Holder to Issa: I'll hold people accountable ... for whistleblowing

The hearing today on Operation Fast and Furious by the House Oversight Committee produced a curious moment during a confrontation between its chair, Rep. Darrell Issa, and Attorney General Eric Holder, caught by The Right Scoop.  Issa asks when Holder will start holding his team accountable for the mistakes made during Operation Fast and Furious, especially since the wiretap applications involved in the operation appear to show that Assistant AG Lanny Breuer and other high-ranking officials in the DoJ and ATF had knowledge of the gunwalking techniques employed.  Will any action on accountability from Holder come after the Inspector General report on OF&F, Issa asks, “because you haven’t done any so far, as far as we can tell.”

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Holder responds that he’s prepared to hold people in his organization accountable right now … for whistleblowing on the wiretap applications:

Er, really?  The ATF sent thousands of high-powered weapons across the border into the hands of the cartel, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds, including a US Border Patrol agent, and Holder is ready to act right now against the people informing Congress of what actually took place in Holder’s organization?  Well, it is accountability of a sort, I suppose, but it’s more useful as a peek into Holder’s priorities.

Speaking of priorities, it looks like whistleblowing trumps bribery, too:

A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

That source said that until the summer of 2011, the two compromised prosecutors were part of a team of more than 25 federal prosecutors pursuing a financial crime ring, and at least five other prosecutors tasked to the case were also compromised by the criminal suspects they were investigating, without being bribed.

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But I’ll bet Holder will fire the official who leaked this information right freakin’ now, just to show us his commitment to accountability.

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David Strom 5:20 PM | May 01, 2024
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