Weich & Holder: The lies continue

“Mr. Weich, as you are well aware, it is a crime to knowingly make false statements to Congress,” Chairman Issa writes in his letter to Weich. “As DOJ’s principal liaison to Congress, we rely on you to be straight with the facts. You have not been, and so your credibility on this issue has been seriously eroded. Whether it is the case that you were fed a lie and faithfully repeated it in a letter to Congress, or whether it is the case that you took the initiative to lie to Congress yourself, you are responsible for the contents of letters that bear your signature.”

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Defending the indefensible, Field Marshal Holder tells a "local" lie.

Recall this from earlier this week:

"Some of the overheated rhetoric might lead you to believe that this local Arizona based operation was somehow the cause of the epidemic of gun violence in Mexico. In fact, Fast and Furious was a flawed response to and not the cause of the flow of illegal guns from the United States into Mexico." -- Eric Holder, testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, 8 November 2011.

Senator John Cornyn wasn't about to let him get away with the "local" defense, i.e. blaming Phoenix:

"On August the 7th, I sent you a letter, asking you about the Texas connections, and I got a letter back last Friday from your subordinates, saying that you were unable to provide more information at this time. I'm hopeful you will be able to provide more information, because we know that the weapons from Fast and Furious have shown up at 11 different crime scenes in the United States, and this is far from, as you'd stated earlier, a local law enforcement operation in terms of its impact." -- Senator John Cornyn to Eric Holder, ibid.

Which then led to this exchange:

CORNYN: OK. Well, let me go on to something else. Do you still contend this is still a local law enforcement operation?

HOLDER: No, no; it's a federal -- oh, no, no, that -- don't misinterpret that. It's a -- it's a federal law enforcement...

(CROSSTALK)

CORNYN: Well, they're your words. You said it was it was...

HOLDER: No, no...

CORNYN: ... a local law enforcement...

HOLDER: Well, then, that's my fault.

CORNYN: ... opening testimony.

HOLDER: Well, that's my fault. It's a federal law enforcement operation that was concerned -- that was of local -- of local concern. It was not a national operation. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

CORNYN: Well, it metastasized, didn't it, to Mexico, it metastasized to Texas, and obviously Arizona. So it wasn't certainly local in effect. Well, you would agree with that?

HOLDER: Well, as I indicated in my opening statement, the impact of the mistakes made in Fast and Furious are going to be felt in Mexico, in United States, and probably for years to come.

"It was not a national operation."

We already have reporting from FOX and CBS that there were a number of gunwalking operations in a number of states. There is also the reporting by David Codrea and myself on the Tampa operation walking firearms to Honduras and more by David documenting gunwalking domestically in Indiana.

Holder however testified that the gunwalking was "local" and not "national." As a charter member of the Coalition of Willing Lilliputians commented yesterday, "Holder is placing a LOT of cards in his deck on the 'localized' aspect." If Holder can be proven a liar or even unaware of multiple locations or operations involving gunwalking, he said, that Holder is "seriously vulnerable."

Indeed he is.

"Seriously vulnerable" as in a demonstrated perjurer.

Perhaps someone will ask him when he shows up at the House hearing on 8 December.