Timothy Johnson: What The Right Wing Media Won’t Tell You About The Subpoenaed Fast And Furious Documents
During the May 16 edition of America’s Newsroom , Fox News “straight news” anchor Martha MacCallum and Fox News contributor and The Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson echoed complaints from the Republican chaired House Oversight Committee about the documents the Justice Department has released responding to their subpoena of files related to the failed Fast and Furious operation: TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well there were 22 questions in the last subpoena. 13 of them remain unanswered. The Justice Department hasn’t forwarded documents that the House Oversight Committee has requested. And by the way some of those questions, that’s the majority of questions, remain unanswered, some of them pertain directly to Attorney General Eric Holder. The Justice Department’s position appears to be we can investigate this internally and so we don’t need to comply with Congress. I think this is a collision course. Remember this subpoena was issued in October. It’s been more than six months now and they have refused to comply. And they have not invoked executive privilege by the way. So it’s not even clear on what grounds they are refusing to comply. I don’t think there is any question, at least at this point, that there is going to be a contempt citation. MARTHA MACCALLUM, HOST: Well we’ll see. And it feels like stalling and feet dragging to a great extent on the part of the Department of Justice. CARLSON: Right. MACCALLUM: Because they are saying they can’t fire anybody, they are doing their own investigation. That is going to take quite some time, most likely until after the election is over and that until they finish that investigation–snicker snicker–and until that investigation is over they feel it wouldn’t be right to come out and talk about who they think knew more than they say they knew or exactly when Eric Holder became aware of this program that saw a law enforcement agent killed. Carlson’s comments echo the reporting of his employee, Daily Caller reporter Matthew Boyle, who has written numerous articles about Fast and Furious over the past few months. His pieces almost invariably include the line , “Holder has failed to comply with Issa’s Oct. 12, 2011, subpoena,” or some variation thereof and often include the claim that DOJ has been nonresponsive to 13 of the subpoena’s 22 questions. These reports minimize the fact that DOJ has released extensive and detailed information about what documents the agency has released to Issa. According to DOJ, responsive documents to 16 of the 22 questions contained in Issa’s subpoena have been turned over to the House Oversight Committee or been made available for viewing by Oversight Committee staff. DOJ has stated that no responsive information exists to one of the questions. Additionally, DOJ has stated it does possess documents responsive to the five remaining questions in the subpoena and additional documents responsive to the other categories, but that it is unable to release this material because it is either relevant to ongoing criminal investigations or prosecutions or is deliberative and therefore protected by executive privilege. But Fox News and The Daily Caller would rather regurgitate Republican talking points than admit that there are two sides to this story.
Originally posted here:
Timothy Johnson: What The Right Wing Media Won’t Tell You About The Subpoenaed Fast And Furious Documents