Althouse: Prosecutor invokes 5th amendment privilege in the Fast & Furious investigation.

January 21, 2012

Prosecutor invokes 5th amendment privilege in the Fast & Furious investigation.

"The chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona has cited his Fifth Amendment rights... before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee...."

43 comments:

Toad Trend said...: This what Algore meant when he said 'no controlling legal authority'.

Liberals just assert what they need to assert to serve their purposes - the ends justifying the means.

wv - bumse; 1/21/12, 12:31 PM
Trashhauler said...: Quickly, someone offer that man full and transactional immunity!; 1/21/12, 12:35 PM
Bob_R said...: And Sullivan thinks the Obama administration is "scandal-free" ... like the Soprano family.; 1/21/12, 12:36 PM
Roger J. said...: A similar thread over at Volokh. I believe this Cunningham dude is guilty as sin, but he does have his 5A rights--perhaps a special prosecutor is called for--Patrick Fitzgerald is probably available.

Fast and Furious is one fucked up operation--heads should roll, but, of course they wont. And Cunningham is DOJ's under the bus guy--it goes all the way to Holder I suspect; 1/21/12, 12:37 PM
PaulV said...: It is the coverup. Crack in the facade will lead to fun and games. The rot goes to the top.; 1/21/12, 12:38 PM
Mark O said...: What Trashhauler said.; 1/21/12, 12:39 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: I noticed yesterday that Doonsebury seems to be suggesting that Fast an Furious is some kind of right-wing conspiracy theory. Yet his sarcastic recitation of the "plot" pretty much accords with what I've heard in the news...

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2012/01/20; 1/21/12, 12:41 PM
Roger J. said...: Is Gary Trudeau still alive? If so, a major waste of oxygen; 1/21/12, 12:44 PM
damikesc said...: You know --- this is going to make it hard to claim Fast & Furious isn't a big deal.

A prosecutor admitting he committed crimes is kinda rough.; 1/21/12, 12:45 PM
traditionalguy said...: Stonewalling has become an Olympic event in the Obama Gang's method of operation.

Their usual line goes, "how could you possibly think we did what we did...and if we did it, then it was because we were too dumb to understand anything...and that makes you racists for pointing out our lack of intelligence."; 1/21/12, 12:46 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I bet the Doonsebury author & Yalie, Gary Trudeau, has not changed his mind or views about anything since he was 22 years old. And that was at least 40 years ago.; 1/21/12, 12:48 PM
Patrick said...: I suspect something is afoot, but there are NO federal investigations in which a target or even a side player should ever give a statement. The odds in favor of a prosecution for obstruction are high and the consequences are devastating even if you're acquitted.; 1/21/12, 12:49 PM
Roger J. said...: Gary Trudeau is the Herblock of modern cartoonists-no skills and only an agenda that appeals to a very small audience. Where is calvin and hobbes when we need humor; 1/21/12, 12:51 PM
Tank said...: Did he tender his resignation with it?

Love the Dooner. Have for about 40 years, since I was a Lib.; 1/21/12, 12:59 PM
Bender said...: I don't know. I would think that any defendant charged with a gun trafficking offense could now submit a Brady request demanding full disclosure of what this prosecutor knew and how it all had the approval of the government.; 1/21/12, 1:02 PM
Brian Brown said...: Remember, Obama's Administration is scandal free!; 1/21/12, 1:03 PM
bgates said...: This proves we need to abolish laws prohibiting gun trafficking, the same way voter fraud convictions prove we must not pass voter ID laws: by demonstrating nobody ever really commits those crimes.; 1/21/12, 1:12 PM
Hagar said...: I still want to know why they did it.; 1/21/12, 1:16 PM
Rabel said...: This seems kind of important so I went to the NYTimes to get the real story without any conservative bias.

I got this:
"Your search - "Patrick J. Cunningham" - did not match any documents under Past 30 Days.'

I must be doing it wrong.; 1/21/12, 1:18 PM
Mid-Life Lawyer said...: It begins.; 1/21/12, 1:22 PM
Retired Prosecutor said...: I remember during the last Administration when the operative MSM narrative was that Bush DOJ was "completely politicized." Now we have important DOJ officials taking the Fifth. More hope and change, I guess.; 1/21/12, 1:23 PM
Toad Trend said...: "I remember during the last Administration when the operative MSM narrative was that Bush DOJ was "completely politicized." Now we have important DOJ officials taking the Fifth. More hope and change, I guess."

Maybe the stories about alien abductions and anal probes aren't so far-fetched.

We don't know alien humor. But we may be seeing the upshot.; 1/21/12, 1:44 PM
Revenant said...: I bet the Doonsebury author & Yalie, Gary Trudeau, has not changed his mind or views about anything since he was 22 years old.

I don't know about his views, but he definitely lost his sense of humor. Up through the early Reagan years the comic was first-rate. After his mid-80s vacation the comic jumped straight to third-rate; I dunno what happened.; 1/21/12, 1:50 PM
Kev said...: (the other kev)

Haven't read Doonesbury since Trudeau tried to spin the penguin off into his own feature.; 1/21/12, 1:59 PM
Milwaukee said...: I'm still naive and innocent. I sort of thought, ya know, that lawyers were like officers of the court and everything, and especially prosecutors, they wouldn't deliberately break the law like corrupt police officers. Wowser. The prosecutor, who is supposed to be upholding the law and like prosecuting law-breakers, is the one taking the 5th.

Twain's explanation for why truth is stranger than fiction was that fiction was limited to what was plausible, whereas the truth operated without that constraint.; 1/21/12, 2:03 PM
edutcher said...: Hmmm,

I thought you could only plead the Fifth when you'd been asked something.

As is, sounds awfully incriminating.

And, yes, somewhere Frank Costello is laughing.; 1/21/12, 2:09 PM
J.R. said...: That requires a "Holy Shit!"; 1/21/12, 2:14 PM
Nathan Alexander said...: I'm still waiting for garage mahal to come along and explain how this pales in comparison to something an associate of an acquaintance of a 2nd cousin of a low-level hourly employee who once worked with Gov. Walker's chimney sweep once claimed his co-worker did as a youth.; 1/21/12, 2:23 PM
GMay said...: "Haven't read Doonesbury since Trudeau tried to spin the penguin off into his own feature."

I thought that was Bloom County by Berke Breathed? (sp?) Opus was the Penguin and I think the spinoff was Outland? Fuzzy memory here.

Now that was a good comic. I can still remember a frame with that one little short guy pulling Opus around in a little wagon as he was campaigning for some office. Opus was holding a sign that said "Everything for Everybody!"

Funny stuff.; 1/21/12, 2:24 PM
geokstr said...: Retired Prosecutor said...
I remember during the last Administration when the operative MSM narrative was that Bush DOJ was "completely politicized."

RP, you obviously haven't been following the continuing saga on PJMedia, called "Every Single One".

Remember when Ashcroft and Gonzalez were raked over the coals in the media about a perceived rightwing bias in hiring, which was never proven? Well, PJMedia sued to get the resumes of all the new hires in the DOJ under Holder, because they stalled for over a year under the FOIA. An analysis by division shows why the they named it "Every Single One". The last count showed:

Committed leftists - 113
Moderates/no ideology - 0
Conservatives - 0

Note that these are all civil service hires, not appointees, so when (if) a Republican president takes over in 2012, there will be an entrenched and active opposition to every thing he tries to do. It will take years and millions of dollars in legal fees to dislodge them because of civil service protections.

No doubt this strategy has been followed in every bureau and department of the Executive branch: the EPA, Commerce, Energy, Education, etc, ad nauseum. As they are already doing under Obama, they will continue to enact leftist laws via regulation that they didn't manage to force through in the two years that the D's controlled every aspect of the legislative process, even if the R's control both houses of Congress and the Presidency.

And if Mitt is our new POTUS, as is his style, he'll go right along with them, too.; 1/21/12, 2:39 PM
Wince said...: And the media is camped outside Marianne Gingrich's house waiting for comment.

Seriously, I don't see how they avoid a special counsel at this point.; 1/21/12, 3:51 PM
F said...: Doonesbury? Trudeau? Can't read it any longer. Wish my local paper would drop it. He used to be funny.

As for this 5th amendment shit, I agree a Special Prosecutor is warranted. But I prefer the route of immunity.

wv: foraver. As in "foraver corrapt"; 1/21/12, 4:19 PM
Levi Starks said...: If he's smart he'll keep pleading the fifth, or he just might find himself lying next to an empty fifth, dead in an alley from a self inflicted gunshot wounds to the head; 1/21/12, 7:39 PM
Beldar said...: I believe in and support the constitutional right against self-incrimination. I understand that criminal defense lawyers may have stategic reasons to advise, even to insist, that particular clients invoke that constitutional right, even on some occasions when the client is genuinely innocent of any crime.

But I am still dismayed to learn that a prosecutor from the Obama/Holder Department of Justice has to take the Fifth because Congress is inquiring into his performance of his job.; 1/21/12, 8:21 PM
Milwaukee said...: No doubt this strategy has been followed in every bureau and department of the Executive branch: the EPA, Commerce, Energy, Education, etc, ad nauseum.

The solution to that problem is elimination of those agencies. Sunset the Civil Rights Act, and all those divisions in the Justice Department go away. Don't allow those lawyers to transfer to other departments. Will some baby go with the bath water? Maybe. We can always re-create the necessary bits. It's called radicalectomy.; 1/21/12, 9:24 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Sub penis him. I mean subpoena him. Make him say it over and over and over again. Keep asking him damaging questions and make him say the whole thing all over. Very tediously, point by point by point just as if he were answering forthrightly and the questioner was making progress with the examination. But instead there will be a record, I will not testify to anything that will incriminate myself, I will not testify to anything that will incriminate myself, I will not testify to anything that will incriminate myself, I will not testify to anything that will incriminate myself.; 1/22/12, 12:44 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: So right, Chip. A good hour-and-a-half of pleading the fifth over and over again, on videotape.

I'm as sure as I can be without documentary evidence that F & F was cooked up in the White House as a means to subvert the Second Amendment. I doubt that I'll ever see any proof. The conspiracy is so heinous that even opponents of Obama will suppress the proof to protect the prestige of the office.

In the meantime, Holder will be resigning in, say, ninety days, "to spend more time with his family." Any later will be too close to November.; 1/22/12, 2:05 AM
Jaq said...: "We are working on gun control 'under the radar.'" - Barack Obama

ammissic - A river in Maine.; 1/22/12, 7:08 AM
Milwaukee said...: I remember the afternoon, one fine summer day, when the Select Senate Committee on Watergate brought out Alexander Butterfield the Third. Do you know anything about the President's conversations being taped? Yes, I set up the tape recorders, and scheduled the Marines who maintained those machines, putting in new, blank tapes when necessary. Do you know where the microphones were? Yes. Do you know where the tape recorders were? Yes. Do you know...

Chip is right. Get that man on the stand and start asking questions. Everything he pleads the 5th on requires further investigation. Then bring in his subordinates and his superiors and ask them all of the questions. Cunningham plead the 5th on this question. Do you have any information which might explain why? What about that question. What about...? Sooner or later either these people will off themselves, or each other, or somebody will present information.

If I ask A. a question and they plead the 5th, and then I ask B why A plead the 5th, and they deny knowing anything, once we find out A did do something, and B knew, then B is up for perjury...... Wait. Clinton got disbarred for perjury, but suffered no criminal penalties. Is perjury still a crime in this country, if the perjurer is a Democrat?; 1/22/12, 8:10 AM
Rusty said...: I still want to know why they did it.

1/21/12 1:16 PM

According to emails made public it was to create a crisis that would promote stiffer gun control laws. There was no attempt whatsoever of tracking the thousands of firearms involved. Thereby breaking several federal laws by the agencies sworn to uphold those laws.; 1/22/12, 8:39 AM
GT said...: He's taking the 5th to protect main Justice (ultimately, Holder) not to protect himself. Somebody at Justice lied to Congress about F&F. The documents will likely show who made the decision. This guy is saying, in effect, I'm not going to help you prove who did it.; 1/22/12, 12:24 PM
Paul said...: Face it gang, like Nixon and the plumbers, Obama KNEW and WANTED F&F to go forward.

He promised his liberal base to push gun control and so he did.

All you are seeing is stonewalling. No more, no less.

Where is Jack Bauer when you need him. He's so good he could get Helen Keller to talk.; 1/22/12, 1:54 PM
tiger said...: 'Doonesbury' is still running?

Who knew?; 1/22/12, 5:37 PM