|
|
Independent Investigators Called For vs. Obama Administration in Solyndra and Fast and Furious Cases
22 September 2011
Over the last 48 hours two congressmen have called upon Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent investigator or special prosecutor to investigate the Obama administration, as three scandals are simultaneously converging on the President—Solyndra, Fast and Furious and LightSquared. Also on Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa called for a special prosecutor to investigate the growing Fast and Furious scandal. "We’d like to have a true special prosecutor, particularly when it’s obvious if Eric Holder didn’t know, it’s because he didn’t want to know or because he wasn’t doing his job," Issa told reporters. Issa complained that "there is ongoing cover up of a pattern of wrongdoing that can’t be explained by any ordinary people [who tried] to do the right thing, but made a mistake. Even though I have subpoena ability, I don’t have the ability to lock people up for contempt until they fess up and give us what we want." In the Solyndra case, attorneys for Solyndra LLC’s chief executive, Brian Harrison, and chief financial officer, W. G. Stover, sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, informing the committee that their clients will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and decline to answer any questions put to them at a Congressional hearing on Friday. In the LightSquared case, a second government official has come forward saying the White House tried to influence his testimony concerning a wireless broadband project backed by billionaire Democratic donor Philip Falcone that military officials fear might impair sensitive satellite navigation systems. Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, said he rejected guidance from the White Houses Office of Budget and Management suggesting he tell Congress that the governments concerns about the project by the firm LightSquared could be resolved in 90 days. Russo’s comments come just days after four-star Gen. William Shelton, who heads U.S.Space Command, told Congress he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony about the same project. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), chairman of the House Science Committees Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, said he was troubled that four out of the five government witnesses before his Sept. 8 hearing had identical language in their written testimony reflecting the administration’s view of the LightSquared project. In the Fast and Furious case, on Friday, Sept. 9 Congressional investigators formally asked the Obama administration to turn over copies of all records involving three key White House national security officials and the program, other ATF gun cases in Phoenix, and all communications between the White House and the ATF field office in Arizona. The letter was sent by Issa and Grassley to National Security Adviser Thomas E. Donilon, a top aide to President Barack Obama. The letter comes after a series of emails surfaced showing that William D. Newell, the ATF field supervisor in Phoenix during Fast and Furious, was in routine contact with Kevin O’Reilly, then the White House director of North American Affairs for the National Security Council. The White House has said that O’Reilly forwarded the emails to two other White House officials, Dan Restrepo, special assistant to the President and senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the NSC, and Greg Galjanis, director for Terrorist Finance and Counternarcotics, Counterterrorism Policy. The letter requests all emails, documents, briefing papers, and handwritten notes involving O’Reilly, Restrepo, and Galjanis during the Fast and Furious period. The committee also wants to personally interview O’Reilly by the end of this month. Finally, previously secret tape recordings, made in March 2011 by Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Ariz., of his discussions with ATF agent Hope McAllister, have now emerged, in which they express concern that one of the whistle blowers had turned over material to investigators which was ’more toxic than you realize.’ The discussion suggests an attempted cover-up. The gun dealer reports that the file was released to Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Grassley, "but Leahy as we both know has adjourned this inquiry right now, okay, with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful on that end." The agent responds: "Right." The dealer also says that Holder was going to respond to an inquiry from Lamar Smith just as he had to Grassley: "And I can assure you the media isn’t gonna like his response because basically it’s gonna mirror what he’s told Grassley." Agent: "Yeah." Dealer: "He can’t deviate." Agent: "At some point they’re gonna have to say Grassley, you’re just gonna have to sit your a... down. I mean, like I said, my understanding is he can’t call a hearing. Somebody from the majority party has got to call a congressional hearing and as of right now...." In a further remarkable twist, these tapes, which were turned over to Issa’s committee, which in turn forwarded them to the Inspector General, were later released by the Inspector General to the the office of the US Attorney and the ATF in Arizona, which are the target of the investigation. The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, "We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right." |