Heard the Latest on Ramos and Compean? Homeland Security Lied!

[Shooterman]

CNN.com - Transcripts

DOBBS: More outrage tonight over the prison beating of former Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos. Members of Congress are now demanding an investigation into that attack.

In addition, damaging new information tonight showing that the Department of Homeland Security lied to Congress, information contradicting the Bush administration's version of events and the stated reason for prosecuting those two Border Patrol agents.

Casey Wian has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Congressional Republicans are again demanding that President Bush intervene on behalf of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, now serving 11 and 12 years in prison for shooting and wounding a Mexican illegal alien drug smuggler. As we've reported, Ramos was beaten severely in prison over the weekend by men yelling insults in Spanish.

ROHRABACHER: If these men, after -- especially after this assault are murdered in prison, if one of them lose their lives, there's going to be some kind of impeachment talk in Capitol Hill.

WIAN: Supporters of the former agents delivered nearly 300,000 petitions to Congress Wednesday, demanding they be released. Eighty lawmakers, all Republicans, are sponsoring a bill that would pardon Ramos and Compean. So far, President Bush has refused to even consider the idea.

REP. WALTER JONES (R), NORTH CAROLINA: This decision is up to one person, the president of the United States. I don't know how many letters individually and collectively we have all sent and signed. And yet, the indifference by this White House is unacceptable.

Let's not wait too long with that sober look before you do what is right. And doing what is right is to return these men to their families and let the families understand that justice still prevails in America.

WIAN: At the same time, lawmakers released a long-awaited report on the case from the Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General. It fails to answer several key questions, including, why did the Justice Department prosecute the agents before the report was complete? And why did homeland security investigators tell several members of Congress they had evidence the agents were out to shoot Mexicans when Inspector General Richard Skinner admitted to lawmaker this week that was not true.

REP. JOHN CULBERSON (R), TEXAS: I asked Inspector General Richard Skinner, "Where are those statement and are they true? These statements that were made by your investigators, sir, are they true?" And he said under oath, "I'm sorry, Congressman, we misled you. Those statements were not true."

WIAN: Culberson is now demanding the resignation of three Homeland Security Department investigators. The key question remains: Why did U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton choose to vigorously prosecutor two Border Patrol agents for actions resulting from their pursuit of a drug smuggler, yet grant immunity, medical care and a temporary border crossing card to an admitted illegal alien drug smuggler?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIAN: Sutton's ties to President Bush date back to at least to the mid-1990s, when he served as chief criminal adviser to then-Texas Governor Bush -- Lou.

DOBBS: And it's clear this prosecution originated in Washington, D.C. The inspector general's report, the idea that to hear Skinner, the IG, sit there and just blithely, we lied to you, Congress -- we've been reporting on this broadcast from the outset, and we were the first to do so, that this thing didn't make any sense from the very beginning.

Why in the world is the White House, why are the Democrats in Congress not responding on this issue?

WIAN: The Democrats in Congress are really silent on this issue, and it is, as you say, Lou, quite surprising. We talked to staff members of Duncan Hunter, who's the sponsor of that bill that would that pardon the agents. DOBBS: Right.

WIAN: They say they hope to have Democratic support for that bill soon. But in reality, he said -- the source that I spoke with said he thought maybe the Democrats are thinking this is a Republican issue and they don't want to sign on to it at this point. He thinks when enough public pressure is put on the Democrats, enough outrage from constituents -- and it's not just people who live in Republican districts who are outraged about this case -- that then they'll start seeing some Democrat sign on to this effort, and fairly soon -- Lou.

DOBBS: I mean, this is outrageous. They actually prosecuted this case before the investigation was completed.

WIAN: And it's one of the -- one of the unanswerable at this point questions about the timing of all this.

You know, as we've been reporting for several days, the fact that Johnny Sutton has said they couldn't go after the drug smuggler because they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute him for smuggling 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States, well, the OIG report clearly states -- it's out, it's public today -- it clearly states that a Border Patrol agent knew 16 days in advance of his decision to grant immunity to that drug smuggler, that in fact the smuggler admitted that he was on a drug-smuggling mission when he was shot.

DOBBS: And the further fact is, this drug smuggler, this illegal alien drug smuggler that became the darling of Johnny Sutton and his prosecutorial team in Texas, he, in point of fact, had been arrested subsequently for then $1 million in drugs for a second time and they held that away from the defense and from the jury.

WIAN: A lot of information was held from the defense and the jury. You know, we've talked about the trial transcripts we're still waiting to receive. And that's going to shed a lot more light on this case -- Lou.

DOBBS: Yes, it can. And, you know, one thing that I think a light that needs to be shined is on the U.S. Justice Department, the attorney general of that department, and the Department of Homeland Security, because this is just -- as Congressman Rohrabacher said, something smells here and it smells very badly.

[herbstin]

Border guards prosecuted for protecting the border, National Guard troops without ammo or with orders not to shoot uinless first fired upon and no mandate to try to stop illegal crossings. Homeland (in)Security that turns a blind eye to our southern border. An Administration and Congress that has done next to nothing to secure our borders, especially the southern one. This is all politically motivated national suicide. Both parties are so desperate to get or stay in power that they will grasp at any straw, no matter how unlikely or useless it is. Bush, the Republicans and Democrats and the left wing liberals all think if they ignore the flood of illegals from the south, they will somehow lock in the Hispanic vote. Idiots! 86% of the legal US population wants this flood stopped. All of the legal immigrants I and my wife have talked to are angry about this laxness and the talk of amnesty (again). They feel that 'Hey, I went through the process for citizenship, these people can too.' That lame axiom "They do jobs Americans won't do." is absolute horsesh*t. Our history has shown that there is no job an American won't do. The reality is that Americans won't do those jobs for the piddly wages the illegals are willing to work for. Our own ingenuity is rapidly making "Manuel Labor" a thing of the past. Companies have designed and built machines that do the job better than humans. A company recently showed off an automated tomato picked machine that works faster and with less damage to fruit than a human could. The main thing stopping the widespread use of these type of machines is the cost. They are expensive.
The Mexican illegals are not coming here to become US citizens. They are coming here to make money or to build a new Mexico, one where they are not at the bottom of the social structure. They are not going to vote for any of the fools in those gringo parties, they will vote 'Aztlan', whether it's on the ballot or not.
Both political parties as well as the media, are claiming America has sent a message this last election. Maybe we did, but they still haven't gotten it. The next election, I think we should send a very loud, very clear message by voting everyone of those turds out. Vote Libertarian.

[EdNigma]

Cops and politicians all lie. It's part of the job.

[ptco911]

Originally Posted by EdNigma

Cops and politicians all lie. It's part of the job.

Kind of a generalization isn't it? I work for a Sheriff's Department and most (99%) of the people that work here are good honest people. You will run into that 1% that give others a bad name and reputation.

As far as the border officers, the President didn't send them to prison, a court did. They should be pardoned in my opinion and fully reinstated, but I don't have all of the evidence and testimony of the trial.

[Woodmonkey]

Some hard questions need to be asked and some bureaucrats need to be fired, IMO. Also, those border guards need pardoning at the very least.

[EdNigma]

Kind of a generalization isn't it?

Yeah, I knew it when I said it. Sorry, you will learn not to take me serious when I talk BS. Should have used smilies.
-cheers-

[BonnieBlue]

Originally Posted by EdNigma

Yeah, I knew it when I said it. Sorry, you will learn not to take me serious when I talk BS. Should have used smilies.
-cheers-

Ed, if I had sense enough to take my reply to you out, I would. I didn't see your reply until I posted mine. No hard feelings?