The day in D.C.
Spending bill advances: A spending bill required to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month has cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate by a vote of 76-22. The measure to fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every Cabinet department and continue covering military operations overseas, is the last major piece of legislation that's likely to become law before the election.Veterans measure: Republicans on Wednesday blocked Washington Sen. Patty Murray's $1 billion legislation to create a jobs corps for veterans, invoking a budget rule to kill what they contend is an unproven and unaffordable program. The Veterans Jobs Corps Act would have trained and employed veterans for jobs in forests, wildlife refuges, parks, cemeteries and other public lands.
Health-care tax: Nearly 6 million Americans will face a tax penalty — an average of about $1,200 — for not getting insurance when a provision of the health-care overhaul takes effect in 2016, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The estimate is 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million people would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.
Visa program: The House is expected to vote Thursday on a measure that reallocates as many as 55,000 green cards a year to top foreign graduates of U.S. universities with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The controversial bill has Democrats on edge because it eliminates an existing diversity visa lottery program. They introduced their own bill that would increase the total number of visas.
Seattle Times staff and news services
WASHINGTON — The controversial "Fast and Furious" gun operation that let U.S. firearms flow into Mexico was "seriously flawed" and poorly overseen, Justice Department investigators concluded Wednesday in a long-awaited report that caused immediate political casualties.
One senior Justice Department official resigned, and another quickly retired after the 512-page report, which provided devastating details about the so-called gun-walking operation and its predecessor begun in the Bush administration. Up to a dozen or so other Justice Department officials face potential disciplinary action.
"Our review of Operation Fast and Furious and related matters revealed a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment and management failures," the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General concluded.
Fast and Furious — and the earlier Operation Wide Receiver, begun in 2006 — entailed investigators from Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowing guns to be sold in the United States to illegal buyers. The hope was that the weapons ultimately could be tracked to Mexican drug-cartel leaders and other top-level gangsters.
Investigators subsequently found some of the guns at U.S. crime scenes, including one that involved the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent.
The problems, investigators found, "permeated" the ATF headquarters, as well as a Phoenix field division and the federal prosecutor's office in Arizona. They extended, as well, to relations with Congress, as investigators noted that Justice Department officials had provided "misleading" statements to lawmakers.
In June, reflecting the partisan distrust, Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed through two measures holding Attorney General Eric Holder in civil and criminal contempt for his failure to turn over additional Fast and Furious documents.
"The inspector general's report confirms findings by Congress' investigation of a near-total disregard for public safety," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Wednesday. "It's time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs."
The chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Issa has largely led congressional Republicans in their pursuit of the Fast and Furious case. In July, after multiple hearings, Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued their own 211-page investigative report.
The inspector general's investigators acknowledged that Holder had taken some positive steps, and they didn't find his fingerprints on the ill-conceived Fast and Furious operation itself.
"The key conclusions are consistent with what I, and other Justice Department officials, have said for many months now," Holder said in a statement. "The leadership of the department did not know about or authorize the use of the flawed strategy and tactics, and the department's leadership did not attempt to cover up information or mislead Congress about it."
Holder announced the immediate retirement of Kenneth Melson, the former acting director at ATF, as well as the resignation of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, a longtime career prosecutor. Other disciplinary actions are pending.
Spending bill advances: A spending bill required to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month has cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate by a vote of 76-22. The measure to fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every Cabinet department and continue covering military operations overseas, is the last major piece of legislation that's likely to become law before the election.Veterans measure: Republicans on Wednesday blocked Washington Sen. Patty Murray's $1 billion legislation to create a jobs corps for veterans, invoking a budget rule to kill what they contend is an unproven and unaffordable program. The Veterans Jobs Corps Act would have trained and employed veterans for jobs in forests, wildlife refuges, parks, cemeteries and other public lands.
Health-care tax: Nearly 6 million Americans will face a tax penalty — an average of about $1,200 — for not getting insurance when a provision of the health-care overhaul takes effect in 2016, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The estimate is 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million people would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.
Visa program: The House is expected to vote Thursday on a measure that reallocates as many as 55,000 green cards a year to top foreign graduates of U.S. universities with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The controversial bill has Democrats on edge because it eliminates an existing diversity visa lottery program. They introduced their own bill that would increase the total number of visas.
Seattle Times staff and news services
WASHINGTON — The controversial "Fast and Furious" gun operation that let U.S. firearms flow into Mexico was "seriously flawed" and poorly overseen, Justice Department investigators concluded Wednesday in a long-awaited report that caused immediate political casualties.
One senior Justice Department official resigned, and another quickly retired after the 512-page report, which provided devastating details about the so-called gun-walking operation and its predecessor begun in the Bush administration. Up to a dozen or so other Justice Department officials face potential disciplinary action.
"Our review of Operation Fast and Furious and related matters revealed a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment and management failures," the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General concluded.
Fast and Furious — and the earlier Operation Wide Receiver, begun in 2006 — entailed investigators from Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowing guns to be sold in the United States to illegal buyers. The hope was that the weapons ultimately could be tracked to Mexican drug-cartel leaders and other top-level gangsters.
Investigators subsequently found some of the guns at U.S. crime scenes, including one that involved the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent.
The problems, investigators found, "permeated" the ATF headquarters, as well as a Phoenix field division and the federal prosecutor's office in Arizona. They extended, as well, to relations with Congress, as investigators noted that Justice Department officials had provided "misleading" statements to lawmakers.
In June, reflecting the partisan distrust, Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed through two measures holding Attorney General Eric Holder in civil and criminal contempt for his failure to turn over additional Fast and Furious documents.
"The inspector general's report confirms findings by Congress' investigation of a near-total disregard for public safety," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Wednesday. "It's time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs."
The chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Issa has largely led congressional Republicans in their pursuit of the Fast and Furious case. In July, after multiple hearings, Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued their own 211-page investigative report.
The inspector general's investigators acknowledged that Holder had taken some positive steps, and they didn't find his fingerprints on the ill-conceived Fast and Furious operation itself.
"The key conclusions are consistent with what I, and other Justice Department officials, have said for many months now," Holder said in a statement. "The leadership of the department did not know about or authorize the use of the flawed strategy and tactics, and the department's leadership did not attempt to cover up information or mislead Congress about it."
Holder announced the immediate retirement of Kenneth Melson, the former acting director at ATF, as well as the resignation of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, a longtime career prosecutor. Other disciplinary actions are pending.