Will The Trib Retract? NAH!

Remember this from a few days ago?  The editorial board at the Tribune-Review, in discussing the evocation of executive privilege by the Obama Administration in response to a subpoena from Darrell Issa's committee, wrote:

By now declaring executive privilege, the administration is legally stipulating that there was direct White House involvement. And it has placed itself in Catch-22 jeopardy: It was more intimately involved in Fast and Furious than previously stated and it has been involved in nothing less than a cover-up to prevent that public disclosure.

I wonder if they'll retract that now that Issa himself has stipulated that there's no evidence of any White House involvement and no cover up.  From ThinkProgress, here's Issa's interview with Chris Wallace (of Fox "News" no less):

WALLACE: Do you have any evidence that White House officials were involved in these decisions, that they knowingly misled Congress, and are involved in a cover-up?

ISSA: No, we don’t.

And:

WALLACE: I want to be clear, because we’ve got to get out, no evidence that the White House is involved in the cover up?

ISSA: And I hope they don’t get involved.

So how long do you think it'll take Scaife's braintrust to admit that they (at the very least) misspoke.

The Trib Lies. AGAIN.

From today's op-ed page where they're discussing "Fast and Furious" and the recent evocation of Executive Privilege by the Obama Administration:

In the grand scheme of things, a congressional committee’s vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to the failed and fatal Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.

And:

By now declaring executive privilege, the administration is legally stipulating that there was direct White House involvement. And it has placed itself in Catch-22 jeopardy: It was more intimately involved in Fast and Furious than previously stated and it has been involved in nothing less than a cover-up to prevent that public disclosure.

Either the White House lied or the White House lied.

By not stating all of the details, it's the Tribune-Review editorial board that's lying.  Let's start with the second paragraph.  Is the White House legally stipulating that there was "direct" involvement?  In what?  Fast and Furious?

That's what Scaife's braintrust wants you to think.

However, when you look at what the DOJ asked the White House to assert Executive Privilege over, you'll see a different story.  From the DOJ letter seeking executive privilege:

The [House Oversight] Committee has made clear that its contempt resolution will be limited to internal Department [of Justice] "documents from after February 4, 2011 related to the Department's response to Congress." Letter for Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, from Darrell E. Issa, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives at 1-2 (June 13, 2012) ("Chairman's Letter"). I am asking you to assert executive privilege over these documents. They were not generated in the course of the conduct of Fast and Furious. Instead, they were created after the investigative tactics at issue in that operation had terminated and in the course of the Department's deliberative process concerning how to respond to congressional and related media inquiries into that operation.

Hmm.  So the documents Issa's committee subpoenaed are not about Fast and Furious but about the internal administration discussions about it after the program was terminated.

Now go back and look at how Scaife's braintrust describes things.  Surely they knew the truth and yet by leaving out enough of the truth they're asserting something completely different.

Who's lying now?

Yes, Investigate!

From today's Tribune-Review:

Congressional subpoenas must reveal what the Justice Department won't explain about a Border Patrol death and its ham-handed effort to link illegally sold guns with Mexican drug cartels.

With Justice largely stonewalling, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, plans to subpoena officials involved with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program known as "Fast and Furious," reports The Hill newspaper.

A bad idea from the start, the program authorized U.S. gun stores to illegally sell thousands of firearms to Mexican cartels' "straw purchasers" -- in hopes of tracing those guns to, and prosecuting, cartel bigwigs. [emphasis added.]

Can I point something out?

USAToday reports that "Operation Fast and Furious" is part of a larger ATF operation, "Project Gunrunner."

And guess, just guess when that started?

Locally in Laredo, Texas in 2005 and then expanded nationally in 2006 - so when Scaife's braintrust says it was "a bad idea from the start," I trust they recognize that it was yet another bad idea from their friends in Bush Administration.