House Oversight Committee officials aren’t happy with The New York Times. Committee staff are accusing the paper of burying its story on how acting ATF director Ken Melson lost his job amid the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
Times readers would have to dig down to page A13 of Wednesday’s Gray Lady to find out that Attorney General Eric Holder reassigned Melson to a different job inside the Justice Department.
Other major national daily newspapers, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, ran full stories on the Melson developments in much more prominent positions. The Post and LA Times led their front pages with the story, while USA Today and the WSJ ran it on A2 with front-page summaries.
The Times and House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa have been at war as of late over an “error-ridden” “hit piece” Times reporter Eric Lichtblau wrote on the Congressman. To no avail, Issa has demanded the Times run a front-page retraction for the piece after releasing documentation proving most of the allegation Lichtblau made against him aren’t true.
The Times has issued three corrections to the piece at this point, but still sticks to most of its other allegations despite evidence pointing to the contrary.
Issa’s spokesman, Frederick Hill, told The Daily Caller he thinks the Times’ bias against conservatives and Republicans, especially Issa, is shining through again here. Hill points out that the Times is the only major national newspaper to bury the biggest Fast and Furious development yet in the back of the paper.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that The New York Times has such a biased approach in the way it delivers news,” Hill told TheDC. “It looks like the editors are still having a hissy fit about the mistakes they made in the front page hit piece on Chairman Issa.”
On Tuesday, Holder announced he removed Melson as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Holder reassigned Melson to be a “senior adviser” in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy. Holder also announced that Arizona’s U.S. Attorney, Dennis Burke, resigned amid the Fast and Furious investigation.
Burke and Melson are the two highest-ranking political casualties Congressional Fast and Furious investigations from Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley have produced thus far.
Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades-Ha failed to return TheDC’s request for comment on why the newspaper didn’t give the story more prominent coverage.
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