Fast and Furious Cover-Up: Who Told DOJ Employee Katie Dixon to Send Reporters Media Matters Story?

Posted on | April 22, 2012 | 13 Comments

C.J. Ciaramella at the Free Beacon reports:

The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up.
In response to an inquiry from the Free Beacon, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in an email that she “was told to direct your questions to the FBI, and also to provide you with a link to this story: http://mediamatters.org/research/201204190011”
The link was to a story at the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America supposedly refuting many of Pavlich’s claims. Media Matters is a partisan organization whose founder, David Brock, is also running a pro-Obama super PAC.

The Justice employee who sent that message to Ciaramella was Katie Dixon, who works in DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs (DOJ-OPA). Notice that she says she “was told” to send reporters that Media Matters link. The question now: Who told her to do so?

And I’ll bet Rep. Darrell Issa will want to find out, too.

(Via Memeorandum, with more commentary at Breitbart, The Jawa Report, RedState and American Power.)

Category: Corruption, Scandal

Comments

13 Responses to “Fast and Furious Cover-Up: Who Told DOJ Employee Katie Dixon to Send Reporters Media Matters Story?”

Adobe_Walls
April 22nd, 2012 @ 2:31 pm

Well it isn’t as if we didn’t already know that we needed to abolish Media Matters, George Soros and the Department of Justice for that matter.
Darrell Issa finding out solves nothing if it only succeeds in shedding light. Having enough light to see all the rats and assorted vermin running about the place solves nothing if the proper exterminants are not applied.
Dianna Deeley
April 22nd, 2012 @ 3:04 pm

Someone should ask how the piece referenced in any way supports MMfA’s mission of countering Christian journalism. If you can do that with a straight face, the reaction might be comical.
Saul
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:14 pm

The Washington Free Beacon claims that it “produces in-depth and investigative reporting,” but the shoddy, hack journalism in this story doesn’t begin to make good on that promise.
The relevant facts: online newspaper seeks comment from government agency about a critical book; agency refers newspaper to a review of the book’s factual claims; online newspaper reports nothing about the findings of the review except that it “supposedly” refutes the book’s claims.

Sooo much wrong with this from a journalism standpoint. Total lack of interest in uncovering facts (Was there a third gun or not? Does the review debunk the book or not?). Total lack of fairness in not reporting the substance of the agency’s response (i.e., what’s in the review of the book’s claims). Lack of attribution (who said the review debunks the book’s claims?).

I know Beacon is just starting up, but they make no bones about the fact that their ambition is to be a partisan spin shop. The last thing American citizens need is another fake substitute for the kind of trustworthy journalism that would give them the information to make real choices.
Saul
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:31 pm

as if we didn’t already know that we needed to abolish Media Matters, George Soros and the Department of Justice

The first two would require gutting the First Amendment to the Constitution, which is idiotic and anti-liberty. The last one would require repealing the 150-year-old statute that created Justice. And that would mean no FBI, no federal prisons, no solicitor general representing the government before the Supreme Court, no inspector general blowing the whistle on the General Services Administration’s Las Vegas parties, etc., etc. Not too brilliant, either.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:36 pm

I linked you.

Eric Holder is digging for answers…
Wombat_socho
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:50 pm

Folding the necessary offices of DOJ back into the Department of the Interior wouldn’t be as tough as you think, and the same is true of stripping Soros of his citizenship while ending (for cause) MMFA’s tax-exempt status, without which it would die inside a year.
Wombat_socho
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:51 pm

As is practiced by the WaPo and New York Slime? Pull the other one, chumley.
McGehee
April 22nd, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

Will somebody please send this new troll on a road trip to Syria’s capital?
Adobe_Walls
April 22nd, 2012 @ 7:09 pm

There is more than one way to abolish something. As for the DoJ some of it’s functions are necessary but you don’t need a cabinet level department to run prisons or have a federal police force. The DoJ like the EPA, Department of the Interior, HHS HUD and Departments of Energy and Education are thoroughly infested with Bolsheviks and are unreformable. We need to start from scratch making sure the left and it’s current minions in the government don’t get back in and hijack the reconstituted parts of these agencies.
Wombat_socho
April 22nd, 2012 @ 9:48 pm

He got whacked in one of the other threads; we shall be spared his inanities in the future.
JeffS
April 23rd, 2012 @ 12:33 am

Amputation is an option when the infection is spreading uncontrolled.
JeffS
April 23rd, 2012 @ 12:34 am

A concern troll! How droll.
Steve in TN
April 23rd, 2012 @ 7:19 am

Oh, wow! The rare #FastandFurious post from @RSMcain.