

36. Hopefully folks can vote this dimwit out of office

He's nuts.

[MrTwister]

6. Merida? Doesn't that mean "shit" is Spanish?

For the millions of dollars we spent, I hope we got the good shit.

[emulatorloo]

7. No. Mérida is a beautiful city in the state of Yucatán

[HooptieWagon]

10. Yucatan is the peninsula,

IIRC, the state is Quintana Roo.

[MrTwister]

11. You're right. I was thinking of "mierda." nt

[Aerows]

8. Kick

This is pretty important

[emulatorloo]

9. Thanks for posting. Another piece in the puzzle.

[Crowman1979]

12. Looks like Issa was looking for a scapegoat to cover his ass.

[Aerows]

30. Exactly what it looks like

How hypocritical can you get - vote to fund it, then criticize.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. Have any border patrol agent casualties been linked to Project Gunrunner activities

before 2009?

Could that be another reason Issa refused to call any Bush-era ATF witnesses in over a YEAR of "investigation"?

I find it AMAZING that all the documents Issa wants pertain to actions AFTER "Fast and Furious" already had been shut down.

[Evergreen Emerald]

21. we should be sending this to every news agency

and ask why he has not been questioned about this.

[kentuck]

33. Obama should release the information to the media...

and tell Issa to go screw himself...

[Uncle Joe]

37. Did you know if you write his name backward it spells "ass I?"

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[Spazito]

44. LOL, you forgot the silent part...

ass I (am)!

[Major Hogwash]

48. This is why Issa won't let anyone else testify before his committee --- he sandbagged Holder!!

He is preventing key witnesses from being called to testify before his committee, and keeping exculpatory evidence from being brought forth to defend Holder's actions.

What Issa is doing is what is known as holding "a kangaroo court."

[GeorgeGist]

50. The usefullness of Bullshit ... HR 6028 was never passed by the US Congress.

I'm not here to defend Issa.

H.R. 6028 (110th): Merida Initiative to Combat Illicit Narcotics and Reduce Organized Crime Authorization Act ...
...of 2008

110th Congress, 2007–2009

To authorize law enforcement and security assistance, and assistance to enhance the rule of law and strengthen civilian institutions, for Mexico and the countries of Central America, and for other purposes.

Introduced:
May 13, 2008
Sponsor:
Rep. Howard Berman [D-CA28]
Status: Died (Passed House)
Bill titles and summaries are written by the sponsor. H.R. stands for House bill

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6028

[Tx4obama]

51. K & R. And here's another link regarding Project Gunrunner

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gunrunner