Demand Republican presidential contenders take a stand on ‘Gunwalker’

by David Codrea

Debates among Republican presidential contenders have completely ignored what should be a litmus test issue for all who wish to be considered for the office—not just by gun owners, but by all Americans: What will they do to determine the truth about "Project Gunwalker?"

We know that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been holding hearings with at least two more slated for sometime later this year. And we know that Attorney General Eric Holder has directed the Office of Inspector General to conduct an investigation under authority of the Department of Justice. These efforts should proceed, albeit with the understanding that they have inherent limitations: The House hearings have been plagued with unresolved (and as yet unpunished) stonewalling and apparent lies, dissension among its partisan members, and attacks by citizen disarmament advocates and administration apologists in the media—the lines between them blurred. And the OIG has an automatic organizational conflict of interest, not to mention an established history of deliberate indifference to whistleblower concerns.

The single best vehicle available to determine and expose the extent of misdeeds, including how widely spread and high up in the administration cognizance and decision-making have extended, would be a truly Independent Counsel. Unfortunately, that law expired in 1999, and its effective replacement, 28 CFR Part 600, presents a fox/henhouse conflict.

"Gunwalker" allegations, i.e., evidence of criminal misconduct by federal law enforcement resulting in public endangerment and deaths, are of the utmost importance to investigate, and any candidate aspiring to the executive must demonstrate they are informed and committed to uncovering the truth, prosecuting when the evidence warrants it, and punishing the guilty.

Regular readers know that this story would have been ignored had it not been persistently and doggedly pursued both because of Mike Vanderboegh's investigative work at Sipsey Street Irregulars and the efforts put forth in this column (some crediting others with "credentials" for breaking this story notwithstanding). The early history is all here if anyone would like to challenge that claim. The way that it happened was by being relentless, by understanding our limitations in reach and by nonetheless beating every pot and pan we could to demand attention. Which meant we relied on you, our regular readers, to assess the evidence we presented, determine its truth and join us in the noisemaking. Because, as we've seen throughout, with only a few exceptions, major newspapers and television news networks have either been AWOL on the story or busy trying to squelch it or subvert it to their own ends.

If you're one of those readers, your help is needed again. Because the GOP contenders are politicians first, don't expect to see them volunteer leadership outside of their scripted talking points unless they believe they have no choice. And chances are, their advisers haven't pegged "Gunwalker" a priority for them to address—yet.

Let us change that.

...The choice is yours—will you take 10 minutes to help this effort go viral, so that we can escalate attention to "Project Gunwalker" to the next level?

Click here to read the entire article, and for complete instructions on joining Codrea's grassroots effort to contact each of the major Republican Presidential candidates and ask them to issue a statement calling for reauthorization of an Independent Counsel to investigate all aspects of the "Fast and Furious" scandal, and to follow the trail wherever it leads.

Related Article:
A look at the GOP's 2012 Presidential field from a gun rights perspective