Townhall magazine news editor Katie Pavlich told The Daily Caller that being a target of a collaboration between the Justice Department and the left-wing advocacy organization Media Matters indicates the Obama administration’s desire to “cover up” Operation Fast and Furious.
Targeting journalists with the help of a liberal message group, Pavlich said in an email, “is just another example of Obama’s Justice Department, led by Eric Holder, to cover-up the lethal Fast and Furious scandal.”
“The Justice Department has blood on its hands and Tracy Schmaler is doing everything possible to wash it off.”
Emails obtained by TheDC through a Freedom of Information Act request, which TheDC published on Tuesday, show DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. (RELATED: Emails reveal Justice Dept. regularly enlists Media Matters to spin press)
One of those media figures was Pavlich. Several of the emails TheDC published show Media Matters personnel sending their negative stories about Pavlich to Schmaler, including an attack on her book, “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up.”
During Operation Fast and Furious, which was organized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and overseen by the Justice Department, the Obama administration sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via “straw purchasers” who bought guns in the United States with the intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else. This tactic is known as “gunwalking.” (RELATED: TheDC’s coverage of Operation Fast and Furious)
Some of those weapons were apparently used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and at least 300 Mexican civilians. House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa told TheDC early this year that the Justice Department has “blood on their hands.”
A total of 130 House members, eight U.S. senators and two sitting governors have called for Holder’s resignation over Fast and Furious, as has Obama’s GOP challenger Mitt Romney.