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Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security
The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is in fact complicated and it did not begin with by any measure by the Bush dynasty. As explained on this site recently, conflicts and relationships between the United States, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long convoluted history. Lawsuits for financial reparations regarding terror attacks and or accidents go back a long way.
The United States has been helping equip and train Saudi armed forces since U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdulaziz Al Saud struck an oil-for-security alliance in 1945. (More from Reuters)
If anyone has read former U.S. Senator Graham’s (FL) book, Intelligence Matters published several years ago, the contents of the much debated 28 pages is not new. The deeper details of the Saudis in the country at the time before, during and after 9/11 may or may not have damning evidence of full participation in the attack, yet there are connections with regard to Saudi diplomats providing some assistance to 2 of the hijackers. There are some real questions for sure including if it was known at the time that the 2 hijackers were known to the Saudi embassy personnel to be in fact part of the plot or were they telling another story for the sake of financial aid. You must decide for yourself with what is known in open published source.
At question too is the FBI’s involvement from the beginning and later the effort to classify the 28 pages and why in coordination with the Bush Administration. For sure there is much more required to be included to form a summary with regard to the 28 pages, for that we may need to wait a lifetime as it appears Barack Obama is planning to keep these documents classified if Congress passes the legislation to declassify them.
One of the hijackers is in fact a detainee at Guantanamo Bay and may be designated as a ‘never release’.
Al-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.
He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.
While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not. More here.
Read the summary below for further details as known and permitted to be in open source. with regard to ‘document 17’.
As President Obama prepares to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, his administration is under increasing pressure to declassify 28 pages that, according to many who’ve read them, illustrate financial links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers.
Meanwhile, a far lesser-known document from the files of the 9/11 Commission—written by the same principal authors as the 28 pages and declassified last summer without publicity and without media analysis—indicates investigators proposed exploring to what extent “political, economic and other considerations” affected U.S. government investigations of links between Saudi Arabia and 9/11.
Drafted by Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson as a set of work plans for their specific parts of the 9/11 Commission investigation, the 47-page document also provides an overview of individuals of most interest to investigators pursuing a Saudi connection to the 2001 attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Included in that overview is a previously unpublicized declaration that, after the capture of alleged al-Qaeda operative Ghassan al-Sharbi in Pakistan, the FBI discovered a cache of documents he had buried nearby. Among them: al-Sharbi’s U.S. pilot certificate inside an envelope of the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.
Declassified in July 2015 under the authority of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) pursuant to a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) appeal, the document is the seventeenth of 29 released under ISCAP appeal 2012-48, which focuses on FBI files related to 9/11. One of two documents in the series identified as “Saudi Notes,” we’ll refer to it as “Document 17.”
Dated June 6, 2003, Document 17 was written by Lesemann and Jacobson in their capacity as staff investigators for the 9/11 Commission, and was addressed to 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, Deputy Executive Director Chris Kojm and General Counsel Dan Marcus.
Commission Investigators Posed Two Questions That Linger Today
Lesemann and Jacobson had previously worked together on the 2002 joint congressional 9/11 intelligence inquiry and authored the classified, 28-page chapter on foreign government financing of the attacks. Document 17 outlines how the two investigators proposed to extend their earlier research. The plans include many questions Lesemann and Jacobson felt the investigation should answer.
Two of those questions seem strikingly relevant today, as a declassification review of just 28 pages said to implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks has inexplicably taken three times as long as the entire joint inquiry that produced them, and while a growing number of current and former officials who are familiar with the pages emphatically assert there’s no national security risk in their release.
Lesemann and Jacobson, already veterans of investigating 9/11 with the congressional inquiry, asked:
They are two questions Lesemann wouldn’t be permitted to answer: Zelikow fired her first. Her termination had an apparent Saudi aspect of its own: Impatient with Zelikow’s neglect of her repeated requests for access to the 28 pages, she circumvented him to gain access on her own. When Zelikow discovered it, he promptly dismissed her.
Philip Zelikow
Organizationally set apart from dozens of other questions as among the more important, overarching lines of inquiry for their particular avenue of the commission’s work, the significance of the questions’ presence in Document 17 is amplified by the absence of corresponding answers in the commission’s final report.
At some point—perhaps after Lesemann’s determined interest in Saudi links to 9/11 led to her dismissal—someone apparently determined a public study of those questions was beyond the scope of work.
Zelikow’s appointment over the commission was controversial, given his previous friendship with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the fact he’d served on the Bush administration’s transition team. That history and, once appointed, his ongoing contacts with Bush political advisor Karl Rove, led some to question whether he was willing or able to achieve the high level of impartiality so essential to his role.
The Bush administration’s lack of cooperation with Saudi-related 9/11 inquiries is well-documented. According to Philip Shenon’s book, The Commission:
(Commission member and former Secretary of the Navy John) Lehman was struck by the determination of the Bush White House to try to hide any evidence of the relationship between the Saudis and al Qaeda. “They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said. “Anything having to do with the Saudis, for some reason, it had this very special sensitivity.” He raised the Saudi issue repeatedly with Andy Card. “I used to go over to see Andy, and I met with Rumsfeld three or four times, mainly to say, ‘What are you guys doing? This stonewalling is so counterproductive.”
The Bush family has a multi-generational relationship with the Saudi royal family, with ties that are both deeply personal and deeply financial. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the Saudi ambassador to the United States on 9/11, and is considered a personal friend of George W. Bush.
With many investigatory leads pointing toward the Saudi embassy in Washington, some feel Bandar merits thorough investigation—or that he may even be directly implicated in the 28 pages that Bush controversially redacted.
Saturday, appearing on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program to discuss a Saudi threat to divest itself of some $750 billion in U.S. Treasury securities if Congress passes a law clearing a path for 9/11 victims’ lawsuit against the kingdom, former Senator Bob Graham said, “I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers.”
A Redacted Question from Document 17
Asked by 60 Minutes if the 28 pages name names, commission member Lehman replied, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”
(If you watched the impactful prime time 60 Minutes segment on the 28 pages that aired last week and don’t remember Lehman’s intriguing statement, it’s because 60 Minutes oddly relegated perhaps their most newsworthy quote of all to this web extra.) There are many more examples of the U.S. government’s thwarting of Saudi-related inquiries, both outside and inside the work of the 9/11 Commission.
A Buried Flight Certificate
The FBI’s 2002 discovery of a U.S. pilot certificate or “flight certificate” inside a Saudi embassy envelope was news to Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry that produced the 28 pages.
“That’s very interesting. That’s a very intriguing and close connection to the Saudi embassy,” said Graham, who has been championing the declassification of the 28 pages and a perhaps hundreds of thousands of pages of other documents since 2003.
Since people often re-use envelopes and citizens of any country may have legitimate reasons for correspondence with the embassies of their government in foreign countries they live in, the Saudi embassy envelope isn’t by itself conclusive of anything. 28Pages.org couldn’t find any other history of the FBI’s find or of the government’s evaluation of its significance.
Al-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.
He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.
While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not.
Additional Excerpts from Document 17
The al-Sharbi paragraph excerpted above is in a section titled, “A Brief Overview of Possible Saudi Government Connections to the September 11th Attacks.” Comprising a list of individuals of interest to the investigators, it begins with names central to the well-reported San Diego cell, including future hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, purported Saudi government operative Omar al-Bayoumi, Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy and Osama Bassnan, a former employee at a Saudi mission in Washington, D.C. who received “considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments.”
Here, we directly excerpt many entries from the list, with an emphasis on those that are more suggestive of a link to the Saudi government. Much of the information is already well-known.
It’s important to note that any given association described in these documents may well be benign, that witness statements aren’t always accurate, and that a previous government assertion of a fact may have already proved or may yet be proved wrong.
Omar Al-Bayoumi: Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, provided September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar with considerable assistance after the hijackers arrived in San Diego in February 2000. He helped them locate an apartment, co-signed their lease, and ordered Mohdhar Abdullah (discussed below) to provide them with whatever assistance they needed in acclimating to the United States. The FBI now believes that in January 2000 al-Bayoumi met with Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and cleric, at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before going to the restaurant where he met the hijackers and engaged them in conversation. Whether or not al-Bayoumi ‘s meeting with the hijackers was accidental or arranged is still the subject of debate. During his conversation with the hijackers, Al-Bayoumi invited them to move to San Diego, which they did shortly thereafter. Al-Bayoumi has extensive ties to the Saudi Government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI believes it is possible that he was an agent of the Saudi Government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials. In addition, during its investigation, the FBI discovered that al-Bayoumi has ties to terrorist elements as well.
Osama Bassnan: Bassnan was a very close associate of al-Bayoumi’s, and was in frequent contact with him while the hijackers were in San Diego. Bassnan, a vocal supporter of Usama Bin Ladin, admitted to an FBI asset that he met al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while the hijackers were in San Diego, but denied this in a later conversation. There is some circumstantial evidence that he may have had closer ties to the hijackers, but the FBI has been unable to corroborate this additional reporting. Bassnan received considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments. According to FBI documents, Bassnan is a former employee of the Saudi Government’s Educational Mission in Washington, D.C.
Fahad Al-Thumairy: Until recently al-Thumairy was an accredited Saudi diplomat and imam at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. The news media reported that the U.S. Government revoked al-Thumairy’s visa in May 2003 ; the diplomat subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia. The FBI now believes that Omar al-Bayoumi met with al-Thumairy at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before al-Bayoumi went to the restaurant where he met the hijackers. According to witness reporting, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were also taken to the King Fahad Mosque while they were in the United States.
Mohdhar Abdullah: Abdullah was tasked by Omar al-Bayoumi to provide al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar with whatever assistance they needed while in San Diego. Abdullah, who became one of the hijackers’ closest associates in San Diego, translated for them, helped them open bank accounts, contacted flight schools for the hijackers, and helped them otherwise acclimate to life in the United States.
Osama Nooh and Lafi al-Harbi: Al-Harbi and Nooh are Saudi naval officers who were posted to San Diego while hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were living there. After the September 11th attacks, the FBI determined that al-Hazmi had telephonic contact with both Nooh and al-Harbi while al-Hazmi was in the United States.
Mohammed Quadir-Harunani: Quadir-Harunani has been the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and the FBI is currently investigating whether he had contact with the September 11th hijackers. In June 2000 a call was placed from Transcom International, a company owned by Quadir-Harunani, to a number subscribed to by Said Bahaji, one of the key members of the Hamburg cell. Quadir-Harunani is also a close associate of Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother, Abdullah Bin Ladin (discussed below), who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C.-E87 2.
Abdullah Bin Ladin: Abdullah bin Ladin (ABL) is reportedly Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies in America. Both organizations are local branches of nongovernmental organizations based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to fight in the Afghan War.” ABL has been assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. as an administrative officer. He is a close associate of Mohammed Quadir Harunani’s and has provided funding for Transcom International.
Fahad Abdullah Saleh Bakala: According to an FBI document, Bakala was close friends with two of the September 11th hijackers. The document also notes that Bakala has worked as a pilot for the Saudi Royal Family, flying Usama Bin Ladin between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during UBL’s exile.
Hamad Alotaibi: Alotaibi was assigned to the Saudi Embassy Military Division in Washington, D.C. According to an eyewitness report, one of the September 11th hijackers may have visited Alotaibi at his residence; another FBI document notes that a second hijacker may have also visited this address.
Hamid Al-Rashid: Al-Rashid is an employee of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and was apparently responsible for approving the salary of Omar al-Bayoumi. Hamid al-Rashid is also the father of Saud al-Rashid, whose photo was found in a raid of an al-Qa’ida safehouse in Karachi and who has admitted to being in Afghanistan between May 2000 and May 2001.
Ghassan al-Sharbi: Al-Sharbi is a Saudi student who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before the September 11 attacks and is mentioned in the “Phoenix EC.” The U.S. government captured al-Sharbi in the same location where Abu Zubaida was discovered in early 2002. After Al-Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered that he had buried a cache of documents nearby, including an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington that contained al-Sharbi’s flight certificate.
Saleh Al-Hussayen: According to FBI documents, Saleh Al-Hussayen is a Saudi Interior Ministry employee/official and may also be a prominent Saudi cleric. According to one news article, Saleh Al-Hussayen is the Chief Administrator of the Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina. An FBI affidavit notes that Saleh Al-Hussayen stayed in the same hotel as three of the hijackers on September 10, 2001. He told the FBI that he did not know the hijackers . The FBI agents interviewing him, however, believed he was being deceptive. The interview was terminated when al-Hussayen either passed out or feigned a seizure and was taken to the hospital; he then departed the country before the FBI could reinterview him. Saleh Al-Hussayen is ‘also the uncle of Sami Al -Hussayen (discussed below).
Mohammed Fakihi: Fakihi is a Saudi diplomat. Until recently he was assigned to the Islamic Affairs Section of the Saudi Embassy in Berlin, Germany. Soon after the September 11th attacks, German authorities searched SECRET 3 SECRET 10 the apartment of Munir Motassadeq, an associate of the hijackers in Hamburg , and found Fakihi’s business card. According to press reports , the Saudis did not respond to German requests for information on Fakihi. More recently, German authorities discovered that Fakihi had contacts with other terrorists; Fakihi was subsequently recalled to Saudi Arabia.
Salah Bedaiwi: Bedaiwi is a Saudi Naval officer who was posted to a U .S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida. He visited the Middle Eastern Market in Miami, a location frequented by several of the hijackers, and was in contact with at least one of the hijackers’ possible associates. The FBI has been investigating these connections, as well as his ties to other terrorist elements.
Mohammed Al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan Al-Shalawi: Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were both Saudi students living in the Phoenix area. Qudhaeein was receiving funding from the Saudi Government during his time in Phoenix. Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were involved in a 1999 incident aboard an America West flight that the FBI’s Phoenix Office now believes may have been a “dry run” for the September 11th attacks. Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were traveling to Washington, D.C. to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy; the Saudi Embassy paid for their airfare. According to FBI documents, during the flight they engaged in suspicious behavior, including several attempts to gain access to the cockpit. The plane made an emergency landing in Ohio, but no charges were filed against either individual. The FBI subsequently received information in November 2000 that Al-Shalawi had been trained at the terrorist camps in Afghanistan to conduct Khobar Towertype attacks and the FBI has also developed information tying Al-Qudhaeein to terrorist elements as well.
Ali Hafiz Al-Marri and Maha Al-Marri: Ali Al-Marri was indicted for lying to the FBI about his contact with Mustafa Al-Hasawi, one of the September 11th financiers. Ali Al-Marri, who arrived in the United States shortly before the September 11th attacks, attempted to call Al-Hasawi a number of times from the United States. The FBI has recently received reporting that he may also have been an al:.Qa’ida “sleeper agent.” According to FBI documents, Ali Al-Marri has connections to the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi Government provided financial support to his wife, Maha Al-Marri, after Ali Al-Marri was detained and assisted her in departing the United States before the FBI could interview her.
It all started with the Iranian hostages, then the Beirut bombings. President Jimmy Carter gave the order to freeze all accessible Iranian assets including military equipment. And so it was done, but Madeline Albright began to pull the threat on behalf of Iran, and Barack Obama continued to do the same in 2009.
There are countless moving parts here, so it is for sure convoluted so perhaps the bullet points here will help. A calculator may be good too.
The Supreme Court decided today in a 6-2 ruling on behalf of the victims to free up close to $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets—held in a New York bank for Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi—to compensate more than 1,000 victims and family members harmed in terrorism incidents traceable to Iran, including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon.
In 2000, in her speech on Friday, March 17, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, made reference to the Iranian assets that the United States froze in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in 1979. It always had been that any normalization of relations between these two countries had to consider the unfreezing of the Iranian assets. What was never clear was the size and nature of the assets. In her speech, Mrs. Albright indicated that much of the frozen assets were turned over to Iran after 1981. Yet, she also intimated that there is more that was not turned over. The size of the remaining frozen assets has been one mystery. Their nature and location, too, are not clear. At the time of the freeze, reports indicated that the assets consisted of goods purchased by Iran and not delivered by the suppliers, including military supplies, cash and securities on deposit or in trust with various U.S. banks and financial institutions here and their branches and subsidiaries abroad, stock and bonds of United States issuers, real estate, right to interest, dividend, and distribution, contract rights, and other proprietary interests. Read the rest of the shocking summary here.
To dovetail the second bullet point above, today, Daily Beast published an item that explains why the legislation introduced to punish Saudi Arabia for any involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States should be avoided as noted by some key officials at the Pentagon. Why you ask, the historical house of the United States is not clean either, which too is further explained in the link of the second bullet item. This is for sure still up for debate, however, there are major indications that during Barack Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he is likely reassuring the KSA he will veto any punishing legislation.
We can fully know at all exactly where or how much Iranian money resides in banks around the world and how is brokering business on behalf of Iran, investing for the rogue country, much less skirting sanctions for them as well. You see even China had/has ownership of $22 billion of Iranian funds mostly due to sanctions and to pay for oil.
In 2009, enter Barack Obama and $2 billion for Iran just to come to the table. WSJ: ” More than $2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup Inc.C2.43% accounts were secretly ordered frozen last year by a federal court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The legal order, executed 18 months ago by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is under seal and hasn’t been made public. The court acted in part because of information provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.President Barack Obama has pledged to enact new economic sanctions on Iran at year-end if Tehran doesn’t respond to international calls for negotiations over its nuclear-fuel program. The frozen $2 billion stands at the center of an intensifying legal struggle between Luxembourg’s Clearstream Banking S.A., the holder of the Citibank account, and the families of hundreds of U.S. Marines killed or injured in a 1983 terrorist attack on a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Clearstream is primarily a clearing house for financial trades and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Börse AG. Luxembourg’s bank secrecy laws have helped it grow into a major European financial center.” More here from the WSJ.
So what about this Clearstream Banking operation you say? Well they were a nefarious operation as well. In 2014, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $152 million agreement with Clearstream Banking, S.A. (Clearstream), of Luxembourg, to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations surrounding Clearstream’s use of its omnibus account with a U.S. financial institution as a conduit to hold securities on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). More here from Treasury.
In January 2016, The U.S. State Department announced the government had agreed to pay Iran $1.7 billion to settle a case related to the sale of military equipment prior to the Iranian revolution, according to a statement issued on Sunday.
Iran had set up a $400 million trust fund for such purchases, which was frozen along with diplomatic relations in 1979. In settling the claim, which had been tied up at the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S. is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest,” the statement said.
Wait, there is the other $100 billion: That’s roughly how much the U.S. Treasury Department says Iran stands to recover once sanctions are lifted under the new nuclear deal.
We cant know if there is more, yet no wonder Iran is dancing in the streets and maintains threatening behavior where Obama continues to tell the region, get along with Iran….they are legitimate. Oh….Obama is working on a personal meeting with Rouhani too.
Intense U.S.-Iran negotiations appear to be underway at this time, on various levels. They have included meetings this week in New York between Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and an April 14 Washington meeting between Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.[1] According to an April 19 report on the Iranian website Sahamnews.org, which is affiliated with Iran’s Green Movement, President Obama asked to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rohani in two secret letters sent in late March to both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rohani. According to the report, Obama wrote in the letters that Iran has a limited-time opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in order to resolve the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and promised that if Iran agreed to a meeting between him and Rohani, he would be willing to participate in any conference to this end. The Sahamnews report further stressed that Supreme Leader Khamenei discussed the request with President Rohani, that Rohani said that Iran should accept the request and meet with Obama, and that such a meeting could lead to an end to the crises in the region while increasingIran’s influence in their resolution. Rohani promised Khamenei that any move would be coordinated with him and reported to him. According to the report, Khamenei agreed with Rohani. The Sahamnews report also emphasized that Khamenei’s recent aggressivelyanti-U.S. speeches were aimed at maintaining an anti-U.S. atmosphere among the Iranian public, whereas in private meetings he expresses a different position. Courtesy and more from MEMRI here.
At a funeral in South London, Sadiq Khan, the local Labour MP and now Labour candidate to be mayor of London, shook hands with convicted terrorist Babar Ahmad, a man who has been blamed for inspiring a generation of extremists, including the gang behind the London bombings of July 7, 2005.
The pair exchanged brief pleasantries before Khan moved on. This happened only a few months ago, around the time of Khan’s nomination as Labour’s mayoral candidate.
Khan shared a platform with Yasser al-Siri, a convicted terrorist and associate of hate preacher Abu Qatada, and Sajeel Shahid, a militant who helped to train the ringleader of the London bombings.
Recently, it emerged that his parliamentary assistant posted a series of highly offensive Islamist, homophobic and misogynistic messages online. Shueb Salar also posed for photos with guns.
Khan was also exposed when it was revealed he ‘followed’ two Isis supporters on Twitter. One posted links to propaganda videos; the other is the brother of a man convicted of supporting insurgents in Afghanistan.
Khan’s former brother-in-law, Makbool Javaid, had links with the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation that praised the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 bombings. Javaid appeared at London events alongside some of the country’s most notorious hate preachers, including the now banned cleric Omar Bakri.
Both before and after Khan became an MP, he shared speaking platforms with Stop Political Terror, a group supported by a man dubbed the ‘Bin Laden of the internet’. Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam linked to Al Qaeda, preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers and became the first American to be targeted and killed in a U.S. drone strike.
Stop Political Terror later merged with Cage, a London campaign group that described the notorious ISIS executioner Jihadi John as “a beautiful young man”.
Manuals discovered by IDF give how-to tips for terror
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BDS: The Boycott/Divest/Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel was formally launched in 2005, but really began gathering momentum as a result of the Second Intifada of 2000 and the UN’s World Conference Against Racism in 2001.This Report documents and dissects the BDS’ impact across a broad front of battlefields in the western world. These include economic struggles in corporate boardrooms and among trade unions, BDS’ “academic jihad” against Israel on campuses, the pressure on entertainment and cultural figures to cancel appearances in Israel, and efforts to gain support for BDS from important religious institutions.
Leading expert testifies to Congress over the terror group leading the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
Terror finance expert describes ‘network’ of ex-fundraisers in organizations linked to Hamas and key pro-boycott organization
ToI: WASHINGTON — The US should boost transparency of nonprofit organizations in order to shed light on ties between a key pro-boycott organization and defunct charities that were implicated in funding Hamas, analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told members of Congress during testimony Tuesday afternoon when two subcommittees of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs met to discuss current threats to Israel.
During testimony, experts including Schanzer highlighted regional nonstate actors such as Iran and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) as key threats to Israel.
The chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, Ted Poe, described the BDS movement as “a threat which seeks [Israel’s] ultimate destruction.”
Schanzer, a former terror finance analyst for the US Treasury, presented open-source research conducted by his group, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies which highlighted a network linking Hamas supporters with the leadership of the BDS movement.
The research tracked employees of three now-defunct organizations – the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Kind Hearts Foundation for Humanitarian Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine — all of which were implicated by the federal government for terrorism finance, specifically of Hamas. A federal court found that the Holy Land Foundation had sent some $12 million to Hamas over the course of a decade
The research yielded what Schanzer described as “a troubling outcome” – with seven key employees of these organizations now associated with the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine.
Schanzer told members of Congress that the latter is “arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine.” The organization, he said, provides money, speakers, training and even “apartheid walls” to SJP activists on campus, for the annual Israel Apartheid Week events.
“The overlap between AMP, Holy Land, Kind Hearts and the Islamic Association for Palestine is striking,” said Schanzer, but noted that “our open source research did not indicate that AMP or any of these individuals are currently involved in any illegal activity.”
“The BDS campaign may pose a threat to Israel, but the network I describe here is decidedly an American problem,” he warned. Americans for Justice in Palestine raises money as a transparent 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit, which then provides funds for AMP which has the usually temporary designation of a corporate non-profit – a status that is usually transitional en route to a tax-exempt 501c3 organization.
“There appear to be flaws in the federal and state oversight of non-profits charities,” Schanzer complained. Although advocating for increased transparency, Schanzer said that he had a sense from talking to former colleagues that the Treasury was less invested in uncovering charities serving to fund terror networks than in the past.
“BDS advocates are free to say what they want, true or false, but tax advantaged organizations are obliged to be transparent,” Schanzer told the panel. “Americans have a right to know who is leading the BDS campaign and so do the students who may not be aware of AMP’s leaders or their goals.”
The BDS movement was not the only threat cited by the witnesses, who included former peace negotiator and Washington Institute for Near East Policy Distinguished Fellow David Makovsky, American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin and the Brooking Institution’s Tamara Coffman Wittes.
Makovsky warned that the current stagnation of peace initiatives could feed further into BDS advances in the US.
The former negotiator warned “that the movement could metastasize beyond college campuses” if there is no peace solution on the ground – after noting that “under the current leadership” he did not envision peace efforts “succeeding in the near future.”
Makovsky said that he was “rather skeptical regarding efforts to put forward parameters at the UNSC,” warning that they “would be interpreted by both sides as an imposed solution and could serve as a baseline for defiance rather than bringing the parties closer.”
“We need to find a way to maintain the viability of a two-state outcome even if we can’t implement a two-state solution today,” he offered.
Makovsky suggested that it was not just the US but also European countries that could provide critical leverage in encouraging the Palestinians to jettison their anti-normalization policy and stop providing funds to families of jailed terrorists.
“The US needs to sensitize our European partners to these issues – given the closeness between Europeans and Palestinians, it would carry weight if the Europeans would practice the same tough love they have urged the United States to administer when it comes to Israel but they are reluctant to do when it comes to our Palestinian friends,” he said.
Re: Preliminary Update—The Fast and Furious Papers
Executive Summary
On January 19, 2016, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the Justice Department to produce documents to the Committee related to Operation Fast and Furious. The documents—previously withheld pursuant to the President’s executive privilege claim—detail the Department’s internal deliberations with respect to denying, and eventually admitting, that firearms were trafficked into the hands of Mexican cartel associates during Fast and Furious.
On April 8, 2016, the Department produced 20,500 pages of documents in response to Judge Jackson’s Order.
More than previously understood, the documents show the lengths to which senior Department officials went to keep information from Congress. Further, the documents reveal how senior Justice Department officials—including Attorney General Eric Holder—intensely followed and managed an effort to carefully limit and obstruct the information produced to Congress. Justice Department officials in Washington impeded the congressional investigation in several ways, including:
Presuming that allegations about gunwalking in Arizona were false and refusing to adjust when documents and evidence showed otherwise.
Politicizing decisions about how and whether to comply with the congressional investigation.
Devising strategies to redact or otherwise withhold relevant information from Congress and the public.
2
Isolating the fallout from the Fast and Furious scandal to ATF leadership and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona.
Creating a culture of animosity towards congressional oversight.
Factual Background
On December 14, 2010, Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, a United States Marine veteran, was killed while on patrol near Nogales, Arizona, just miles from the Mexican border. The only two firearms found at the scene were semi-automatic rifles that were allowed to walk as part of a firearms trafficking case named Operation Fast and Furious. The deadly Fast and Furious operation ultimately was responsible for allowing approximately 2,000 firearms to illegally flow into the hands of Mexican cartel associates.
The case was started by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Phoenix Field Division in 2009. In January 2010, ATF and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona secured funding through the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program. The OCDETF designation and the use of numerous wiretaps opened the door for significant oversight and supervision by Washington, D.C.-based Justice Department officials.
Congressional Republicans have investigated Fast and Furious since January 2011. Over the course of the investigation, the Justice Department has provided false information, stonewalled document requests, produced scores of blacked-out pages and duplicate documents in order to bolster its page count for public relations purposes, and refused to comply with two congressional subpoenas.
Litigation Background
On February 4, 2011, the Justice Department wrote to Congress and denied that law enforcement officers allowed straw purchasers to buy firearms illegally in the United States with the intent to traffic them without apprehension. On December 2, 2011—nearly ten months later—the Justice Department retracted that letter and confirmed federal investigators let weapons walk away in the hands of straw purchasers, many of whom entered Mexico during Operation Fast and Furious.
On October 12, 2011, the Committee issued a subpoena to then Attorney General Eric Holder to obtain documents and communications related to the Fast and Furious operation. As the investigation proceeded, understanding why, how, and when Justice Department officials determined the February 4 letter was false, and why it took so long for them to correct the record, became a primary focus. The Attorney General refused to produce the documents covered by the subpoena, and the President asserted executive privilege over the documents on June 20, 2012.
On June 28, 2012, the House of Representatives voted to hold the Attorney General in contempt because the President’s assertion of executive privilege was inappropriate and legally deficient. Concurrently, the House passed a civil contempt resolution authorizing a lawsuit 3
against the Justice Department to obtain the documents. The House of Representatives Office of General Counsel filed the lawsuit against the Justice Department on August 13, 2012.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued her opinion on January 19, 2016.
January 19, 2016 Order and Opinion
The Committee’s motion to compel the Justice Department to produce all the documents and communications it withheld pursuant to the President’s executive privilege claim asserted that: (1) those records are not deliberative, and therefore not eligible to be withheld under an executive privilege claim; and (2) even if they were, the privilege is outweighed in this instance by the Committee’s compelling need for the material.
Judge Jackson ruled executive branch communications regarding how to respond to congressional inquiries and other public relations communications are indeed eligible for executive privilege protection. However, Judge Jackson determined the privilege is outweighed in cases where Congress has a compelling need for the documents.
In this case, Judge Jackson decided the Committee’s need for the documents outweighed the Department’s need to protect itself from the limited harm that could come from releasing them.
Judge Jackson ordered the Justice Department to produce all documents and communications previously withheld as deliberative, among other things. Judge Jackson’s Order stated:
For the reasons stated above, it is ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion to compel [Dkt. # 103] is GRANTED insofar as it calls for the production of documents responsive to the October 11, 2011 subpoena that concern the Department of Justice’s response to congressional and media inquiries into Operation Fast and Furious which were withheld on deliberative process privilege grounds . . . . In all other respects, it is DENIED. Records subject to this order shall be produced to plaintiff by February 2, 2016.
It is further ORDERED that by February 2, 2016, defendant shall produce to plaintiff all segregable portions of any records withheld in full or in part on the grounds that they contain attorney-client privileged material, attorney work product, private information, law enforcement sensitive material, or foreign policy sensitive material. Whether any additional records or portions of records are to be produced is a matter to be resolved between the parties themselves.1
1 Order and Opinion of Judge Amy Berman Jackson, Comm. on Oversight and Gov’t Reform v. Loretta E. Lynch, Atty. Gen. of the U.S., Civil Action No. 12-1332 (ABJ) (Jan. 19, 2016). 4
The Committee’s Appeal
The House General Counsel filed a notice of appeal of Judge Jackson’s decision on behalf of the Committee on April 8, 2016. The Committee is seeking the remaining documents responsive to the lawsuit and subpoena that are still being inappropriately withheld by the Justice Department for other reasons.
The Justice Department’s Production
Within hours of the notice of appeal being filed, the Justice Department released thousands of documents to the Committee. Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote an accompanying letter to the Committee. It stated:
[I]n light of the passage of time and other considerations, such as the department’s interests in moving past this litigation and building upon our cooperative working relationship with the committee and other congressional committees, the department has decided that it is not in the executive branch’s interest to continue litigating this issue at this time. The Department believes that the information provided to the Committee in the referenced production . . . obviates any need for further litigation on this matter.2
2 Letter from Peter Kadzik, Ass’t Atty. Gen., to Hon. Jason E. Chaffetz, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight and Gov’t Reform (Apr. 8, 2016).
3 Julian Hattem, Feds hand over ‘Fast and Furious’ docs as House appeals for more, THE HILL, Apr. 8, 2016.
4 DOJ-FF-04906.
In a story about the document production, The Hill wrote: “The decision to hand over documents amounts to an admission of failure for the administration, which had long insisted that many of the records were not eligible for Congress’s oversight.”3 This is true. It is also true, however, that the Justice Department continues to withhold thousands of documents covered by the Committee’s subpoena.
Preliminary Findings
Top Justice Department officials did not take questions from Congress about Fast and Furious seriously. In fact, in response to questions from Congress in January 2011, they presumed gunwalking did not occur and proceeded from there. That pattern persisted throughout the congressional investigation.
On January 31, 2011, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke wrote to Justice Department officials in Washington to share his concerns about a letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley to ATF Director Kenneth Melson raising questions about whether guns were allowed to traffic into Mexico. Burke wrote: “Grassley’s assertions regarding the Arizona investigation and the weapons recovered at the BP agent Terry murder scene are based on categorical falsehoods. I worry that ATF will take 8 months to answer this when they should be refuting its underlying accusations right now.“4
5
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein agreed: “This is a really important briefing for ATF – they need to nail it. . . . I’d be happy to work with ATF on the prep for this if it would be helpful.”5
5 DOJ-FF-04906.
6 DOJ-FF-04906.
7 DOJ-FF-04905.
8 DOJ-FF-44015—44018.
9 DOJ-FF-44015—44018.
10 DOJ-FF-44015—44018.
11 DOJ-FF-44015—44018.
12 DOJ-FF-11134.
Weinstein then suggested to Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer that he email Melson “offering any assistance they need for the Grassley briefing.”6 Weinstein further advised that “ATF can and should strongly refute” that a Fast and Furious weapon was involved in the Brian Terry attack.7
On Friday, June 17, 2011, in response to news reports that firearms used in a high-profile kidnapping and murder were linked to Fast and Furious, Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod emailed ATF, asking: “Were two F&F guns actually traced to the scene of this kidnapping? Can you run that down for us?”8 ATF dismissed the connection by responding that day: “[T]o suggest the guns are linked is like saying there was a murder in southeast three weeks ago. Tonight a car load of guys g[o]t caught with guns in southeast. Ergo the guns are linked to the murder.”9
Only after Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Grassley wrote to the Ambassador of Mexico on June 21, 2011 to ask for further details did Axelrod ask more probing questions of ATF.10 Subsequently, on June 22, 2011, Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod emailed senior officials, including Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole: “I just heard from ATF. Their initial reporting on this was incorrect. Evidently, when MX law enforcement arrested the kidnappers at their hideout, they seized a number of firearms, two of which tie back to Fast and Furious. I’ll double check Issa’s letter in the morning, but it appears that the allegations in it (and in the Fox News report) are accurate.”11
Top Justice Department officials viewed the congressional investigation through a highly political lens. They constantly made decisions about whether and when to turn over documents based on political and public relations considerations.
On March 9, 2011, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ron Weich forwarded a letter from the National Rifle Association to a group of senior Justice Department officials. The letter urged the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on ATF firearms trafficking enforcement tactics. Weich stated: “Chutzpah. The NRA’s now-public involvement in this may be useful in convincing reporters that this is part of the overall effort to discredit ATF.”12
6
On May 4, 2011, Attorney General Holder weighed in on the topic of how to respond to a Wall Street Journal article about Lanny Breuer’s role in Fast and Furious. He asked a group of top Justice Department officials: “If we go out with something do we make it worse?”13 In response to a subsequent email from a Criminal Division lawyer providing additional details about how wiretap applications are reviewed, Holder responded: “Ok- but everyone get ready- this isn’t about facts.”14
13 DOJ-FF-00657.
14 DOJ-FF-00656.
15 DOJ-FF-43037.
16 DOJ-FF-43037.
17 DOJ-FF-43037.
18 DOJ-FF-60096.
19 DOJ-FF-60096.
On June 15, 2011, Stephen Kelly, the top legislative affairs official for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, emailed top Justice Department officials about whether to provide certain material responsive to the Committee’s subpoena:
[T]his is a very bad idea. This will become precedent for Sen. Grassley’s office to seek actual documents from DoJ and the FBI in pending criminal investigations, and there’s a better than 50/50 chance that Sen. Grassley will become Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the next cycle. If the documents are provided here, we can expect to see specific requests to DoJ and the FBI for documents in pending criminal investigations as a routine matter from Committee chairs, potentially including Sen. Grassley.15
The FBI’s General Counsel, Valerie Caproni, weighed in on Kelly’s assessment with “I agree.”16 Lisa Monaco responded to the group, “I have spoken with folks here on this and think for now we will not be providing this[.]”17
In determining how the Department would describe in a letter to Chairman Issa the information being withheld, on September 19, 2011, DOJ lawyer Paul Colborn suggested “deleting the sentence giving a page count on our memos on memos withholding.”18 He went on to reason, “I think giving a page count is an inappropriate accommodation at this point. They have no legitimate oversight interest in that information.”19
On October 5, 2011, DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Matthew Miller emailed Attorney General Eric Holder:
If I were you, I would want answers from the entire team ([Deputy Attorney General Jim] Cole, [Associate Deputy Attorney General Steven] Reich, on down), on why the Department let Issa decide what to do with these memos. The whole point of the review is to find things like this and come up with plans for dealing with them. It should have been obvious that these memos were going to be a huge target, and instead of 7
just handing them over, the Department should have put them out to reporters on its own terms, instead of letting Issa do it. Give them to Issa at the same time you give them to the press with an explanation that takes the air out of the balloon. And if the answer is we owe it to Issa to give him this stuff first – well, that’s obviously ridiculous.20
20 DOJ-FF-61875.
21 DOJ-FF-61875.
22 DOJ-FF-12213—12214.
23 DOJ-FF-21337.
24 DOJ-FF-21335.
Holder forwarded the email to his chief of staff, Gary Grindler, with the comment, “I agree.”21
Top Justice Department officials in Washington wanted Congress and the public to have as little information as possible. They carefully chose language to minimize Congress’s and the public’s understanding of the role of the Department’s political staff in Fast and Furious.
On March 16, 2011, an ATF official weighed in on the Justice Department’s response to a letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. Chairman Smith’s letter asked several questions about Operation Fast and Furious, including “How many weapons have been allowed to pass to Mexico under the program known as ‘Fast and Furious’”? The ATF official advised senior Justice Department officials to exclude key information from their response. He wrote: “We would suggest that you pull the sentence that notes how many weapons we’ve recovered. It squares poorly with how many we haven’t.”22
On March 31, 2011, senior Justice Department officials in Washington were discussing an imminent subpoena from Chairman Issa. Assistant Attorney General for National Security Lisa Monaco asked the group: “[W]hat’s the status of the response to [I]ssa that had been discussed to try to buy time?”23 DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Matthew Miller subsequently drafted a letter to Chairman Issa. Regarding that draft, DOJ lawyer Paul Colborn wrote to Ron Weich: “Ron, Matt’s draft is not a good letter. Much too weak on the open investigation point and suggesting we’ll provide a ‘substantial’ number of documents while withholding only ‘some’ relating to the investigation into the death of the agent. Much more likely, it’s the reverse: we’ll provide only some and withhold a substantial number, and they concern not just the murder investigation but also the longstanding Fast and Furious investigation.”24
On May 3, 2011, top Justice Department officials were discussing whether to give a statement to the Wall Street Journal for an impending story on the Fast and Furious investigation. The Wall Street Journal was preparing to report that Lanny Breuer’s office approved wiretaps which described questionable investigative techniques in March 2010. DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Matthew Miller recommended against issuing a statement. In an email to Breuer and other top DOJ officials, he wrote: “I think people will accuse us of playing with semantics when we say that you did not authorize Fast and
8
Furious, but they find out that CRM [DOJ’s Criminal Division] did authorize wiretaps.”25
25 DOJ-FF-28895.
26 DOJ-FF-28985.
27 Evan Perez, Lawmakers Step Up Probe of Gun Trafficking Operation, WALL ST. J., May 4, 2011.
28 DOJ-FF-48038.
29 DOJ-FF-00002.
30 DOJ-FF-00002.
Later on May 3, 2011, top officials from DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs and other top DOJ officials were discussing how to respond to press inquiries about Lanny Breuer’s role in authorizing Fast and Furious. Officials from the Criminal Division wanted to issue a definitive denial that Breuer authorized the ATF operation. Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler warned her colleagues: “. . . we run the risk of seeming disingenuous to some who will not take our explanation that aspects of the operation are not the same as authorizing the operation.”26 DOJ’s statement to the Wall Street Journal wound up being misleading and minimized Breuer’s role in Fast and Furious: “[The wiretap approvals are] a narrow assessment of whether a legal basis exists to support a surveillance request that ultimately goes before a judge for decision. These reviews are not approval of the underlying investigations or operations.”27
On July 6, 2011, a draft letter to Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Cummings was circulated to senior Justice Department officials. In response, Department official Faith Burton wrote, “I’d stay away from the representation that we’ll fully cooperate in the future . . .” and removed language from the draft letter.28
On August 17, 2011, Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod wrote an email to ATF Assistant Deputy Director of the Office of Public and Governmental Affairs Chris Shaefer. In the email, Axelrod provided feedback in response to a draft external communication related to Fast and Furious. Axelrod advised Shaefer the draft “wades further than the last version into details and conclusions about Fast and Furious, which strikes us as unwise given the evolving nature of what we’re still learning about the underlying facts and the risk that what you say will be twisted and taken out of context by agency critics.”29
Axelrod further instructed Shaefer to keep his communications about Fast and Furious “high level.”30
The Justice Department’s political staff in Washington took steps to isolate the fallout from Fast and Furious to ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona.
On August 28, 2011, Attorney General Holder was strategizing with top officials in Washington about how to announce ATF Director Ken Melson and U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke would resign due to their roles in Fast and Furious. Holder was concerned the news would leak early because Melson had already cleaned out his office. He instructed his staff
9
to have someone at ATF “close the door to his office.”31 Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole worried announcing Melson’s resignation would create the appearance Melson was the only official being removed. He wrote to Holder: “The problem with going earlier than Tuesday is that we won’t have Dennis in the package.“32
31 DOJ-FF-01272.
32 DOJ-FF-01310.
33 DOJ-FF-01310.
34 DOJ-FF-01310.
35 DOJ-FF-01268-69.
36 DOJ-FF-01268.
37 DOJ-FF-01267.
38 DOJ-FF-57853.
39 DOJ-FF-57852.
Holder responded: “Let’s hold all until Tuesday as planned.”33 He replied to his own email: “We have to make known the breadth of the changes- at the top in USAO and ATF. At worker level at USAO and ATF. No one is a fall guy here.”34
Further proof of the coordination by main Justice of the Melson and Burke staff changes occurred when Melson emailed a proposed “draft press release” he “would like to issue from ATF.”35 David O’Neil responded to the chain (with Holder cc’ed):
Ken’s message below reads like he may think he’s giving us a heads-up on the message he plans to send on Monday as opposed to asking for clearance. If we haven’t made clear to him that we want to approve/coordinate any messaging about this, we probably should say that OPA is going to revise the first draft he shared and we’ll get back to him with a new one.36
Stuart Goldberg alerted the email chain: “the DAG [Jim Cole] did tell him the change would be announced on Tuesday,” to which Holder questioned “Did Jim say it in Spanish?” Cole responded, “Further proof of the need for a change.”37
Talking points drafted by Ron Weich to communicate to congressional staff made clear both Melson and Burke were intended to be the scapegoats, noting: “These changes will help us move past the controversy that has surrounded Fast and Furious. Ken Melson and Dennis Burke have both acknowledged mistakes in that area, and it will be useful to turn the page from those mistakes.”38
According to Weich, Holder expected to “have these conversations personally,” but Weich believed “there may be a value in keeping the AG a step removed.”39 10
Top Justice Department officials disingenuously relied on the ongoing investigation by the Inspector General to ward off outside investigations.
On March 15, 2011, Justice Department officials in Washington and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona discussed “noises that they [the Mexican government] are opening a criminal investigation of ATF for Fast and Furious . . . .”40 DOJ Criminal Division Office of International Affairs Director Molly Warlow advised that the Inspector General’s review “shouldn’t have any interplay at all [with the Mexican government’s investigation], unless we wanted to (or needed to) invoke that as reason (even if disingenuously) to shelve the Mexican inquiry. I can see nothing but mischief (and headaches for us) in the mexicans pursuing this, so I would like to see if there is a way we can turn it off, and the sooner the better.”41
40 DOJ-FF-12160.
41 DOJ-FF-12160.
Going Forward
On April 8, 2016, the Committee filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. House General Counsel will file the appeal on behalf of the Committee, pursuant to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. The purpose of the appeal is to obtain the full range of documents for which the Committee issued a subpoena in 2011 and brought this lawsuit in 2012. We expect those documents—which are still being withheld for inappropriate reasons by the Justice Department—will answer some of the outstanding questions about Operation Fast and Furious.
The emails and other internal Justice Department communications described in this memorandum represent a small subset of the 20,500 pages that the Committee received on April 8, 2016. Committee staff are working vigorously to review the entire set of documents that the Justice Department turned over to piece together how and why senior political officials in Washington obstructed the congressional investigation of Fast and Furious. The Committee will supplement the preliminary findings contained in this memorandum with a more complete report as soon as practicable. 11
APPENDIX: TIMELINE OF KEY DATES
December 14, 2010: Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was fatally shot.
January 27, 2011: Sen. Charles Grassley wrote a letter to ATF Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson requesting information about the ATF-sanctioned sale of hundreds of firearms to straw purchasers. The letter mentioned a number of allegations that walked guns were found at the scene of the fire fight that killed Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
February 4, 2011: The Justice Department responded to Sen. Grassley and denied that law enforcement officers allowed straw purchasers to buy firearms illegally in the United States and take them into Mexico without being apprehended.
March 16, 2011: Chairman Issa wrote to then-Acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson requesting documents and information regarding Fast and Furious.
March 22, 2011: President Obama appeared on Univision and spoke about the “gunwalking” controversy. The President said neither he nor Attorney General Holder authorized Fast and Furious. He also stated, “There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made, and if that’s the case then we’ll find out and we’ll hold somebody accountable.”
March 31, 2011: The Committee issued a subpoena to Melson. The Department produced zero pages of non-public documents pursuant to that subpoena until June 10, 2011, on the eve of the Committee’s first Fast and Furious hearing.
October 12, 2011: Chairman Issa issued a subpoena for documents to the Justice Department. That subpoena, and its successors, is the subject of the ongoing litigation between the Committee and the Justice Department.
November 8, 2011: Holder stated for the first time in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “gunwalking” occurred in Fast and Furious.
December 2, 2011: The Justice Department retracted the February 4 letter and confirmed that federal investigators did in fact permit weapons to enter Mexico during Operation Fast and Furious.
June 20, 2012: The President asserted executive privilege over some of the documents being withheld by the Attorney General.
June 28, 2012: The House of Representatives voted (255-67) to hold the Attorney General in contempt because the President’s assertion of executive privilege was invalid, among other reasons. The House also passed (258-95) a civil contempt resolution that authorized a lawsuit against the Justice Department to obtain the documents. 12
August 13, 2012: The House of Representatives Office of General Counsel filed the lawsuit against the Justice Department.
January 19, 2016: Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued her order and opinion.
April 8, 2016: The House General Counsel filed a notice of appeal of Judge Jackson’s order so the Committee can secure the full range of documents for which it brought the lawsuit.
The Justice Department provided 20,500 pages of documents in response to Judge Jackson’s order.
Al-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.
