House Oversight Chair Issa Predicts Disgraced US Attorney General Will Be Held In Contempt (But of course it will be civil, and less than a slap on the wrist…)

WASHINGTON, DC – The top Republican leading the House investigation into Operation Fast and Furious said Sunday he expects a “bipartisan” floor vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress this coming week.

“I believe they will (vote to hold him in contempt),” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told “Fox News Sunday.” “Both Republicans and Democrats will vote that — I believe it will be bipartisan.”

Issa kept his focus on the Justice Department, clarifying that he has no evidence the White House was involved in any Fast and Furious cover-up. But he repeatedly said Congress is trying to get to the bottom of why the Justice Department “lied” about the operation.

The comments underscored the apparent momentum among majority House Republicans behind the contempt push, following a committee contempt vote against Holder along party lines this past week. That vote proceeded after Holder and Republicans were unable to reach an agreement over subpoenaed documents pertaining to the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious discussions.

Issa said Sunday it’s possible the vote could be delayed or even “eliminated” if the administration produces the subpoenaed documents the House is seeking. He noted the entire schedule is at the discretion of House Speaker John Boehner.

“But we have to see the documents first,” he said.

Barring such a resolution, Issa and his allies are teeing up a major election-year clash this coming week between the Executive and Legislative branches, and between Democrats and Republicans.

President Obama intervened this past week, invoking executive privilege to protect the documents in question, but Republicans dismissed the claim and proceeded with the contempt vote. On the sidelines, minority House Democrats are pleading with Republicans take a step back and work out the document dispute without the threat of contempt. At the same time, both sides are antagonizing each other at the dais and in the press over what Democrats claim has become a political “witch hunt.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings, R-Md., ranking Democrat on the oversight committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that the confrontation was entirely avoidable.

“I think it’s extremely unfortunate,” he said. “The attorney general has made it clear that he is willing to work with this Congress.”

Cummings called on Boehner to intervene and try to reach an agreement with Holder that involves turning over some documents while also halting the contempt proceedings.

“I think that we have a duty … at this critical moment to get the documents,” he said. “I know we can get them. It’s just a matter of sitting down and talking to Holder.”

Cummings suggested the course of the committee’s investigation has lost sight of one of the major reasons for the probe — the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, whose murder scene included weapons from the Fast and Furious operation.

But Issa defended the escalation, saying the committee is trying to obtain critical documents to help explain why Congress was initially told — incorrectly — in February 2011 that the government did not knowingly let guns “walk” across the U.S.-Mexico border. The department later issued a correction to that statement.

“We, in fact, are simply trying to get to the truth when we were told a lie,” Issa said. “It’s about the cover-up.”

“Ultimately, Justice lied to the American people on February 4 (2011), and they didn’t make it right for 10 months.”

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“Zombie” Specific Bullet Sales Soar After Recent String Of Cannibal Attacks

US – So, will this ammunition actually defend against the things that go bump in the night?

Deger said company president Steve Hornady came up with the idea for Zombie Max bullets because of his love for zombie movies and shows.

“After it gained some acceptance among some of us here in the company got on board with the idea we decided just to have some fun with a marketing plan that would allow us to create some ammunition designed for that … fictional world,” Deger said.

He said the Zombie Max and Z-Max bullets are Hornady’s most successful products.

“This is probably one of the only (product) launches that we’ve seen when people who are not in the hunting and shooting industry will go out and they will purchase this,” Deger said.

“I mean, I’ve heard of guys who buy it just because they think the packaging is cool and they set it on their cube and they don’t even own a gun,” he said. ”It has that sort of cross-market appeal, which I think is rare to find these days, where you can actually sell something that will transcend not just one market but go into several.”

In Michigan, the bullets are available at Cabela’s. You can find other retailers selling Zombie bullets at this link.

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Disgraced US Attorney General Eric Holder – Full Of It – Questioned About His Department’s Operation That Supplied Guns To Criminals And Mexican Drug Cartel

WASHINGTON, DC  – Attorney General Eric Holder claimed during congressional testimony today that internal Justice Department emails that use the phrase “Fast and Furious” do not refer to the controversial gun-walking operation Fast and Furious.

Under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who read excerpts of the emails at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department oversight, Holder claimed that the phrase “Fast and Furious” did not refer to Fast and Furious but instead referred to another gun-walking operation known as “Wide Receiver.”

However, the emails refer to both programs — “Fast and Furious” and the “Tucson case,” from where Wide Receiver was launched — and reveal Justice Department officials discussing how to handle media scrutiny when both operations become public.

Among three of the emails, the second, dated “October 17, 2010 11:07 PM,” was sent by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein to James Trusty and it states: “Do you think we should have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and Laura’s Tucson case [Wide Receiver] are unsealed? It’s a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked, but it is a significant set of prosecutions.”

In the third email, dated Oct. 18, 2010, James Trusty writes back to Weinstein: “I think so, but the timing will be tricky, too. Looks like we’ll be able to unseal the Tucson case sooner than the Fast and Furious (although this may be just the difference between Nov. and Dec).”

“It’s not clear how much we’re involved in the main F and F [Fast and Furious] case,” reads the email, “but we have Tucson [Wide Receiver] and now a new unrelated case with [redacted] targets. It’s not any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX [Mexico], so I’m not sure how much grief we get for ‘guns walking.’ It may be more like ‘Finally, they’re going after people who sent guns down there.’”

Operation Wide Receiver was run out of Tucson, Ariz., between 2006 and 2007 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), a division of the Justice Department.

In his testimony, Holder said that the emails only referred to Operation Wide Receiver.

Holder told the committee: “That refers to Wide Receiver, not to Fast and Furious. The e-mail that you [Rep. Chaffetz] just read [between Trusty and Weinstein] – now this is important – that email referred to Wide Receiver, it did not refer to Fast and Furious. That has to be noted for the record.”

Chaffetz, after a long pause, said, “No, it doesn’t. It says Fast and Furious. ‘Do you think we should have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and Laura’s Tucson case [Wide Receiver] are unsealed?’ It’s specific to Fast and Furious. That is not true, Mr. Attorney General. I’m happy to share it with you.”

Brian Terry, border agent

U.S. Border Agent Brian A. Terry, shot and killed on Dec. 14, 2010, near Rio Rico, Arizona, while trying to catch bandits who target illegal immigrants. (AP Photo)

Operation Fast and Furious was carried out by the ATF. It began in the fall of 2009 and continued into early 2011, during which time the federal government purposefully allowed known or suspected gun smugglers to purchase guns at federally licensed firearms dealers in Arizona. The government did not seek to abort these gun purchases, intercept the smugglers after the purchases, or recover the guns they had purchased.

In some cases, as the government expected they would, the smugglers delivered the guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Two rifles sold to a smuggler in the course of Operation Fast and Furious in January 2010 ended up at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

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FBI May Be Preparing Bogus “Hate Crime” Charge Against Zimmerman For Shooting Druggie In Self Defense

SANFORD, FLORIDA – WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious.

State prosecutors said Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, profiled and stalked 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before killing him, so the FBI is now looking into charging him with a hate crime.

Zimmerman admitted to killing Martin in February during a confrontation. However, he claims the shooting was in self-defense. He’s facing a second-degree murder charge, which carries a maximum possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. But if Zimmerman is charged and found guilty of a federal hate crime involving murder, he could face the death penalty.

FBI investigators are actively questioning witnesses in the retreat at the Twin Lakes neighborhood, seeking evidence for a possible federal hate crime charge.

Martin was unarmed when he was shot to death, police said, and some accuse Zimmerman of targeting the teenager solely because of the color of his skin.

WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said federal prosecutors would have to prove the hate crime to charge Zimmerman, though.

“What the government would have to prove is that Mr. Zimmerman acted out of hatred toward African-Americans. That’s why he came into contact with him. That’s why he shot and killed him,” Sheaffer said.

Sheaffer said a federal hate crime murder charge could bring more serious consequences than the second-degree murder charge Zimmerman faces now.

“Mr. Zimmerman could be punished by up to life in prison or even the death penalty,” said Sheaffer.

Zimmerman said he used deadly force in self-defense after Martin punched him, knocked him to the ground and repeatedly slammed his head against a sidewalk.

As of late Monday, Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, told WFTV that he’s gotten the first prosecution documents containing the evidence against his client. O’Mara said he’s gotten a redacted witness list with 22 witnesses listed only as numbers.

O’Mara said he believes there are recorded interviews and some documents, but he said he hasn’t even opened it yet.

Prosecutors are required to release information to the defense and the public

However, O’Mara, wants Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. to keep some of the key evidence, especially witness statements, out of the public eye by writing a motion to keep it sealed.

O’Mara posted a statement on Zimmerman’s website that said, “We doubt any of them (witnesses) enjoy the scrutiny they are under due to the coincidence of their involvement in such a high-profile matter.”

In the meantime, a photograph recently surfaced which is said to show Zimmerman’s mother in the arms of her grandfather, who is black.

Zimmerman’s mother testified at his bond hearing that she has met the black child whom he mentored and even risked his safety in a dangerous neighborhood to do it, because he didn’t want to abandon the child.

State prosecutors said Zimmerman gave several inconsistent statements to Sanford police, which is, in part, their basis for charging him with second-degree murder.

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Dumb As Dirt Los Angeles California Deputy Sheriff Det. Anthony Shapiro Suspended After Lying In Court About Reading Miranda Rights – Charges Dropped After Officer’s Purjury Attempt – Arrest Was Filmed By Reality TV Show

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — A reality show meant to catch would-be catch car thieves in the act landed a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective in hot water when he allegedly lied about reading a suspect his Miranda rights.

As part of the TruTV show, undercover police officers park a car rigged with cameras along the side of the road with the keys still inside.

Then a camera crew waits nearby for someone to take the bait and try to steal the car.

But in a recent segment filmed in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a department detective wound up in trouble instead of the Regular Joe who took the bait.

Footage shot for the show showed suspect Keenan Alex, 28, find a Cadillac Escalade with the keys in the ignition and the engine running.

He got inside and drove off, but deputies quickly pulled him over and slapped handcuffs on him.

Detective Anthony Shapiro later said in court that he read Alex his rights before the suspect made incriminating statements.

But unedited video shows that Shapiro did not read Alex his rights, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“You watch TV. You know your rights and all that?,” the video shows Shapiro telling Alex.

Because Alex’s Miranda rights were violated on tape, prosecutors could not press charges against him in court and the case was dropped.

Shapiro has been placed on paid leave for testifying under oath that he read Alex is rights when he did not, according to department officials.

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Busted – PETA Killed More Than 95% Of Pets In Its Care

VIRGINIA – Documents published online this month show that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an organization known for its uncompromising animal-rights positions, killed more than 95 percent of the pets in its care in 2011.

The documents, obtained from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, were published online by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit organization that runs online campaigns targeting groups that antagonize food producers.

Fifteen years’ worth of similar records show that since 1998 PETA has killed more than 27,000 animals at its headquarters in Norfolk, VA.

In a February 16 statement, the Center said PETA killed 1,911 cats and dogs last year, finding homes for only 24 pets.

“PETA hasn’t slowed down its slaughterhouse operation,” said Rick Berman, CCF’s executive director. “It appears PETA is more concerned with funding its media and advertising antics than finding suitable homes for these dogs and cats.”

In a statement, Berman added that PETA has a $37 million dollar annual budget.

His organization runs PETAkillsAnimals.com, which reports that in 2010 a resident of Virginia called PETA and asked if there was an animal shelter at the group’s headquarters. PETA responded that there was not.

The Virginian, the website reports, then called his state’s agriculture department. Dr. Daniel Kovich investigated, and conducted an inspection of PETA’s headquarters.

“The facility does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody,” Kovich concluded in his report.

Kovich also determined that PETA employees kill 84 percent of the animals in their custody within 24 hours of receiving them.

“[PETA’s] primary purpose,” Kovich wrote, “is not to find permanent adoptive homes for animals.”

PETA media liaison Jane Dollinger told The Daily Caller in an email that “most of the animals we take in are society’s rejects; aggressive, on death’s door, or somehow unadoptable.”

Dollinger did not dispute her organization’s sky-high euthanasia rate, but insisted PETA only kills dogs and cats because of “injury, illness, age, aggression, or because no good homes exist for them.”

PETA’s own history, however, shows that this has not always been the case.

In 2005, two PETA employees described as “adorable” and “perfect” some of the dogs and cats they killed in the back of a PETA-owned van. The two were arrested after police witnessed them tossing the animals’ dead bodies into a North Carolina dumpster.

PETA had no comment when the Daily Caller asked what sort of effort it routinely makes to find adoptive homes for animals in its care.

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FBI Sees Threats To Local Law Enforcement On Every Corner….

WASHINGTON, DC – Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.

These extremists, sometimes known as “sovereign citizens,” believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.

The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.

Routine encounters with police can turn violent “at the drop of a hat,” said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterterrorism division.

“We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement,” he said.

In May 2010, two West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers were shot and killed in an argument that developed after they pulled over a “sovereign citizen” in traffic.

Last year, an extremist in Texas opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. The officer was not hit.

Legal convictions of such extremists, mostly for white-collar crimes such as fraud, have increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 each in 2010 and 2011, FBI agents said.

“We are being inundated right now with requests for training from state and local law enforcement on sovereign-related matters,” said Casey Carty, an FBI supervisory special agent.

FBI agents said they do not have a tally of people who consider themselves “sovereign citizens.”

J.J. MacNab, a former tax and insurance expert who is an analyst covering the sovereign movement, has estimated that it has about 100,000 members.

Sovereign members often express particular outrage at tax collection, putting Internal Revenue Service employees at risk.

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Secret Meeting: President Obama Gets “Transparency” Award

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama finally and quietly accepted his “transparency” award from the open government community this week — in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.

The secret presentation happened almost two weeks after the White House inexplicably postponed the ceremony, which was expected to be open to the press pool.

This time, Obama met quietly in the Oval Office with Gary Bass of OMB Watch, Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org, without disclosing the meeting on his public schedule or letting photographers or print reporters into the room.

“Our understanding going into the meeting was that it would have a pool photographer and a print reporter, and it turned out to be a private meeting,” Bass told POLITICO. “He was so on point, so on target in the conversation with us, it is baffling why he would not want that message to be more broadly heard by reporters and the public interest community and the public generally.”

Just hours before the White House put off the original event, White House press secretary Jay Carney was defiant in his defense of Obama’s transparency record against criticism that it might have been premature.

“This president has demonstrated a commitment to transparency and openness that is greater than any administration has shown in the past, and he’s been committed to that since he ran for President and he’s taken a significant number of measures to demonstrate that,” Carney said in a testy exchange with Fox News reporter Wendell Goler on March 16.

The transparency advocates who presented the award to Obama say that the recognition is important, because despite the work left to be done, Obama has done a lot to change the government’s posture toward openness issues.

But others believed the positive reinforcement was more than a little unnecessary.

“I don’t feel moved today to say ‘thank you, Mr. President,’” said Steve Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But he said he understands the award to be “aspirational,” in recognition of Obama’s potential to do more on the transparency front.

“And in that sense, one could say it resembles the award at the Nobel Peace Prize,” Aftergood said. “It’s not because Obama brought peace to anyone but because people hoped he would be a force for good in the world, and maybe that’s the way to understand this award.”

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Pinal County Arizona Deputy Sheriff And Sheriff Paul Babeu Are Pretty Much Full Of Shit

PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA – Experts are now seriously questioning Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll’s much-hyped tale of being shot by drug smugglers in a remote part of the Arizona desert. But even if every detail of Puroll’s story is true, it still does not square with many of the claims the Sheriff’s office has peddled about the case.

The department says the original criminal investigation “had concluded and the facts of the case confirmed the accounts of the event as Deputy Puroll described.” And though the case has now been reopened, Babeu told local news this week that he “absolutely” still believes his deputy. Beside Puroll and his alleged attackers, who were never found, there were no other witnesses to the event.

But in the immediate aftermath of the April incident, and to this day, Sheriff Paul Babeu and the department have made statements about the event that clash with the recorded account that Puroll gave to detectives on May 6, and which was released to the public in early July (audio here). These statements have included exaggerations and unverified information, and have been repeated often by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu as his national profile has grown as a voice on border security. Some of the claims have been walked back. Others have not.
Claim: The assailants were members of a Mexican drug cartel

While the April incident made headlines around the country in the context of the debate over immigration and border security, Puroll himself never suggested that his assailants were Mexican or illegal immigrants. The area Puroll was in is a known corridor for traffickers and undocumented border crossers, and the Sheriff’s office told TPM they know cartels operate in the area. But Puroll told detectives that he only got a look at the facial features of one of the men he was tracking that day, and only in profile, through binoculars.

“I remember thinking to myself, that man is an Indian, he’s probably not a Mexican smuggler. I remember thinking that because that’s what he looked like,” Puroll told detectives.

But that’s not what the department told the public.

On April 30, CNN reported: “The Pinal County deputy, who was not immediately identified, contacted authorities after being wounded in the desert, saying he had been shot by an illegal immigrant with an AK-47, said Lt. Tammy Villar, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.”

That night, Babeu was interviewed on local news. He said he had spoken to Puroll firsthand about the incident, and said Puroll ” gave a description, as ‘five Hispanic males.’”

Villar told TPM that some media reports suggesting Mexican persons of interest had been detained cited her and the department erroneously. She also said that when she spoke to Puroll after the incident, he asked her, “Where are people getting that these are Mexican nationals?” (Puroll went back to work 3 days after the incident, but has not yet spoken to the media. The Sheriff’s Office told TPM he is waiting for the end of an internal investigation on advice of his lawyer.)

It would seem people are getting that from the sheriff. As recently as Tuesday, Babeu was on Fox News saying that “one of my deputies, as you know, was ambushed — was shot by six members of a Mexican drug cartel.”

When TPM asked Villar how the Sheriff could know definitively that the suspects were Mexican cartel members, she responded, “I can’t answer that,” and then, “I would have the same question.”

Pinal County Public Information Officer Tim Gaffney first told TPM that the department had information from a “federal law enforcement source developed during this case and another subsequent case where two individuals were shot in the desert that those individuals working the area are tied to drug cartels from Mexico.” When asked what specifically tied that to the Puroll case, Gaffney said “The reason we feel that they were in fact members of the drug cartel is because of the witness/victim accounts from individuals in the area told us as much. We have also gotten information from other agencies that is law enforcement sensitive that has also confirmed this information.”

TPM’s requested a direct comment from the sheriff on the matter, but one was not provided.
Claim: Smugglers fired at law enforcement helicopters

In the early reports of the incident, various news outlets cited the Sheriff’s department saying that law enforcement helicopters responding to the scene took fire from the suspects. A report first published on April 30 by KPHO.com quotes Villar: “We had helicopters up in the air. They were taking gunfire from the suspects as well. They had to pull out.”

A few days after the incident, The Arizona Republic reported that the Arizona National Guard told the media:

a clipboard or other metal object within the aircraft apparently fell to the floor, causing a clattering noise. Crew members were at first unclear about the source of the noise and put out an alert that there might be gunfire in the area. During a debriefing, Castillo said, the crew realized what caused the confusion.

Villar said the clarification never reached Sheriff Paul Babeu, who told the media of a helicopter coming under fire during news briefings.

But the National Guard only took responsibility for the confusion over one helicopter taking fire. When TPM asked Villar how she came to tell media that several helicopters had sustained fire she wrote in an email:

when the helicopter pilot (mind you there was more than 1 in the air) reported he had taken fire…….he didn’t immediately identify himself to our incident commander……we had more than one and did not know which one was taking fire…..They means….there were more than 1 and we did not know who was……I could have better stated- one of the helicopters has reported they (again they) were taking fire……it is a matter of semantics that had been later clarified numerous times.

Claim: Puroll was “ambushed”

In his account of the incident, Puroll said the following:

That man stood up in front of me, about 25 yards away… When he first stood up, he did not see me, initially. He did not come up ready to shoot. I don’t believe he knew I was there, until he actually saw me. When he stood up his weapon was in his right hand down by his side pointed at the ground. He stood up, he was looking at the ground. Then he raised his head and looked up and he saw me.

Puroll’s account suggests he surprised the men he was tracking. Yet Babeu has repeatedly described the incident as an “ambush.”

In an article posted April 30, KPHO.com reported Babeu saying, “One of them stayed in the rear, took cover. That person popped up and started firing rounds at our deputy.”

The case has been at the center of his argument that the tactics of drug smugglers have changed recently, that they have become more violent and organized. (An argument he made in a recent interview with TPM.)

On August 2, Babeu appeared on Fox News and told Sean Hannity: “This is America, and we have armed paramilitary squad-sized elements coming through our county every day and every night, and they even ambushed one of my deputies.”

Expanding on Babeu’s argument that the attack used “paramilitary” tactics, Gaffney told TPM that “when the shooting began these individuals were spread out much like tactics learned and practiced in the military.” But according to Puroll:

Everything occurred here within a 25 or 30 yard circle at most. I don’t think those people who were shooting could actually see me, ’cause the rounds were all cracking in air above my head. Nothing struck ’round me close in the dirt or anything like that.

Claim: A large amount of marijuana was recovered at the site

On May 1, The Arizona Republic reported that “Babeu said Puroll was tracking the smugglers, who left behind large quantities of marijuana.” Puroll said he suspected the men he was following were drug smugglers, and he said that five of the six men he saw that day were carrying large backpacks — but no evidence was ever recovered.

On May 3, Babeu appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox News and said that Puroll “found some actual backpacks of marijuana and some other suspicious activity.”

The New Times’ Paul Rubin reports that at a press conference on May 4, Babeu “conceded that some information released by his agency in the hours after the incident was inaccurate.” Among the corrected errors Rubin lists: “That the smugglers left behind “bales” of marijuana as they fled. Authorities confiscated no contraband.”

Gaffney told TPM that “Deputy Puroll was following the smugglers to see where they would leave the marijuana they were backpacking. We have evidence bays stuffed full of the backpacks that we seize every week. It is common practice for smugglers to backpack the marijuana through Pinal County and then leave it in a location until it is picked up. Deputy Puroll reported this as well that he was following them to see where they would leave it.”

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Las Vegas Nevada Police Officer Bryan Yant Under Investigation For Drugs He Didn’t Seize In Police Raid That Never Took Place – Lied To Justify Shooting Man In June

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Las Vegas police Detective Bryan Yant is under investigation for apparently lying about drugs he didn’t seize and actions he didn’t take during a 2009 police raid that never happened, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned.

Yant, a 10-year veteran of the department who remains on paid leave, last week was cleared by a coroner’s inquest in the fatal shooting of Trevon Cole, 21, while serving a drug warrant in June. In seeking the search warrant, Yant made gross misstatements about Cole’s criminal history.

The department’s internal affairs unit is investigating that case and is questioning Yant’s actions in at least one other drug probe.

In January, Yant and fellow officer David Goris said they sat in a car outside a northwest valley home while a confidential informant bought drugs from a man they identified as William Sigler. That alleged drug buy was used to justify a nighttime search of Sigler’s home 12 days later. Police arrested Sigler and his girlfriend and seized prescription drugs, marijuana and cocaine from the home.

But Sigler’s attorneys and prosecutors now agree that the informant did not buy drugs from Sigler, who was dealing cards at a poker tournament in the Bahamas in January.

Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure threw out the case last week. Clark County District Attorney David Roger still can seek an indictment by a grand jury, but he said Wednesday he has not decided whether he will do so.

Investigators also question why Yant tore up and left three documents at Sigler’s home during the January raid. In those documents, obtained by the Review-Journal, Yant describes a different raid of Sigler’s home, one that never took place.

Yant, in a “declaration of arrest” form, describes detaining suspects and photographing evidence at the Sigler home. The form is dated December 2009, but the day of the month is left blank. He also filled out and signed a “preliminary field test checklist” affirming that evidence seized in that nonexistent raid was positive for cocaine but did not list an amount or the specific date.

It’s unclear why Yant filled out paperwork describing events that never happened.

Deputy Chief Joseph Lombardo, who oversees the department’s narcotics section, said the documents pertain to a prior case that went nowhere.

Yant in December said he used department money to buy drugs from Sigler and obtained a search warrant for Sigler’s home, Lombardo said. But Lombardo confirmed that no search was conducted in December, and it’s unclear why the search warrant signed by Justice of the Peace Eric Goodman was never executed.

No December drug buy plays any role in any case against Sigler.

Yant never should have completed paperwork in advance of an anticipated raid, Lombardo said, and leaving those papers in Sigler’s home a month later was “inappropriate.”

Yant’s certification that he had seized cocaine before a raid that never even happened raises “serious questions,” said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

He said Yant’s completion of the form without having the drugs in his possession in particular went “beyond mere laziness and sloppiness. It goes to a process that is totally phony.”

Sigler’s attorneys, John Wright and Jason Weiner, said their client found the torn-up papers in his home after the January raid and pieced them back together. They said that when they asked prosecutors for copies of the department’s marked bills and inventory of drugs bought in January, they inexplicably received only Yant’s paperwork from December.

Weiner said that if the informant really did buy drugs in January, there should be a paper trail. Roger said that his office never received that information from detectives and that his case is based only on the evidence allegedly seized in the January raid.

Sigler’s attorneys challenged that evidence, saying it was obtained through a flawed warrant.

“The money had to go out of Metro and the drugs had to come in, and there is no record of that happening by Metro despite our repeated requests,” Weiner said, adding that, “The bottom line is, our guy was in the Bahamas.”

Lombardo said the department does have records of drugs bought in January. It’s unclear why the records were never given to prosecutors or the defense.

In the Trevon Cole case, Yant in a search warrant affidavit confused Cole, a small-time marijuana dealer, with a man by the same name who had a long history of drug arrests in Houston and California though that man is described as seven years older, at least 3 inches shorter and 100 pounds lighter. Yant and his supervisor, Sgt. John Harney, who is also on paid leave, are under investigation for the way that search warrant was carried out. Goris’ duty status was unclear Wednesday.

The investigations are part of the fallout from police work that district attorneys at last week’s inquest described as “sloppy.”

After the Cole shooting, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie ordered narcotics detectives to stop serving their own forced-entry search warrants, leaving them for SWAT officers. After the inquest, he extended that order to cover all raids pending a departmental policy review.

In what officials call an unrelated move, the captain overseeing narcotics, Capt. Brett Zimmerman, was recently transferred to the crimes against youth and family bureau, and that bureau’s Capt. Vincent Cannito was sent to narcotics.

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