Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California wants to know why the ATF went out of its way to supply Mexican gun cartels with firearms purchased by smugglers in the US, but he is being hamstrung in his efforts. One of the obstacles sits on his own committee (House Oversight And Government Reform), a Democrat named Elijah Cummings, who insists that revealing any information might compromise several on-going investigations. The Obama Administration, meanwhile, has flat out refused to cooperate, leading Issa to threaten contempt proceedings.
Obviously, Obama feels he has something to hide here. I think he might be looking for an excuse to clamp down on gun sales across the country, using the situation in Mexico as an excuse. Unfortunately for him, agents of his own ATF blew the whistle on their bureaucratic masters con game, so its now pretty much out in the open. They sat back and watched as the guns, purchased at US gun stores, made their way to Mexican drug cartels. When the game was discovered, their lame excuse was they were trying to monitor to see who got the guns, but unfortunately, the trail unexpectedly went cold, and the guns just disappeared. Yeah, right. Too bad they suddenly reappeared at the scene of several murders, some of which were of American citizens, but what the hell.
I already posted about this matter, and mused that it might well be grounds for impeachment proceedings. But I will be satisfied with contempt, for the time being.
Maybe Obama has ironically provided us with the way to cut this federal bureaucracy down to size. If we can't reduce the size and scope of the federal government through legislative means, maybe we can do it through the justice system-one contempt citation at a time.
H/T Ace of Spades
