Operations Fast & Furious

[MeeMie]

Congressman Darrell Issa Under Attack by ObamaMedia


As Darrell Issa pushes for further investigations into the Obama administration’s deadly Project Gunrunner scandal, a just-published Washington Post report takes aim not at President Obama – but Congressman Issa.



Unexpected? No.

Congressman Darrell Issa had to know that once he began his quest for the truth of who knew what and when that powerful forces within the mainstream media would engage in an aggressive campaign to protect and insulate President Barack Obama from the growing scandal of Project Gunrunner.

A just-published Washington Post report by Jerry Markon and Sara Horwitz is the first of what will likely be an ever-increasing volley of attacks against Darrell Issa and any others who dare demand the truth from the Obama administration.

The Post article makes clear its intent to smear Issa while ignoring the facts of the Project Gunrunner/Fast and Furious scandal at its outset, making the claim that Congressman Issa was “briefed” on aspects of the operation in 2010. Without giving any details as to the specifics of that briefing, or expounding upon the fact that the briefing was done at the request of Issa himself, who was even then attempting to get details on the project, the Washington Post hopes to paint Issa as already having been “in the loop” on an ordeal that now has both Republicans and Democrats declaring an absolute disaster, shockingly absent of leadership by any within the Obama administration.

The Post’s headline attacking Darrell Issa also neglects to reflect the strongly worded rebuke of Frederick R. Hill, a spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Hill described to the Washington Post the view that the Department of Justice knew less about Operation Fast and Furious than did members of Congress with the following:
“This irresponsible and false accusation is indicative of a Justice Department bereft of leadership and rattled by the revelations of its own misconduct.’’



Such slanted and deceptive reporting is nothing new for Jerry Markon of the Washington Post. A quick review of his past stories shows a “reporter” consistently attacking conservative causes and politicians.

A NewsBusters report from 2009 took Mr. Markon to task for his dubious protection of then Supreme Court nominee and staunch liberal, Sonia Sotomayor. Another NewsBusters report outlines Markon’s hopes for a successful challenge against Arizona’s controversial immigration law by the Eric Holder Department of Justice – the very same Department of Justice Markon is now attemting to protect against Darrell Issa’s Congressional investigations.


As for Sari Horwitz, the other author of the anti-Issa hit piece, she actually wrote an article late January of this year describing Project Gunrunner as, “…a signature effort by the Obama administration to assist Mexico in stemming the flow of guns south of the border." Horwitz also attempted the dubious connection within that same article between the need to support Project Gunrunner with continued funding, and the shooting tragedy of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.


So it appears one side of the Washington Post’s mouth is attempting to state the Obama administration – namely Eric Holder and Barack Obama, knew little about the details of Project Gunrunner, while the other side of the mouth recently described the plan as “a signature effort by the Obama administration…”



This investigation, and the involvement of high ranking officials within the Obama administration, will not be covered up.

The truth will be known…


Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/the-ul...sa-under-attack-by-obama-media/#ixzz1Q0gp02mo

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Thanks to Operation Fast and Furious, the incompetence and ineptitude that has infected the Holder Justice Department is becoming more obvious all the time. For department prosecutors (and senior ATF personnel) to approve the sale of firearms to Mexican drug cartels through straw buyers was a deadly misstep.

It led directly to the tragic death of Border Agent Brian Terry. Mexican officials estimate that “150 of their people have been shot by Fast and Furious guns,” Fox News reports. The obdurate refusal of Justice to provide the names of the senior Justice leadership who approved this operation at the recent House hearing held by Rep. Darrel Issa shows the willingness of Justice to cover up its mistakes and defy congressional oversight. As Issa accurately said, this growing scandal “was so felony stupid that it got people killed.”

But Operation Fast and Furious also shows how willing this administration is to deliberately mislead the press and how easily the Washington Post was conned by the administration in a story it published last year.

On December 13, 2010, the Post ran a story about U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” The Post included “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” The Post did not reveal where it got this information, but pointed out that Congress passed a law in 2003 exempting the trace information maintained by the ATF from public disclosure. So the Post had to have gotten this information through a leak directly from the ATF (or by illegally hacking the ATF’s records, a far-fetched and highly unlikely scenario).

Two of the gun dealers the Post’s story assailed were Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale and J&G Sales in Prescott, Ariz. Lone Wolf Trading is number one on the list for Mexican traces; J&G is number three.

However, at the time the ATF was apparently leaking this information to the Post, both of these dealers were cooperating with the ATF in the Fast and Furious Operation. When Fox News talked recently to the owner of J&G, Brad DeSaye, about the ATF’s disastrous operation, he said that when he questioned the ATF about whether the agency wanted the gun shop to sell to the cartel front men, the ATF said, “Keep selling.”

The Post actually interviewed DeSaye over his store’s appearance in the trace records. DeSaye, to his credit, did not reveal the still-secret ATF operation to the Post reporters, even though they were clearly writing a negative story that was potentially embarrassing to DeSaye.

This double-dealing by the ATF is appalling. It was bad enough that the ATF was running a secret operation that had gone off the rails and was supplying dangerous weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. But then the agency apparently leaked deceptive information on gun sales that put the gun dealers in a bad light, or at a minimum, misled the Post when it should have tried to provide cover for dealers who were following ATF instructions. Indeed, these dealers were showing up in the Mexican trace information because the ATF was telling them to ignore the law and the usual verification procedures and sell guns to the cartels, sometime dozens in a single day to one person.

In an irony that could almost be considered comeuppance to the ATF, the Post story was published the day before Agent Terry was killed. Terry’s death panicked the ATF supervisors who were running Fast and Furious, a panic that was deserved after two of the weapons found at the murder scene were traced to the operation. Yet in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley on Feb. 4, 2011, DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, the same individual who testified before Issa’s committee, claimed the ATF had not “knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico.” As the whistleblower ATF agents testified, this was patently false.

This apparent leak by the administration to mislead the Washington Post was not a one-time incident. On May 26, just two weeks before the Issa hearing, La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States (based in Los Angeles), published a story about the smuggling of guns from America into Mexico. The spokesman for the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix again specifically named Lone Wolf Trading, which had sold guns at the express direction of the ATF, as being responsible along with other gun dealers for “a great majority of confiscated weapons in crimes on the other side of the border.” This is the same U.S. Attorney’s Office that “encouraged and supported every single facet of Fast and Furious,” according to the Joint Staff Report prepared by Rep. Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley.

There are two final points that should be made about this fiasco. The fact that Holder sent Weich up to testify on June 15 is very revealing to anyone familiar with internal Justice procedure. Weich is the head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, the office tasked with dealing with Congress. It is not a line department directly involved in prosecutions and investigations. The Fast and Furious Operation would have been handled out of the Criminal Division, headed by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, former special counsel to Bill Clinton. Breuer (or Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke) would obviously be the witnesses with the most direct knowledge — particularly the question of who at Justice in the top leadership offices was briefed or asked for approval of the operation.

The only reason for Justice to send Weich was to send someone with no actual knowledge of who approved this operation so he could truthfully testify under oath — as he did despite tough questioning by Issa — that he did not “know the answer to that question.” The fact that the Inspector General is supposedly investigating — one of the other excuses Weich gave for not answering questions — is also not a legitimate reason to withhold information from Congress when it is exercising its constitutional oversight function.

...

Finally, the most obvious question that Issa, Grassley, and others have been asking is: Why would the administration implement such an obviously perilous, risky, and foolish operation that sent hundreds of dangerous weapons into Mexico?

For a possible answer, recall that in 2009 the Obama administration was making a huge public issue about the flow of guns from American gun dealers into Mexico. President Obama himself erroneously claimed at a joint press conference with President Filipe Calderon in Mexico City on April 16, 2009, that “90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.” Everyone from William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the ATF, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed this same claim.

The problem, however, was that the 90 percent figure was demonstrably false. Only a small portion of the guns seized by Mexican authorities have traceable serial numbers. In 2008, GAO reported that the Mexican government seized 30,000 guns, and only 6,700 were confirmed to have originated in the U.S. That represents only 22 percent, not 90 percent.

The administration’s claim was widely criticized as being wrong — which may have provided a political motivation for an ill-advised operation that poured U.S. weapons into Mexico. This could provide the administration with a public-relations coup that supported its claims when it unveiled its prosecutions. Perhaps that’s why one ATF supervisor was described as “jovial, if not, not giddy, but just delighted” [sic] when Fast and Furious guns were found at Mexican crime scenes, and why Acting Director of the ATF Kenneth Melson took such a personal interest that he watched live feeds from secret ATF cameras in guns stores while sitting at his desk.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/operation-fast-and-furious/?singlepage=true

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Earlier this week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Deputy Director William J. Hoover, insisting on assurances there would be no reprisals against the ATF agents who have chosen to testify about the failed Operation Fast and Furious — the operation Issa has called “felony stupid.”

Just a day later, ATF Special Agent Vince Cefalu received notice ATF wants to terminate his employment after more than 30 years with the agency. Cefalu is one of the founders of CleanUpATF.org, a message board dedicated to addressing abuses within the ATF. He is one of the most vocal critics of the heads of the organization.

He said the main reason given in the four-page document for his termination is “lack of candor.”

Four years ago, what originally landed Cefalu in trouble was a case called “Road Dog“. In that case, local law enforcement was allegedly using an illegal wiretap — something Cefalu resisted:

I threw the locals under the bus. … I became the most vocal critic and they got sick of my s***.

He’s since spent four years in a do-nothing job, with ATF managers hoping he’d get the message and retire:

They put me in a cage, paid me full salary, and hoped it would break me down mentally and I would retire.

Since he did a three-part series of interviews about the problems in ATF with CNN’s Anderson Cooper last May, Cefalu says he’s been given only 122 minutes of work:

Not GS-13 investigative work either. Changing batteries or filling cars with gas.

Cefalu said he’s suffered persecution in several other ways as well:

[Acting Director] Ken Melson can’t even respond to a letter from a committee chairman. … I can’t fart in public without being accused of violations. I’ve submitted to seven internal affairs investigations since I blew the whistle. Without an attorney present, I answered every question.

I’m representing dozens of agents [in greivance cases]. They take me out of play, they take a bunch of these cases out of play.

Cefalu says there should be prosecutions in the failed Operation Fast and Furious case, also known as “Gunwalker.” When asked if ATF had violated the law in this case, he responded:

Of course if violates the law! They conspired to traffic firearms, you can’t do that under color of law. … There was no intent to follow the guns, this never had a chance of succeeding. It was a failed plan from the beginning.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/fired-gunrunner-whistleblower-vince-cefalu-speaks-pjm-exclusive/

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Speaking of Holder:

ATF Director Kenneth Melson, who was heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious, doesn't look like he's willing to fall on his sword for Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama just yet. In fact, Melson is ready to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee where Rep. Darrell Issa will ask him who above him ordered the operation within the Justice Department. Eric Holder should be very, very worried.

Rumors have been swirling around Washington all week that Melson would resign, yet it is now Friday and no resignation has been made.

The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.

Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.

Melson does not want to be "the fall guy" for the program, under which ATF agents allowed straw purchasers to acquire more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers, the sources said. The idea was to track the guns to drug cartel leaders. But that goal proved elusive, and the guns turned up at shootings in Mexico, as well as at the slaying in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.

"He is saying he won't go," said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. "He has told them, 'I'm not going to be the fall guy on this.' "

Not surprisingly, the Justice Department is stonewalling his testimony.

Melson has an open invitation to appear on Capitol Hill. So far, he has not been given Justice Department approval to appear before Congress.

Between the Obama Justice Department submitting 900 pages of black, redacted material to Rep. Issa and now the DOJ stalling to give Melson permission to testify, there is no question the authorization of Operation Fast and Furious goes much higher up in the department than Holder wants us to know about.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiep...r_to_testify_about_operation_fast_and_furious

 

[mercury14]

You guys know the Bush Administration invented this program. Right?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Yeah, Bush was the President in the Fall of 2009...

From the recent congressional report on Fast and Furious:

In the fall of 2009, the Department of Justice (DOJ) developed a risky new strategy to combat gun trafficking along the Southwest Border.…The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) implemented that strategy using a reckless investigative technique that street agents call “gunwalking.” ATF’s Phoenix Field Division began allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns.

This shift in strategy was known and authorized at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Through both the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona and “Main Justice,” headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Department closely monitored and supervised the activities of the ATF.

...

The Obama administration has a history of promoting gun control. Soon after Obama’s inauguration, Holder said:

As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.…I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.

This March, Sarah Brady, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said that Obama told her in a private meeting how gun control was “very much on his agenda”:

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

The Obama administration may still benefit from Gunwalker. While current ATF chief Kenneth Melson is expected to resign, his replacement is likely worse. Obama originally nominated Andrew Traver to head ATF. Traver has a history of supporting the worst forms of gun control, and will likely replace Melson.

The NRA strongly opposes President Obama’s nomination of Andrew Traver as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). Traver has been deeply aligned with gun control advocates and anti-gun activities….

Traver served as an advisor to the International Association for Chiefs of Police’s (IACP) “Gun Violence Reduction Project,” a “partnership” with the Joyce Foundation.

Between 2006 and 2009, the Joyce Foundation gave the IACP $1.2M to organize the Great Lakes Summit on Gun Violence, and to implement their conclusions, which included anti-rights goals like renewing the Clinton gun ban (reduced capacity magazines and banning many long guns) and forcing civilians to store firearms in “safe” facilities. That’s what Traver represents.

Joyce represents a dozen well-heeled directors with a direct connection to Obama, a former Joyce director.

Then there’s the rhetoric that 90% of Mexican cartel firearms came from American retailers (recently changed to 70%). Stratfor details how firearms selection was manipulated by Mexican authorities to ensure that the guns most likely of American origin were submitted for tracing.

Nor does the alleged 70% explain how the guns got to Mexico, since our government provided many to Mexican military and police, in addition to those provided by Gunwalker.

But the administration continues to promote the 90% myth, so what better way to “prove” it than by sending guns south?

Violating the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989

Federal employees who make disclosures…serve the public interest by assisting in the elimination of fraud, waste, abuse, and unnecessary Government expenditures….

The purpose of this Act is to strengthen and improve protection for the rights of Federal employees, to prevent reprisals, and to help eliminate wrongdoing within the Government…

ATF Agent Dodson testified that he was removed from the ATF Phoenix Group VII because he complained about allowing straw buyers to transport guns into Mexico.

One day after Congressman Issa warned ATF not to retaliate, they fired Special Agent Vince Cefalu, 30-year veteran and long-time ATF critic.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel handles whistleblowers. They consider reprisals “a prohibited personnel practice” citing relevant federal laws, highlighting another violation by the DOJ.

DOJ cover-up

Again, giving Holder the benefit of the doubt: “A person who is unaware of the crime before it takes place, but who helps in the aftermath of the crime, is referred to as an ‘accessory after the fact.’” However, elements of criminal intent have appeared.

The White House claims it’s “committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.” Yet when Congressman Darrell Issa subpoenaed DOJ for Gunwalker documents, he received pages so redacted their bodies are solid black.

From the congressional report:

The Department of Justice has repeatedly and steadfastly denied that any guns were walked under Operation Fast and Furious. According to the narrowest possible interpretation, a gun is walked only when an ATF agent physically places an AK-47 into the hands of a straw purchaser and then lets that straw purchaser walk out of sight.

This rationalizing hearkens back to Clinton’s “the meaning of is” grand jury testimony.

The Constitution empowers Congress to impeach federal officials. From Article 2, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Three attorneys general have been impeached; two resigned as a result.

There appears to be enough evidence to impeach Holder for incompetence, violation of federal law, and accessory to murder.

 

[MeeMie]

You guys know the Bush Administration invented this program. Right?

And there you have it, folks! The classic Loonie Mantra!

BLAME BUSH!!!



A little loose on the facts though ... a distortion of facts, really.


A similar project began during the Bush administration in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 as a trial, morphing into a national program in 2006.

A small amount of guns were sold and tracked electronically constantly, giving law enforcement agents valuable intelligence on where the weapons went and who had them.

Key to the discussion:
During the Bush years, no guns were allowed to cross the border into Mexico.
The movement was monitored electronically and targets arrested.


Vaguely similar, but not at all like the end result.

When President Obama took office in 2009, things changed.

Obama’s ATF made a crucial decision to allow guns to be “walked” into Mexico, eventually ending up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels without any means to monitor.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon estimates that 90,000 weapons seized – among them 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets, came across the border from America during the gunrunner operation. How many more could be involved is anyone's guess, as the Obama administration certainly isn't owning up to the numbers involved.

 

[busybody..]

You guys know the Bush Administration invented this program. Right?

really?

show us

OBLIVIOUS POON!

 

[mercury14]

Mexican President Felipe Calderon estimates that 90,000 weapons seized – among them 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets, came across the border from America during the gunrunner operation. How many more could be involved is anyone's guess, as the Obama administration certainly isn't owning up to the numbers involved.

Now the number is 90,000 guns? How come this figure jumps by like 10k guns every day?

During congressional hearings the whistle-blowers said the figure is only 2,500, 600 of which were recovered in subsequent busts after the guns were successfully tracked.

Congressional Investigation

Congressional hearings are being held to investigate this program. So far they have found that [1]

BATFE knowingly allowed as many as 2,500 firearms to be sold illegally to known or suspected straw purchasers. One of those purchasers accounted for over 700 illegal guns.
BATFE ordered its agents working the program not to arrest illegal gun buyers or to interdict thousands of guns that were allowed to “walk” into criminal hands.
Senior BATFE officials in Washington were regularly briefed on the operation and approved of the tactics employed.
BATFE agents who opposed the operation and who raised objections were told to “get with the program” and threatened with job retaliation if they continued their opposition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious

Don't get me wrong, the idea was stupid and far too risky to do on anything but a small scale. But claiming that the figure is 90k instead of 2.5k (minus .6k) is just stupid.

 

[MeeMie]

Now the number is 90,000 guns? How come this figure jumps by like 10k guns every day?

Don't get me wrong, the idea was stupid and far too risky to do on anything but a small scale. But claiming that the figure is 90k instead of 2.5k (minus .6k) is just stupid.

Please note:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon estimated

Of course, he has an ulterior motive for overestimating the numbers ... he is about to sue the United States.

 

[mercury14]

Please note:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon estimated

Of course, he has an ulterior motive for overestimating the numbers ... he is about to sue the United States.

Then why bother posting this if you agree it's absurd?

 

[MeeMie]

Mexican President Felipe Calderon estimates that 90,000 weapons seized – among them 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets, came across the border from America during the gunrunner operation. How many more could be involved is anyone's guess, as the Obama administration certainly isn't owning up to the numbers involved.

Then why bother posting this if you agree it's absurd?

What IS absurd is that this administration would put the United States in a position where it is involved in a legal action left to the estimates of an adversary Mexican government.


What else is absurd is that you continue to point out inconsequential trivialities, rather than discuss the actual issue of this thread. Why bother posting if all you do is deflect from the subject of the thread?




Another deflection attempted to distract attention away from the gunrunner operation by Gunrunner Holder.

Interesting to note this is also a swipe at Leon Panetta, who made it clear months ago Holder was not to go after CIA operatives.

Eric Holder Shines Spotlight on CIA Interrogation Methods Again

There’s a renewed urgency to the issue, following Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement today that he has ordered a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two prisoners who were interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency in the years following the 9/11 attacks.

Holder's announcement is certain to spark another round of fierce debating like the one we had in 2009, when Holder announced that he had deputized federal prosecutor John Durham to probe whether Bush-era CIA officials or contractors broke the law when interrogating terrorism suspects overseas.


Holder drags his feet regarding Gunrunner investigation, but now calls for full on investigations into the CIA just as David Petraeus takes over from Panetta.

Panetta probably had the political clout to make Holder stand down, I'm not sure Petraeus does. I admire Petraeus for the General that he is. He comes across as a very honorable man, and a man with character. But he has been too long in battle to have had time to build the necessary political connections that would be required to have the clout to make Holder back away.

Watch the other hand! This is just a diversionary tactic by Holder.

Let's hope Congress oversight will put an end to the masquerade deflection.

 

[mercury14]

What IS absurd is that this.....

What's absurd is that you'd use "fuzzy math" to blur the line between 1,900 un-recovered guns and 90,000.

 

[MeeMie]

Fast & Furious Was Much Broader



Acting Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Director Kenneth Melson, in surprise July 4th testimony to chief House investigator Rep. Darrell Issa's panel, corroborated shocking suggestions that the Fast & Furious gun running scam on the U.S.-Mexico border included more federal agencies—and tax dollars—than previously revealed.


What's more, he suggested that top Justice officials muzzled ATF as it sought to clean up the episode after two of the guns in the scam were linked to the December killing in Arizona of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.



In a five-page letter to Attorney General Eric Holder following Melson's testimony, Issa, chair of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee and Senate Justice Committee ranking member Sen. Charles Grassley, called for greater cooperation in Issa's probe of Fast & Furious. And they warned Holder not to fire Melson and make him "the fall guy in an attempt to prevent further congressional oversight."


"The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities. While this is preliminary information, we must find out if there is any truth to it. According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers, which we now know were substantially delayed by the U.S. Attorney's Office and Main Justice,"


Issa has been probing the scandal for months. He calls Fast and Furious a reckless ATF initiative to build a case against gun traffickers linked to Mexican drug cartels. In doing so, ATF allegedly allowed straw buyers, those who can legally buy guns, to do so and then sell them to criminals who passed them to drug cartels.

A pair of AK-47s linked to Fast & Furious were found at the site of Terry's killing.

The National Rifle Association has joined in the cause, charging that the scandal that included about 2,500 guns escalated the violence on the border.

Issa says that he's been stonwalled by Justice in his probe.


In their letter, Issa and Grassley suggest that ATF has been "muzzled" by Justice; that other agencies were involved in the scandal; and that Justice has "buried its head in the sand" to block the investigation.

 

[MeeMie]

ATF Director Melson’s secret Fourth of July fireworks and the post-testimony fallout


In a secret July 4 testimony before Congressional investigators, Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), revealed important new details of Operation Fast and Furious, the international gunrunning scandal that Obama administration officials still refuse to clear up.


Today, Congressional investigators Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) followed up on that testimony by sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder just to let him know what they now know and to censure the Department of Justice for continuing to obstruct investigations into Project Gunwalker.


The key takeaways of the testimony, as relayed in the letter to Holder from Issa and Grassley:

• The ATF isn’t the only agency to bear some responsibility for the botched operation that sent guns to Mexico. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Agency seem to have possessed information that could have had a material impact on Fast and Furious (i.e. info that could have eliminated or reduced the ostensible ‘need’ for the operation in the first place). Or, as the letter puts it, “We have very real indications from several sources that some of the gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants.”
  
• Taxpayer money was likely used to finance the gunrunning. “The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities.”
  
• Senior ATF officials would have preferred to cooperate with Congressional inquiries — but “Department of Justice officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.”
  
• Melson was at no point asked to resign.

Perhaps this would have come out at Melson’s regularly scheduled testimony July 13, but it says something that Melson chose to meet secretly with Issa and Grassley and to be represented by his own personal counsel rather than DOJ and ATF counsel, who, obviously, would have had departmental interests (and the protection of higher officials, perhaps?) more in mind than what was best for Melson.


Trust Issa and Grassley to investigate this until they determine who was ultimately responsible. They clearly think it goes beyond Melson.

This is how they concluded their letter:

Any decision about Mr. Melson’s future with the Department would need to be justified solely on the basis of the facts and the needs of the agency, rather than on his decision to speak to us. We encourage you to communicate to us any additional significant information about any such decision so that we can work together to ensure that it would not impede our investigation. For now, the Office of Inspector General is still conducting its review, and we are still conducting ours. Knowing what we know so far, we believe it would be inappropriate to make Mr. Melson the fall guy in an attempt to prevent further congressional oversight.​

Inappropriate indeed.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Yeah, what's the big deal over 1900 guns...

 

[MeeMie]

Yeah, what's the big deal over 1900 guns...

And a few dead bodies...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

And a few dead bodies...

Just a handful!




When will you racists come up with something substantial?

 

[busybody..]

WAS THE ATF’S GUNRUNNING OPERATION financed by “stimulus” funds? That would be fitting, wouldn’t it?

 

[MeeMie]

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/mrz070811dAPR20110707114515.jpg

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Or consider “Operation Fast and Furious,” about which nothing is happening terribly fast and over which Americans should be furious. The official explanation is that the federal government used stimulus funding to buy guns from Arizona gun shops for known criminals to funnel to Mexican drug cartels. As I said, that’s the official explanation: As soon as your head stops spinning, we’ll resume the narrative. Supposedly, United States taxpayers were picking up the tab for Mexican drug lords’ weaponry in order that the ATF could identify high-up gun-traffickers. But, as it turns out, these high-up gun-traffickers were already known to other agencies — FBI, DEA, and other big-spending acronyms in the great fetid ooze of federal alphabet soup in which this republic is drowning. And, indeed, some of those high-ups are said to have been paid informants for those various federal agencies. So, in case you’re wondering why Obama’s second annual Recovery Summer is a wee bit sluggish at your end, relax: Stimulus dollars went to fund one federal agency to buy guns for the paid informants of another federal agency to funnel to foreign criminals in order that the first federal agency might identify the paid informants of the second federal agency.

Meanwhile, what did the drug cartels, the recipients of the guns, do with them? Well, they used them to kill at least one member of a third federal agency: Brian Terry of the United States Border Patrol. If that doesn’t bother you, well, they also killed not insignificant numbers of Mexican civilians. If, by this stage, you’re wondering why U.S. stimulus dollars are being used to stimulate the Mexican coffin industry, consider the dark suspicion of many American gun owners — that the real reason the feds embarked on this murderous scheme was to plant the evidence that the increasing lawlessness on the southern border is the fault of the gun industry and the Second Amendment, and thereby advance its ideological agenda of ever greater gun control.

Mark Steyn
NRO

Now if this was Nixon, Reagan or Bush...

 

[MeeMie]

http://www.moonbattery.com/project-...anet-napolitano-atf-doj-dhs-sad-hill-news.jpg

 

[MeeMie]

Obama's Stimulus Funded Fast & Furious Program

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyQMbXgAoRE

Obama, Pelosi & Reid's Congress gave the ATF $29 million in 2009 including $10 million in stimulus money for “project gunrunner,” the predecessor of “fast and furious.” A year later, in 2010, it got $37 million more to expand gunrunner.



There are now reports that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious. 1,000 of those guns were sold to MS13 buyers.

Leaders of the transnational organized criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) even ordered a hit on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in New York.

The most dangerous gang in the world:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347306/posts
http://tomdiaz.wordpress.com/2009/1...dor-ordered-hit-on-u-s-ice-agent-in-new-york/

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The Libs and the press don't care; it's not like it's Iran Contra, this was just a few lower-level rouge players and as merc said, what's the big deal over 1900 guns; it's not like the guy wasn't going to be killed anyway...