Federal Court Releases Hold on Fast & Furious Docs Case

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An interim victory for the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, which is suing the Obama administration over withheld Fast and Furious documents: a federal judge has lifted a 16-month delay in the Freedom of Information lawsuit.

That means the Department of Justice must turn over an index describing all of the material it’s been holding back since September of 2012. Judicial Watch had requested all of the documents that President Obama ordered withheld from Congress under executive privilege.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge John Bate orders the Justice Department to provide the so-called “Vaughn index” listing of documents by October first. The Justice Department has long claimed that allowing the Judicial Watch lawsuit to move forward would interfere with its ongoing lawsuit in which the House Oversight Committee is suing for the same documents.

The court originally agreed to put a hold on the Judicial Watch case in February of 2013 but stated, at the time, that it would:

not award an indefinite stay pending ultimate resolution of the House Committee litigation,’ and that ‘the benefits of delaying this case might well [become] too attenuated to justify any further delay”

In addition to Judicial Watch, I have longstanding Freedom of Information requests pending with the federal government in the Fast and Furious case.

Here’s the comprehensive list of my Fast and Furious stories “Congress is of zero help in this case…instead, the silence is deafening,” says Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch.

According to Judicial Watch:

On October 11, 2011, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ and the ATF to obtain all Fast and Furious records submitted to the House Committee on Oversight.

On June 6, 2012, Judicial Watch sued the ATF seeking access to records detailing communications between ATF officials and Kevin O’Reilly, former Obama White House Director of North American Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council.

On September 5, 2013, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ seeking access to all records of communications between DOJ and the Oversight Committee relating to settlement discussions in the Committee’s 2012 contempt of Congress lawsuit against Holder. The contempt citation stemmed from Holder’s refusal to turn over documents to Congress related to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

On May 28, 2014, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ on behalf of ATF Special Agent John Dodson, who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious and was then subjected to an alleged smear campaign designed to destroy his reputation.

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Brian Terry Murder Suspect Extradited From Mexico

Just a coincidence that on the day it’s announced that a federal court has ordered the Justice Department to initiate the process of turning over withheld Fast and Furious documents, the Justice Department announces another defendant in Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder has been extradited to face charges.

According to a Justice Department news release, Ivan Soto-Barraza was extradited to the U.S. from Mexico today to face first degree murder charges in Terry’s December 14, 2010 shooting near Nogales, Arizona just north of the Mexico border.

Of six defendants charged so far, two have pleaded guilty and two are awaiting trial, says the news release.

Soto-Barraza will be arraigned in federal court in Tucson, Arizona tomorrow. Besides Terry’s murder, the defendants are charged with assaulting Border Patrol Agents William Castano, Gabriel Fragoza and Timothy Keller, who were on site with Terry when the gunfight broke out. The Border Patrol agents were targeting so-called RIP crews, illegal immigrants who prey on other illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S.

Lionel Portillo-Meza was captured in Mexico in September of 2012 and extradited to the U.S. on June 17 of this year. Soto-Barraza was captured in Mexico in September 2012. Two fugitives are still on the loose: Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga and Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes. A fifth defendant, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, pleaded guilty last February and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A sixth defendant, who was in custody at the time of Terry’s murder, plead guilty to other crimes related to illegal border activity.

Fast and Furious was the name of a controversial case in which federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons to be trafficked to violent drug cartels in Mexico. The Department of Justice initially denied any so-called “gunwalking” had occurred. However, the coverup unraveled after ATF Special Agent John Dodson spoke out against the strategy in an interview with me in February of 2011.

Documents subsequently revealed that officials as high up as Attorney General Eric Holder had been sent briefings on the case, and Justice Department officials communicated with White House officials about it. However, Holder and the White House say they were unaware that the cross-border gun operation was employing the controversial gunwalking strategy.

An Inspector General report in 2012 faulted numerous officials under the Justice Department for mismanagement and other transgressions in the case.

In June of 2012, Congress held Holder in contempt for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents. President Obama declared executive privilege to withhold documents in the case from Congress. Freedom of Information requests filed by outside groups and journalists, including me, have not been answered.