Operations Fast & Furious

[4est_4est_Gump]

Oh, goodie, another late Friday Night Document dump...



Including some smoking guns...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday provided Congress with documents detailing how department officials gave inaccurate information to a U.S. senator in the controversy surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the flawed law enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling major arms trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

In a letter last February to Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had not sanctioned the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser and that the agency makes every effort to intercept weapons that have been purchased illegally. In Operation Fast and Furious, both statements turned out to be incorrect.

The Justice Department letter was responding to Grassley's statements that the Senate Judiciary Committee had received allegations the ATF had sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers. Grassley also said there were allegations that two of the assault weapons had been used in a shootout that killed customs agent Brian Terry.

In an email four days later to Justice Department colleagues, then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Phoenix said that "Grassley's assertions regarding the Arizona investigation and the weapons recovered" at the "murder scene are based on categorical falsehoods. I worry that ATF will take 8 months to answer this when they should be refuting its underlying accusations right now." That email marked the start of an internal debate in the Justice Department over what and how much to say in response to Grassley's allegations. The fact that there was an ongoing criminal investigation into Terry's murder prompted some at the Justice Department to argue for less disclosure.

Some of what turned out to be incorrect information was emailed to Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division. Breuer sent an email saying "let's help as much as we can" in responding to Grassley.

The emails sent to Capitol Hill on Friday showed that Burke supplied additional incorrect information to the Justice Department's criminal division that ended up being forwarded to Breuer. For example, Burke said that the guns found at the Terry murder scene were purchased at a Phoenix gun shop before Operation Fast and Furious began. In fact, the operation was under way at the time and the guns found at the Terry murder scene were part of the probe. Breuer was one of the recipients of that information. In written comments this week to Grassley, Breuer said that he was on a three-day official trip to Mexico at the time of the Justice Department response and that he was aware of, but not involved in, drafting the Justice Department statements to Grassley. Breuer says he cannot say for sure whether he saw a draft of the letter before it was sent to Grassley.

http://news.yahoo.com/justice-dept-details-got-statements-wrong-215322145.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The documents released today show tangential involvement by Breuer in preparing the Feb. 4 letter.

“Let me know what’s happening with this,” he wrote in a Feb. 1 email asking for an update.

Jason Weinstein, Breuer’s deputy, responded by saying he had revised the initial draft, written by Burton, to “make it a little tougher.”

The documents show Weinstein was intimately involved in drafting the letter, urging repeated changes to strengthen the tone of its denial over objections from the Office of Legislative Affairs headed by Weich.

Weinstein was also far more familiar than Breuer with the details of Operation Wide Receiver, according to documents released in October. For instance, Weinstein told colleagues in an April 12, 2010, email that the ATF should be “embarrassed that they let this many guns walk” in Wide Receiver.

According to Breuer, Weinstein is now also expressing regret about not connecting the dots between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious.

“Weinstein has expressed to me that, in hindsight, he wishes he had not relied on those assertions and that, because he did rely so heavily on them, he viewed, incorrectly, the misguided tactics used in Operation Wide Receiver — which resulted in the ATF losing control of guns that then crossed the border into Mexico — as having no relation to the allegations that were being made about Operation Fast and Furious,” Breuer said today in a written statement to Congressional investigators.

The day before the letter was sent to Grassley, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General raised concerns about the scope of the denial it contained.

“In the 2nd full para[graph] — we say ‘categorically false’ — obviously we want to be 300% sure we can make such a ‘categorical’ statement,” Lisa Monaco wrote in an email after reviewing a draft version of the letter. “I’ve developed an aversion to adjectives and oversight letters,” she explained in a later email.

The language was ultimately removed.

Over the course of the letter being prepared, Burke vehemently argued the department should more vigorously deny the allegations.

“What is so offensive about this whole project is that Grassley’s staff, acting as willing stooges for the Gun Lobby, have attempted to distract from the incredible success in dismantling [southwest border] gun trafficking operations ... but, instead, lobbing this reckless despicable accusation that ATF is complicit in the murder of a fellow federal law enforcement officer,” he wrote in a Feb. 4 email.

“Well said Dennis. Thank you!” Hoover replied.

However, guns found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder were eventually connected to the Fast and Furious operation.

A spokeswoman for Grassley said, "After a first glance at today's document dump from the Justice Department, there appears to be even more questions for Assistant Attorney General Breuer, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Weinstein and former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke."

http://www.rollcall.com/news/justic...of_false_gun_letter_to_grassley-210742-1.html

The most transparent administration in the History of the US as promised by one Barack Hussein Obama...
__________________
“There are a number of things [Barack Obama said] he was for on the campaign trail.”
Nancy Pelosi

 

[koalabear]

http://www.rollcall.com/news/justic...of_false_gun_letter_to_grassley-210742-1.html

The most transparent administration in the History of the US as promised by one Barack Hussein Obama...
__________________
“There are a number of things [Barack Obama said] he was for on the campaign trail.”
Nancy Pelosi

“What is so offensive about this whole project is that Grassley’s staff, acting as willing stooges for the Gun Lobby, have attempted to distract from the incredible success in dismantling [southwest border] gun trafficking operations ... but, instead, lobbing this reckless despicable accusation that ATF is complicit in the murder of a fellow federal law enforcement officer,” he wrote in a Feb. 4 email.


The JD was doing all the trafficking.........

 

[MeeMie]

Regarding Attorney General Eric Holder, Insider made our last communication very specific - we are reaching the-the moment of truth on Holder.

Just today there are new reports indicating one of the killers of Border Agent Brian Terry – using guns provided them by the Obama administration, was in fact an FBI informant.

According to these reports, both the FBI and ATF knew of the dangers posed to U.S. Border Agents – but did nothing to intervene. A known ambush against border agents that lead to the death of Brian Terry resulted. And yet, Border Agents were ordered to defend themselves with bean bag rounds.

Is it any wonder the Obama Justice Department so recently sealed all records relating to the murder of Agent Terry?

And can there be any remaining doubt a full-on cover-up by the Obama administration has been underway since the failed gunrunning program story broke?



Excerpt from:
http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=39318876&postcount=190

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Whatever happened to the coverup is more serious than the charge?



And this is a fucking serious charge!



A_J's corollary #9, “When a Republican does it, it is a high crime and misdemeanor, when a Democrat does it, then it is, *shrug*, they ALL do it...”

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I KNOW!


Let's talk about Herman Cain's affairs!

We can't have men like that in the White House!!!

 

[Sean]

Can't be arsed reading the thread, top five posters are all major wingnut c+p machines and I suspect I'd pass out from boredom, but has anyone mentioned Operation Wide Receiver yet?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Can't be arsed reading the thread, top five posters are all major wingnut c+p machines and I suspect I'd pass out from boredom, but has anyone mentioned Operation Wide Receiver yet?

Yes dumbass...


We've repeatedly opined that the only time a lib would enter this thread was when they could blame it on Bush and we even offered that issue up knowing the result of it.

Thank you for proving that we major wingnut c+p machines can think a few steps ahead of the great liberal political chess players of the day...

 

[koalabear]

Can't be arsed reading the thread, top five posters are all major wingnut c+p machines and I suspect I'd pass out from boredom, but has anyone mentioned Operation Wide Receiver yet?

How many Border Patrol Agents were killed in OWR?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

How many Border Patrol Agents were killed in OWR?

What did I tell you?


Come in every single day and blame Bush if you want any attention at all drawn to the issue.

Blaming Obama just hardens their position...

RW Christian Wingnuts can't stand to see black men running their white country.

It's the liberals who sing:

Barack loves the little children!
All the children of the world!
Red and yellow black and white,
They are precious in his sight,
Barack loves the little children of the world!

 

[Sean]

How many Border Patrol Agents were killed in OWR?

I don't know, did they ever trace all the guns that went missing?

 

[Sean]

Yes dumbass...


We've repeatedly opined that the only time a lib would enter this thread was when they could blame it on Bush and we even offered that issue up knowing the result of it.

Thank you for proving that we major wingnut c+p machines can think a few steps ahead of the great liberal political chess players of the day...

And yet I didn't see wingnut outrage over Wide Receiver. Why is that, do you suppose?

 

[koalabear]

I don't know, did they ever trace all the guns that went missing?

You should have read the thread. There is no way to trace guns in Mexico, till after they turn up at the crime scene.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I don't know, did they ever trace all the guns that went missing?

Yes...

It was also done in a partnership with the Mexican Government.

The key to their [the Democrat/Liberal defenders of Obama - AJ] strategy is conflating two very different programs: Operation Fast & Furious and a Bush era ATF initiative known as “Operation Wide Receiver.” In the questions from Judiciary Committee Democrats (principally, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer — there may have been others but, again, I didn’t see the entire hearing), it emerged that Wide Receiver began in 2006, when Alberto Gonzales was the Bush administration attorney general. Senator Schumer took pains to describe Wide Receiver as involving the “tracing” of firearms that crossed into Mexico. As we shall see, Wide Receiver’s notion of tracing was night-and-day different from the tracing involved in the reckless gun-walking approach employed by Fast & Furious. Obviously, however, Democrats hope that if they get enough help from their friends in the media, the public will miss the distinction.

Schumer made much of the happenstance that a briefing, said to have included information on Wide Receiver, was prepared for Michael Mukasey in late 2007, after he succeeded Gonzales as AG. (This is an amusing contradiction in the Democrats’ strategy: If a memo addressed to Holder in the middle of Fast & Furious emerges, you’re supposed to understand that, as attorney general, he is way too busy to read every memo; but if a memo is found to have been addressed to Mukasey or Gonzales years before Fast & Furious began, you should see them as the architects of gun-walking!)

Schumer pointed out that AG Mukasey had met with his counterpart, the Mexican attorney general, after the briefing, and that he had expressed a commitment to stanch the flow of guns to destinations south of the border. Schumer took these unremarkable facts, added the gloss that Wide Receiver involved gun tracing, and wildly theorized that it was very likely the subject of gun-walking came up in the Mukasey briefing — even though both Schumer and Holder conceded that they did not really know what was discussed at the briefing or even who was present at it (details you might figure Holder would be up on if it actually showed that this whole Fast & Furious fiasco was a Bush creation).

It was left to Republican Senators Charles Grassley and John Cornyn to lay bare some crucial distinctions between to two ATF operations. Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. Unlike gun-walking, which seems (for good reason) to have been unheard of until Fast & Furious, controlled delivery is a very common law enforcement tactic. Basically, the agents know the bad guys have negotiated a deal to acquire some commodity that is either illegal itself (e.g., heroin, child porn) or illegal for them to have/use (e.g., guns, corporate secrets). The agents allow the transfer to happen under circumstances where they are in control — i.e., they are on the scene conducting surveillance of the transfer, and sometimes even participating undercover in the transfer. As soon as the transfer takes place, they can descend on the suspects, make arrests, and seize the commodity in question — all of which makes for powerful evidence of guilt.

Senator Schumer’s drawing of an equivalence between “tracing” in a controlled-delivery situation and “tracing” in Fast & Furious is laughable. In a controlled delivery firearms case, guns are traced in the sense that agents closely and physically follow them — they don’t just note the serial numbers or other identifying markers. The agents are thus able to trace the precise path of the guns from, say, American dealers to straw purchasers to Mexican buyers.

To the contrary, Fast & Furious involved uncontrolled deliveries — of thousands of weapons. It was an utterly heedless program in which the feds allowed these guns to be sold to straw purchasers — often leaning on reluctant gun dealers to make the sales. The straw purchasers were not followed by close physical surveillance; they were freely permitted to bulk transfer the guns to, among others, Mexican drug gangs and other violent criminals — with no agents on hand to swoop in, make arrests, and grab the firearms. The inevitable result of this was that the guns have been used (and will continue to be used) in many crimes, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent.

In sum, the Fast & Furious idea of “trace” is that, after violent crimes occur in Mexico, we can trace any guns the Mexican police are lucky enough to seize back to the sales to U.S. straw purchasers … who should never have been allowed to transfer them (or even buy them) in the first place. That is not law enforcement; that is abetting a criminal rampage.

As Sen. Cornyn pointed out, there is another major distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious. The former was actually a coordinated effort between American and Mexican authorities. Law enforcement agents in both countries kept each other apprised about suspected transactions and tried to work together to apprehend law-breakers. To the contrary, Fast & Furious was a unilateral, half-baked scheme cooked up by an agency of the Obama Justice Department — an agency that was coordinating with the Justice Department on the operation and that turned to Main Justice in order to get wiretapping authority.

By the time Cornyn was done drawing this stark contrast between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious, Holder was reduced to conceding, “I’m not trying to equate the two.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/282606/fast-furious-was-bushs-fault-andrew-c-mccarthy

Of course, we all presume that you know only one side of the story, the press being what it is and everything you don't choose to read are "unreliable sources."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And yet I didn't see wingnut outrage over Wide Receiver. Why is that, do you suppose?

No one knew about Wide Receiver until Fast and Furious broke.

It was a successful program.

Why should I be outraged?

It was good police work on both sides of the border, not a unilateral action designed to create the outrage necessary to call for tougher gun laws. The only criminals the administration wanted to get in this operation was the American Right and their Right to bear arms.

Now, if you can give me good reason to be outraged, I will be more than happy to be outraged with you in a bipartisan attempt to bring justice to those whom would export violence, but I will not hold my breath waiting for your outrage that an Left-leaning American government would unleash unwarranted violence against its neighbor.

We know it's not on the agenda.

 

[koalabear]

No one knew about Wide Receiver until Fast and Furious broke.

It was a successful program.

Why should I be outraged?

It was good police work on both sides of the border, not a unilateral action designed to create the outrage necessary to call for tougher gun laws. The only criminals the administration wanted to get in this operation was the American Right and their Right to bear arms.

Now, if you can give me good reason to be outraged, I will be more than happy to be outraged with you in a bipartisan attempt to bring justice to those whom would export violence, but I will not hold my breath waiting for your outrage that an Left-leaning American government would unleash unwarranted violence against its neighbor.

We know it's not on the agenda.

Wow! FOX news!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Wow! FOX news!

I can't wait for the White House to fake another FAUX News interview to 'splain this away as an extension of the Bush polity, like his war on terror...




btw...

What time does Gitmo close?

 

[koalabear]

I can't wait for the White House to fake another FAUX News interview to 'splain this away as an extension of the Bush polity, like his war on terror...




btw...

What time does Gitmo close?

They better do it on CBS, they broke the Gunrunner story.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They better do it on CBS, they broke the Gunrunner story.

Well, they've been know to run with forgeries because the story is still true...



So this could still be a Bush Operation, like the plan to shoot bin Laden.

 

[koalabear]

Well, they've been know to run with forgeries because the story is still true...



So this could still be a Bush Operation, like the plan to shoot bin Laden.

Seems england lost interest in the thread......

 

[miles]

Is it any wonder the Obama Justice Department so recently sealed all records relating to the murder of Agent Terry?

They were sealed in transparent envelopes.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Seems england lost interest in the thread......

We keep taking all the fun out of blaming Bush...




We need to start lying about how many agents he got killed to get them back on the "Trail of Truth" again...

 

[koalabear]

We keep taking all the fun out of blaming Bush...




We need to start lying about how many agents he got killed to get them back on the "Trail of Truth" again...

They never read the memo.......

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

As we continue to watch the general uproar over the Operation Fast and Furious program, and specifically what Attorney General Holder knew and when he knew it, it needs to be noted that perjury is not the only apparent violation of law to have occurred.

I refer to the apparent violation of at least one (probably two) major U.S. laws by the Holder Justice Department. A few years ago, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701, the follow-on to the Trading with the Enemy Act) was expanded in order to criminalize any transactions between U.S. entities — to include departments and agencies of the U.S. government — and all foreign drug cartels.

I am familiar with these prohibitive statues because several years ago, while serving as the senior drug analyst for the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was tasked to initiate and became the principal drafter of legislation which became known as the Kingpin Act (21 U.S.C. §§ 1901-08). The Kingpin Act is an extension of the highly successful IEEPA sanctioning program specifically targeting Colombian drug cartels. It expands sanctions authority against various drug cartel operations worldwide — including Mexico — which have been determined by the president to be threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.

A violation of any of the IEEPA sanctioning programs or the Kingpin Act carries stiff penalties, both criminal and civil, and potentially totaling decades in prison and tens of millions of dollars in fines. It is not necessary that an individual or governmental entity be shown to have “knowingly” violated any of these programs: it is illegal for any U.S. entity or individual to aid, abet, or materially assist — or in the case of Operation Fast and Furious, to facilitate others to aid, abet, or materially assist — designated drug traffickers. There are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.

Based on the July 5, 2010, memo to Eric Holder, it would appear that Fast and Furious facilitated the delivery of weapons to — at a minimum — the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, which administers both the IEEPA and Kingpin Act programs, has designated numerous members of the Sinaloa cartel under both programs. IEEPA prohibitions apply to the U.S. government as well as to individuals, and as stated there are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.

There is a provision in the Kingpin Act for “authorized” law enforcement and intelligence activities, however the only procedure by which an Operation Fast and Furious program could have been “authorized” under the Kingpin Act was by the U.S. attorney general requesting a waiver (known within the Treasury Department as a Specific License), prior to any such operation being undertaken. To illustrate and emphasize this point: even during the run-up to war in Iraq, the U.S. secretary of Defense had to obtain waivers (specific licenses) from the Treasury Department to allow U.S. Special Forces and their necessary equipment (to include weapons, intelligence gathering, and targeting gear) to go into Iraq, as Iraq at the time was under separate IEEPA sanctions.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-justice-dept-violated-us-laws/?singlepage=true

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Not to worry, just like Solyndra, we'll investigate ourselves and find nothing wrong...

As part of Congress’ ongoing investigation, as well as its constitutionally mandated oversight activities, it should be asked of Attorney General Holder if any such specific licenses were requested or granted by the Treasury Department. Additionally, Treasury Secretary Geithner should explain whether his Department has begun an investigation into these apparent violations of IEEPA and the Kingpin Act.

Interestingly, and of serious note — if Secretary Geithner finds that the laws and programs which his Department administers have been violated, Treasury procedures mandate that the matter be referred to Eric Holder’s Justice Department for enforcement!

Perhaps the appointment of a special prosecutor is necessary after all.