Ruh Roh: Darrell Issa Calling for Special Prosecutor in Fast and Furious

Sorry, two Fast and Furious posts in a row but this is very big news. As I mentioned in the previous post, this scandal appears to be reaching critical mass. The audio recordings released by CBS appear to be coming out via drip, drip, drip. Each new release is more damning than the previous. If they get even worse, those who were on them know it and may commence CYA mode very soon. Now, Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, who both Howard and McAllister expressed strong concern over in those recordings, is calling for a Special Prosecutor.

Via Washington Examiner:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Tuesday called for a special prosecutor to investigate the growing “Fast and Furious” scandal, in which the Obama administration allowed guns to walk to Mexico, where they fell into the hands of drug lords and were found at the murder scene of at least one U.S. border agent.

Issa complained in a conference call that, “there is ongoing cover up of a pattern of wrongdoing that can’t be explained by any ordinary people (who tried) to do the right thing but made a mistake.”

The Obama administration has been slow to hand over documents to Issa’s committee, and when they have, they’ve been heavily redacted.

“Even though I have subpoena ability, I don’t have the ability to lock people up for contempt until they fess up and give us what we want,” Issa said.

A special prosecutor would have such powers, and would be independent of the government agencies that were responsible for creating and attempting to cover up details of the program.

“We were happy to see the U.S Attorney’s office in Phoenix relieved of these prosecutions so we could have somebody not tarnished in creating the problem also in charge of prosecuting,” Issa said, referring to last month’s news that U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke was pushed out. “But yes, we’d like to have a true special prosecutor on this.”

There you have it. Issa is laying the groundwork for arrests and jail time. By calling for a special prosecutor, Issa is putting some very powerful people on notice. The steady release of audio recordings of conversations between Andre Howard and lead ATF case agent Hope McAllister coupled with the prospect of people doing serious jail time could force someone very close to Holder and Obama to start chirping.

h/t Weasel Zippers