Local radio host scores Fast & Furious interview with Sharyl Attkisson
By John Goodman, Philadelphia Conservative Examiner..Local early morning radio host Chris Stigall landed a huge interview with CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson this Thursday on 1210 WPHT.
The Washington bureau reporter has been at the center of a political firestorm since disclosing that White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz “literally screamed at me and cussed at me," after she pursued a CBS investigation into the Justice Department’s (DOJ) botched “Fast and Furious” operation.
Investigations into the fallout of the debacle seem to implicate one cabinet level official of misleading a congressional hearing and may encompass the Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security.
Fast and Furious itself involved DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) funneling hundreds of guns into Mexico for intelligence gathering purposes. US officials lost track of the weapons, which have since been linked to a series of deaths involving drug cartels as well as the murder of border patrol agent Brian Perry last December.
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This Thursday, Philadelphia CBS radio host Chris Stigall interviewed his colleague regarding her investigation, asking her to put the story’s significance into perspective.
“Since the very beginning, those who knew a lot more about this case than I did, including officials who work for the Obama Administration – this is nothing particularly against him or anyone else who happened to be in charge – they have said this is bigger than Iran Contra. They have said this is bigger than Watergate.” Attkisson replied.
The CBS investigative reporter also noted, “The idea that this started as one whistleblower that pretty much all the officials were painting out to be a liar – an ATF agent in Phoenix. And to see where this has moved over the months to officials admitting, okay this program was going on but it was isolated to Phoenix, Arizona. Then saying, okay people did know about it at ATF headquarters, but that’s where it stopped. To saying, ok the White House and DOJ did know about Fast & Furious but they didn’t know about the details.”
Stigall asked Attkisson whether Justice Department head Eric Holder was aware of the operation when he testified before Congress in May.
Attkisson answered that, “Fast and Furious was mentioned at least as far back in memos to the Attorney General as July, 2010. There are briefings from two different organizations, the National Drug Intelligence Center that went directly to the Attorney General as well as from Lanny Breuer, the head of his criminal division in DOJ that mentioned Fast and Furious.”
She then elaborated, “And not just in passing, not just one sentence – these are paragraphs that discuss – they don’t say anything about gun walking. They don’t say we’re letting guns walk into Mexico. But they say things like we have a program going on that’s getting ready for prosecution this is called Fast and Furious. And it’s resulting in over 1,000 guns that are…being found in Mexico with the drug cartels. It mentions specific cartels in some cases. I mean, it’s there. And we don’t have all the briefings. We don’t know what verbal briefings took place. And we don’t have all the documents yet. These are partial documents that have been turned over by the Department of Justice to congress.”
The Philadelphia radio host then queried, “Do you believe Sharyl that this goes beyond the Department of Justice because of the international nature and the homeland security nature? I have read people surmising that this has to involve almost by definition it must involve the Secretary of State’s office and the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Congress is trying to find that out, they’ve been asking for documents from the State Department and other departments and haven’t always gotten – well, they haven’t gotten a lot of what they asked for, so they don’t know yet.” Attkisson replied.
Chris Stigall’s interview with Sharyl Attkisson not only illustrated Eric Holder’s prior knowledge of Fast and Furious; it revealed the unfolding story’s scope to be far greater than what first appeared an embarrassment for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
That questions about ‘who knew what when’ span multiple federal departments indicate this may be only the tip of a sizable political iceberg.
A free podcast of Chris Stegal's full interview with CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is available here
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