Op-Ed: Come Clean and Cut Funding

by Mike Brownfield

What did the President know and when did he know it, goes the old Washington adage. Thus did the American people learn [recently] in separate but equally startling revelations that the Obama Administration knew more about two scandals than it has been revealing. The first is regarding the Operation Fast and Furious gun running disaster and the second is the now-bankrupt, Obama-backed Solyndra solar power company. Both instances provoke serious questions for the White House and demand long-overdue action.

...In the case of Fast and Furious, Department of Justice (DOJ) memos obtained by CBS News show that Attorney General Eric Holder was aware of a controversial cross-border law enforcement operation in July 2010 -- nearly a year earlier than he had previously acknowledged under oath in testimony to Congress. The program, which was overseen by the DOJ, launched an effort to sell weapons to small-time gun buyers in the hopes of tracing them to major weapons traffickers along the southwestern border and into Mexico. Of the 2,000 weapons sold, roughly 1,500 remain unaccounted for, and the weapons have been connected to at least 11 violent crimes in the United States, including the killing of a border patrol agent.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2011, Holder said that he had "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks." CBS News notes that the pair of memos "directly contradicts [Holder's] statement to Congress." Heritage's Lachlan Markay reports:

On July 9, 2010, Michael Walther, director of DOJ's National Drug Intelligence Center, briefed Holder on Fast and Furious, which he mentioned by name, according to one of the memos. The operation "involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring," Walther wrote, and an unidentified number of "straw purchasers," who "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican trafficking cartels."

Four months later Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who heads DOJ's criminal division, informed Holder of eight arrests relating to Fast and Furious, which he also referred to by name.

"The Justice Department told CBS News that the officials in those emails were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General," the network reported. "And CBS News reported that Holder misunderstood that question from the committee -- he did know about Fast and Furious -- just not the details." Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky says, "This raises serious questions about Holder's credibility and whether or not he provided accurate information to Congress."

...Both Operation Fast and Furious and the Solyndra investment raise serious questions about the Obama Administration. In the case of Fast and Furious, it is now clear that Attorney General Holder and the DOJ have not been forthright with the American people. It’s time they give the country a full accounting of the operation, its knowledge of it, and why they have not been forthcoming.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at Heritage.org.