Letter: 'Fast and Furious' isn't about guns
Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. (June 12, 2012) Credit: AP
Columnist Mary Sanchez says "hearings on Fast and Furious have droned on for more than a year now" ["Rep. Issa's inquiry is furious all right," Opinion, July 1]. Yes, Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010, and his family is entitled to answers, not cover-ups.
It is "droning on" because for 19 months Attorney General Eric Holder has been withholding information about the idiotic "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking operation. With over 140,000 documents, Holder has turned over just 7,600 to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This isn't about gun control laws, as Sanchez would like us to believe. It's about U.S. Border Patrol agent Terry and 200 Mexican citizens, brutally murdered when over 2,000 assault weapons were intentionally sold to drug cartels -- an operation the Mexican government was not even made aware of!
A Department of Justice prosecutor has pleaded the Fifth; a CBS reporter was screamed at by the Deparment of Justice and the White House for pursuing this story; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been accused of targeting whistle-blowers; Holder has retracted testimony he gave under oath; and finally, President Barack Obama has invoked executive privilege and failed to turn over 1,300 pages of documents. What's being covered up, and why?
This isn't a partisan issue. The Terry family and we as Americans deserve the truth. Newsday has not given adequate coverage to this scandal. Your readers have a right to know too.
Pamela Berman, Hewlett
