The Fast and Furious scandal that has rocked the Obama Administration, also called Gunwalker, continues to heat up as more information comes out and more subpoenas are issued as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee continues their investigation which has spanned eight months now.The subpoena seeks, among other things, all communications regarding the operation from 16 top Justice officials, including Holder, his chief of staff, Gary Grindler, and the head of the department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, as well as correspondence on specific dates to and from the former head of the ATF's Phoenix field division, William Newell.
It also asks for all documents and communications referring or relating to the murder of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, including any correspondence outlining the details of Zapata's mission at the time he was murdered.
Zapata was killed in a drug cartel ambush on a northern Mexican highway with a gun that was purchased in a town outside Forth Worth, Texas. Three Dallas-area men -- one accused of buying the gun, his brother and their neighbor -- are facing federal weapons charges, although none related to Zapata's death.
Congressional investigators are also demanding information regarding the investigation into the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Two guns found at Terry's crime scene were linked to the failed operation that allowed more than 2,000 weapons to "walk."
The subpoena asks for correspondence that Justice Department officials had with the White House about the gun trafficking operation, as well as what information was shared by Justice officials in Mexico.
While the majority of major media news outlets have downplayed or simply ignored the Obama administration's (via Eric Holder) knowledge and/or role in the Fast and Furious scandal, CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson has been all over this case, despite being "screamed at" and "cussed at" by Justice Department and White House officials for doing so.
The history of Attkisson's Fast and Furious coverage can be found at CBS News.
Her reporting has been relentless.
Other media outlets have been slow to followup, report accurately or in some cases simply ignoring it outright.
Via Examiner yesterday:
Perhaps the biggest story in the political world since the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton in the 1990s, although the Senate refused to remove him from office, is the fact that this week a subpoena from the House was issued to the entire top tier of the Obama Administration. Yet as of today the big media outlets--ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post--have ignored the story entirely. And if they did mention it in passing, it was buried on a back page or relegated to an inconspicuous web page while never seeing the light of day on the air.....
They too give Attkisson her due credit:
The only exception to this stinging indictment against the mainstream media has been reporter Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News. Attkisson's has been a lone voice, an oasis of investigative integrity in a desert of journalistic malpractice within the hallowed halls of what was once the epitome of tenacious gum-shoe reporting, the foundation of which was laid by Edward R. Murrow, Marvin and Bernard Kalb, Douglas Edwards, and Walter Cronkite.
Other media outlets do eventually report the basics after it is already out there, so to speak, but none have been giving this major story the ink that would be dedicated to it had it been any administration other than Obama's so embroiled in failure and scandal of such epic proportions.
The main stream media, who has the responsibility and obligation to keep the public informed has gone out of it's way to keep the general public as uninformed as it possibly can.
Sharyl Attkisson is an award winning reporter and deserves kudos for her coverage of Fast and Furious.
[Update link] 22 facts you should know about Fast and Furious.
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