Grassley's Renewed interest in ATF Memo

A February 3, 2011 memo penned by ATF Special Agent Gary Styers out of the Lubbock, TX Field Office is getting renewed interest from Senator Charles Grassley. The memo, initially made available on Grassley's website in December of 2011, details Styers' conversation with two members of Grassley's staff on February 2, 2011.

The now infamous date of February 4, 2011 is when then DOJ Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich signed a letter addressed to Grassley; that letter denied any gun-walking within ATF took place. The letter was withdrawn - coincidentally or not - around the time that the Styers memo was made public, in December of that year.

There are now apparently two primary reasons why Grassley is bringing up this memo again, which he has sent to Attorney General Eric Holder along with a letter demanding answers to certain questions.

Though Styers was working out of the Lubbock office of the Dallas Field Division at the time he was interviewed by Grassley's staff, he had previously worked out of the Phoenix Group VII Office on Fast and Furious. Some now familiar names were brought up by Styers, who wrote the memo while referring to himself in the third person. Here is an interesting excerpt:

Special Agent Styers was asked if he was familiar with the large firearms trafficking case in Phoenix Group VII and Special AGent Styers said he was. Downey and Donovan (Grassley staffers) asked if Special Agent Styers knew the name of the case and he responded that it was "Fast and Furious". Downey and Donovan then asked if Special Agent Styers knew who the case agent was and Special Agent Styers said it was Special Agent Hope McAllister. Special Agent Styers was also asked who the supervisor of the group was and Special Agent Styers said it was Group Supervisor David Voth. Downey and Donovan also asked who helped Special Agent McAllister, Special Agent Styers said that Special Agent McAllister had a Co-Case Agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as an agent from Group VII. Downey and Donovan asked who was the Agent from ICE and Special Agent Styers told them it was Lane France.

NOTE: At the end of this post, I'll address the name Lane France but since Grassley's letter deals with another aspect of the memo, I'll deal with that first.

Since the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee seek documents that explain how the false February 4, 2011 was created and since Holder has gone to the mat not to release any of them, Grassley appears to be using what documents he DOES have to get some of those answers. This memo is one of them. Grassley makes the charge that this Styers memo traveled pretty quickly up the chain of command within ATF and seems to have reason to believe it went to the DOJ as well.

From Grassley's July 3, 2012 letter to Holder:

According to ATF personnel, the memorandum was discussed by high level ATF personnel and possibly forwarded to DOJ headquarters on February 3, 2011. Specifically, it has been alleged that individuals within the Deputy Attorney Generals (DAG's) office and the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) at the Department were aware of or actually read the memorandum before the Department's February 4, 2011, letter was sent. Some individuals who spoke with my office claim they were "alarmed" by the substance of the memorandum and it caused such a stir that ATF planned to put a panel together to address the allegations but someone within DOJ suppressed the idea.

Moreover, in his memo, Styers relayed a surveillance operation led by McAllister that involved some sort of weapons transaction:

While positioning to observe suspects, Special Agent Styers and other detailed agents were told by Special Agent McAllister that agents were too close and would burn the operation. Special Agent McAllister told all the agents to leave the immediate area. While the agents were repositioning, the transaction between the suspects took place and the vehicle that took possession of the firearms eventually left the area without agents following it.

Based on what we already know about McAllister being personally implicated in allowing criminals to walk who were known to walk guns, we're left to conclude that Styers' account may have been one such instance. If that is the case and if Grassley can determine that this memo went to the highest levels of DOJ and was considered during the crafting of that February 4th letter, we'll be a whole lot closer to proving Holder lied again when he said the letter was not intentionally misleading.

On to Lane France... In the Styers memo, Lane France is identified as the Co-Case Agent from ICE, which rolls up under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). An Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) involves an operation that includes multiple agencies. Administration officials have done their best to play this down by insisting that Fast and Furious originated at the field level in Phoenix. OCDETF all but torpedoes that argument.

Here is an exchange from February 15, 2011 between Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), who also sits on the Oversight Committee and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is thoroughly grilled here by Meehan, who asks her if she knows who Lane France is. She says, "no" and twists herself into knots attempting to play semantic word games about OCDETF not really being OCDETF and that Fast and Furious was all ATF.



I covered this particular angle during my June 17th program.

Video: Romney's Eric 'Etch-a-Sketch' Fehrnstrom sides with Obama

Here is Exhibit A for why the liberal media wanted Mitt Romney to be the Republican nominee. They knew the day would come when camp Romney would be incoherent when it came to drawing a contrast between Obamacare and Romneycare. Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom of etch-a-sketch fame appeared on MSNBC and told Chuck Todd that the Individual Mandate is a penalty and not a tax. In essence, the mouthpiece for Mitt Romney agrees with Obama.

The main reason Romney is now in a box is because he referred to the individual mandate in Romneycare as a penalty. The result here is that camp Romney now agrees with camp Obama.

The only thing missing from this clip is some accompanying circus music.

Via GWP: 

Was Justice John Roberts 'Stupak-ed'?

Can we enter a new word into the Dictionary? "Stupak" is not just the last name of a former Democratic Congressman from Michigan; it should also be a verb that means to intimidate someone until they bend to your will.

To be "Stupak-ed" is to be intimidated to such a degree that you will do whatever the bully wants and then lie to yourself and to others about it being the right thing do do, despite all evidence to the contrary. Few people have the cowardly lion experience of having to admit what they are; far too few. A lot of people have been stupak-ed along the yellow-brick road to Obamacare OZ. Was Supreme Court Justice John Roberts the latest one?

In late 2009, the 'Cornhusker kickback' secured the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska for Obamacare. The 'Louisiana Purchase' did the same with Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Despite these deals being nothing short of bald-faced bribery, both Senators stood by them. Nelson became a pariah in his state and announced he would not seek reelection but still expresses no regret for what would be illegal in a sane world. Landrieu isn't up for reelection until 2014 but voters are not likely to forget her betrayal either. Like Nelson, Landrieu has no regrets, despite indications that her "purchase" may have resulted in her - and the country - being sold down the river.

The Democrats thought they had the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster on Obamacare.

That was before the unexpected victory of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts in early 2010 after Ted Kennedy died the previous August. Brown pledged to be the 41st vote for Republicans and not the 60th vote for the Democrats. It was supposed to block the passage of Obamacare because Brown took away the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. Democrats didn't care about that. They went around the rules and sought passage through reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes in the Senate.

Initially, Pelosi didn't have the votes she needed in the House to pass the bill. Enter Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). He led a group of a dozen 'pro-life' Democrats who were preventing the bill's passage because there were strong indicators that the bill would fund abortions. His group was targeted by the liberal media, Pelosi, and other Obama apparatchiks. Unrelenting pressure was applied. Caving would equal cowardice.

Ultimately, Stupak cracked and signed onto the legislation but he needed an out.  His 'out' came in the form of a ludicrous Executive Order signed by Obama that said no part of Obamacare would fund abortions. It was meant to save face for Stupak but the premise was so absurd, his cowardice was obvious. He may as well have been holding a deed to oceanfront property in Arizona. It was proof positive that looking foolish was preferable to looking cowardly. A mere four months after passage of Obamacare, abortion-funding was obvious. That's to say nothing of the HHS mandate that came down the pike two years later that required Catholic insurance providers to pay for contraception and abortifacients.

Though Stupak had no chance of being reelected, he still stands by his decision, supports the law, and expresses no remorse for his betrayal. Perhaps he simply can't face the truth of what he did because of the gravity of it (see Judas Iscariot). The human mind can block that which is too painful to bear. Either way, Stupak is in denial. The facts dictate it.

Two years after Stupak washed his hands in the blood of future Americans, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts seemed to follow a similar path. Credible reports continue to mount that Roberts initially sided with the four Justices who were prepared to throw out the Individual Mandate at the heart of Obamacare, which essentially, would have thrown out Obamacare itself, particularly because there was no severability clause in the law (likely a consequence of using reconciliation to pass it).

Roberts' decision was about as absurd as Stupak's reliance on an Executive Order to trump a law supported by the man who signed the EO. Roberts ruled that while the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional, it IS constitutional as a tax. There is a small problem with that ruling. It's not what the law says. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court wrote law from the bench, which is a violation of his oath; it was a betrayal.

CBS Political analyst Jan Crawford claimed two sources told her that Roberts changed his vote. As was the case with Stupak, there were indicators that Roberts succumbed to pressure and threats in both the media and from politicians.

In the case of Stupak, the absurdity of the deal he took necessarily means he caved to pressure and had to lie to himself to believe otherwise.

In the case of Roberts, the absurdity of the ruling he rendered necessarily means he must lie to himself to believe otherwise as well.

One question that remains is...

Was Roberts 'Stupak-ed'?