Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
October 4th, 2011 | 
Author: Of Arms and the Law: Fast & Furious: AG Holder caught in perjury?
Fast & Furious: AG Holder caught in perjury? Posted by David Hardy ยท 3 October 2011 06:26 PM. CBS News has the story. Holder was sent briefing papers on it in July of last year, but in May of this year testified that he;d only heard about it "for …
Publish Date: 10/04/2011 2:46
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/fast_furious_ag.php
DOJ Memos Show Eric Holder Was Briefed on Fast and Furious in …
Internal memos reveal that Attorney General Eric Holder was aware of Operation Fast and Furious nearly a year before he previously acknowledged.
Publish Date: 10/04/2011 2:36
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/03/doj-memos-show-eric-holder-was-briefed-on-fast-and-furious-in-july-2010/
Under the ‘Fast and Furious’ program, weapons were allowed to be illegally purchased in the Phoenix area so that they could be tracked to gun traffickers and drug cartel leaders, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of these firearms, and many were allowed to cross into Mexico.
New documents show that Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July of 2010 which directly contradicts his statements to Congress.
Did Holder Commit Perjury?
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday October 4, 2011 arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself, and requested that the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.
The chairman wrote in his letter to Obama:
"These updates mentioned, not only the name of the operation, but also specific details about guns being trafficked to Mexico".
"Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel. I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible".
The very serious question is whether or not Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3, 2011when he stated that he was not familiar with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious until about April 2011.
"I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks" – Holder testified!
A New Memo
A newly discovered memo dated July 2010 reveals that Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation,
"are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels".
The Justice Department’s Response
In response to the release of the memos, a Justice Department official said that the attorney general,
"has consistently said he became aware of the questionable tactics in early 2011 when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and then promptly asked the inspector general to investigate the matter".
"The weekly reports which are generally 100 + pages are provided to the office of the AG and deputy attorney general each week from approximately 24 offices and components. These are routine reports that provide general overviews and status updates on issues, policies, cases and investigations from offices and components across the country. None of these reports referenced the controversial tactics of that allowed guns to cross the border".
"House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of all people, should be familiar with the difference between knowing about an investigation and being aware of questionable tactics employed in that investigation since documents provided to his committee show he was given a briefing that included the fast and furious operation in 2010 a year before the controversy emerged".
More Proof That Holder Knew
Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif said on Tuesday morning (October 4, 2011) that Holder saying that he didn’t understand the question rather than he didn’t know of the program is not a successful defense to perjury.
And Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, added that months before Holder testified, on Jan. 31, 2011, that Holder went to Grassley’s office, where Grassley gave him a letter detailing the investigation of Fast and Furious.
"If he read my letter, he knew on January 31. He probably actually knew about it way back in the middle of last year or earlier".
The Attempted Cover-Up
Grassley said that since he’s not a lawyer he’s not going to make a judgment on whether Holder committed perjury but did add:
"But I can tell you this. They’re doing everything they can, in a fast and furious way, to cover up all the evidence or stonewalling us. But here’s the issue, if he didn’t perjure himself and didn’t know about it, the best way that they can help us, Congressman Issa and me, is to just issue all the documents that we ask for and those documents will prove one way or the other right or wrong".
The Audio Tapes
In a series of secretly recorded audio tapes believed to have been recorded last March 2011, an Arizona gun dealer and an ATF agent involved with ATF’s Fast and Furious operation worried about the unraveling scandal.
The conversations were recorded by Andre Howard who ran the Lone Wolf Trading Company.
Howard’s gun dealership had been cooperating with the ATF in Fast and Furious, and at least two of his weapons were sold to a straw buyer before turning up later at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Hope MacAllister, the ATF agent heard in the conversations, was the lead case agent.
Among other things, Howard and MacAllister expressed concerns about ATF Special Agent John Dodson, who by that point had gone public about Fast and Furious, and they also spoke of their concerns that Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) was investigating, with Agent MacCallister saying of her superiors in Washington, DC,
"they’re gonna have to say Grassley you’re just gonna have to sit your a– down".
The recordings are important because MacAllister has never spoken publicly about her involvement in the operation and its fallout and Howard’s role as a gun dealer cooperating with the ATF placed him in position to see Fast and Furious firsthand .
The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General in connection with their probe into Fast and Furious.
Posted in 
ALERT: FMCSA bans cell-phone use
fleetowner.com11/23/11
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration formally banned all hand-held cell phone use by commercial truck and bus drivers during the operation of their vehicles.
US DOT Bans Cell Phone Use By Truckers and Bus Drivers …
kansascity.injuryboard.com11/29/11
From the US Department of Transportation: U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced a final rule specifically prohibiting interstate truck and bus drivers from using handheld cell…
A comprehensive study, that was commissioned by the non-profit Governors Highway Safety Association, and funded by State Farm Insurance concluded that there is no conclusive evidence that hands-free cell phone use while driving is any less risky than hand-held cell phone use.
And it also suggests that there is no evidence that cell phone or texting bans have in any way, reduced crashes.
The findings come after nine states have imposed bans on hand-held cell phone use while driving, and thirty four states have imposed texting bans for drivers behind the wheel.
Despite the findings, The Governors Highway Safety Association does not recommend that restrictions on cell phone use or texting be lifted in any of the states where they presently exist.
But it does recommend that those forty one states which don’t ban talking on a cell phone hold off on enacting new legislation.
The study found, and suggests that:
Drivers are frequently distracted by any number of factors ranging from eating, to talking to texting, perhaps as much as 50% of the time they spend behind the wheel.
Drivers adapt by paying more attention to driving and and less to distractions, when the road risk level increases.
States should enforce existing distracted driving laws, but should consider that such enforcement takes away from other traffic enforcement efforts.
Two-thirds of all motorists reported using a cell phone while driving and about one-third of them routinely.
One-eighth of all drivers reported texting while driving, although observational studies during the daylight hours in 2009, suggested that only 1% of all drivers were observed to be texting.
In conclusion
The authors make a number of recommendations including;
Enacting a total ban of cell phone use for novice drivers.
A total ban on texting bans for all drivers.
Greater use of highway engineering solutions, such as rumble strips and automotive technological innovations which are said help reduce distracted driving accidents.
