{"id":2213,"date":"2012-02-02T16:59:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T21:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2012-02-02T16:59:24","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T21:59:24","slug":"jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html","title":{"rendered":"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Let me set the scene. The U.S. implements a gun-running program. Mexican drug cartels get thousands of weapons. A federal agent is murdered. No one is fired. Charges of a cover-up ensue. Documents continue to be withheld. And, now more than a year later, there are more questions than answers.<\/p>\n

This is a situation where the Attorney General of the United States continues to change his story about what happened concerning Operation Fast & Furious, the botched gun-running program that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.<\/p>\n

In prior testimony, Attorney General Holder said he was not aware of this flawed program and the death of the agent until months after they occurred. That testimony was then retracted. And, in documents released just days ago<\/a> – in advance of today’s hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – evidence that the Attorney General actually found out about the death of the border patrol agent, the very day it happened – not months later as he previously testified.<\/p>\n

Rep. Darrell Issa<\/a>, Committee Chairman, has told the Attorney General the he believes the Justice Department has “misrepresented facts and misled Congress” and said that Holder’s “actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up” because the DOJ refuses to comply with previous subpoenas. Rep. Issa accused the Justice Department of trying to “obstruct our investigation and deceive the public” by withholding documents. He’s given the DOJ until February 9th to provide additional documents or face possible contempt of Congress charges.<\/p>\n

As I told Megyn Kelly today on FOX News<\/a>, the more we learn, the worse it gets. At today’s hearing, tough questions, but really no new answers. The Attorney General maintains<\/a> that there’s been no cover-up, and told lawmakers he will release additional documents “to the extent that I can.”<\/p>\n

That answer was not satisfactory:<\/p>\n

“The conclusion that I come to is there are some things in there that’s being hidden that you don’t want us to see,” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind<\/a>. “We have every right under the Constitution to check on what you’re doing. . . . So for you to deny this committee anything like that is just dead wrong and I don’t think you’re going to find any way that you can do it.”
\n\u00a0
\nRep. Burton also noted that 93,000 documents related to the operation are being withheld by the Justice Department even though they’ve been turned over internally to the DOJ’s inspector general, a political appointee. “And you’re saying, well, the separation of powers prohibits you from (delivering them to Congress). That’s baloney. That is just baloney,” Rep. Burton told the Attorney General.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Even more important, the Attorney General today said no one has yet to be fired for this travesty.<\/p>\n

“No I have not as yet — as yet,” Holder said<\/a>. “There have been personnel changes made at ATF. We obviously have a new U.S. attorney in Arizona. We have made personnel switches at ATF. People have been moved out of positions.”<\/p>\n

Personnel changes? Moving people around? Ridiculous. The Attorney General says he will eventually fire those responsible<\/a>\u00a0once the investigation is complete. It’s been 13 months and counting. How long can this continue? This from an Attorney General who said again today that he’s not sure who authorized the fatally-flawed program and not even sure when he found out about it.<\/p>\n

Here’s the good news. The American people are engaged. We’ve heard from nearly 70,000\u00a0concerned citizens<\/a>\u00a0who are demanding that the Attorney General tell the truth. Take responsibility.<\/p>\n

This issue isn’t going away. There’s more to come, to be sure. And, we will continue to put pressure on the White House and the Department of Justice to demand the truth – the facts – and demand that those responsible by punished.<\/p>\n

Rep. Burton may have said it best<\/a> when he was questioning the Attorney General today: “I think you’re hiding behind something here . . . .It appears we’re being stonewalled.”<\/p>\n

Jay Sekulow<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me set the scene. The U.S. implements a gun-running program. Mexican drug cartels get thousands of weapons. A federal agent is murdered. No one is fired. Charges of a cover-up ensue. Documents continue to be withheld. And, now more than a year later, there are more questions than answers. This is a situation where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[467,475,302],"tags":[494,553,474,445,567,533,469],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attorney-general-eric-holder","category-operation-fast-and-furious","category-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-attorney-general-holder","tag-congressional-hearing","tag-gun-running","tag-justice-department","tag-rep-barton","tag-rep-issa","tag-u-s-border-patrol"],"yoast_head":"\nJay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder? - Faith & Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder? - Faith & Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let me set the scene. The U.S. implements a gun-running program. Mexican drug cartels get thousands of weapons. A federal agent is murdered. No one is fired. Charges of a cover-up ensue. Documents continue to be withheld. And, now more than a year later, there are more questions than answers. This is a situation where…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith & Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-02T21:59:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/11\/1087301531-300x199.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jay Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder? - Faith & Justice","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder? - Faith & Justice","og_description":"Let me set the scene. The U.S. implements a gun-running program. Mexican drug cartels get thousands of weapons. A federal agent is murdered. No one is fired. Charges of a cover-up ensue. Documents continue to be withheld. And, now more than a year later, there are more questions than answers. This is a situation where…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html","og_site_name":"Faith & Justice","article_published_time":"2012-02-02T21:59:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/11\/1087301531-300x199.jpg"}],"author":"Jay Sekulow","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html","name":"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder? - Faith & Justice","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/11\/1087301531-300x199.jpg","datePublished":"2012-02-02T21:59:24+00:00","dateModified":"2012-02-02T21:59:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#\/schema\/person\/fd4c384af0620d4b82ae09cf1d77bdb4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/11\/1087301531-300x199.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithandjustice\/files\/2011\/11\/1087301531-300x199.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/2012\/02\/jay-sekulow-will-fast-furious-bring-down-ag-holder.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jay Sekulow: Will Fast & Furious Bring Down AG Holder?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/","name":"Faith & Justice","description":"Jay Sekulow - ACLJ","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/#\/schema\/person\/fd4c384af0620d4b82ae09cf1d77bdb4","name":"Jay Sekulow","description":"Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a law firm and educational organization that focuses on constitutional law. He is also Chief Counsel of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ). Jay Sekulow is one of the leading defenders of constitutional rights and religious liberties in the United States. Over the past 25 years, Jay Sekulow has amassed an unparalleled record of accomplishment, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court on 12 occasions. His aggressive litigation strategy before the Supreme Court has led to many landmark First Amendment victories. In his first case before the Supreme Court, Jews for Jesus, Jay Sekulow secured the right of religious groups to pass out tracks in airports. In Mergens, Jay Sekulow successfully protected the right of students to form Bible clubs and prayer groups on public school campuses. In Lamb\u2019s Chapel, Jay Sekulow cleared the way for churches to have equal access to public facilities in the same way that other groups are permitted to utilize those facilities. In the Bray and Operation Rescue cases, Jay Sekulow protected the free speech rights of pro-life advocates to be free from criminal prosecution for conveying their pro-life message. In McConnell v. FEC, Jay Sekulow protected the right of young people to engage in the political process by donating to the campaign of their choice. In Pleasant Grove, Jay Sekulow paved the way for governments to be able to display Ten Commandments monuments, and other monuments of their choosing, in public parks. Through the ACLJ, Jay Sekulow engages the political, legal, and cultural battles facing America today. He routinely works with Members of Congress, advising them on proposed legislation and representing them in critical legal matters. Jay Sekulow has also testified before Congress on the constitutionality of proposed legislation. Also, in addition to being a successful Supreme Court advocate, Jay Sekulow is a highly respected broadcaster. Jay Sekulow is the host of Jay Sekulow Live! which airs each weekday on over 850 radio stations nationwide, in addition Sirius and XM satellite radio. He brings insight and education to listeners daily through this national call-in radio program. He is also the host of the ACLJ This Week, the ACLJ\u2019s weekly television program. Jay Sekulow regularly appears on major media outlets, including FOX News, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC, where he is sought out for his vast experience in constitutional law and his unique insight into many of the pressing legal and political issues facing America today. He is frequently quoted in the nation's leading newspapers and often contributes opinion editorials to national publications. Jay Sekulow has also published numerous law review and other scholarly articles. Jay Sekulow has received numerous honors for his groundbreaking legal work in the area of free speech and religious liberties. The Legal Times has named Sekulow one of \u201cThe 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years\u201d and the National Law Journal has twice named Sekulow one of the \u201c100 Most Influential Lawyers\u201d in the United States. In addition, TIME Magazine listed Jay Sekulow as one of the \"25 Most Influential Evangelicals\" in America. Jay Sekulow\u2019s legal work in defense of religious liberties and human rights extends beyond the United States, having founded the ECLJ in Strasbourg, France, which maintains consultative status with the United Nations. He has also opened offices in Pakistan, Africa, and Jerusalem, Israel. Jay Sekulow is a staunch defender of Israel, presenting arguments before the International Criminal Court at the Hague. His efforts in support of Israel\u2019s right to defend itself from terrorist attacks have been commended by Israeli government officials, one official stating, \"Jay was instrumentally-involved in projects that the President of Israel and the Prime Minister put on our national agenda.\" Jay Sekulow also has a passion for educating the next generation of religious liberty advocates. He is a member of the Regent University Law School Faculty as a Distinguished Professor of Law and routinely teaches courses on constitutional law and presents guest lectures. Jay Sekulow has also started educational programs in international human rights law in Strasbourg, France and at Handong University in South Korea. Jay Sekulow is a graduate of Mercer University, earning both a bachelor\u2019s degree and doctor of jurisprudence. Sekulow served on the editorial staff of the Mercer Law Review and graduated cum laude. He later earned a Ph.D. from Regent University, writing his dissertation on American Legal History. Jay Sekulow also serves on the Board of Trustees for The Supreme Court Historical Society in Washington, D.C. Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsels full biography and video. Jay Sekulow on Facebook. Jay Sekulow on Twitter. Jay Sekulow on YouTube.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/author\/jay_sekulow"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2217,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/2217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithandjustice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}