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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on July 07, 2011, 06:11:44 AM
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Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to Honduras
By David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
Part of 'Operation Castaway'?
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/breaking-news-source-claims-atf-s-tampa-sac-walked-guns-to-honduras?render=print#print
Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea
Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at 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, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source.
On 21 September, 2010, A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida issued a press release on Operation Castaway:
United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton, Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of central and northern Florida Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operations, and Susan McCormick, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations, Tampa Field Office announce the initial results of Operation Castaway, an intensive and wideranging Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) firearms trafficking investigation conducted by ATF, ICE, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and the Miami-Dade Police Department. ATF describes Operation Castaway as the most significant firearms trafficking investigation in Central Florida history.
According to court documents, a group of defendants connected to Hugh Crumpler, III, were involved in a major international gun trafficking operation. . . . Firearms like those involved in this investigation are often smuggled through Honduras and other Central and South American countries before being used in violent crimes in Mexico and other countries in the region. A number of the firearms trafficked by the defendants in Operation Castaway have been linked to violent crimes around the world.
The press release concluded, "This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Bishop Ravenel and E. Jackson Boggs. Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation."
SAC O’Brien was previously the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, was later promoted to the Deputy Assistant Director of ATF, but then stepped down to the position in Tampa. Whether the allegations of our source refer to the ongoing Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O'Brien has allowed the "walking" of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field Division's Operation Fast and Furious. That Operation Castaway involved arms smuggling to Honduras is also certain.
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"This is confirmed as accurate," the correspondence continued. "There are emails in existence where O’Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project Gunrunner."
"From a first person source she is sh*tting herself trying to cover it up," the report stated.
No one from ATF is available at this late hour to approach for comment. This information has also reportedly been disclosed to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Member Charles Grassley for follow-up and investigation.
Also see:
A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner.
Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
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Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at 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, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source.
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hhhhmmmmm - if I remember correctly - that disgusting communist traitor obama was meddling in honduras at about the same time.
Coincidence?
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wait, who are they supplying? I'm intersted in this story, anymore details?
This can't be the whole picture of where all the guns are going... no way....
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wait, who are they supplying? I'm intersted in this story, anymore details?
Drug Cartels and Gun Traffiking rings.
Now the ATF is claiming some of these gun runners are paid FBI, DEA, informants, etc.
If the Tampa office was doing the same shit as the Arizona office, and melson has no further info, this definately goes right up to obama hillary and holder.
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Drug Cartels and Gun Traffiking rings.
Now the ATF is claiming some of these gun runners are paid FBI, DEA, informants, etc.
If the Tampa office was doing the same shit as the Arizona office, and melson has no further info, this definately goes right up to obama hillary and holder.
oh yea, there is way more to this story to be uncovered. I get that sence based on past history of this shit. Hopefully this all gets uncovered in full. I have a hunch it's way worse.
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Drug Cartels and Gun Traffiking rings.
Now the ATF is claiming some of these gun runners are paid FBI, DEA, informants, etc.
We feed guns and $ to the drug gangs. they give us drugs and a justified budget.
CTers have been saying this for years - only when Obama's name is on the ownership do some people give a rats ass.
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We feed guns and $ to the drug gangs. they give us drugs and a justified budget.
CTers have been saying this for years - only when Obama's name is on the ownership do some people give a rats ass.
Please show me evidence that Clinton or GWB did this now that you are kneedpadding drug and guin running since its obama doing it
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Please show me evidence that Clinton or GWB did this now that you are kneedpadding drug and guin running since its obama doing it
you are fcking shitting me, right?
i mean, are you really this new to the drug CT stuff?
Oh jeebus, really? ya missed the whole clinton thing with the drugs? you didn't see the taleban wiped out opium and the new guys are exporting more than ever? you don't know that drug $ keeps our economy afloat? afghan war was about keeping that very essential shit intact?
oh man, what are you, 5 years old? You spend 6 months talking about birth certificates but have no idea how this shit works? Oh man, get a clue brotha!
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you are fcking shitting me, right?
i mean, are you really this new to the drug CT stuff?
Oh jeebus, really? ya missed the whole clinton thing with the drugs? you didn't see the taleban wiped out opium and the new guys are exporting more than ever? you don't know that drug $ keeps our economy afloat? afghan war was about keeping that very essential shit intact?
oh man, what are you, 5 years old? You spend 6 months talking about birth certificates but have no idea how this shit works? Oh man, get a clue brotha!
No, its time for you to STFU and stop kneepadding obama already. Even gun running you will tolerate for your messiah? Disgusting.
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No, its time for you to STFU and stop kneepadding obama already. Even gun running you will tolerate for your messiah? Disgusting.
obama drug and gunrunning = completely inexcusable. lock them all up, we are in agreement.
my only point is that the whole thing is a sham and a scam and only a fool would think this starts or end with obama and holder. bah.
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obama drug and gunrunning = completely inexcusable. lock them all up, we are in agreement.
my only point is that the whole thing is a sham and a scam and only a fool would think this starts or end with obama and holder. bah.
Show me evidence GWB ran guns through the ATF to mexico and south america.
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Show me evidence GWB ran guns through the ATF to mexico and south america.
hey, let's have a 5 hour debate about common sense shit that you, as a CT, should already know about.
the fact you believe everything alex jones has said since Jan 20, 2009, but ignore everything he's said for the last15 years...
bah.
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hey, let's have a 5 hour debate about common sense shit that you, as a CT, should already know about.
the fact you believe everything alex jones has said since Jan 20, 2009, but ignore everything he's said for the last15 years...
bah.
Show me evidence GWB ran guns through the ATF through straw purchasers to mexico and other countries or STFU.
Seriously bro - even this you will kneepad for obama? Its in your own fucking city and you are cool with this cause its the communist messiah obama?
Shame on you.
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i'm not kneepadding anything dude. put the case on trial and prosecute, i support that.
i'm just saying it's naive to say "obama is the debil" on this when this shit has been going on for decades.
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i'm not kneepadding anything dude. put the case on trial and prosecute, i support that.
i'm just saying it's naive to say "obama is the debil" on this when this shit has been going on for decades.
::) ::)
Family of Agent Terry who died as a result of obamas' treason surely disagrees.
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Amazing how TK has avoided this entire topic like the plague
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Show me evidence GWB ran guns through the ATF to mexico and south america.
Did 240 produce this evidence?
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Did 240 produce this evidence?
Of course not.
He is trying to deflect away blame from his communist messiah for this deadly and treasonous bullshit.
Whoever voted for this crap needs to be held to account.
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Please show me evidence that Clinton or GWB did this now that you are kneedpadding drug and guin running since its obama doing it
actually there was shit about drug running in connection with both Bush and Clinton. And actually we did post about that here and actually nobody gave a shit. lol... If you want I can dig up some of those threads or repost the info.
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actually there was evidence of drug running in connection with both Bush and Clinton. And actually we did post about that here and actually nobody gave a shit. lol... If you want I can dig up some of those threads or repost the info.
I know full well about Mena Airport.
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I know full well about Mena Airport.
and there's more. But why did you nail 240 if you knew about that much? There's also similar accusations and similar shit against the Bush family. maybe even more.
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and there's more. But why did you nail 240 if you knew about that much? There's also similar accusations and similar shit against the Bush family. maybe even more.
Nothing nearly as out front and center as this.
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Nothing nearly as out front and center as this.
I kinda think shit in this area of weapons going to who they shouldn't have gotten to, got a little more crazy under Reagan... yea... just a bit huh.... Yet he's our fucking hero lol....
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I kinda think shit in this area of weapons going to who they shouldn't have got to, got a little more crazy under Reagan... yea... just a bit huh.... Yet he's our fucking hero lol....
Iran contra was nothing compared to this. That was to free hostages and no one got hurt or murdered.
Obama's treason resulted in deaths to border agents and was intended to undermine the 2nd amend and make the case for AWB2.
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We feed guns and $ to the drug gangs. they give us drugs and a justified budget.
CTers have been saying this for years - only when Obama's name is on the ownership do some people give a rats ass.
Quit using the word and term CTer..........you sound like a fucking idiot. There is nothing conspiratorial about the US government's involvement in gun running and drug trafficking. It's fact. The problem is most Americans are too stupid to know it or too naive to believe it. It has fuck all to do with conspiracy. The CIA has been toppling democratically elected governments for decades by supporting dictators, selling drugs and guns to rebels. Iran-Contra, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, Columbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
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Iran contra was nothing compared to this. That was to free hostages and no one got hurt or murdered.
Obama's treason resulted in deaths to border agents and was intended to undermine the 2nd amend and make the case for AWB2.
Haha come on..........no one got hurt or murdered? You have no fucking clue who the contras were or what they did do you? We all know you love jerking it to Reagan but come on. The guy was more hype than anything else. One of worst Presidents in a long line of bad Presidents. But you probably still think he was responsible for destroying the Soviet Union and ending the cold war too right? LOL.
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Iran contra was nothing compared to this.
LOL, Save the BS for the trolls... I'm with you, this is bad shit going on and we need to get to the bottom of this shit but don't go fucking half ass cocked with telling me this is worse than Iran Contra ::) Oh fucking please... not... Lets see what going on... at the worst it's on the same level and it isn't there yet. I wanna see what's happening here too but it isn't Iran Contra yet and you know it.
even if so, point is still made. we got Bush with plenty of shit in this area that happend in his watch, and Clinton and the cake with Reagan... You can't just fluff it off like it doesn't matter and Obama is the lone bad guy.
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LOL, Save the BS for the trolls... I'm with you, this is bad shit going on and we need to get to the bottom of this shit but don't go fucking half ass cocked with telling me this is worse than Iran Contra ::) Oh fucking please... not... Lets see what going on... at the worst it's on the same level and it isn't there yet. I wanna see what's happening here too but it isn't Iran Contra yet and you know it.
even if so, point is still made. we got Bush with plenty of shit in this area that happend in his watch, and Clinton and the cake with Reagan... You can't just fluff it off like it doesn't matter and Obama is the lone bad guy.
Tell me why iran contra was worse than this.
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Please show me evidence that Clinton or GWB did this now that you are kneedpadding drug and guin running since its obama doing it
Your God, the cock you suck as in Ronald Reagan did it..
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Your God, the cock you suck as in Ronald Reagan did it..
PROOF?
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Tell me why iran contra was worse than this.
tell me why it wasn't? Are you freaking kidding?
And we also don't have the entire details of what "this" is under Obama.
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tell me why it wasn't? Are you freaking kidding? And we also don't have the entire details of what "this" is under Obama.
No, I am not kidding one bit.
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PROOF?
Dude Ronald Reagan came on TV and said it was going on..
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PROOF?
oh like we have proof Obama is behind this shit? No chance of these fuckers going it on their own right? That's never happened lol...
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oh like we have proof Obama is behind this shit? No chance of these fuckers going it on their own right? That's never happened lol...
oh but ronald did
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No, I am not kidding one bit.
then you tell me, don't put the onus on me, you tell me why it is not as big.
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oh but ronald did
"a covert action that was taken at my behest........"
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oh like we have proof Obama is behind this shit? No chance of these fuckers going it on their own right? That's never happened lol...
YES WE DO. Melson is testfying he was doing as ordered by Holder. Holder claiming ignorance.
obama/Holder/Hillary all going to mexico in 2009 after the stim bill passed funding fast and furious claiming we need to enact AWB2 due to US gun dealers.
GMAFB. Its clear as day. The communist traitor and NWO treasonous fuck YOU VOTED FOR ALONG WITH THE OTHER ASSHOLES ON THIS BOARD were too stupid and brainwashed to see the writing on the wall in this.
Bro - you voted for this traitor - take responsibility.
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then you tell me, don't put the onus on me, you tell me why it is not as big.
2 border agents dead, 150 mexis dead to date, thousands of assault rifles unccounted for, all in order for that communist puke obama to get AWB2.
You tell me whats worse.
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2 border agents dead, 150 mexis dead to date, thousands of assault rifles unccounted for, all in order for that communist puke obama to get AWB2.
You tell me whats worse.
So you are ignoring the Ronald Reagan stuff i see
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So you are ignoring the Ronald Reagan stuff i see
How many died and what was the intent? obama/Holder/Hillary went on a tour to enact AWB2 based on lies that they themselves were fueling with their treason to undermine the U.S. Const. and you have the balls to try to say rthis is not worse?
GMAFB. Bro take off the glasses, you were suckered and played for a fool, just like you will in 2012.
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2 border agents dead, 150 mexis dead to date, thousands of assault rifles unccounted for, all in order for that communist puke obama to get AWB2.
You tell me whats worse.
I'm not about to excuse what's going on now but your calling this worse than Iran Contra is a fucking disgusting joke... Yes it's bad, real bad. Hell of a real conspiracy, but.... well... I know you got a hardon to see Obama hung, but this is getting silly. You can't just say Iran Contra was cool, no big deal lol..
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Bro - you voted for this traitor - take responsibility.
shove it up your twat you fucking twit. I've owned up to everything I've done on this board and in my voting. I'm one of the only ones if not the only one who ever has here so go fuck yourself.
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I'm not about to excuse what's going on now but your calling this worse than Iran Contra is a fucking disgusting joke... Yes it's bad, real bad. Hell of a real conspiracy, but.... well... I know you got a hardon to see Obama hung, but this is getting silly. You can't just say Iran Contra was cool, no big deal lol..
Give me a reason why Iran contra was worse.
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shove it up your twat you fucking twit. I've owned up to everything I've done on this board and in my voting. I'm one of the only ones if not the only one who ever has here so go fuck yourself.
Ha ha ha - relax - I was just busting balls. You perhaps are the most honest one on this board in that respect.
The others? not so much.
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I'm not voting for Obama in this election, not sure what the fuck else you want out of me... It's just stupid for you to say Iran Contra is no big deal ::)
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How many died and what was the intent? obama/Holder/Hillary went on a tour to enact AWB2 based on lies that they themselves were fueling with their treason to undermine the U.S. Const. and you have the balls to try to say rthis is not worse?
GMAFB. Bro take off the glasses, you were suckered and played for a fool, just like you will in 2012.
Dude. do you even know about the Iran Contra Affair, because you sound like a complete idiot right now
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Ha ha ha - relax - I was just busting balls. You perhaps are the most honest one on this board in that respect.
The others? not so much.
yea, you got me on that, I got pissed. I've been honest about all that shit while others here who supported Obama skate... like BF, nobody bitches him out for it yet I get shit all the time and have to constantly explain myself....
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Reagan expressed regret regarding the situation during a nationally televised address from the White House Oval Office on March 4, 1987 and two other speeches;[
67] Reagan had not spoken to the American people directly for three months amidst the scandal.[68] President Reagan told the American people the reason why he did not update them on the scandal:
"The reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that."[68]
He then took full responsibility for the acts committed:
"First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior."[68]
Finally, the president stated that his previous assertions that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect:
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind."[68]
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I'm not voting for Obama in this election, not sure what the fuck else you want out of me... It's just stupid for you to say Iran Contra is no big deal ::)
I didnt say its no big deal - but is much less than this.
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Reagan expressed regret regarding the situation during a nationally televised address from the White House Oval Office on March 4, 1987 and two other speeches;[
67] Reagan had not spoken to the American people directly for three months amidst the scandal.[68] President Reagan told the American people the reason why he did not update them on the scandal:
"The reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that."[68]
He then took full responsibility for the acts committed:
"First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior."[68]
Finally, the president stated that his previous assertions that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect:
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind."[68]
Too bad the communist messiah you voted for in 2008 and will again in 2012 will not exhibit the same candor.
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I didnt say its no big deal - but is much less than this.
lol...ok
You obviously dont know the complete ramifications if the ICA and how far reaching it was... just go read up on it, and then get back to me. You are trying to argue something and you are only slightly informed
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lol...ok
You obviously dont know the complete ramifications if the ICA and how far reaching it was... just go read up on it, and then get back to me. You are trying to argue something and you are only slightly informed
Tell me!
So far - w Obama -
2 dead border agents
1 Mexican attorney
150 mexis dead
Thousands of assault rifles missing
43 assault rifles found on an illegal alien in AZ alone last month tied to this bullshit
And it has just started!
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I didnt say its no big deal - but is much less than this.
we can argue which was worse at a later time, the point is still well made in regards to the line of shit through recent admins back to Reagan, you gotta admit that much.
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Gary Webb (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was a Pulitzer prize-winning American investigative journalist.
Webb was best known for his 1996 "Dark Alliance" series of articles written for the San Jose Mercury News and later published as a book. In the three-part series, Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly smuggled cocaine into the U.S. Their smuggled cocaine was distributed as crack cocaine in Los Angeles, with the profits funneled back to the Contras. Webb also alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan-supplied cocaine sparked, and significantly fueled, the widespread crack cocaine epidemic that swept through many U.S. cities during the 1980s. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by Contra personnel. Webb charged that the Reagan administration shielded inner-city drug dealers from prosecution in order to raise money for the Contras, especially after Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited direct Contra funding.
On July 23, 1998, the Justice Department released a report by its Inspector General, Michael R. Bromwich. The Bromwich report claimed that the Reagan-Bush administration was aware of cocaine traffickers in the Contra movement and did nothing to stop the criminal activity. The report also alleged a pattern of discarded leads and witnesses, sabotaged investigations, instances of the CIA working with drug traffickers, and the discouragement of DEA investigations into Contra-cocaine shipments. The CIA's refusal to share information about Contra drug trafficking with law-enforcement agencies was also documented. The Bromwich report corroborated Webb's investigation into Norwin Meneses, a Nicaraguan drug smuggler.[citation needed]
December 10, 2004, he was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head.[23] Sacramento County coroner Robert Lyons asserts that it was suicide
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So - you hate Reagan - fine.
Do you now hate obam too?
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I dont hate Reagan or Obama.. they are both politicians...they lie.. that's what makes a US politicians
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oh like we have proof Obama is behind this shit? No chance of these fuckers going it on their own right? That's never happened lol...
They have neither the budget nor the man power to pull off this type of operation at a local level. Not to mention we have DOJ stonewalling the congressional oversight committee. AG Holder lying his ass off, the documents that the COC has received show he is. This is one giant CYA right now, only problem is the sacrificial lamb isn't going away quietly. I'm not going to hold my breath, but if this thing is investigated to the full extent, we are going to see alot of resignations in the coming months and hopefully prosecutions for this negligent cluster fuck.
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They have neither the budget nor the man power to pull off this type of operation at a local level. Not to mention we have DOJ stonewalling the congressional oversight committee. AG Holder lying his ass off, the documents that the COC has received show he is. This is one giant CYA right now, only problem is the sacrificial lamb isn't going away quietly. I'm not going to hold my breath, but if this thing is investigated to the full extent, we are going to see alot of resignations in the coming months and hopefully prosecutions for this negligent cluster fuck.
local level? I didn't say anything about local level? I was thinking federal agency... Those guys have been known to get inventive and go a little over and above especially when their budget is on the line. On a side note, I said over a year ago, almost two, that we should watch out for this kind of shit when cuts are on the horizon.... Especially with the ATF...
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local level? I didn't say anything about local level? I was thinking federal agency... Those guys have been known to get inventive and go a little over and above especially when their budget is on the line. On a side note, I said over a year ago, almost two, that we should watch out for this kind of shit when cuts are on the horizon.... Especially with the ATF...
Just that simple fact that the DOJ is jacking around and sending redacted documents to the COC, should throw a red flag as to how high this goes.
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Just that simple fact that the DOJ is jacking around and sending redacted documents to the COC, should throw a red flag as to how high this goes.
I would call that fact typical, not evidense of how high it goes. Go back and look at what these psychos did during waco and the politics that happened between agency and top level. yea, there was some lies going on there. Even rightwing accounts nail the ATF for disceptions there and of course it was some of the stupid dem shit that went on to cover it up and excuse it after the fact. But much of that shit was originally crafted inhouse ATF style.
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Bump.
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Imagine had mexico or hondorus done the same shit as an official policy ?
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Nothing nearly as out front and center as this.
Lol SOOOOOOOOOOOOO
you gauge the legitimacy of a prez being knee deep in drugs and guns by.... umm...
THE MEDIA RESPONSE?
And "nobody got hurt in iran contra affair..." - Um, didn't reagan sell a shitload of weapons to iran, which they in turned used to kill a shitload of iraqis? lol!
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I said americans murdered dipshit.
Stop kneepadding obama - this is getting ridiculous now.
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Deputy Assistant Director Julie Torres. The Tampa Honduras cover-up is going on under her nose, and perhaps with her approval.
Breaking News: Tampa SAC 'in full meltdown...shredders are buzzing'
Exclusive Special Report by David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh
The source previously reporting that Special Agent in Charge of ATF's Tampa Field Division Virginia O'Brien "ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious" contacted these correspondents again this evening with this follow-up report:
O'Brien is in full meltdown. She ordered supervisors from around the Division to report immediately to division offices and to plan on working through the entire weekend on the coverup.
Her partner in the bungle was ASAC Scott McCampbell. At one point the case was ready to be wrapped up with arrests and remain relatively efficient but O'Brien and McCampbell decided on their own to keep it going to "get more" against the advise of thier field employees and the walked guns numbers got out of control.
OB is terrified that her intentional concealing of her walked guns is going to do her in since she disregarded orders to report to DOJ and Congress.
Nearly the same culprits above her are on the hook for this. Chait knew about it so did Hoover and Melson. The new player is DAD East Julie Torres. She took O'Brien's old DAD job when OB went to Tampa and has given OB carte blanche to do whatever she wants with little oversight.
Reportedly the shredders are buzzing.
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2011
Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to HONDURAS! Part of Operation Castaway? Exclusive Report by David Codrea & Mike Vanderboegh.
A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. It may not look like it, but that chair he's sitting in just became the latest hot seat of the Gunwalker Scandal.
Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to Honduras. Part of Operation Castaway?
Exclusive Special Report by David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh.
Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at 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, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source.
On 21 September, 2010, A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida issued a press release on Operation Castaway:
United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton, Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of central and northern Florida Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operations, and Susan McCormick, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations, Tampa Field Office announce the initial results of Operation Castaway, an intensive and wideranging Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force ("OCDETF") firearms trafficking investigation conducted by ATF, ICE, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and the Miami-Dade Police Department. ATF describes Operation Castaway as the most significant firearms trafficking investigation in Central Florida history.
According to court documents, a group of defendants connected to Hugh Crumpler, III, were involved in a major international gun trafficking operation. . . . Firearms like those involved in this investigation are often smuggled through Honduras and other Central and South American countries before being used in violent crimes in Mexico and other countries in the region. A number of the firearms trafficked by the defendants in Operation Castaway have been linked to violent crimes around the world.
The press release concluded, "This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Bishop Ravenel and E. Jackson Boggs. Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation."
SAC O’Brien was previously the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, was later promoted to the Deputy Assistant Director of ATF, but then stepped down to the position in Tampa. Whether the allegations of our source refer to the on-going Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O'Brien has allowed the "walking" of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field Division's Operation Fast and Furious. That Operation Castaway involved arms smuggling to Honduras is also certain.
"This is confirmed as accurate," the correspondence continued. "There are emails in existence where O’Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project Gunrunner."
"From a first person source she is shitting herself trying to cover it up," the report stated.
No one from ATF is available at this late hour to approach for comment. This information has also reportedly been disclosed to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Member Charles Grassley for follow-up and investigation.
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Thursday, July 7, 2011
Honduras? Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras? 1. The national scope of the Gunwalker Scandal & 2.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/07/honduras-why-would-atf-walk-guns-to.html
Because that's where some of the action is.
"It's just another little garden-variety act of war between hemispheric friends. What's the big deal?"
"Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras?" asks a reader. That's easy.
First, and this is important to understand: the Tampa operation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Project Gunwalker" was a national strategy, not a Phoenix aberration. The "major media" has been slow to understand this. They have ignored the fact that the Houston Field Division had to have played a supervisory role in known straw buying incidents in Dallas and Columbus NM as they are in their area of operations, not Phoenix's. Original reporting on this subject from Texas has been pitiful.
Second, Honduras is where the action is.
As Borderland Beat reported back in November of last year, Honduras: Mexican Cartels Work Closely with Street Gangs.
Attorney General Roy David Urtecho says that street gangs in his country are seeking to establish direct business contacts with Colombian and Mexican cartels and they have also tried to take over all drug smuggling operations in the Central American nation of Honduras.
The gangs known as MS-13 and M-18, have recruited over 70,00 youths who have traditionally been the lookouts and sicarios for the capos, but they are now making an effort to take formal control of the drug trade within their own country.
Commenting at an international forum on law enforcement, Urtecho says that the Sinaloa cartel is one of the main groups that maintain a heavy presence in the area, and states that his country is an imprtant gateway for Colombian drugs to enter Mexico and the United States. He went further to say that Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán has stayed in Honduras at various times and continues to do so to this very day.
Writing at Insight on 14 April, Patrick Cocoran has more: Mexican Cartels Expand into Honduras
Honduran officials report that Mexican drug traffickers are expanding their activities in the country and forming links with local bosses in four different provinces, fuelling concerns that organized crime is overwhelming the region.
According to Prensa Latina, Security Minister Oscar Alvarez said that the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas have been detected in Ocotepeque, Copan, Colon and Atlantida. The four northern states form much of the Atlantic coastline in Honduras, as well as a large chunk of the border with Guatemala. The Mexicans, Alvarez said, move freely throughout these regions, but rather than seeking to take over areas, the foreign gangs are working through already existing networks of local bosses to increase their presence and expand their operations.
This comes weeks after the discovery of a cocaine-processing lab, which are typically found in the Andean producer nations. This is the first such finding in Central America, and suggests a threat that is mutating. Currently, an estimated 400 tons of cocaine pass through the region on an annual basis, but Central America has not historically been a cocaine-processing region. Alvarez says that the goal for Honduras is to prevent Mexican gangs from laying down enduring roots in the country.
Authorities say that the Honduran cocaine lab was operated by the Sinaloa cartel. Arms stores belonging to the same group have also been captured in Honduras. The shift of cocaine processing from the Colombia, Peru and other Andean nations to Central America could fundamentally shift the economics of the cocaine supply chain. Rather than the South Americans controlling two vital steps in the process—i.e. the collection of the coca base and its processing in laboratories to produce crystallized cocaine—the Colombians would be left just supplying the base. This, in turn, would allow the Mexicans to derive significantly more profit, because instead of buying kilos of cocaine for up to $3,000, they can pay just $1,000 for the base and process it themselves, before selling it in U.S. for up to thirty times that amount.·
Furthermore, this would shorten the distance that the cocaine needs to travel, which would both lower the transportation costs and decrease the chance of seizure. As a major center of operations, Central America is all the more appealing because the weaker law-enforcement agencies mean that there is less chance that expensive cocaine will be seized, which further reinforces the profitability of a northward shift.·
The threat from organized crime to Central America is arguably more serious than in any other region of the Western Hemisphere. The isthmus has been a vital trafficking route ever since the restriction of the Caribbean route connecting the Colombian jungles to the retail markets in Miami and the rest of the United States. However,·the past decade has brought about a particular significant deterioration of security in Central America, with murder rates in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador among the highest in the world.
The incursion of Mexican drug traffickers has been most widely reported in Guatemala, as the Guatemalan government has struggled to prevent the incursion of the Zetas into states like Alta Verapaz and Peten. (Of course, there have also been reports that, far from combating them, elements of the Guatemalan governments are actually selling arms to groups linked to the Zetas.) Street gangs in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador like MS-13 and M-18 have also forged stronger links with the Mexican gangs.
·
Geoffrey Ramsey, also writing in Insight on 25 April notes "Cable: Honduran Military Supplied Weaponry to Cartels."
As Mexican cartels infiltrate Central America, corrupt elements within the region’s militaries from places like Honduras are providing them with arms far superior to those of local police. But the question remains: Just how many of the weapons used by Mexican cartels come from military stockpiles in Central America versus civilian gun stores in the United States?
The question is central. The source of the guns fueling a war that has left over 36,000 dead in Mexico since December 2006, has governments and advocate groups on both sides of the border pointing fingers. Mexico is reportedly considering suing U.S. gunmakers, reports CBS News.
But gun stores along the U.S. border states are only one source of weaponry used in Mexico. As InSight has reported, Guatemala's military stockpiles have been filtered illegally to the Zetas criminal gang. On top of this, according to a 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable first obtained by WikiLeaks and recently released by McClatchy, the Honduran military has “lost” several U.S.-supplied military weapons in recent years.
The cable, avaliable below, cites a Defense Intelligence Agency report entitled “Honduras: Military Weapons Fuel Black Arms Market,” which noted that the serial numbers on light anti-tank weapons recovered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and San Andres Island, Colombia, matched the numbers on guns that had previously been sold to Honduras. In addition to the guns, U.S. authorities seized a number of M433 grenades from criminal groups in Mexico, which were also traced back to the Honduran army.
Such revelations, when paired with recent allegations of high-level government links to drug trafficking in Honduras, present a dim forecast for anti-arms trafficking efforts in Central America. They also add fuel to an already heated debate over the cartels' main source of arms. While testifying to the U.S. Senate on March 30, General Douglas Fraser, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, implied that corrupt military officers in Central America bear most of the responsibility for arming Mexican drug traffickers.
"Over 50 percent of the military-type weapons that are flowing throughout the region have a large source between Central American stockpiles, if you will, left over from wars and conflicts in the past," said Fraser.
Since then, major media outlets like the AFP and McClatchy have picked up the comment, casting it as proof that Central American military arms are fueling Mexico’s drug violence.
But while General Fraser’s comment that over 50 percent of “military-type” weapons come from Central America may be true, it is misleading. The weapons coming from Central America only account for military-grade arms, which include anti-tank weapons as well as M-16 and G36 assault rifles.
The civilian versions of these weapons, such as the AR-15 and the AK-47 variants, account for many more of the seizures made in Mexico, according to several United States Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) sources consulted by InSight. Indeed, ATF agents have repeatedly told InSight that the most commonly carried weapons by cartel foot soldiers are modified, automatic AK-47 variants from Romania and China. These cheaper versions are readily available in many American gun stores and bought, legally, by straw buyers at the behest of middlemen who sell them, illegally, en masse to the cartels in Mexico.
"Middlemen" including the ATF, apparently. One wonders how the Honduran government is going to react to the next lecture from the State Department on how sloppy they are with the military weapons we've sold/given them? Not very well, I would imagine.
Oh, well, just another garden-variety Obama administration act of war on another sovereign nation.
What's the big deal? Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along.
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The Puzzle of 'Operation Fast and Furious' When Will Team Obama Come Clean?
foxnews.com ^ | July 08, 2011 | John Lott
The Puzzle of 'Operation Fast and Furious' When Will Team Obama Come Clean About Failed Gun Program?
There are two puzzles in the so-called “Gunwalker” or “Operation Fast and Furious” case. This is the shocking case where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents ordered American gun dealers to sell guns to obvious Mexican drug gangs over the objections of the gun dealers.
Here are just some of the questions that the Obama administration still has not answered:
1. Why would the government go through with the policy when it was seemingly obvious to everyone that there was no law-enforcement benefit to the operation?
2. Why won’t the Obama administration remove Acting Director Ken Melson from continuing to run the agency?
The Obama administration claims that guns were sold to Mexican drug gangs with the hope of tracking those guns. Yet, everyone involved in the operation knows that there were no mechanisms available for following the guns once they have left the gun stores. There were no also tracking devices placed on the guns used in the operation.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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fall guy will take the blame for it. then he'll get a cushy job. business as usual!
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fall guy will take the blame for it. then he'll get a cushy job. business as usual!
If you had your way in order to kneepad and suck obama's cock, yes, because you love this commie traitor.
but for the rest of us, no, we are holding issa and grassley to hold your marxist messiah to account and hopefully he will end up in Attica for life for what he has done.
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If you had your way in order to kneepad and suck obama's cock, yes, because you love this commie traitor.
dayum.
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dayum.
Its the truth.
You are like a cum rag for obama.
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Time for prison for obama and holder.
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BB - can you merge this into the main gunner thread?
Its all coming together now.
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October 3, 2011 5:59 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20115038-10391695.html
Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010
By Sharyl Attkisson Topics News ,Law and Order .Add Comment
(Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON - New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious guns operation as far back as July of 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.
On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
More of this report tonight on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley at 6:30 p.m. ET
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[move][move]Lolzercopter
[/move][/move]
His ass is 1) guilty and 2) sure as hell not going to jail.
If scooter libby gets pardoned or expunged or whatever he got - holder doesn't do a day in jail.
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[move][move]Lolzercopter
[/move][/move]
His ass is 1) guilty and 2) sure as hell not going to jail.
If scooter libby gets pardoned or expunged or whatever he got - holder doesn't do a day in jail.
Do you think he wil resign over this?
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Do you think he wil resign over this?
fck noooooooooooooooooooo
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fck noooooooooooooooooooo
Bama is going to force him to resign. The rate at which fast n furious is unfolding will cripple Bama next year.
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Trouble.
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The rate at which fast n furious is unfolding will cripple Bama next year.
when does the trial start? haha right.
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I think he may be forced to resign, this shit is getting deeper and deeper.
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when does the trial start? haha right.
::) ::)
Holder and Obama refuse to even inform the Mexican AG of what went on. Why is that?
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I think he may be forced to resign, this shit is getting deeper and deeper.
Sure sounds that way.
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::) ::)
Holder and Obama refuse to even inform the Mexican AG of what went on. Why is that?
same reason bush and cheney refused to testify under oath, or seperately, or for any record.
they were full of shit, guilty as shit, and protecting thsemselves.
For the 900th time, they are both guiltayy as hell here. And for the 900th time, they get away with it. Welcome to "How shit works, USA".
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same reason bush and cheney refused to testify under oath, or seperately, or for any record.
they were full of shit, guilty as shit, and protecting thsemselves.
For the 900th time, they are both guiltayy as hell here. And for the 900th time, they get away with it. Welcome to "How shit works, USA".
This issue is growing by the day, and by next year, it's going to cripple Bama admn.
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Reports: Documents show Holder was briefed on Fast and Furious in July 2010
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller 6:49 PM 10/03/2011
ADVERTISEMENT
New documents indicate Attorney General Eric Holder was informed of Operation Fast and Furious and its investigative tactics in mid-2010.
The new documents show that on November 1, 2010, Deputy Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, personally informed Holder about the operation in a briefing. The document was a memo Breuer wrote to Holder saying in which he included a brief description of Operation Fast and Furious.
Another document is a July 2010 memo from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center to Holder that details how “straw purchasers” — enabled by Operation Fast and Furious — were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 guns that were then supplied to Mexican drug cartels.
Straw purchasers are people who can legally buy weapons in the United States but do so with the known intention of trafficking them to Mexican drug cartels.
The Justice Department responded to this new information by saying that Holder receives many updates, memos and briefings daily and doesn’t always read them all — even if official records show he was informed of the intimate details of a case.
In early May, Holder told House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa that he was “not sure of the exact date [he first learned of Fast and Furious], but I probably heard about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks.”
These new documents indicate Holder may have committed perjury while testifying under oath, depending on the legal readings of his statements and all the evidence. It’s unclear at this point what, if anything, will happen next on that front.
Another document released contained internal emails between several high-ranking Justice Department officials asking if Breuer would help with a then-forthcoming press conference on Fast and Furious because the number of guns DOJ and ATF officials allowed to be “walked” into Mexico was significant. Allowing guns to “walk” means ATF and other law enforcement officials facilitated the sale of weapons to drug cartels via straw purchasers.
“It is not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of U.S. guns are being used in [Mexico], so I’m not sure how much grief we get for gun walking,” one high-ranking DOJ official wrote in an email.
That was in response to another high-ranking official who, after asking if they would have “Lanny” help with press, wrote: “It’s [Operation Fast and Furious] a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked, but it is a significant set of prosecutions.”
*This story has been updated.
Follow Matthew on Twitter
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This issue is growing by the day, and by next year, it's going to cripple Bama admn.
werent you saying 6 or 8 months ago, how big this would become?
I dont see it. Americans DO NOT CARE about dead mexicans. Remember?
they care about the US economy. Hell, obaam probably WISHES this was on the headlines, and not the jobs numbers.
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werent you saying 6 or 8 months ago, how big this would become?
I dont see it. Americans DO NOT CARE about dead mexicans. Remember?
they care about the US economy. Hell, obaam probably WISHES this was on the headlines, and not the jobs numbers.
This issue is growing by the day. It's bigger than watergate and will force Bama to step down.
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werent you saying 6 or 8 months ago, how big this would become?
I dont see it. Americans DO NOT CARE about dead mexicans. Remember?
they care about the US economy. Hell, obaam probably WISHES this was on the headlines, and not the jobs numbers.
Yeah, dude, totally! It only went from 333 posting about it on stories from non-MSM websites to CBS News and the like reporting on it daily. Yup, it's going nowhere. Retard.
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Yeah, dude, totally! It only went from 333 posting about it on stories from non-MSM websites to CBS News and the like reporting on it daily. Yup, it's going nowhere. Retard.
Do you believe a story being on CBS' website equates results?
CBS covered the 911 skeptics and the Qs about WMD and the Colts' playoff chances.
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Do you believe a story being on CBS' website equates results?
CBS covered the 911 skeptics and the Qs about WMD and the Colts' playoff chances.
You claimed it wasn't going anywhere months ago. Now CBS and other MSM organizations are reporting about it every single day. Swing and a miss, as per usual.
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Do you believe a story being on CBS' website equates results?
CBS covered the 911 skeptics and the Qs about WMD and the Colts' playoff chances.
Whatever, keep talking about Christies weight, palins affairs, and perrys hunting rock. All about the issues right.
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Whatever, keep talking about Christies weight, palins affairs, and perrys hunting rock. All about the issues right.
He's about everything BUT the issues.
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This issue is growing by the day. It's bigger than watergate and will force Bama to step down.
Delusions getting out of control today?
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Delusions getting out of control today?
Not at all. This is scandal is the worst in WH history and bama will be forced to resign or not seek re-election probably on the condition he gets a pardon.
________________________ _____________________
Gunwalker: Holder Appears To Be Fast, Furious, and Finished
Pajamas Media ^ | 10/3/2011 | Bob Owens
News documents indicate that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder more than likely perjured himself in congressional testimony about Operation Fast and Furious earlier this year.
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News and William LaJeunesse of Fox News have been the only mainstream media reporters diligently working on the most important scandal in White House history, and it is no surprise that they concurrently released information indicating that the attorney general, who claimed in direct testimony on May 3 of this year in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he first heard about Operation Fast and Furious “over the last few weeks,” had actually been briefed on the program in a memo by the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center almost a year earlier on July 5, 2010.
A copy of the heavily redacted weekly report posted by CBS News offers direct evidence that not only was the attorney general briefed on Operation Fast and Furious, but that he was briefed on it regularly and was well aware that the program was sending thousands of weapons into the hands of the Sinaloa cartel:
From July 12 through July 16, the National Drug Intelligence Center Document and Media Exploitation Team at the Phoenix Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCTDETF) Strike Force will support the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Phoenix Field Division with its investigation of Manuel Celis-Acosta as part of OCDETF Operation Fast and Furious. This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manual Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.
That excerpt stated what the task force would do in the near future, while the same language was used later in the report to show what the task force had done that week:
From July 6 through July 9, the National Drug Intelligence Center Document and Media Exploitation Team at the Phoenix Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCTDETF) Strike Force will support the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Phoenix Field Division with its investigation of Manuel Celis-Acosta as part of OCDETF Operation Fast and Furious. This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manual Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.
Attorney General Holder’s eventual criminal defense attorney is certain to state that the attorney general is provided with dozens of reports each week, and that is within the realm of reasonable doubt that he simply overlooked or did not remember the specifics of this memo.
Prosecutors would likely cast doubt on such a claim, citing the fact that the report was named Operation Fast and Furious, that it referred to the number of guns walked by the program at that time (1,500), and that it even noted how much they thought the Sinaloa cartel had budgeted for weapons ($1 million). They will then note that this information was cited twice in each weekly report for both current and future operations.
The prosecutors will more than likely be able to state with a great degree of certainly that Holder was provided this information in x number of weekly reports spanning y number of months in a report that only cites the most important National Drug Intelligence Center cases.
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Not at all. This is scandal is the worst in WH history and bama will be forced to resign or not seek re-election probably on the condition he gets a pardon.
Willing to wager on that?
Want to put something where your bullshit is?
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I agree this scandal is really bad and people should go down for it, possibly up to Obama, but for sure Holder. I don't have much faith that will happen. I also don't think it's the worst scandal either. It's absurdly silly to suggest this is worse than the game of lies played by the Bush admin to get us into the Iraq war.
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BUSTED! This entire Admn is on the verge of collapse over this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7383343n
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http://video.foxnews.com/v/1198190674001/new-document-sheds-light-on-fast-and-furious/?playlist_id=86858
What did Holder/Obama know and when did they know it?
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BUSTED! This entire Admn is on the verge of collapse over this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7383343n
Awesome. Looks like the odds are in your favor.
So still want to make that bet on your words here?
bama will be forced to resign or not seek re-election probably on the condition he gets a pardon.
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BUSTED! This entire Admn is on the verge of collapse over this.
you can't control your emotions all that well. you want this too bad.
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you can't control your emotions all that well. you want this too bad.
The little piss ant comes on here and spews more shit than a prune addict with a stomach virus. But yet when you try to nail him down to stand by his own statements and delusional ranting he just runs away. What a pussy he is.
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you can't control your emotions all that well. you want this too bad.
::) ::)
lets see douchebag - you said nothing would come of this and day by day its been growing - holder is going to at a minimum resign, Newell is facing perjury and said that all the other agencies were involved - WH liason was discussing this case, 200 dead and counting, Mexican AG said your communist hero wont give answers, and the best you can do is talk about peoples' weight problems?
FAIL.
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You said Obama would be forced to resign or seek a pardon. Do you want to wager on your words here? Or is this more delusional shit that you come up with to try to overcome your own insecurities and self hatred?
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You said Obama would be forced to resign or seek a pardon. Do you want to wager on your words here? Or is this more delusional shit that you come up with to try to overcome your own insecurities and self hatred?
Absolutely. My guess is that Obama pulls and LBJ and does not run.
The Stim Bill funded this shit moron!
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So if you stand by your specific statement, you are willing to wager on it?
I think you are full of shit - as usual - and it won't happen. I am willing to wager on that.
What do you want to bet?
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::) ::)
lets see douchebag - you said nothing would come of this and day by day its been growing - holder is going to at a minimum resign, Newell is facing perjury and said that all the other agencies were involved - WH liason was discussing this case, 200 dead and counting, Mexican AG said your communist hero wont give answers, and the best you can do is talk about peoples' weight problems?
FAIL.
you've said this may collapse the US government. you said ppl would be resigning and jailed.
What day does the trail start? Never 1, 2015.
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you've said this may collapse the US government. you said ppl would be resigning and jailed.
What day does the trail start? Never 1, 2015.
Watergate took how long to unfold?
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Watergate took how long to unfold?
well, it was into his SECOND term ;)
And today's politicians - with today's technology and ability to tap phones, read email, etc -
Are way better at shutting ppl the fck up ;)
Nobody goes to jail on this. Everyone is threatened, bribed, or convinced to fall into line. A few guys get golden parachutes to fall on grenade, and Holder develops Reagan Amnesia on the stand.
You're not jaded enough brah.
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well, it was into his SECOND term ;)
And today's politicians - with today's technology and ability to tap phones, read email, etc -
Are way better at shutting ppl the fck up ;)
Nobody goes to jail on this. Everyone is threatened, bribed, or convinced to fall into line. A few guys get golden parachutes to fall on grenade, and Holder develops Reagan Amnesia on the stand.
You're not jaded enough brah.
This story just broke a few months ago and your communist messiah and his terrorist lawyer Holder have done EVERYTHING to stonewall this thing. Fuck - they wont even explain to Mexico what happened!
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And yet, you say this will affect the election 2012 which is..... *drum roll*..... NEXT YEAR!!!
Now do you want to put something where your piehole is and make a real bet out of this? I am calling bullshit on your delusional claims and willing to stand by it with a wager.
Man up pussy.
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And yet, you say this will affect the election 2012 which is..... *drum roll*..... NEXT YEAR!!!
Now do you want to put something where your piehole is and make a real bet out of this? I am calling bullshit on your delusional claims and willing to stand by it with a wager.
Man up pussy.
Obama is not going to run. The other Demos are not going to go down with the ship next year as he is driving the demos to a landslide defeat worse than 2010 at this rate.
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Willing to back that up with a wager?
Yes or no. Very simple question here.
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Willing to back that up with a wager?
Yes or no. Very simple question here.
How much?
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You pick. We can bet money - sending it to a mod to hold - or we can bet accounts.
You can decide what you want to lose.
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You pick. We can bet money - sending it to a mod to hold - or we can bet accounts.
You can decide what you want to lose.
You can send me cash. Thats fine too.
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You can send me cash. Thats fine too.
I don't think so.
I don't place a whole lot of trust in liars, frauds, and bullshit dweebs with no life.
Nor do I place a lot of trust in getting paid by them when they lose bets. So we will both send the funds to a mod who won't mind holding them until Election Day next year.
Let's say $1000. How is that? We can WU the funds to whatever mod will agree to hold them by the end of this week. That way when one of us loses (read : YOU), the other one won't have to worry about getting paid.
Or we can bet accounts. Whatever you wish.
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$1,000? Hell no - there are too many variables on this at this point. My guess is that he steps down - itas not 100% guaranteed.
But the way things are trending - that is what I believe will happen.
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Documents May Contradict Eric Holder Fast & Furious Testimony
Politico ^ | October 4, 2011 | Tim Mak
Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the Fast and Furious gun program as far back as July 2010, which may contradict his statements to Congress, new documents suggest.
Under the program, weapons were allowed to be illegally purchased in the Phoenix area so that they could be tracked to gun traffickers and drug cartel leaders. But the ATF lost track of these firearms, and many were allowed to cross into Mexico.
The documents, leaked to CNN, CBS and other news organizations on Capitol Hill, indicate that Holder knew about the program well before he said he first became aware of it in testimony to Congress.
The documents include a memo to Holder from Michael F. Walter, Director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, dated July 5, 2010, that mentions Fast and Furious.
But in May 2011, Holder told a House committee hearing that he had only recently learned about Fast and Furious.
“When did you first know about the program, officially known as Fast and Furious?” asked Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks,” Holder replied.
The Justice Department strongly disputed any suggestion that Holder misled Congress.
A senior DoJ official told POLITICO that while Holder knew that an operation was going on in 2010, he was not aware until early 2011 of the controversial tactics used in Fast and Furious.
The Justice Department claims Issa’s question referred to the controversial tactics of Fast and Furious and not the overall operation itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at dyn.politico.com ...
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$1,000? Hell no - there are too many variables on this at this point. My guess is that he steps down - itas not 100% guaranteed.
But the way things are trending - that is what I believe will happen.
Perhaps we can make it cheaper. $100. Can your mommy spare you that?
No. There are not too many variables. The bet is simple. Obama either steps down - for any reason - or he chooses not to run - for any reason. No matter what reason, the Dems will have another candidate on the ballot next November. That is pretty simple. If it happens you win, if it doesn't happen I win.
You don't sound so confident in your own little bullshit now. Guess it is time to start backtracking.
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lol @ "documents" show...
that shit will go away. watch and see. 33 thinks this is a hollywood movie where the bad guy always gets his come=uppance.
in real life, daming documents get moved to WTC7 ;)
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lol @ "documents" show...
that shit will go away. watch and see. 33 thinks this is a hollywood movie where the bad guy always gets his come=uppance.
in real life, daming documents get moved to WTC7 ;)
Other than the fact that the WH, NSC contact OReilly also discussed this with ATF Agent Newell.
Again - you are so ignorant and uninformed on this story its not funny.
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lol @ "documents" show...
that shit will go away. watch and see. 33 thinks this is a hollywood movie where the bad guy always gets his come=uppance.
in real life, daming documents get moved to WTC7 ;)
I love how he spews out his bullshit and then when called to stand by it as fact and not chat fodder he runs away making excuses.
But hey.... this shit will be resolved in the next 13 months according to him with Obama sneaking out the back door of the WH in resignation.
::)
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Again - you are so ignorant and uninformed on this story its not funny.
Sounds like you got all the facts lined up and ready to present them to Judge Judy. Variable be damned!
Now, what about that bet?
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personally, i liked the "this could collapse the whole government" line :)
33 lives in a fantasy world where the good guy wins.
In politics, it's between 2 groups of bad guys... and the badder guy usually emerges victorious.
He envisions Herman Cain riding in on a white horse and personally tossing holder and obama into jail cells by their belt loops and collars.
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2 morons completely uninformed on this story.
Hey you two douchebags - can you tell me what this is?
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His delusion at the government collapsing reminds me of Bachmann's delusion of working for the IRS so she could bring it down from the inside.
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personally, i liked the "this could collapse the whole government" line :)
33 lives in a fantasy world where the good guy wins.
In politics, it's between 2 groups of bad guys... and the badder guy usually emerges victorious.
He envisions Herman Cain riding in on a white horse and personally tossing holder and obama into jail cells by their belt loops and collars.
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2 morons completely uninformed on this story.
Hey you two douchebags - can you tell me what this is?
It sure as shit isn't an official memo from Obama saying he is resigning and/or not running. That's a FACT. And I am willing to bet on it. Are you?
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Welcome to "How shit works, USA".
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33,
that map looks EXACTLY like what i said was happening in the border, in iraq, and in afghanistan.
we are feeding our highly overmatched enemy guns, food, money, intel, cash, free passage, anything...
to keep the war - the very profitable business of war - chugging along.
You're a little late to this intellectual party, mate. This shit is old news. You can't have a war without an enemy. And you can't have an enemy without the essentials needed to fight. that border war keeps a lot of companies and people rich $$$$. when the mexicans only had knives, you couldn't justify such big spending.
You'll get it eventually, champ.
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but we get it, you hate obama. you see this as the only chink in his armor that might get him not elected again.
you run with that. you have your 'cause' now. somethign to point at and feel a little hope. you've probably given up on the GOp putting up anything close to an electable/competent 2012 offering.
If this F&F unstarted case gives you hope, then so be it. The dream of santa keeps many kids on their best behavior too.
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::) ::) ::)
Amazing - you spouted 911 CT's for years without a shred of proof, not an ounce, yet you dismiss this all because it makes your hero look bad. Whatever, go back to talking about Christies' weight problem.
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33,
You're a little late to this intellectual party life, mate.
fixed
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So again - not one of you obama voting twats can refute the fact that this admn engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors and would rather toss barbs at me directly than defend the garbage you plan on voting for again.
Got it.
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but we get it, you hate obama. you see this as the only chink in his armor that might get him not elected again.
you run with that. you have your 'cause' now. somethign to point at and feel a little hope. you've probably given up on the GOp putting up anything close to an electable/competent 2012 offering.
If this F&F unstarted case gives you hope, then so be it. The dream of santa keeps many kids on their best behavior too.
No. Not just cause him not to get elect again. But actually cause him to resign completely. Or.. or... not even run again in 2012. Or... or... or.... even cause the Dems to kick him to the curb and put up a new 2012 candidate instead. Or... or... or.... or.... or..... he will even Go. To. Jail.
:o
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::) ::) ::)
Amazing - you spouted 911 CT's for years without a shred of proof, not an ounce, yet you dismiss this all because it makes your hero look bad. Whatever, go back to talking about Christies' weight problem.
correct. and i learned my lesson. i once had the deluded belief that there would someday bee this amazing trial, and those people who let it happen would see the inside of a jail cell.
boy, was I being naive!
as are you.
in a few years, you'll give up, become jaded, and realize how shit is.
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So again - not one of you obama voting twats can refute the fact that this admn engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors and would rather toss barbs at me directly than defend the garbage you plan on voting for again.
Got it.
Actually I was very specific in this thread. I called you out on your usual whining bullshit and toolbag claims about Obama resigning or not running in 2012. You just whined and backpedaled and deflected and all that other useless shit you do day in and day out on here while you had your little meltdown going. Instead of standing by your claims you just WWWHHHIIIINNNEEEEDDD some more. Typical pussy move.
We understand that the internet gives you life and keeps you occupied when mommy has you locked away for 23 hours of the day. But don't expect the rest of the us to entertain the circus of stupidity that plays in your head as well. Apparently reality is like a flame being held over your clit.
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Out of the 1:22 time frame of that clip, what part of it contains the statement that Obama is resigning or seeking a pardon?
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Out of the 1:22 time frame of that clip, what part of it contains the statement that Obama is resigning or seeking a pardon?
That clip proves Obama/Holder were the ones behind this crime wave that has resulted in now at least 200 deaths, 2 LE officials, 1500 unaccounted guns in Mexico, etc.
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::) ::) ::)
Amazing - you spouted 911 CT's for years without a shred of proof, not an ounce, yet you dismiss this all because it makes your hero look bad. Whatever, go back to talking about Christies' weight problem.
you're getting this kind of treatment because it's what was dished out by the right when Bush should have been in hot water. You can't have it both ways, turn your head when it's your guy and then expect max justice when it's not.
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you're getting this kind of treatment because it's what was dished out by the right when Bush should have been in hot water. You can't have it both ways, turn your head when it's your guy and then expect max justice when it's not.
Show me any evidence on a Bush 911 CT even remotely as close as this? Anything? Show me one document, one whistleblower, one agent, something.
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That clip proves Obama/Holder were the ones behind this crime wave that has resulted in now at least 200 deaths, 2 LE officials, 1500 unaccounted guns in Mexico, etc.
Awesome! Do you have a clip of Obama saying he resign or not run? If so, you already have our bet won.
Where's the link? Will you give us a link or just more bullshit?
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Show me any evidence on a Bush 911 CT even remotely as close as this? Anything? Show me one document, one whistleblower, one agent, something.
I wasn't talking about 9/11... I'm talking about the same thing I've been talking about for a week. Bush and Iraq. You've ignored it every time I've brought it up. Enough shit on that came out to easily show serious crimes under the Bush admin but every time they were brought up, the right either ignored it or just wrote it off to the ex official being disgruntled or some shit. There was usually some campaign to smear whoever revealed something in this area.
I'm saying the left hasn't forgotten shit like that and it's probably why the left is ignoring the right on shit like this. The right set the standard on this under Bush, now they have to sleep in the bed they made.
Like I said before, it would be best if people on both sides dropped politics when serious crimes like this happen. But the opposite happens, it get's even more political. You try to make it the worst scandal in American History LOLOLOL... The left ignores it when it's their man, the right ignores it when it's there man, it's digusting, but nobody wants to stop doing it. With the exception of people like Ron Paul supporters and some of the first tea party people, they seem willing to call them all out and drop the poltics on shit like this.
And yea, I love to breaky the skippy rules ;D
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Show me one "Bush crime" that had as much evidence as this that was ignored.
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Show me one "Bush crime" that had as much evidence as this that was ignored.
you're still playing politics with it. A bunch of shit came out over several years and each time it was excused and a smear campaign launched against people involved. So most of those things, the right can easily pull up an article from Fox saying, oh look, it was just because this dude was writing a book or bla bla... That's my point in bringing it up now... You're getting what was given...
There's a shit load of material on Bush and Iraq.
At any rate, that's why I think you get ignored on this from the left.
I personally think Holder should be in jail and there should be a fast and furious special prosecutor on this ASAP. At this point there is enough that several people should be in Jail from FBI and ATF and they should be getting the same treatment from a special prosecutor that any normal person gets when they break the law. Given lighter sentence alternatives for spilling the beans, if not, have fun rotting in prison.... But public outrage that leads to shit like that happening is less when so many do what I talked about above.
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House Republicans to Request Special Counsel to Probe Holder on 'Fast and Furious'
fox ^ | Fox
EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are going to call for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is sending a letter to President Obama arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself and will request a probe by a special counsel.
The question is whether Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing in May. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious.
However, a newly discovered memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
In response to the Monday release of that and other documents, the Justice Department said Holder was confused by the question, and that he was answering about when he first learned of the "troubling tactics" of the program, not the name of it.
But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told Fox News on Tuesday morning that Holder saying he didn't understand the question rather than he didn't know of the program is not a successful defense to perjury.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/04/house-republicans-to-request-special-counsel-to-probe-holder-on-fast-and/#ixzz1ZpfAxeQ7
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/04/house-republicans-to-request-special-counsel-to-probe-holder-on-fast-and/#comment
Special Proescutor coming against this felonious crime ridden junta.
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-reporter-says-white-house-screamed-swore-her-over-fast-and-furious_595011.html
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Newly Released Documents Prove: Holder Lied, and Hundreds Died via Fast and Furiousby AWR Hawkins
http://biggovernment.com/awrhawkins/2011/10/04/newly-released-documents-prove-holder-lied-and-hundreds-died-via-fast-and-furious
Just the facts:
On May 3, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and the House Oversight Committee for questioning on Fast and Furious.
During questioning, Issa asked: “When did you first know about the program…called ‘Fast and Furious?”
Holder responded: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks”
As I’ve written elsewhere, at the very moment Holder gave this answer, it was a safe bet he was being less than completely honest with the Congressional committee. But now the evidence, having become insurmountable in just the past 48 hours, makes it crystal clear that Holder lied to Issa and the House Oversight Committee.
Proof:
Reports CBS NEWS: “[Holder] was sent briefings back as far as 2010.” Briefings on Fast and Furious that is, beginning at least as early as July 2010. (In other words, Holder began receiving briefings on Fast and Furious “ten months before his May 3rd Congressional testimony.”)
And on October 18, 2010, documents show that Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer sent communiqués to Holder warning that indictments for Fast and Furious could come soon.
In response to this growing mound of evidence against him, Holder is now saying he “misunderstood that question from Congress [on May 3rd], that he did know about Fast and Furious, just not the details”
This is the same tired defense others under Holder have been making – that they knew about Fast and Furious but not about “the details,” i.e. about the guns being walked into Mexico. However, this just won’t fly. It’s an insult to common sense and runs counter to the facts available to the public at large.
For example, documents show that on October 22, 2010 a Deputy Attorney General sent Holder a memo in which he basically said he didn’t expect much trouble to arise if knowledge of gun walking became public, because it was already an excepted fact that U.S. guns were being used by Mexican gangs in Mexico.
The Deputy Attorney General’s exact words to Holder: “It’s not going to be a big surprise that a bunch of U.S. guns are being used in [Mexico], so I’m not sure how much grief we get for guns walking.”
The bottom line: Holder knew about Fast and Furious at least as early as July 2010, but on May 3rd he told the Congressional committee he had only known about it for a “few weeks.” This means he mislead Congress, a crime made even more egregious by the fact that he had received regular updates on Fast and Furious from July 2010 through May 2011.
Also, Holder has maintained he had no knowledge of guns walking into Mexico via Fast and Furious, but the October 22, 2010 memo proves he not only knew, but was told not to worry about it because no one would be surprised at U.S. guns in Mexico.
What is House Speaker John Boehner doing today? If it’s anything other than initiating impeachment proceedings against Holder, then he’s wasting our time.
Article II of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach “the president, the vice president and all civil officers of the United States.” And it’s time to use that power.
Holder lied, and hundreds died via Fast and Furious.
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Wow - the WH screamed at her? Ha ha ha.
Implosion in the Obama Admn.
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So When Is Eric Holder Indicted? The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets Posted 2011-10-04 13:09
by Karl Denninger
in Politics
So When Is Eric Holder Indicted?
Yet more perjury....
WASHINGTON - New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.
On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
Everyone who testifies before Congress does so under oath. This makes Holder's statements perjury, a criminal act.
So where are you Mr. Issa? Where's the formal (and very public) referral for prosecution? Yeah, there might be a problem referring something back to the same department (Judiciary) where Holder sits, but does that mean you shouldn't do it?
No, it means you should do it, and then when rebuffed you then start impeachment proceedings.
It's time Mr. Issa. We have dead people on both sides of the border here, and evidence that Fast and Furious may have been an intentional attempt to justify more gun control laws -- and not as an afterthought, but as a goal of the program.
If you have evidence of this, and there's chatter that you do, let's have it. That's an act, if true, that borders on sedition as it is awfully close to a direct attempt to overthrow the Constitution literally by force.
Update: Oops - looks like that's exactly what we're seeing the start of!
EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.
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so one of these days, yall will have to stop saying "The MEDIA is protecting obama by not reporting on FF"..........
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so one of these days, yall will have to stop saying "The MEDIA is protecting obama by not reporting on FF"..........
Atkinson and that guy Serrano from LAT are really the only two. Fox news too.
NYT, WAPO, ABC, MSNBC, NBC, et al? Silence
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End Game: House GOP Requests Special Prosecutor Probe of Eric Holder for Perjury
Stand With Arizona ^ | 10-04-2011 | John Hill
Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 3:49:49 PM by montag813
by John Hill
Stand With Arizona
The walls are closing in on Eric Holder, and the Justice Department, and White House are showing the strain.
Friday evening, the usual time for under-the-radar "document dumps" that get lower press coverage, the White House released new emails which showed extensive communication between former ATF Phoenix Special Agent in Charge William Newell and White House national security team staff over 'Operation Fast and Furious'. Fast and Furious sent thousands of weapons to cartel killers, hundreds of which have been found at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico, and an AK-47 from which murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
From the start, the Justice Department and White House has tried to limit the damage by blaming low-level ATF employees for the Operation. At a May 3 hearing, Attorney General Holder denied he knew anything about the disastrous operation prior to April 2011:
I’m not sure of the exact date but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.
However numerous documents have since revealed that Holder was in fact briefed in July 2010:
New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress…
Then this morning, we heard from CBS News Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson - who has done Pulitzer Prize-winning work in tearing through the web of lies - that she had been "screamed at" and "cussed at" by Justice Department and White House officials over her reporting of 'Fast and Furious'.
Highlights:
1:31 - "In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday..."
6:05 - Laura: So they were literally screaming at you? Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me.
Clearly they expect the kind of misplaced "loyalty" they have received from other media outlets - which have for the most part tried to buried the scandal.
All this was clearly enough for the House GOP leadership to end the hearings and futile requests for information. So this afternoon, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) formally requested a special prosecutor to investigate the Attorney General for perjury.
Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel. I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible
This must not just be an open-ended "request" to Obama. The House GOP must add a deadline to this request, that if not met, will result in Articles of Impeachment to be drawn against Eric Holder to remove him from office, with criminal penalties to follow.
Do not mess around with this, Republicans. You owe it to the memory of one Brian A. Terry, an American hero, cut down in his prime by criminal malfeasance at this highest levels of this Administration.
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New Holder video surfaces on F&F ‘misunderstanding’ and Grassley reacts
Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
October 4, 2011
The Justice Department's claim that Attorney General Eric Holder misunderstood a question from Congressman Darrell Issa regarding when Holder first knew about Operation Fast and Furious is now being questioned because additional video from the same hearing, showing Holder responding to essentially the same question from Congressman Jason Chaffetz, appears to contradict that assertion.
Holder gave the same answer both times. Senator Charles Grassley issued a statement calling the Justice Department's claim that Holder misunderstood to be "disingenuous at best."
According to new documents released last Friday by the White House, and covered by CBS News and other news agencies extensively in the past 24 hours, and discussed by this column, Holder was apparently briefed about Fast and Furious long before he said he was.
Advertisement
The new documents show that on November 1, 2010, Deputy Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, personally informed Holder about the operation in a briefing. The document was a memo Breuer wrote to Holder saying in which he included a brief description of Operation Fast and Furious.
Another document is a July 2010 memo from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center to Holder that details how “straw purchasers” — enabled by Operation Fast and Furious — were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 guns that were then supplied to Mexican drug cartels.—Daily Caller
The hearing was before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3. The video was uploaded the following day. Issa questioned Holder first about Fast and Furious, and the Chaffetz exchange with Holder comes afterward.
The Justice Department told CBS News that the officials in those emails were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General. And tonight they tell CBS News, Holder misunderstood that question from the committee - he did know about Fast and Furious - just not the details.—CBS News
The video, available on YouTube, was brought to this column’s attention by a Capitol Hill source close to the Fast and Furious investigation. In it, Holder reacts to Chaffetz’ question about an interview President Barack Obama did with Univision in Mexico on March 22. Holder tells Chaffetz that he knew about the operation “probably before the president.”
Responding to the contention that Holder misunderstood the question about when he was first aware of Fast and Furious, Sen. Charles Grassley issued the following statement to this column via e-mail:
“Attorney General Holder’s statements don’t add up. In May, the Attorney General told the House Judiciary Committee that he just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, I personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Now, to find out he knew some pretty detailed information about the operation back in the summer of 2010, is troubling. In addition, the documents released last night showed several other people very high up in the Justice Department knew a great deal of information about Fast and Furious, including that guns were being walked. For the Justice Department to claim that they didn’t know ‘operational details’ is disingenuous at best.”
It is not clear whether Holder was under oath when he appeared before the committee, but it is clear from Monday’s revelations that he apparently knew about Fast and Furious long before he acknowledged. The case appears to be unraveling at a fast and furious pace, and Monday’s Washington Times raised the stakes with an editorial that stated, in part:
The “Fast and Furious” gunrunning probe is creeping closer to the Obama White House. It appears administration officials were willing to sign off on just about anything to accomplish their ends, and the result of this botched operation has been over a hundred dead. Someone needs to be held accountable…
…While Republicans seek accountability for the Fast and Furious debacle, survivors of the operation’s victims are left to wonder if there is any difference between the bad guys and the good guys in the era of Obama justice. It’s an open question.
....
Continue reading on Examiner.com New Holder video surfaces on F&F ‘misunderstanding’ and Grassley reacts - Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/new-holder-video-surfaces-on-f-f-misunderstanding-and-grassley-reacts#ixzz1ZqUL7WiN
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Holder's comment leaves him a ton of wiggle room and he's sure to argue that he gets 20 briefings + per day and just didn't recall this.
No jail time, but he should still be held accountable.
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Holder's comment leaves him a ton of wiggle room and he's sure to argue that he gets 20 briefings + per day and just didn't recall this.
No jail time, but he should still be held accountable.
Only problem with that is that a live feed of the straw purchases were beemed in to the HQ by the ATF.
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Holder's comment leaves him a ton of wiggle room and he's sure to argue that he gets 20 briefings + per day and just didn't recall this.
No jail time, but he should still be held accountable.
no wiggle room in what he said to Issa at all.
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;)
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Holder's comment leaves him a ton of wiggle room and he's sure to argue that he gets 20 briefings + per day and just didn't recall this.
No jail time, but he should still be held accountable.
b
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bingo
the moment 33 is relegated to photoshopping mobama with AK's, we know he's desperate
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bingo
the moment 33 is relegated to photoshopping mobama with AK's, we know he's desperate
If there is so much wiggle room as you believe - why did Issa send a list for a special prosecutor citing the exact testimony verbatim and the evidence proving he lied?
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If there is so much wiggle room as you believe - why did Issa send a list for a special prosecutor citing the exact testimony verbatim and the evidence proving he lied?
you said part of his job is going on fox and 'getting the facts out'. maybe it's more of that.
youre gonne be so pissed when obama shuts down the investigation on /national security' concerns lol
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you said part of his job is going on fox and 'getting the facts out'. maybe it's more of that.
youre gonne be so pissed when obama shuts down the investigation on /national security' concerns lol
They demanded a special prosecutor today citing the exact testimony and evidence showing Holder lied.
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They demanded a special prosecutor today citing the exact testimony and evidence showing Holder lied.
oh they demanded it? did they get it?
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oh they demanded it? did they get it?
Letter was sent 2 hours ago. LMFAO!
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Letter was sent 2 hours ago. LMFAO!
cheney demanded an apology from obama 2 days ago. he is still waiting too.
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bingo
the moment 33 is relegated to photoshopping mobama with AK's, we know he's desperate
Photoshopped pic posting by the crybaby always indicates his Code Yellow Meltdown status.
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Photoshopped pic posting by the crybaby always indicates his Code Yellow Meltdown status.
when he runs out of facts or results, it's time to resort to the images!
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Breaking News: Call for Special Counsel on Holder
Fox News ^ | Oct. 4, 2011
Exclusive: House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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when he runs out of facts or results, it's time to resort to the images!
Or the gay projections, or the old thread bumping or just talking to himself.
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Or the gay projections, or the old thread bumping or just talking to himself.
Gay projections? You mean like the middle-aged guy who follows 333 around like a lost puppy dog and even gets so butt-hurt that he demands that he meet him in person so he could ass-fuck talk to him?
You're a creepy, closeted stalker with severe issues.
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Gay projections? You mean like the middle-aged guy who follows 333 around like a lost puppy dog and even gets so butt-hurt that he demands that he meet him in person so he could ass-fuck talk to him?
You're a creepy, closeted stalker with severe issues.
The best part is that neither 240 or lurkertwat have shown Holder not to be guilty as charged.
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The best part is that neither 240 or lurkertwat have shown Holder not to be guilty as charged.
are you forgetful? i've said repeatedly that he's guilty as shit. i've just said he'll get away with it ;)
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The best part is that neither 240 or lurkertwat have shown Holder not to be guilty as charged.
180 has been saying for the better part of 6 months now that this story was dead. Yet here it still is. He's like a 4-year-old girl sticking her fingers in ears and screaming at the top of lungs because she can't handle the truth. Pathetic.
Almost as hilarious as his predictions for Florida's governor race.
He's a lying, spinster rat and most likely on the payroll for MoveOn.org. Paid by the post.
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are you forgetful? i've said repeatedly that he's guilty as shit. i've just said he'll get away with it ;)
So just ignore it and focus on christies weight right?
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No focus on what Michelle said.
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No focus on what Michelle said.
What did Michelle say?
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According to the 180, six months ago this story was a non-factor. It would go away, he claimed. Yet it's still here.
Fail.
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According to the 180, six months ago this story was a non-factor. It would go away, he claimed. Yet it's still here.
Fail.
Notice a pattern?
Stim Bill will create four million jobs
Crist will be 2012 GOP nominee
Carolyn Kennedy was awesome
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Will Holder Turn State’s Evidence And Finger Obama Or Be Fitted With A Snazzy Orange Jumpsuit
Flopping Aces ^ | 10-04-11 | Skookum
Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 5:39:53 PM by Starman417
"What we've got here is... failure to communicate."
A quote from the movie Cool Hand Luke: spoken by The Captain, the imperious warden and by Cool Hand Luke at the conclusion of the film.
Anagnorisis is the moment or instant when ignorance gives way to truth; assumed to be first described by Aristotle in his "Poetics," it along with peripeteia (reversal of fortune) describe Eric Holder's recent encounter with facts and soon justice and perhaps federal prison in Leavenworth.
How poetic, the ancient Greeks so aptly described the present situation Holder created for himself by committing perjury, a crime he would no doubt prosecute against another felon with fast and furious efficiency, but now he is the one who faces prosecution and imprisonment for committing perjury during a congressional hearing.
Chain Gang Street Sweepers, DC 1909
The race card will be difficult to play effectively and Affirmative Action has run out for Eric Holder. Actually, the race card has been so overplayed by Obama, Holder, and the Congressional Black Caucus, it may have lost all relevance.
New emails indicate that Holder lied during congressional hearings on May 3, in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. During sworn testimony, he stated that he first heard of Operation Fast and Furious "over the last few weeks;" however, he had been briefed in a memo almost a year earlier on July 5, 2010. Actually, he was briefed on the operation in a continuous stream of emails that updated him and other key members of the administration on the progress and relative success of the operation. He was well aware of the fact that thousands of weapons were being bought by the Sinaloa cartel and being carried across the border.
Here is a sample excerpt:
From July 12 through July 16, the National Drug Intelligence Center Document and Media Exploitation Team at the Phoenix Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCTDETF) Strike Force will support the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Phoenix Field Division with its investigation of Manuel Celis-Acosta as part of OCDETF Operation Fast and Furious. This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manual Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.
Besides the race card, Holder's defense attorney will surely claim that an AG is overwhelmed with dozens of reports each week and these particular reports escaped his attention because of overwork and incompetence. Ordinarily, in the case of parking tickets and run of the mill political corruption, these three defenses warrant acquittal, but this case is a little different. Two federal agents have been murdered with these weapons that the Obama Administration tried beyond measure and common sense to place in the hands of Narcotics traffickers and killers; their sense of accommodation is to be commended, if only they could have placed such efforts on the economy. There have also been hundreds if not thousands of Mexican nationals killed with these same weapons; yet by a simple plea of incompetence and of overwork, Holder will surely try to distance himself from the mayhem and murder brought about by the Obama plan to arm Mexican Drug gangs.
It will be hard to convince a jury that he missed similar reports every week for a number of months, but he may putting too much faith in the color of his hide if he relies on that defense. It is far more likely that he will turn State's Evidence and give up Napolitano and Obama to avoid a lengthy prison term, but he better move quick, the memos and reports are coming to the surface daily.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
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Indict Eric Holder (Yesssssssssss!!!)
IBD Editorials ^ | October 4, 2011 | Editor
Posted on October 4, 2011 9:27:45 PM EDT by Kaslin
Scandal: A major-league pitcher was indicted for lying to Congress about steroid use. Administration memos show Eric Holder lied about what he knew about Fast and Furious and when he knew it. What's the difference?
Somewhere, Scooter Libby must be scratching his head. He was indicted and convicted simply because his recall of when a meeting occurred differed from others. He didn't lie about a gun-running operation that led to the deaths of two American agents and at least 200 Mexicans.
But Attorney General Eric Holder did, according to memos obtained by CBS News and Fox News.
They show Holder lied to Congress on May 2, 2011, when he was asked about when he knew about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Fast and Furious gun-running operation. He told House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa he was "not sure of the exact date, but I probably learned about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks."
Holder learned of the operation as early as July 2010 in a memo from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center informing him of an operation run by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force out of the Phoenix ATF office, under which "straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug cartels."
On Oct. 18, 2010, one of Holder's chief deputies, Lanny Breuer, chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, told Holder in a memo that prosecutors were ready to issue indictments of a few gun traffickers involved in Fast and Furious.
A memo the day before from Deputy Attorney General Jason Weinstein to another lawyer in the Criminal Division, James Trusty, asked if Breuer should do a press conference when Fast and Furious became known.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Good point. The far left obamumists want to hold Clemens to a higher standard than holder.
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McCain lashes out at Holder over Fast and Furious memos
The Hill ^ | 10/04/11 | Ariel Katz
Posted on October 4, 2011 11:10:16 PM EDT by neverdem
Top Republicans blasted Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday after reports surfaced that he might have known about the controversial “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking operation earlier than he previously claimed.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted, “What part of Q, ‘When did you first know about the program known as Fast and Furious?’ didn't AG Holder understand?”
McCain has asked for a Senate hearing into the operation.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is conducting the inquiry as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, retweeted McCain's Twitter post, along with links to news reports. Issa has used Twitter extensively to push for transparency during his committee’s ongoing investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation that might have led to the death of a Border Patrol agent.
Two other Arizona Republicans, Reps. Ben Quayle and Trent Franks, also took interest in the story, with Franks tweeting a link to a conservative blog post about Holder.
The gun-running operation took place in the Southwest, and has consequentially been a central issue for congressmen from that region.
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33, this is a board where we all take guesses on future events.
you never got any wrong? ;) lol
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Wow - the WH screamed at her? Ha ha ha.
Implosion in the Obama Admn.
Yelling at a reporter for asking questions? They are protesting too much. Sounds like it's starting to snowball.
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I'll leave this thread stickied for a while as this shit develops. it's a pretty big scandal.
I wonder how much paper shredding has happened. lol..
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Gay projections? You mean like the middle-aged guy who follows 333 around like a lost puppy dog and even gets so butt-hurt that he demands that he meet him in person so he could ass-fuck talk to him?
You're a creepy, closeted stalker with severe issues.
Coming from someone that has already told everyone on the board that he was still in the 10th grade of high school at age 28 doesn't really mean jack shit.
I didn't want to talk to him. I called him a fraud, which he is and offered him the chance to prove it otherwise. ::) He ran away.
Try again cuntflap.
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Mexico still waiting for answers on Fast and Furious gun program
By Ken Ellingwood, Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson / Tribune Washington Bureau
Monday, September 19, 2011 - Added 2 weeks ago
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/americas/view/20110919mexico_still_waiting_for_answers_on_fast_and_furious_gun_program
MEXICO CITY – Last fall’s slaying of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of a Mexican state prosecutor, shocked people on both sides of the border. Sensational news reports revealed that cartel hit men had tortured Gonzalez, and forced him to make a videotaped "confession" that his high-powered sister was on the take.
But American authorities concealed one disturbing fact about the case from their Mexican counterparts: U.S. federal agents had allowed AK-47 assault rifles later found in the killers’ arsenal to be smuggled across the border under the notorious Fast and Furious gun-trafficking program.
wow!!!!
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The best part is that neither 240 or lurkertwat have shown Holder not to be guilty as charged.
The best part is you continuing to make the same claims over and over and yet won't stand by them when called out on it. Chickenshit.
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The best part is you continuing to make the same claims over and over and yet won't stand by them when called out on it. Chickenshit.
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Still avoiding that bet?
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279201/holder-s-dubious-history-andrew-c-mccarthy
Holder is a perfect fit for Obama Admn.
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This is a funny thread as well...
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This is a funny thread as well...
200 dead mexicans, 2 dead americans, Mexican AG, disagree with you.
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200 dead mexicans, 2 dead americans, Mexican AG, disagree with you.
im talking about your "reaction"... its hilarious.. you yelling this "go to jail" shit now...but on other issues with other members of govt..you get your marching orders and shut the fuck up. Partisan hack.. keep the laughs coming.. you are pathetic
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im talking about your "reaction"... its hilarious.. you yelling this "go to jail" shit now...but on other issues with other members of govt..you get your marching orders and shut the fuck up. Partisan hack.. keep the laughs coming.. you are pathetic
Yawn - so instead of accepting the fact that we have a criminal AG in office running guns over the border resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, the best excuse, and a pathetic one at that, is to toss barbs at me?
Typical response of those who voted for this disaster.
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*YAWN*
So instead of you accepting the bet on your own claims that you parrot over and over, you instead just whine and backpedal?
Sounds like you don't believe your own bullshit yourself.
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Yawn - so instead of accepting the fact that we have a criminal AG in office running guns over the border resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, the best excuse, and a pathetic one at that, is to toss barbs at me?
Typical response of those who voted for this disaster.
I don't like any politician, and i know there is bullshit like this going on.. but when this same shit was brought to your attention. Shit with way more evidence (like the president admitting to it) you dismissed it..
yeah chump.. Iran Contra and money for Drugs... your dumb ass acted like you never heard of it.. so spare me whats typical..... because that weak ass shit is old... i voted for Obama as a block against your coke sniffing cheating with black cock idol....ms dumb broad Palin. Now... again, im not talking about the Holder thing because like i said, i don't like any politician, but the fact that you're all "up in arms" about this is fucking hilarious... you fuckin chump
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Mexican AG is all up in arms over this since hundreds of citizens died as a result.
Terrys' family is up in arms.
Hope that helps fool.
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Mexican AG is all up in arms over this since hundreds of citizens died as a result.
Terrys' family is up in arms.
Hope that helps fool.
Right.. and I still dont disagree you idiot... i said i have issue with YOU!!!!! Bitching over this, but when I brought up the Iran Contra Scandal... that your hero admitted to... him self... on tv..... your ass acted like you had no clue of it ever happening... so get your weak ass partisan shit out of here
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Right.. and I still dont disagree you idiot... i said i have issue with YOU!!!!! Bitching over this, but when I brought up the Iran Contra Scandal... that your hero admitted to... him self... on tv..... your ass acted like you had no clue of it ever happening... so get your weak ass partisan shit out of here
So because something happened 30 years ago - we ignore present corruption of an even grander scale right?
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Mexican AG is all up in arms over this since hundreds of citizens died as a result.
Terrys' family is up in arms.
Hope that helps fool.
Sounds like Obama will be resigning next week then. Still time for you to make that bet.
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So because something happened 30 years ago - we ignore present corruption of an even grander scale right?
First off.. im not ignoring anything.. and second of all... What grander scale?... Circumventing Congress, to fund a covert war with funding coming from the illegal drugs being sold in the inner cities all across america...
Dude you have officially lost it.. if you want to argue seriously.. we can do that, but when you start throwing retarded shit like that out, it gets downright silly
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First off.. im not ignoring anything.. and second of all... What grander scale?... Circumventing Congress, to fund a covert war with funding coming from the illegal drugs being sold in the inner cities all across america...
Dude you have officially lost it.. if you want to argue seriously.. we can do that, but when you start throwing retarded shit like that out, it gets downright silly
How is F&F any different?
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AZ Congressman: Obama admin may be ACCESSORY TO MURDER with Fast and Furious
TheDC ^ | October 5, 2011 | Matthew Boyle
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona told The Daily Caller the Obama administration officials responsible for Operation Fast and Furious might be accessories to murder.
“We’re talking about consequences of criminal activity — where we actually allowed guns to walk into the hands of criminals — where our livelihoods are at risk,” Gosar said in a phone interview. “When you facilitate that and a murder or a felony occurs, you’re called an accessory. That means that there’s criminal activity.”
Gosar said the government should be held to the same standard as everyone else. Fast and Furious weapons were used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, as well as scores of Mexican citizens, and he thinks that administration officials should be held accountable.
“We impugn the private sector, we impugn main street America, and the bureaucracy cannot be held to any different standard whatsoever,” Gosar told TheDC. “They [the Justice Department and ATF officials] intentionally — intentionally — violated the law.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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According to Team Kenya - this is no big deal since Obama is black, something happened 30 years ago, and everyone is an accessory to murder.
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Allen West: Obama must remove Eric Holder, or he’s complicit with Fast and Furious cover-up
The Daily Caller ^ | Oct, 5 2011 | By Matthew Boyle
Florida Republican Rep. Allen West is demanding that President Barack Obama force Attorney General Eric Holder to resign.
Appearing on Nashville radio host Steve Gill’s show last week, West said Obama would be “complicit” with what he sees as Justice Department attempts to slow down and avoid a congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunrunner if he didn’t push his attorney general to resign. “The president needs to realize that Eric Holder needs to be removed from the Department of Justice,” West said after detailing why he thinks Holder should appear before an investigative committee to testify about how the DOJ has handled its response to the Operation Fast and Furious investigation. “Or else I believe President Obama is complicit and he is in approval of the actions of his attorney general.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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BREAKING NEWS on Fast and Furious: Slide Show Indicates Holder May Have Known in March 2010
by AWR Hawkins
www.biggovernment.com
Folks, I just checked my email inbox and found an ATF slide presentation on the Fast and Furious operation that journalist Paul Thacker somehow got his hands on.
The most important thing about it – It appears to have been compiled by the ATF for use in briefing the DOJ on Fast and Furious in March 2010.
Here’s the opening slide:
Notice that the fourth item on the agenda of the first slide is listed as: “Phoenix Case – Update on a significant firearms trafficking case”
It’s important to note that Acting Deputy Attorney General at the time the briefing occurred was Gary G. Grindler, who is now Eric Holder’s Chief of Staff.
Let me ask you a serious question: If Grindler knew about Fast and Furious in March 2010, do you think there’s any way Holder didn’t also know?
In other words, do you think there’s any real chance that the guy who was to become Holder’s Chief of Staff failed to fill his boss in on the “significant firearms trafficking case”?
Remember, on May 3, 2011 Holder told the House Oversight Committee he’d only learned of Fast and Furious “over the last few weeks.”
I bet he’d like to get a do-over on that one.
You can see the entire slide show here.
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Bump - can BB merge this in to the General Obama scandal thread?
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thanks, I remember now. Just forgot the name.
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Bump - can BB merge this in to the General Obama scandal thread?
why do you want to do that? Keep this thread alive..
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why do you want to do that? Keep this thread alive..
Yeah - its part of the larger scandal.
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Yeah - its part of the larger scandal.
what thread do you want it in? The one stickied or another?
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Gunwalker: House Wants Special Counsel To Investigate Eric Holder
The House Judiciary Committee will request an independent perjury investigation. (Related: CBS Reporter says White House staffer screamed at her for pursuing the Fast and Furious story.)
October 4, 2011 - 11:43 am - by Bob Owens
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-house-wants-special-counsel-to-investigate-eric-holder/?singlepage=true
That didn’t take long:
House Republicans are going to call for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is sending a letter to President Obama arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself and will request a probe by a special counsel.
The question is whether Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing in May. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious.
Judiciary’s call for special counsel comes after documentation surfaced yesterday that indicated Holder was getting weekly briefs on Operation Fast and Furious, and that senior Justice Department executives were well aware that these operations were walking guns into Mexico.
So far, Holder’s PR defense is that he didn’t understand the following question: “When did you first hear about Operation Fast and Furious?”
President Barack Obama now finds himself in a complicated predicament at a time which already marks the low point of public opinion regarding his performance, and as his hopes of re-election fade. If Obama opposes the appointment of a special prosecutor for the perjury investigation (and by extension, Operation Fast and Furious and other alleged gunwalking operations), he immediately saddles his campaign with questions of obstructing a lawful and legitimate call for an independent investigation. Operation Fast and Furious will immediately become a key story for the 2012 campaign, though it has so far been largely ignored by the media.
Likewise, President Obama seems to be in danger if he does choose to appoint a special prosecutor. Evidence to date — including direct communications between the ATF special agent running Operation Fast and Furious and White House staffers — seems to indicate that the White House was well aware of these gunwalking operations. If evidence surfaces that directly implicates President Obama himself, then a failed reelection bid may be the least of his worries.
Depending upon the breadth of the investigation, it is quite possible for a special counsel to end up investigating not just the attorney general but other senior DOJ officials, including the directors of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), and responsible U.S. attorneys including U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, who recently resigned over his role in Operation Fast and Furious.
The special counsel would likewise need to investigate the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Secretary Janet Napolitano. U.S. Attorney Burke is a close confidant of Napolitano’s, having served as her chief of staff while she was Arizona’s governor. Agencies under her control that may have participated in gunwalking operations — such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol — could also face inquiries.
The State Department and Treasury Department — specifically the IRS Criminal Investigations Division that was part of the task forces — could also face questioning.
The possible charges and the list of those who could face them are extensive. In addition to the perjury case against Attorney General Holder, there exists the possibility of RICO cases (typically reserved for organized crime syndicates), prosecutions for violating the Arms Export Control Act, and the outside chance of prosecutions for international terrorism and treason.
This does not include any criminal charges or civil charges that would likely arise from the deaths of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Agent Jaime Zapata, or from the wounding of ICE Agent Victor Avila.
The possibility also exists that Obama administration officials may face prosecution in Mexico for contributing to the deaths of a reported 200 Mexican citizens.
It is a dangerous time to be an Obama administration insider, appointee, or operative.
(Related: CBS Reporter says White House staffer screamed at her for pursuing the Fast and Furious story.)
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what thread do you want it in? The one stickied or another?
The stickied one is fine.
This whole thing is surreal.
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ATF officials demoted in latest Fast and Furious fallout
latimes.com ^ | Oct. 5, 2011 | Richard A. Serrano
Two top supervisors at ATF headquarters in Washington -- the deputy director and the assistant director for all field operations -- have been reassigned to lower-level positions as the beleaguered agency attempts to remake itself amid the fallout from a failed gun-tracking operation along the Southwest border called Fast and Furious, according to two sources briefed on the changes.
William J. Hoover, the No. 2 man at ATF, will become special agent-in-charge of the agency's Washington field office, while Mark Chait, who ran all of the field investigations around the country, is being reassigned as head of the Baltimore field office.
Thomas Brandon, who was sent to Phoenix to run the field office there and help it recover from the repercussions of Fast and Furious, will be taking Hoover's spot as deputy director.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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Cant these people get fired?
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Holder = Amnesia.
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Pejury Charges Coming for Eric Holder on Fast and Furious?
Townhall.com ^ | October 5, 23011 | Bob Beauprez
On May 3, 2011 Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that, "I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks." However, newly released documents contradict that testimony and show he was briefed multiple times beginning as early as July 2010.
Fast and Furious was the code name for an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) operation that allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" across the border and end up in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. Some of those weapons have been linked to the assassination of ATF Agent Brian Terry last December.
In a newly obtained July 2010 memo, Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder straw gun buyers for Fast and Furious "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
Subsequently, on October 18, 2010 Lanny Breuer, head of the Criminal Division at DOJ and one of the AG's chief deputies, wrote in a memo to Holder that prosecutors were ready to issue indictments in the Fast and Furious scandal.
Holder and the DOJ have tried to distance themselves from Fast and Furious representing it as a rogue ATF operation. However, as CBS reports, a review of DOJ communications "leave no doubt that high level Justice officials knew guns were being 'walked'."
On October 17, 2010 – the day before the Breuer memo – two other high ranking DOJ officials discussed the prosecutions by email and whether to make a public statement about Fast and Furious out of the Department.
Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General also in the Criminal Division with Breuer, wrote "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions." James Trusty, Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit replied, "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.'"
The DOJ told CBS News that those two officials were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General (read: "blame George Bush") although no specific case was mentioned. Further, the DOJ's explanation for why the Attorney General told Congress in May of this year that he had just heard about Fast and Furious was that he "misunderstood the question."
Holder's May 3, 2011 denial occurred during questioning by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) before the House Judiciary Committee. Issa asked, "When did you first know about the program, officially I believe called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?" It tests the imagination to think that anyone could not understand a question posed that directly; particularly someone who supposedly is qualified to be the Attorney General of the United States. And, even if he did, in that environment and under oath, it would be typical to ask that the question be repeated.
Appearing on Fox & Friends on October 4, Issa was asked to respond to the DOJ's contention that Holder "misunderstood" his question. Issa said that's typically what someone claims when they have "probably perjured themselves" rather than admitting "I lied."
Undoubtedly, Congress will again summon Holder to face additional questions. But, the bigger issue is why Barack Obama hasn't fired his Attorney General? Having any cabinet official, particularly the Attorney General, caught in perjury to a Congressional Committee would seem to be an irreconcilable – not to mention, illegal – offense.
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Fast And Furious: 22 Shocking Facts About The Scandal That Could Bring Down The Obama Administration
http://www.boanow.com ^ | 10/5/11
Could Fast and Furious be the scandal that brings down the Obama administration? With the full knowledge of the Department of Justice, ATF agents facilitated the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and dropped all surveillance of those weapons once they crossed the border. Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been used to shoot U.S. border control agents. Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been found at dozens of crime scenes in Mexico. Nobody has been held accountable for this scandal yet. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been stonewalling all efforts by members of Congress to look into Fast and Furious. A CBS reporter that has been aggressively investigating this story was recently screamed at and cussed at by a high ranking official that works in the White House. It has become abundantly clear that the Obama administration desperately wants to hide what went on during Operation Fast and Furious. So will they succeed or will we eventually find out the truth?
What you are about to read should shock the living daylights out of you. The U.S. government purposely armed Mexican drug cartels with thousands of guns and then ordered agents not to follow the weapons across the border.
This should be a story that the mainstream media is pounding on every single day.
But they aren't.
In fact, they are mostly ignoring it.
However, if the truth starts getting out and the American people start grasping what really happened this thing could become absolutely huge.
In fact, this could end up being Obama's Watergate.
The following are 22 shocking facts about the scandal that could bring down the Obama administration....
#1 During Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents purposely allowed thousands of guns to be sold to individuals that they believed would get them into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
#2 ATF agents were specifically ordered not to intercept the guns before they crossed the border. The following is a brief excerpt from a CBS News report that detailed the fierce objections that many ATF agents expressed when they were ordered to stand down....
On the phone, one Project Gunrunner source (who didn't want to be identified) told us just how many guns flooded the black market under ATF's watchful eye. "The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That's how many guns were sold - including some 50-calibers they let walk."
50-caliber weapons are fearsome. For months, ATF agents followed 50-caliber Barrett rifles and other guns believed headed for the Mexican border, but were ordered to let them go. One distraught agent was often overheard on ATF radios begging and pleading to be allowed to intercept transports. The answer: "Negative. Stand down."
CBS News has been told at least 11 ATF agents and senior managers voiced fierce opposition to the strategy. "It got ugly..." said one. There was "screaming and yelling" says another. A third warned: "this is crazy, somebody is gonna to get killed."
#3 Operation Fast and Furious remained a secret until the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Two guns that were sold during Operation Fast and Furious were found at the scene of the murder.
#4 ATF Special Agent John Dodson was one of the first to blow the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious. Dodson explained to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee on June 15, 2011 that many ATF agents were becoming extremely frustrated when they were ordered to cut off surveillance on the weapons that were being sold because they knew "that just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico."
#5 It appears that Operation Fast and Furious began some time around September 2009. At that time, the ATF began pressuring gun shops near the border with Mexico to participate in a new covert operation that was being set up. The gun store owners were told to help the ATF get guns into the hands of people that would take them back to the Mexican drug cartels.
The following description of the mechanics of Operation Fast and Furious comes from a recent Los Angeles Times article....
In the fall of 2009, ATF agents installed a secret phone line and hidden cameras in a ceiling panel and wall at Andre Howard's Lone Wolf gun store. They gave him one basic instruction: Sell guns to every illegal purchaser who walks through the door.
For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semiautomatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns, and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border.
When Howard heard nothing about any arrests, he questioned the agents. Keep selling, they told him. So hundreds of thousands of dollars more in weapons, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, walked out of the front door of his store in a Glendale, Ariz., strip mall.
#6 In some gun stores, cameras were set up so that top ATF officials could actually watch these transactions take place. Back in June, U.S. Representative Darrell Issa stated the following....
"Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and himself watch a live feed of straw buyers entering the gun stores and purchasing dozens of AK-47 variants."
#7 It has also come out that in some cases ATF agents were actually the ones buying the guns and getting them into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The following is how author Michael A. Walsh recently explained this in an article in the New York Post....
This just might be the smoking gun we’ve been waiting for to break the festering “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal wide open: the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.
Let that sink in: After months of pretending that “Fast and Furious” was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.
#8 According to the Los Angeles Times, guns that were purchased during Operation Fast and Furious have "turned up at dozens of additional Mexican crime scenes, with an unconfirmed toll of at least 150 people killed or wounded."
#9 Mexican authorities were never informed that thousands upon thousands of guns were being allowed into Mexico.
#10 Authorities in Mexico have asked the U.S. government over and over to explain what in the world happened during Operation Fast and Furious but they have not been given an adequate answer. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Obama administration has not even responded to questions from the attorney general of Mexico....
Marisela Morales, Mexico's attorney general and a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico, told The Times that she first learned about Fast and Furious from news reports. And to this day, she said, U.S. officials have not briefed her on the operation gone awry, nor have they apologized.
#11 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been withholding key documents about Fast and Furious from Congress and has been consistently stonewalling U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley and other members of Congress that have attempted to look into this matter.
#12 The acting director of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, had been cooperating with the investigation. At the end of August he was suddenly transferred to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.
#13 Several other key officials that were heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious actually got promoted.
#14 On May 3rd, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious. During that testimony, Holder made the following statement....
"I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
#15 Since that time, a large amount of evidence has come out that Holder was not telling the truth. For example, a recent Fox News article discussed some of the very revealing memos about Fast and Furious that have been discovered recently....
However, newly discovered memos suggest otherwise. For instance, one memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
Other documents also indicate that Holder began receiving weekly briefings on the program from the National Drug Intelligence Center "beginning, at the latest, on July 5, 2010,"
#16 Holder now claims that he simply misunderstood the question. He now says that he had heard of Operation Fast and Furious previously but that he was not aware of the specific details.
#17 Emails exchanged between two Department of Justice officials last October make it abundantly clear that high level officials at the DOJ were very aware of what was going on...
Two Justice Department officials mulled it over in an email exchange Oct. 18, 2010. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions," says Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit James Trusty replies "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."
#18 House Republicans are now asking for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate whether or not U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress during his recent testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious.
#19 U.S. Representative Darrell Issa believes that those involved in the Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation may have violated international arms trafficking agreements and could potentially face very serious criminal charges.
#20 U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is absolutely convinced that a major coverup is going on....
"But I can tell you this. They're doing everything they can, in a fast and furious way, to cover up all the evidence or stonewalling us. But here's the issue, if he didn't perjure himself and didn't know about it, the best way that they can help us, Congressman Issa and me, is to just issue all the documents that we ask for and those documents will prove one way or the other right or wrong."
#21 Did Barack Obama ever know about Operation Fast and Furious? He says that he did not authorize the program. On March 22, 2011 Obama made the following statement....
"I did not authorize [Fast and Furious]. Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that’s the case, then we’ll find — find out and we’ll hold somebody accountable."
#22 CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson claimed on the Laura Ingraham show the other day that officials in the Obama administration were literally screaming and yelling at her for aggressively investigating the Fast and Furious scandal....
Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."
Where there is smoke there is usually fire.
Something about this whole thing really stinks.
It would be a shame if Operation Fast and Furious is allowed to be swept under the rug.
The weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious are going to be used to kill a lot of people. The legacy of this scandal will be felt on both sides of the border for years to come.
The Mexican government deserves some answers.
The American people deserve some answers.
Hopefully we will get some.
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"#16 Holder now claims that he simply misunderstood the question. He now says that he had heard of Operation Fast and Furious previously but that he was not aware of the specific details."
You don't believe him, 33, we get that.
One Q... what is his MOTIVATION for giving guns to gangs, essentially?
What was the goal of the obama admin? To create more violence intentionally? Is taht what you're saying?
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"#16 Holder now claims that he simply misunderstood the question. He now says that he had heard of Operation Fast and Furious previously but that he was not aware of the specific details."
You don't believe him, 33, we get that.
One Q... what is his MOTIVATION for giving guns to gangs, essentially?
What was the goal of the obama admin? To create more violence intentionally? Is taht what you're saying?
we need to see those memos. He probably knew exactly what the details were. Then again the ATF did lie their asses off during and after waco.
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"#16 Holder now claims that he simply misunderstood the question. He now says that he had heard of Operation Fast and Furious previously but that he was not aware of the specific details."
You don't believe him, 33, we get that.
One Q... what is his MOTIVATION for giving guns to gangs, essentially?
What was the goal of the obama admin? To create more violence intentionally? Is taht what you're saying?
We know exactly the reason - to create the narrative that we needed AWB2 in order to stem gun violence from american guns going over to Mexico.
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we need to see those memos. He probably knew exactly what the details were. Then again the ATF did lie their asses off during and after waco.
ok, i get the actions - but what was the MOTIVE?
Is 33 saying that holder's goal was really to fuel border violence? That being the goal to keep budgets high, etc?
Means, motive and opportunity. I'm not seeing the motive? What did obama have to GAIN from border gun violence? Is 33 going to say this was about fueling border war budgets? Or an anti-gun thing? Or an anti-drug thing? And does he have any proof of anything here - or just his GUESS on motive?
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ok, i get the actions - but what was the MOTIVE?
Is 33 saying that holder's goal was really to fuel border violence? That being the goal to keep budgets high, etc?
Means, motive and opportunity. I'm not seeing the motive? What did obama have to GAIN from border gun violence? Is 33 going to say this was about fueling border war budgets? Or an anti-gun thing? Or an anti-drug thing? And does he have any proof of anything here - or just his GUESS on motive?
Hillary and obama's speeches at the time prove the motive. AWB2
Remember - obama and hillary are also trying to get this UN Small Arms Treaty going as well.
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We know exactly the reason - to create the narrative that we needed AWB2 in order to stem gun violence from american guns going over to Mexico.
Okay. What evidence do you have that this was his motive? have any govt officials under him come fwd and claimed AWB2 would stop this? I was under the accurate impression (which wayne lapierre agrees with) that obama has been VERY good for gun laws. Hell, Brady gave him an F, and there is talk that obama's rating could be an A in 2011, because he has done more than Bush to HELP gun owners.
What EVIDENCE do you haev that FF was intended to create AWB2? Just one of those gut feelings? ;)
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Hillary and obama's speeches at the time prove the motive. AWB2
Remember - obama and hillary are also trying to get this UN Small Arms Treaty going as well.
1 at a time. Please post the text of obama's exact line or two, where he said "AWB2".
You made a claim, now back it up.
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Okay. What evidence do you have that this was his motive? have any govt officials under him come fwd and claimed AWB2 would stop this? I was under the accurate impression (which wayne lapierre agrees with) that obama has been VERY good for gun laws. Hell, Brady gave him an F, and there is talk that obama's rating could be an A in 2011, because he has done more than Bush to HELP gun owners.
What EVIDENCE do you haev that FF was intended to create AWB2? Just one of those gut feelings? ;)
LMFAO! It was never about stopping anything toolbox! It was always about disarming americans
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Is CBS News Silencing Fast and Furious Reporter?
Mark Hemingway
October 5, 2011 3:23 PM
Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also been yelled at by the Justice Department.
Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.
I've also heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable.
After our initial conversation earlier today, I called McNair back and left a message with her office. I also sent McNair an email asking whether Attkisson's unavailability has anything to do with reporting that the White House and Justice Department were angry at her. I further asked McNair if the White House or Justice Department contacted CBS News about Attkisson since yesterday. McNair has not responded to my inquiries.
Recall what Attkisson told Ingraham yesterday:
[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.
That's significant, because CBS News, and Attkisson in particular, has done more reporting to advance the Fast and Furious scandal than arguably any other media outlet.
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Listen to your boy bob Barr
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ok, i get the actions - but what was the MOTIVE?
Is 33 saying that holder's goal was really to fuel border violence? That being the goal to keep budgets high, etc?
Means, motive and opportunity. I'm not seeing the motive? What did obama have to GAIN from border gun violence? Is 33 going to say this was about fueling border war budgets? Or an anti-gun thing? Or an anti-drug thing? And does he have any proof of anything here - or just his GUESS on motive?
I wouldn't doubt it a bit if gun control was part of the motive.
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No freaking way he did not know! ! ! ! Listen to this snake.
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I wouldn't doubt it a bit if gun control was part of the motive.
Is there any evidence of this?
We know Cheney was sitting down with oil execs BEFORE 911, splitting up iraqi oil fields on paper.
(this is documented motive)
Where are the documents showing anything 33 claims about motive? I see none.
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Is there any evidence of this?
We know Cheney was sitting down with oil execs BEFORE 911, splitting up iraqi oil fields on paper.
(this is documented motive)
Where are the documents showing anything 33 claims about motive? I see none.
Is it possible for you not to blame bush just for once?
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Is there any evidence of this?
We know Cheney was sitting down with oil execs BEFORE 911, splitting up iraqi oil fields on paper.
(this is documented motive)
Where are the documents showing anything 33 claims about motive? I see none.
I don't need no stinking evidence ;D I'm a conspiracy theorist :D
No, seriously, you know well there is a history of this kind of shit. Knowing that, giving them the benefit of doubt is probably going to be my last choice.
There's another possible motive here. Remember the ATF originally got the ball rolling with Waco because they felt they needed a big score to justify their budget with the new president and possible cuts coming. They did twisted shit before, during and after waco and even with the facts they were sending to the Justice Dept. The same exact problems turned up with Obama facing giant budget issues in a down economy. I wouldn't doubt it if the ATF were back at their old games for the same reason.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/05/video-issa-hits-holder-on-ac360
Anderson Cooper new video on this.
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Is it possible for you not to blame bush just for once?
You'll have to forgive him as "Blame Bush" is a permanent talking point given to him on his daily "MoveOn.org" email.
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Proof this had anything to do with AWB2? Text link pleease, i'm on phone and can't video
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Proof this had anything to do with AWB2? Text link pleease, i'm on phone and can't video
It's only a guess at this point of course. But statements from Newell in an email seem to suggest that.
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CBS: Attkisson 'Unavailable' For Further Interviews on 'Fast & Furious'
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2011/10/05/cbs-attkisson-unavailable-further-interviews-fast-furious ^
Posted on October 5, 2011 9:40:42 PM EDT by chessplayer
Mark Hemingway of The Weekly Standard reported on Wednesday afternoon that he had attempted to interview CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson about her dogged coverage of the ongoing "Fast and Furious" controversy, but was told that she was "unavailable." Attkisson has been the sole journalist on the Big Three networks regularly covering the story, particular during the past several weeks.
Hemingway described in his blog entry that he called CBS News to interview the correspondent, but was "told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say." On Tuesday, the reporter revealed on Laura Ingraham's radio show that Obama administration officials had "screamed and cussed" at her over her coverage of the story.
The conservative writer further noted that he had "heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable." Hemingway later called back McNair at CBS and left a message to ask "whether Attkisson's unavailability has anything to do with reporting that the White House and Justice Department were angry at her," but as of mid-afternoon on Wednesday, hadn't heard back from the network executive.
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New ATF chief reassigns top officials after Fast and Furious
Houston Chronicle ^ | 10/5/11 | Puneet Kollipara
Posted on October 5, 2011 10:33:37 PM EDT by Nachum
The new acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Wednesday he was reassigning 11 of the agency's top officials in a bid to rebuild ATF after Operation Fast and Furious, in which agents let U.S.-purchased guns slip into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. ATF Acting Director B. Todd Jones said the reshuffling will help the agency focus on its "core missions of violent crime and public safety" and bring about "a certain level of accountability" in the wake of the controversy. "We're going to hit the reset button," said Jones,
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
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break the law in the ATF, oh no big deal, we get do-overs. reshuffle the deck. For everyone else, you do the crime, you do the time--no mulligans...
Sounds fair to me ::)
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It's only a guess at this point of course. But statements from Newell in an email seem to suggest that.
So in other words.. you are once again trying to pass your delusional dumb ass "guess" off as a fact.
Ok, gotcha.
Now you see why you have no credibility on this board.
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you bitch ass clinton voters were a-okay with the ATF bulldozing WACO and MELTING the door so no investigation could be done upon which way the bullets flew.
Yet suddenly, you give a shit about what they do.
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Scandal Watch: Fast and Furious round-up
Michelle Malkin ^ | 10/5/11 | Michelle Malkin
Question: Why does Eric Holder still have a job?
Answer: Because he has thrived on incompetence, stonewalling, and corruption his entire career.
Why would the outcome of Fast and Furious be any different than all the rest of the scandals that make up his long track record of putting political interests of the public interest at the expense of public safety, conflicts of interest, and his own admissions of screwing up, then moving up.
Why is anybody surprised that Holder and his hole-ridden memory can’t recall key facts, or that he admits to not doing his job properly?
He has a long history of conveniently forgetting things and screwing things over.
Flashback:
Now, we learn that it just happened to conveniently slip Holder’s mind to mention during the Senate confirmation process that he had contributed to a legal brief with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism on behalf of al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla:
(Excerpt) Read more at michellemalkin.com ...
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you bitch ass clinton voters were a-okay with the ATF bulldozing WACO and MELTING the door so no investigation could be done upon which way the bullets flew.
Yet suddenly, you give a shit about what they do.
who is this directed toward here? lol
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October 5, 2011
Fast and Furious: Let It Bleed
James G. Wiles
Be careful what you wish for, House Republicans, over the metastasizing Operation "Fast and Furious" scandal at the U.S. Department of Justice. You just might get it.
A Special Prosecutor, I mean. That's exactly what, as we move into the 2012 election year, the GOP shouldn't want.
From a GOP political perspective, Operation "Fast and Furious" is the kind of thing you pray to Jesus for. A year before a national election, the story breaks that some numb nuts at Main DOJ -- the agency formerly known as ATF, to be specific -- conceived a novel idea for catching Mexican cartels (and their U.S. firearms suppliers) in illegal gun smuggling. Here's how: let's have the U.S. Government give the gun dealers guns so they can be smuggled.
Lots of guns -- at least count, at least 2,000 of them.
It worked too. Oh, my, how it worked.
The US government-supplied weapons were duly purchased by the bad guys. They were then duly "walked" into Mexico. You'll never guess what happened next.
The Mexican gun cartels used the U.S.-provided guns to kill Mexicans. Lots of Mexicans. The complete death toll is still being tallied.
The Mexican government is beside itself. And ATF has a new acting head.
That's only the beginning. The paper trail for this too-stupid-to-live idea, it's emerging, leads directly into the top level of DOJ - to Attorney General Eric Holder and the head of the Criminal Division, to be precise.
Wait, I'm not done. It gets better.
The trail of e-mails also leads into the White House. and it appears that testimony by Attorney General Holder before the House Judiciary Committee about when he first knew about Operation "Fast and Furious" can reasonably be viewed as being false. In response to a question, Holder said he first heard of it only recently, when the scandal broke. Documents produced this week in response to Congressional subpoenas suggest otherwise.
Oops.
The Obama White House knows it has a real problem on its hands (another one, I mean, besides all the others). The whole thing's going viral as we speak.
In Washington-speak: this baby's got legs.
Yesterday, CBS reporter Sharyl Atkisson told Laura Ingraham on her talk radio program that both the White House and DOJ are yelling (or screaming) at her to sit down and shut up. Apparently, in the Obama White House's view, Attkisson is being "very unreasonable."
The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times are all being reasonable, Attkisson said the White House spokesman screamed at her. Why can't you?
Or, as President Obama recently said to the Congressional Black Caucus: "stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying."
As I say, fun. Couldn't happen at a better time.
Comes now House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith (R. Texas) to spoil our fun.
Chairman Smith yesterday called for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to look into whether General Holder committed perjury before the Judiciary Committee when he denied knowing anything about Operation "Fast and Furious" until quite recently. The AG, Chairman Smith's press release says solemnly, has an inherent conflict of interest. He cannot, you see, investigate himself.
Well, duh, now.
God bless you, Chairman Smith. Are you still, 37 years on, seeking revenge for Watergate? Are you like what Talleyrand said about the Bourbons: you've learned nothing and forgotten nothing?
Losing in a landslide is the ultimate sanction for screwing up in office or fudging facts to Congress. That's politics -- and next year is an election year. We don't want a Special Prosecutor, operating in secret. We want a media firestorm.
Let it bleed, I say.
You think they lied to your Committee, Mr. Chairman? Fine. Help us throw the bums out. Raise holy hell about this: call it a conspiracy at the highest levels, a culture of corruption, perjury, obstruction of justice.
Talk about a cover-up. The arrogance of power. Say it's "another Watergate."
You know what to do - pour it on! Every day, in front on the TV cameras, on the talk shows and on the floor of the House. Deplore, condemn, express shock. Demand answers. Hold more hearings. Subpoenas, depositions.
Leak like crazy.
Not your style? Okay, pretend you're Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid: look sad and talk about how "concerned" you are.
But, please, sir, shut up about bringing in a Special Prosecutor.
An SP, Mr. Chairman, will give the Obama White House the perfect excuse to bury this thing until after the 2012 election.
Grand jury secrecy, don't you know. Can't talk, sorry. "We don't want to prejudice the special prosecutor's inquiry," Presidential Secretary Jay Carney will piously intone from the White House Press Room podium. We want to, but we can't.
Wink.
"People's reputations are at risk here," the President will say. "I can't possibly comment."
Wink.
And the story will die away, just when it got legs.
Who the hell wants that?
So, please, Chairman Smith: put a sock in it. I'm sure you're a good guy. But we don't need no stinkin' Special Prosecutor. This is blood sport - and they're bleeding. We need publicity, lots of publicity, about Operation "Fast and Furious."
Let it bleed -- all over the front pages, PC's, Blackberries and plasma TV's of America.
Update: John Hinderaker at Powerline has further thoughts on the role of CBS.
William La Jeunesse has been working this story hard for FoxNews for some time, it was Sharyl Attkisson at CBS who got the scoop. While the DOJ documents were leaked exclusively to CBS News ( which therefore gets credit for breaking the story), I should point out that William La Jeunesse of FoxNews has been dogged in his pursuit of the "Fast and Furious" story as well.
Here's Michael Walsh's take at NRO, which adds a few facts (and also credits La Jeunesse).
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/fast_and_furious_let_it_bleed.html
at October 06, 2011 - 09:08:59 AM CDT
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I agree with this.
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who is this directed toward here? lol
not you. you are well aware of the BS taht went on CT-wise under clinton.
i'm referring to the "republicans" that voted clinton, then bush, then mccain and claim they're reagan repubs.
they have no clue of the ATF crimes in the 90s. and they dont care, ,cause it wasn't obama's fault then.
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Calm down’ about Fast and Furious gun sting, ATF acting director says
By Sari Horwitz, Published: October 5
WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM
The new acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced a major shake-up of his agency Wednesday and urged Washington insiders to “calm down” about the latest revelations surrounding a controversial ATF gun operation.
B. Todd Jones said calm is needed as he begins rebuilding the beleaguered agency, including shuffling top personnel. He made his comments as his boss, Attorney General Eric J. Holder Jr., came under fire this week from Republican lawmakers, with one calling for a special counsel to investigate Holder’s role in the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation.
Explore: Tracing the national flow of gunsInvestigation: The hidden life of gunsWATCH: Arming Mexico’s drug cartelsJuly 11: Gun dealers will have to report multiple sales of semiautomatic rifleJuly 6: ATF director testifies on bungled gun operationJune 30: Democrat: Weak U.S. laws hurt gun-trafficking fight in MexicoJune 21: Critic of ATF gun-trafficking program raised no objection when briefed last yearJune 20: Obama’s nominee for ATF chief to meet with Justice Department officialsMarch 4: U.S. let guns fall into drug cartels’ hands, files showFeb. 1: ATF gunrunning probe strategy scrutinized after death of Border Patrol agent
Fast and Furious, a Phoenix gun sting that began in 2009, allowed small-time straw purchasers to pass firearms to middlemen, who then trafficked the guns to Mexico. The fury over the tactics, which resulted in more than 2,000 illegally purchased firearms hitting the streets, has led to the reassignment of the ATF’s former acting director and others, and the resignation of the U.S. attorney in Arizona.
On Tuesday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked President Obama to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether Holder told the truth to Congress at a hearing on May 3 about Fast and Furious.
Smith made his request a day after Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released new documents from the Justice Department that he said indicate that Holder was told about Fast and Furious as early as July 2010, although he told Congress in May that he had just learned about it.
A copy of a weekly report, obtained Monday by The Washington Post, was sent to Holder on July 5, 2010, from Michael F. Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center. A paragraph notes a Phoenix investigation called “Operation Fast and the Furious,” which involved a trafficking ring with straw buyers responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug cartels. The report said the group had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of guns.
The document did not explain that the ATF was in effect watching this happen without immediately trying to intervene, the issue at the heart of the controversy.
On Oct. 18, 2010, another weekly report, this one from Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, was sent to Holder noting “Phoenix-based Operation Fast and Furious.”
Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder became aware of the questionable tactics of allowing the guns to walk — or move without ATF interdiction — only when ATF agents first flagged them publicly in March. Holder then asked the agency’s inspector general to conduct an investigation, which is ongoing.
But Issa said the documents show that Holder was not being truthful during the May 3 congressional hearing.
At the hearing, Issa asked Holder: “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious?”
Holder answered: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Schmaler said Holder was referring to when he first learned of the operation’s tactics. She added that of the documents Holder had seen earlier, “not a single one of these reports referenced the controversial tactics that allowed guns to cross the border, and in fact, one example provided to Congress consisted of a single sentence referencing a Phoenix-based operation.”
“None of the handful of entries in 2010 regarding the Fast and Furious suggested there was anything amiss with that investigation requiring leadership to take corrective action or commit to memory this particular operation prior to the disturbing claims raised by ATF agents in the early part of 2011,” Schmaler said.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who is conducting the joint investigation of Fast and Furious along with Issa, released a statement Wednesday night questioning the timing of the ATF shuffle in the same week that lawmakers released the documents pertaining to Holder.
“Rearranging the chairs on the deck won’t make Fast and Furious go away,” Grassley said. “There is a lot of effort at the Justice Department to spin the fact that the Attorney General was less than candid before the House Judiciary Committee, and what better way to make that go away than a bureaucratic shuffle.”
horwitzs@washpost.com
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LMFAO!!!!!
OBAMA ADMN = JOKE
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I agree with this.
That could possibly be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time and I can't imagine why you agree with it 3333. Agreeing with that article pretty much just says that the only reason you're interested in this is for election purposes and not to see any justice done or anything set right. First of all, he's dead wrong, this issue is dying. The last week has been a huge week for this story and if you look at google trends it's got less attention now than when it first broke. It'll be a non issue for the election. Having a special prosecutor assigned forces this to the top of the top stories across the country. In no way does this hurt the republican running against Obama and in no way does this help Obama. Now if you're going after the admin for some shit like the president getting a BJ, then you can speculate stuff like that and might be right. But on this, a special prosecutor is all around a triple bonus for republicans. That article is shit and dead wrong.
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hhugo is 100% correct.
nobody will give a flyinf fck about fast & furious come election time.
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it's dying in the papers now. I know this because 3333 said others were not covering it. I figured that had to be bullshit so I went out and looked. He was right. On a big week for this story, the news on it was burried. Sure most had a story on it, if you could find it. This should have been the week that brought it back to page 1. So that article says just to let it bleed into people's media. That's crap, it's dying and will be dead. A special prosecutor is what puts this front page and keeps it there. I question the assclown's motives that wrote this story. That is so backward in thinking, it had to be handed to him to help someone in this case.
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it's dying in the papers now. I know this because 3333 said others were not covering it. I figured that had to be bullshit so I went out and looked. He was right. On a big week for this story, the news on it was burried. Sure most had a story on it, if you could find it. This should have been the week that brought it back to page 1. So that article says just to let it bleed into people's media. That's crap, it's dying and will be dead. A special prosecutor is what puts this front page and keeps it there. I question the assclown's motives that wrote this story. That is so backward in thinking, it had to be handed to him to help someone in this case.
Like I told 240 a few weeks ago - I think Issa knows this, but it getting enough out there before obama admn can cover it up.
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not you. you are well aware of the BS taht went on CT-wise under clinton.
i'm referring to the "republicans" that voted clinton, then bush, then mccain and claim they're reagan repubs.
they have no clue of the ATF crimes in the 90s. and they dont care, ,cause it wasn't obama's fault then.
So BB then :D
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Like I told 240 a few weeks ago - I think Issa knows this, but it getting enough out there before obama admn can cover it up.
that has nothing to do with the ramifications of the article you posted and said you agree with. You can't possibly believe that a special prosecutor on this is a bad idea? This story is dying now and will die. What's out on it now is not enough to hurt Obama. There's enough info right now to easily warrant a special prosecutor and that keeps it headline news instead of watching it die. It's also a matter of not letting the ATF and whoever else is involved get away with shit like this. On a moral stantpoint alone, one has to back a special prosecutor to look into this. And above on, on something like this with what we know, there's no way this hurts republicans or helps Obama.
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that has nothing to do with the ramifications of the article you posted and said you agree with. You can't possibly believe that a special prosecutor on this is a bad idea? This story is dying now and will die. What's out on it now is not enough to hurt Obama. There's enough info right now to easily warrant a special prosecutor and that keeps it headline news instead of watching it die. It's also a matter of not letting the ATF and whoever else is involved get away with shit like this. On a moral stantpoint alone, one has to back a special prosecutor to look into this. And above on, on something like this with what we know, there's no way this hurts republicans or helps Obama.
Issa said he is holding more hearings on this. i agree w a special prosecutor solely for the perjury part as it might flip Holder.
I guess I agreed with the emotional component of the article.
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The whole thing needs investigated. You're not going to flip holder on a purgery charge lol. The only way this gets justice is a prosecutor sitting people down who were involved and telling them, "save yourself prison time and tell us exactly what happened, spill the beans and go home to your wife and kids tomorrow..."
Also, I don't get the impression whatsoever that Issa is just in this to give Obama a black eye. In the past when I've listened to him on other stuff, he seems to be a person who stands on priciple, what's right and what's wrong. He doesn't strike me as the type to be wasting his time for the sole purpose of inflating a story.
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OMG... Just WAIT until Holder & Obama agree to testisfy....
Together...
In a closed hearing....
With no oaths...
With no recording equipment...
And no transcript....
Then, they confiscate all of Issa/Special prosecutor's notes afterwards.
Would that bug you, 33? ;)
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OMG... Just WAIT until Holder & Obama agree to testisfy....
Together...
In a closed hearing....
With no oaths...
With no recording equipment...
And no transcript....
Then, they confiscate all of Issa/Special prosecutor's notes afterwards.
Would that bug you, 33? ;)
lol, I bet it would. I bet the right would be just furious... the irony that would be...
It would piss me off too.
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We deserve answers on all of this.
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We deserve answers on all of this.
If obama/holder tried that kind of bullshit - refusing to testify, then going by those terms - what would you say, 33?
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Set up alert.......lol
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:)
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https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/cooperate-congressional-investigation-batfes-failed-fast-and-furious-gun-walker-program/XBRY5cXG?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
SHOULD I SIGN THIS? I personally do not want to.
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yep, don't worry about answering the Q, 33 ;)
Everyone here knows you'd be screaming out loud if obama tried that on testifying.
and everyone here knows you shrugged off Bush/Cheney doing the same (despite their much larger body count).
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yep, don't worry about answering the Q, 33 ;)
Everyone here knows you'd be screaming out loud if obama tried that on testifying.
and everyone here knows you shrugged off Bush/Cheney doing the same (despite their much larger body count).
Show me where Bush did what bama did on the 2nd amend
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Show me where Bush did what bama did on the 2nd amend
oh, i see. You don't think the top 2 should have to testify if it has to do with the deaths of 3000 americans.
but you do think the top 2 should have to testify, if it's about a "potential" attempt at legislation?
oh jeezus.
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oh, i see. You don't think the top 2 should have to testify if it has to do with the deaths of 3000 americans.
but you do think the top 2 should have to testify, if it's about a "potential" attempt at legislation?
oh jeezus.
Did Bush authorize 911 like the Obama admn did F&F?
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we don tknow, 33.
we tried to ask, but he wasn't having that ;)
all i know, is that you shouldn't be surprised if obana decides he doesn't want to testify. And libs will defend it, just like those cocksucking neocons did on the 911 investigations.
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Republicans Say Holder Received at Least 5 Fast and Furious Memos
Published October 06, 2011 | FoxNews.com
________________________ ____________
Top congressional Republicans said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos starting in July 2010 about the controversial gunrunning probe known as Operation Fast and Furious, though he claimed this past May he only learned of the operation a few weeks prior.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released a series of heavily redacted memos apparently sent to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center. They appear to describe an operation involving the straw purchase of hundreds of firearms that went to Mexican drug cartels.
"With the fairly detailed information that the Attorney General read, it seems the logical question for the Attorney General after reading in the memo would be 'why haven't we stopped them?'" Grassley said in a statement.
Issa claimed Holder "has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and other."
The release of the documents comes as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, requests the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.
Through Fast and Furious, hundreds of firearms were allowed to walk across the U.S.-Mexico border, some later turning up at bloody crime scenes. The focus has turned lately to what Holder knew and when he knew it.
He said under oath in May: "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
But documents that started to surface earlier in the week suggested Justice officials at least tried to inform Holder. The latest memos show he was notified of the program repeatedly, though it's not clear to what degree Holder paid attention to the memos.
The Justice Department defended Holder earlier this week in a statement.
"The Attorney General's testimony to both the House and the Senate was consistent and truthful," the statement said. "He said in both March and May of this year that he became aware of the questionable tactics employed in the Fast and Furious Operation in early 2011 when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and at the time, he asked the Inspector General's office to investigate the matter."
Print Close
URL
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/06/republicans-say-holder-received-at-least-5-fast-and-furious-memos/
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/06/republicans-say-holder-received-at-least-5-fast-and-furious-memos/print#ixzz1a17hMNqn
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There is evidence that the Obama admin authorized F & F? :)
Is there evidence that BUSH authorized 9/11?
How do those evidences compare?
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‘Fast and Furious’ docs reveal Holder was given multiple detailed accounts of gun program
The Daily Caller ^ | October 6, 2011 | Matthew Boyle
New Department of Justice documents the House Oversight Committee released Thursday morning show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious many more times than previously discovered documents suggested. They also show that Holder was given detailed information on what happened in Fast and Furious.
These new documents show Holder received information and updates on Fast and Furious in at least five weekly memos starting in July 2010 — including over four consecutive weeks last summer.
In summer 2010, Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 9. Each briefing memo contains the name “Operation Fast and Furious.” Each memo also contains a description of what appears to be how Operation Fast and Furious was conducted.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Obama: Holder "Not Aware" Of What Was Happening With Fast And Furious (video)
Real Clear Politics ^ | 10/6/11 | Comrade Obamavitch
"Now, with respect to Solyndra and Fast and Furious, you know, I think -- you know, I have been very clear. That I have complete confidence in the Attorney General Holder in how he handles his office. He has been very aggressive in going after gunrunning and cash transactions that are going to these transnational drug cartels in Mexico. There has been a lot of cooperation between the United States and Mexico on this front. He's indicated he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious. Certainly I was not. And I think both he and i would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America," President Obama said at a news conference on Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
________________________ ________________________ ______
LMFAO!!!!!
What a moron. Who the hell voted for this shit show?
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Starting to look like a bad comparison.
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There is evidence that the Obama admin authorized F & F? :)
Is there evidence that BUSH authorized 9/11?
How do those evidences compare?
Let's imagine these things - Legislation was changed 3 months before F&F that made it so that ONLY Obama & Holder - by office - were the ONLY two people capable of vetoing gun sales (just as bush/cheney were the ONLY 2 people in america with legal power to shootdown).
Then, there was a memo 5 weeks before F&F started, hand delivered in middle of night to obama himself by the FBI. Obama and his entire staff didn't ready it. The memo listed the 5 gun stores which would sell the weapons, what dates, and to who.
Then, Obama fought any investigation for 441 days.
Then, he only gave 3 million for the investigation (later bumped to 13 mil total).
Then, the F&F investigators were pissed they were only given 1/2 the evidence. In fact, while we're on the subject, all of the F&F evidence has to be filtered thru the white house, which redacts hundreds of pages of info on warnings, $ trail, saudi and paki involvement, etc.
Oh and wall street traders all hedged against gun safety in the market, betting millions on unlikely long shots, and getting it right. And they never collected the money, and it was never investigated as to who bought all those shares.
Shall we go on? Multiply the body count by ten as well.
See why 911 skeptics laugh in the faces of F&F skeptics? You bitches couldnt give a shit when a (R) was getting away with murder.
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There is evidence that the Obama admin authorized F & F? :)
Is there evidence that BUSH authorized 9/11?
How do those evidences compare?
I don't think that was about bush "authorizing" 9/11 lol...
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In summer 2010, Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 9. Each briefing memo contains the name “Operation Fast and Furious.” Each memo also contains a description of what appears to be how Operation Fast and Furious was conducted.
________________________ ______
Obama: I have full confidence in Holder!
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Tens of thousands of legal experts come fwd, all calling for a F&F investigation. They are mocked by MSNBC. How would 33386 respond?
Oh, but "Popular Strawman", a newspaper run by Holder's cousin, writes a story full of holes to defend Obama - and MSNBC buys it, and treats it like the MFing bible on the subject, ignoring the clear bias. (Chertoff cousin was PopMech editor who wrote debunking article).
Obama orders the gun stores bulldozed with zero investigation. All records are burned and ashes sent to china. All victims of F&F guns get a $3.1 mil payoff, but they have to sign a piece of paper agreeing to STFU and never sue.
Shall we go on? The 911 bullshit was insane, and repubs just giggled at it ignorantly. Wait til obama does it - you cawksuckers will be crying.
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Oh, there' more... don't address this 33, you'll look foolish for doing so..
All of obama & holder's emails from that period will be erased during a white house email "upgrade". 5 million of them. So we don't know who is saying what to who.
You'd literally be shitting your britches right now.
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240,
Tools will be tools.
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240,
Tools will be tools.
Yeah - dont you have a riot to start with the hippies down on wall street?
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Yeah - dont you have a riot to start with the hippies down on wall street?
dont change the subject, homer.
tell us how you'd feel if the things I listed in the 3 posts above happened. If Obama/Holder controlled the investigation, etc. You'd be balls out irate, wouldn't you?
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dont change the subject, homer.
tell us how you'd feel if the things I listed in the 3 posts above happened. If Obama/Holder controlled the investigation, etc. You'd be balls out irate, wouldn't you?
Ok - I am going to say this for the 10 millionth time - I support a full investigation into 911. What i believe it will show is mass incompetence more than complicity.
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Yeah - dont you have a riot to start with the hippies down on wall street?
Heaven forbid some solutions come wrapped in liberal paper.
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There is evidence that the Obama admin authorized F & F? :)
Is there evidence that BUSH authorized 9/11?
How do those evidences compare?
Downgrade is the Kingmaker. He hand-picked Holder. Holder is acting in Downgrade's best interests. Holder's actions = representative of Downgrade.
240,
Tools will be tools.
Ain't that the truth. Were you looking in the mirror when you typed that post?
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Ok - I am going to say this for the 10 millionth time - I support a full investigation into 911. What i believe it will show is mass incompetence more than complicity.
You believe Holder/Obama benefitted from F&F - for AWB2. Fair enough.
Now, imagine if Obama & holder had written a document in summer 2008, detailing the need for sweeping change to american gun laws. It was co-written by 17 members of the current Obama admin. They had met with gun control groups before F&F and mapped out which companies would be confiscating guns from which state. This document called for the need for "a new columbine" in order to get public support for such gun bans.
Your blood pressure would jump significantly reading that document, written by O and his cronies. WElcome to the PNAC document written by cheney, jeb, 1/2 the bush admin, with everything matching war in arabia and a catalyzing event to jumpstart it (911).
Motive, bitches. You "believe" Holder/Obama have it. PNAC document PROVES that Bush/Cheney had it ;)
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Downgrade is the Kingmaker. He hand-picked Holder. Holder is acting in Downgrade's best interests. Holder's actions = representative of Downgrade.
Ain't that the truth. Were you looking in the mirror when you typed that post?
::)
grow up immature douche.
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‘Fast and Furious’ docs reveal Holder was given multiple detailed accounts of gun program
The Daily Caller ^ | October 6, 2011 | Matthew Boyle
New Department of Justice documents the House Oversight Committee released Thursday morning show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious many more times than previously discovered documents suggested. They also show that Holder was given detailed information on what happened in Fast and Furious.
These new documents show Holder received information and updates on Fast and Furious in at least five weekly memos starting in July 2010 — including over four consecutive weeks last summer.
In summer 2010, Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 9. Each briefing memo contains the name “Operation Fast and Furious.” Each memo also contains a description of what appears to be how Operation Fast and Furious was conducted.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Snowball is getting larger.
-
Snowball is getting larger.
yep. if it's one thing we've learned, bad guys in govt never get away with their bullshit.
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'Furious' mess has Justice in full panic
By MICHAEL A. WALSH
Last Updated: 4:52 AM, October 6, 2011
www.nypost.com
So now the Fast and Furious affair has reached Stage 2 of the classic Washington scandal: House Republicans have called for a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder himself for possible perjury.
Justice Department documents indicate that Holder knew of the operation way back in July 2010 -- far earlier than the “in the last few weeks” that he told congressional investigators under oath last May.
Memos from Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and others to Holder clearly show the scope, if not the nature, of the disastrous project: “This investigation, initiated in September 2009 . . . involves . . . straw purchasers [who] are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug cartels.”
That’s the crux of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ infamous “gunwalking” program, allegedly designed to track illegal gun sales to Mexican drug gangs by turning a blind eye toward, and possibly facilitating, arms sales in Arizona and elsewhere. The death toll so far is more than 200.
The heavily redacted memos don’t explicitly implicate ATF and other federal agencies in an illegal scheme, as ATF whistleblowers have alleged. But if there’s a coverup going on, why would they?
And coverup there seems to be. On top of stonewalling Rep. Darrell Issa’s House investigation of the mess, Justice has floated a series of contradictory excuses:
* There was no such program.
* Even if there weres, Holder never knew about it.
* Even if he should have known about it, he might not have read Breuer’s memos.
* Even if he read Breuer’s memos, he misunderstood the simple question: “When did you first know about the program, officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious?”
With the recent exposure of another apparent “gunwalking” operation, Wide Receiver, that may date back to the Bush administration, some are already pushing a “Bush-did-it-too” meme. If true, it shows the rot at Justice goes deeper than we thought -- but it has nothing to do with whether Holder may have committed perjury.
If Holder is so innocent, why, sources inside Justice say, are folks there engaging in a panicked orgy of finger-pointing and blame-shifting?
A trial balloon has reportedly been floated within Justice to essentially eliminate the ATF by firing 450 agents and transferring the embattled agency’s duties to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI.
While the bulk of the national press corps is off inspecting Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s back forty for residual signs of racism, CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson and Fox’s William La Jeunesse have been doing the heavy lifting on Fast and Furious -- and getting some tough pushback from Obama officials.
On the Laura Ingraham radio show yesterday, Attkisson told of being “yelled at” by Justice flack Tracy Schmaler and being “screamed” at by White House official Eric Schultz for being “unfair.”
Said Attkisson: “They will tell you that I’m the only reporter -- as they told me -- that is not reasonable. They say The Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, The New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.”
CBS has reportedly yanked Attkisson from further media appearances this week. But isn’t independent inquiry the function of a free press? Nobody thought there was a story in Watergate, either, until Woodward and Bernstein proved otherwise.
There’s still plenty of time for Justice and the other implicated agencies to come clean. But to date, all we’ve heard is dog-ate-my-briefing-book excuses and desperate attempts to change the subject.
It’s possible that Fast and Furious was a rogue, poorly conceived sub-operation of the legitimate Project Gunrunner, begun in 2005 to track and interdict illegal weapons traffic. But Holder’s track record in previous congressional testimony leaves ample cause for skepticism.
As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy pointed out yesterday at National Review Online, Holder’s current amnesia recalls his misleading testimony to Congress about another scandal, President Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Even though Holder helped arrange the pardon, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2001 that Rich’s name was “unfamiliar” to him.
With the 2012 elections looming, the chances of Holder’s appointing a special prosecutor to investigate himself are slim and none. The Obama administration will bury the scandal -- unless the media and public demand otherwise.
Michael Walsh’s new thriller, “Shock Warning,” is out this week on Amazon Kindle.
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'Furious' mess has Justice in full panic
By MICHAEL A. WALSH
Last Updated: 4:52 AM, October 6, 2011
www.nypost.com
Michael Walsh’s new thriller, “Shock Warning,” is out this week on Amazon Kindle.
LMAO.... the author of the "news piece"
With the 2012 elections looming, the chances of Holder’s appointing a special prosecutor to investigate himself are slim and none. The Obama administration will bury the scandal -- unless the media and public demand otherwise.
Exactly true. Translation = they get away with it.
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Congressman: Holder must resign over ‘Fast and Furious’ testimony
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller 1:58 PM 10/06/2011
Rep. Raul Labrador, an Idaho Republican, called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign Thursday, after “Operation Fast and Furious” documents surfaced showing he knew about the scandal and its intricate details.
“I first learned about Fast and Furious early this year from several of my constituents,” Labrador said in a release. “I then asked Chairman Issa to hold hearings on the topic. As I attended the hearings and reviewed the evidence, I was careful to not jump to any conclusions about the extent of Mr. Holder’s involvement. However, the recently published documents that directly link Mr. Holder to Fast and Furious have convinced me that he is either lying or grossly incompetent.”
The new documents directly contradict Holder’s May 3 congressional testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. It is also at odds with what the U.S. Department of Justice has publicly claimed since some documents surfaced earlier this week showing that Holder was briefed on the controversial gun-walking program.
House Oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa has already said that Holder is either incompetent as a leader, or has deliberately deceived Congress while under oath.
When that first round of documents emerged this week, Justice Department officials almost immediately claimed Holder misunderstood questions from Issa and Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz at the May 3 hearing during which Holder said he had only known about “Fast and Furious” for a few weeks.
CBS News reported after those documents came out, however, that the DOJ claimed Holder did know about Fast and Furious, but was unaware of its specific details.
On Tuesday, Rep. Chaffetz told TheDC that the DOJ’s response won’t “hold any water,” since Holder had several chances during the hearing — and has had many more since — to clarify or correct his testimony to ensure its accuracy.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who led the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious with Issa, said these new documents prove Holder knew the details of the operation and debunk the DOJ’s latest explanation.
“With the fairly detailed information that the attorney general read, it seems the logical question for the attorney general after reading in the memo would be ‘why haven’t we stopped them?’” Grassley said in a statement. “And if he didn’t ask the questions, why didn’t he or somebody in his office?”
Rep. Labrador is the first member of Congress to call for Holder’s resignation. He said Holder’s May 3 testimony was “either untrue or deliberately misleading.”
“Attorney General Holder has a troubling pattern of failed cooperation with the legislative branch,” Labrador said. “Because of this intentional stonewalling and his misleading testimony, I now call for Mr. Holder’s resignation. It is clear he has not been honest about the extent of his involvement with the failed Fast and Furious program and should not be entrusted with managing the Department of Justice.”
In an interview with TheDC on Wednesday, Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar suggested that Obama administration officials responsible for Operation Fast and Furious are accessories to murder.
Labrador’s open call follows the suggestion Rep. Blake Farenthold made on NRA News’s Cam and Company Tuesday night. “I would probably resign if that came out, if I had done that,” Farenthold said on the show, referencing how Holder knew about Fast and Furious.
*This story has been updated.
Follow Matthew on Twitter
Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com
URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/congressman-holder-must-resign-over-fast-and-furious-testimony/
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Gunwalker: Holder Got ‘At Least Five Weekly Memos’
Pajamas Media ^ | October 6, 2011 | Bob Owens
Drama: Eric Holder faces damning evidence, while the White House and MSM rearrange the deck chairs.
The thrusting and parrying between Obama administration officials, increasingly inquisitive journalists, and congressional investigators is evolving at a dizzying pace, as the Gunwalker conspiracy continues to unravel — to the horror of the Executive branch. They have been reduced to screaming hysterics and Chip Dilleresque appeals to “ calm down ” by one of the most dramatic scandals in American political history.
An attempt by the Obama administration — funneled through the Associated Press — to claim equivalence between a Bush-era cartel weapons interdiction program and the current administration’s plot to arm cartel members was debunked earlier today in a PJ Media exclusive. The Bush-era operation had no intention of allowing guns to walk, whereas Operation Fast and Furious and other alleged gunwalking programs were intentionally designed criminal enterprises.
Several congressmen and senators have voiced their concerns over the unfolding scandal in the past 24 hours. Senator Charles Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released a statement via Grassley’s office this morning, excoriating Attorney General Eric Holder’s apparent perjury in his sworn testimony in front of the Oversight committee earlier this year.
The statement says in part:
Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today said that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos beginning in July 2010, including four weeks in a row, describing the ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious. The memos were to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center.
The Attorney General told Issa during a House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, Grassley personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Grassley and Issa said they find it very troubling that Holder actually knew of Operation Fast and Furious much earlier, and in greater detail than he ever let on.
The memos specifically said that the straw buyers were “responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
“With the fairly detailed information that the Attorney General read, it seems the logical question for the Attorney General after reading in the memo would be “why haven’t we stopped them?” Grassley said. “And if he didn’t ask the questions, why didn’t he or somebody in his office?”
The Daily Caller goes into more detail, noting :
Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26, and August 9.
The damning confirmation that Holder received weekly updates about the gunwalking operation which specifically informed him that 1,500 guns had been delivered to the Sinaloa cartel by that time, builds a stronger case that the Attorney General committed perjury. Arizona Rep. Paul Goser went even further in a statement yesterday, asserting that the Obama administration was guilty of of far more:
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that Obama administration officials responsible for Operation Fast and Furious might be accessories to murder.
“We’re talking about consequences of criminal activity, where we actually allowed guns to walk into the hands of criminals, where our livelihoods are at risk,” Gosar said in a phone interview. “When you facilitate that and a murder or a felony occurs, you’re called an accessory. That means that there’s criminal activity.”
Texas Senator John Cornyn was just as adamant in a series of interviews, revealing that Fast and Furious weapons are confirmed to have been recovered at 11 separate crime scenes within the United States so far. Cornyn bluntly accused Attorney General Holder of leading a Department of Justice coverup, a charge which emerging evidence seems to support. Cornyn wants Holder back under oath testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“It’s looking more and more like the typical Washington scenario where people get caught doing bad things, but actually the cover-up ends up being worse than the original offense,” Cornyn, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on a conference call with reporters.
Newspaper op-eds, such as this one from Investors Business Daily, are beginning to call for Eric Holder’s criminal indictment.
Amid the onslaught, the administration has offered nothing in the way of accountability and only a superficial offering of change by rearranging staff within the ATF. It seems that the administration, from the White House down through the Department of Justice into the ATF, apparently thinks it can get away with little or no real consequences for a criminal conspiracy they orchestrated. They have been blamed for providing weapons that have killed 200 or more Mexican citizens, and that have been linked to the shootings of three federal law enforcement officers — two of whom were killed.
The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press seem to be doing everything within their considerable power to minimize the crimes alleged against the administration, even as they overstate the rearranging of the deck chairs on Captain Obama’s sinking ship.
There may ten or more gunwalking operations in five states, yet the part-time acting director of the ATF — who was also conspicuously the Chairman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and allegedly briefed on Operation Fast and Furious, according to documents obtained by Senator Grassley — can’t seem to find them .
Perhaps being a “part-time acting director” is a do-nothing job in which he has no power, influence, or interest. Or perhaps he’s covering his own hide, much like the acting DOJ inspector general who leaked information to the alleged co-conspirators she is supposed to be investigating.
If there are ten or more gunwalking operations just half the size of Operation Fast and Furious, then 12,000 weapons were supplied to criminals by our federal government — enough to arm three U.S. Army infantry brigades. If each operation was roughly as large as Fast and Furious, we’re looking at more than 20,000 weapons — enough to equip a U.S. infantry division.
The possibilities suggest that the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and White House committed felony crimes domestically and internationally on a nearly unimaginable scale.
The Obama administration is still defending Eric Holder:
White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Holder has been “consistent and truthful” about when he learned of the controversial tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of thousands of firearms to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels.
“The president believes he’s an excellent attorney general and has great confidence in him, and we absolutely know that the testimony he gave was consistent and truthful,” Carney told reporters at a press briefing.
What else can they say? An administration neck-deep in felony crimes isn’t going to turn on one of their co-conspirators without a solid exit plan.
Between possible charges of accessory to murder, violations of international terrorism laws, felony violations of arms export laws, and possible treason, Franklin’s advice to hang together to avoid hanging separately is far more literal than anyone would have ever dreamed just a week ago.
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HUGO - have you ever seen this before?
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Labrador Calls for Resignation of Attorney General Holder Over "Fast and Furious" Testimony...
House.gov ^ | Thursday October 06, 2011 | Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Idaho First Congressional District Congressman Raúl R. Labrador called for the resignation of United States Attorney General Eric Holder after evidence of discrepancies in his previous testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary was brought to light by a national media outlet.
Mr. Labrador has been critical of potential abuses of the Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BAFTE) since his March 17, 2011 letter to Oversight Chairman Darrel Issa urging his committee to conduct in-depth investigations into allegations of weapons being sold, with federal government complicity, to Mexican cartels. Over 1,500 such weapons remain unaccounted for and already one was found at the scene of the death of an American law enforcement officer.
Labrador stated, “I first learned about Fast and Furious early this year from several of my constituents. I then asked Chairman Issa to hold hearings on the topic. As I attended the hearings and reviewed the evidence, I was careful to not jump to any conclusions about the extent of Mr. Holder’s involvement. However, the recently published documents that directly link Mr. Holder to Fast and Furious have convinced me that he is either lying or grossly incompetent.”
Rep. Labrador continued, “The Attorney General of the United States has an obligation to provide truthful and accurate testimony to Congress. When Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Congress on May 3, his statements were either untrue or deliberately misleading. It is clear from recently-released documents that Mr. Holder did in fact know about Fast and Furious well before he publicly admitted. Attorney General Holder has a troubling pattern of failed cooperation with the legislative branch. Because of this intentional stonewalling and his misleading testimony, I now call for Mr. Holder’s resignation. It is clear he has not been honest about the extent of his involvement with the failed Fast and Furious program and should not be entrusted with managing the Department of Justice.“
“He cannot avoid responsibility for his involvement with a government program that directly led to the tragic death of a decorated U.S. Border Patrol agent. As our nation’s top enforcer of the principles of law and justice, Mr. Holder has lost all credibility and should step down immediately. The question now is if Mr. Holder is he only protecting himself or is he also protecting others - perhaps all the way to the top of the administration,” Labrador concluded.
Documents linking Eric Holder to Fast and Furious can be seen at CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-201
Key Facts about Fast and Furious from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Joint Staff Report (full report available online) http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/ATF_Report.pdf:
• ATF agents are trained to “follow the gun” and interdict weapons whenever possible.
• Operation Fast and Furious required agents to abandon this training.
• ATF agents complained about the strategy of allowing guns to walk in Operation Fast and Furious. Leadership ignored their concerns. Instead, supervisors told the agents to “get with the program” because senior ATF officials had sanctioned the operation.
• Agents knew that given the large numbers of weapons being trafficked to Mexico, tragic results were a near certainty.
• Agents expected to interdict weapons, yet were told to stand down and “just surveil.” Agents therefore did not act. They watched straw purchasers buy hundreds of weapons illegally and transfer those weapons to unknown third parties and stash houses.
• Jaime Avila was entered as a suspect in the investigation by ATF on November 25, 2009, after purchasing weapons alongside Uriel Patino, who had been identified as a suspect in October 2009. Over the next month and a half, Avila purchased 13 more weapons, each recorded by the ATF in its database within days of the purchase. Then on January 16, 2010, Avila purchased three AK-47 style rifles, two of which ended up being found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The death of Border Agent Brian Terry was likely a preventable tragedy.
• Phoenix ATF Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell’s statement that the indictments represent the take-down of a firearms trafficking ring from top to bottom, and his statement that ATF never allowed guns to walk are incredible, false, and a source of much frustration to the agents. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, DOJ continues to deny that Operation Fast and Furious was ill-conceived and had deadly consequences
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it was unpatriotic to want to investigate the death of 3,000 americans on 9/11.
But everyone is so upset about guns that were using, for the most part, to kill mexicans. Just a small # of americans by comparison.
Aside from the fact that obama/holder belongin a cell for it - because they do - we really see the partisan nature of people who only like investigations when it will hurt the party they dislike - not because they care about the lives of fellow americans or the law.
33 doesn't care about F&F because he worries about the safety of the american people - he just cares about whatever takes obama down.
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it was unpatriotic to want to investigate the death of 3,000 americans on 9/11.
But everyone is so upset about guns that were using, for the most part, to kill mexicans. Just a small # of americans by comparison.
Aside from the fact that obama/holder belongin a cell for it - because they do - we really see the partisan nature of people who only like investigations when it will hurt the party they dislike - not because they care about the lives of fellow americans or the law.
33 doesn't care about F&F because he worries about the safety of the american people - he just cares about whatever takes obama down.
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when you resort to pics, everyone here knows you dont havea counter point.
you dont care about lives, guns, etc.
you are about getting obama out of office. you'd be screaming just as loud if he shot his load on a fat intern.
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when you resort to pics, everyone here knows you dont havea counter point.
you dont care about lives, guns, etc.
you are about getting obama out of office. you'd be screaming just as loud if he shot his load on a fat intern.
I care about the 2nd amendment and what your messiah tried to do here.
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I care about the 2nd amendment and what your messiah tried to do here.
you care more about the 2nd amendment than you do american lives?
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you care more about the 2nd amendment than you do american lives?
? ? ? ? ?
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8 months now 180 has been claiming this was going away. For 8 months now it's been growing by the day.
Almost as funny as 180 claiming Scott would finish 3rd in the Florida governor race.
Has this douche ever been right about ANYTHING?
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8 months now 180 has been claiming this was going. For 8 months now it's been growing by the day.
Almost as funny as 180 claiming Scott would finish 3rd in the Florida governor race.
Has this douche ever been right about ANYTHING?
for someone who claims to be voting for the GOP next year - its just very odd the lengths he goes to provide cover for obama.
This scandal is perhaps the worst WH scandal in our history so far and 240 thinks its just going to go away?
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for someone who claims to be voting for the GOP next year - its just very odd the lengths he goes to provide cover for obama.
This scandal is perhaps the worst WH scandal in our history so far and 240 thinks its just going to go away?
40,000 posts defending everything the guy does and yet he still thinks he can play the "I'm actually a conservative voter" angle.
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The fact is that as of TODAY:
1. 2 U.S. dead law enforcement - Terry and Zapata
2. 200 Dead Mexicans
3. 1500 unaccounted for rifles that will obviously be used in future crimes and murders in Mexico
4. 1000 unaccounted for rifles out of Tampa ATF
5. Mexican AG telling us that she was never told of this and that she still cant get answers on this.
6. Mexican prosecutor had brother murdered w a F&F AK47
7. AG committing perjury
8. Mexican ATF liasons not being told of this
9. WH Counsel Lanny Breur as well as NSC liason in the WH were both advised of this program via Newell, who also lied on the stand.
and this is all no biggie?
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The fact is that as of TODAY:
1. 2 U.S. dead law enforcement - Terry and Zapata
2. 200 Dead Mexicans
3. 1500 unaccounted for rifles that will obviously be used in future crimes and murders in Mexico
4. 1000 unaccounted for rifles out of Tampa ATF
5. Mexican AG telling us that she was never told of this and that she still cant get answers on this.
6. Mexican prosecutor had brother murdered w a F&F AK47
7. AG committing perjury
8. Mexican ATF liasons not being told of this
9. WH Counsel Lanny Breur as well as NSC liason in the WH were both advised of this program via Newell, who also lied on the stand.
and this is all no biggie?
180 is right there with the NY Slimes, WaPo and AP trying to marginalize the damage of this. They're huffing and puffing but that house just won't go down.
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Oh I forgot - the WH NSC rep O'Reilly who Newell informed of this just got sent to Iraq by Hillary for assignment and is unavailable to testify. Guess why?
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This BITCH HOLDER needs to go to pound me in the ass prison. I would love to see this happen.
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HUGO - have you ever seen this before?
yea, isn't this the video we were talking about the other day when I had that brain fart about what the Mexican government knew?
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yea, isn't this the video we were talking about the other day when I had that brain fart about what the Mexican government knew?
No, this was the deputy AG in early 2009 saying new gun tracing programs were going to be run along the border. What was he referring to?
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:)
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This BITCH HOLDER needs to go to pound me in the ass prison. I would love to see this happen.
dude.. use quotation marks... the first 2 times i read this i figured you for a flaming homo
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No, this was the deputy AG in early 2009 saying new gun tracing programs were going to be run along the border. What was he referring to?
yea, it's the same video you posted in the thread I was talking about. You posted it at the bottom of your first post in this thread: My comments in that thread were based on this video.
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=397495.msg5627119#msg5627119
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yea, it's the same video you posted in the thread I was talking about. You posted it at the bottom of your first post in this thread:
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=397495.msg5627119#msg5627119
Mexico has said numerous times they were never ever told of the gun walking as a policy. Same as ATF agents down in Mexico whose job it was to be a liason w Mexican Govt.
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Mexico has said numerous times they were never ever told of the gun walking as a policy. Same as ATF agents down in Mexico whose job it was to be a liason w Mexican Govt.
I know, that's what we talked about in that thread. I agreed. Remember the post where I said I had a brain fart and I get it now and then you said "exactly" when I explained it? How did you forget about this from just the other day lol?
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I know, that's what we talked about in that thread. I agreed. Remember the post where I said I had a brain fart and I get it now and then you said "exactly" when I explained it? How did you forget about this from just the other day lol?
Dont know. But no one is fessing up who authorized this since it was never permissible policy. They are trying to blame Bush which is nonsense because the small few cases they did do that in, they arrested the guy right after the purchase and never let the guns walk over the border or outside the view of the ATF agents.
The exact opposite happened here at least 2000 times.
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Dont know. But no one is fessing up who authorized this since it was never permissible policy. They are trying to blame Bush which is nonsense because the small few cases they did do that in, they arrested the guy right after the purchase and never let the guns walk over the border or outside the view of the ATF agents.
The exact opposite happened here at least 2000 times.
you post so much that thread was like 10 years ago in 333386 years. :D
Well for sure Obama gets the blame, this shit happened under Obama. If Bush gets any blame, that's stuff we don't know about yet.
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Fast and Furious in a Rotten Nutshell
American Thinker ^ | Oct. 7, 2011 | Ronald Kolb
...after calls from Congress for a special counsel, a Justice spokesman attempted to fend off that plan by saying that once Holder had learned of the operation's "questionable tactics" earlier this year, he then "promptly asked the inspector general to investigate the matter."
Cynthia A. Schnedar is the acting inspector general, and just this past month, in yet another stunning revelation, it was discovered that she had released secret audio tapes of candid conversations from last March between Hope McAllister, an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) agent in the Phoenix office, and Andre Howard, owner of a Phoenix-area gun shop, who had been authorized by the ATF to sell weapons to known Mexican cartel members in the botched sting operation.
On one of the tapes, they discuss a third Fast and Furious rifle that was found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in a remote area of southern Arizona last December. It had been widely reported that only two rifles were found at the scene, but recent reports tell of a cover-up. The third rifle would have led to an FBI informant.
As for the tapes, it was discovered by congressional investigators that Schnedar had inexplicably given a copy to the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix before she had even reviewed them. The tapes then ended up being shared with the ATF office there. Both those agencies are among the many entities under investigation in the ever-expanding scandal.
So just who, one may wonder, is Acting Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar?
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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Gunwalker: Fast Leaks, Furious Congressmen
Pajamas Media ^ | October 7, 2011 | Bob Owens
Posted on Friday, October 07, 2011 2:31:33 PM by jazusamo
CBS News says they have lots more evidence, plus the Gunwalker architect may have been identified.
July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26, and August 9, 2010.
These are the dates of weekly memos provided by National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther to Attorney General Eric Holder. Each was a short document that included information on Operation Fast and Furious, including descriptions of the operation as a multi-agency task force targeting a gun trafficking ring headed by Manuel Celis-Acosta that had purchased “1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
The release of these documents from mid-2010 — and supporting documents from Department of Justice insiders discussing “gunwalking” — has led House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) to ask President Obama to appoint a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor would investigate whether or not Attorney General Holder committed perjury when he stated in sworn testimony in March: “ probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) yesterday called for Holder toresign, and Arizona Senator John McCain is “ leaning towards” demanding a special council appointment to investigate.
With the increased attention on the case — including coverage from johnny-come-lately ABC that needed to add a backstory section to get their readers up to speed — the White House and Department of Justice are fighting back, alleging that the growing scandal is nothing but a game of “gotcha” being played by Republicans:
“Here they go again. Chairman Issa and Senator Grassley can re-package and re-release the same documents every other day and it won’t change the facts: the attorney general’s testimony to both the House and Senate committees has been consistent and truthful,” the department said.
The department said the “brief” passages were “buried in a few written reports” and did not detail the full extent of the operation.
“Instead of peddling selectively edited transcripts and distorting questions and answers in some distracting political game of gotcha, these congressional leaders should be focusing their attention on the underlying public safety problem we confront as a nation — that too many guns are being illegally trafficked to Mexico,” the statement said.
It is worth noting: the documents being released are new; the information was not buried, but featured bullet points of weekly summary reports; and there were no “selectively edited” transcripts or “distorted questions.” The DOJ pushback seems rooted in political firefighting, not facts.
Even left-leaning NPR — which seems to doubt Holder’s truthfulness — reported the details of the key question and answer accurately:
At a hearing in March, California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa asked: “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?”
Holder replied: “I’m not sure the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Texas Senator John Cornyn blasted President Obama’s forceful defense of his attorney general, claiming that the president was the “the only person left with any confidence” in Holder:
“It is difficult to believe that after memos were sent to his office, ATF officials briefed Congress on Fast and Furious and it was reported in the media, Mr. Holder still didn’t have knowledge of it, as he claims, for several months,” Cornyn, a San Antonio Republican, said in an emailed statement.
The worst news of the week for Holder and Obama may have come last night. Bill O’Reilly interviewed CBSNews investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who has provided the most dogged mainstream media coverage of the administration’s gun-walking plots. O’Reilly asked Attkisson what caused a White House staffer to scream and curse at her several days ago. Her response left little doubt that more damning revelations are to come :
Well, I would say there have been some pretty incredible developments in the past week. Also, documents we haven’t even had time to report on all of them. They are very sensitive documents and allegations going around. Many of them we haven’t reported yet because we need to get more confirmation of them.
But what you see on the surface that we do report in our stories is really only a part of what may be going on and we may be reporting the future when we can get confirmation.
Attkisson may have been alluding to more evidence about Operation Fast and Furious, or perhaps about the nine other alleged gunwalking programs in five states which seem to have been implemented with the singularly practical purpose of getting thousands of weapons into the hands of criminals, both drug cartels and domestic gangs. Using Operation Fast and Furious as a baseline, it is reasonable to assume that if the other gunwalking operations were as productive, the U.S. may have run between 10,000 and 20,00o guns, enough weapons to outfit an entire U.S. Army infantry division.
If these numbers could be verified, it would prove that the Obama administration is the number one U.S. source of cartel guns.
As if things were not bad enough for the White House, Mike Vanderboegh — one of the bloggers who broke the original story linking ATF gunwalking to Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death — has sources claiming “Obama’s man in the State Department,” (former) Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, was the State Department operative who helped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General David Ogden formulate the strategy that led to the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.
And a follow-up story asserts what many have long suspected: that Gunwalker came about out of a desire to “pad” the Obama administration’s “ 90-pecent lie.”
If evidence can be obtained to support these contentions, then perjury is going to be the least of the worries for those involved. As Dave Gibson at the Examiner notes:
With the recent revelation that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the ATF gun smuggling scheme as early as July 2010, which is nearly a year earlier than he claimed before Congress, the question becomes … Is Eric Holder an accomplice to Agent Brian Terry’s murder?
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu recently pointed out: “If somebody gives a gun to somebody knowing they’re going to commit murder, guess what we call them? … We call them accomplices.”
Bob Owens blogs at Confederate Yankee and Bob's Gun Counter.
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Informant: ATF "gun walking" went on for years(Wide Reciever)
CBS ^ | 5 October, 2011 | Sharyl Attkisson
The ATF, the agency that's supposed to stop gun smuggling, turned a blind eye for years, as hundreds of guns "walked" across the Mexican border, CBS News has learned.
In a report on "The Early Show," CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson said a confidential informant has come forward "with a fascinating story of how U.S. agents began letting guns 'walk' across the Mexican border - more than four years ago."
ATF "Fast and Furious": New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010
Gun enthusiast and licensed dealer Mike Detty said he was working a Tucson, Ariz., gun show in early 2006 when a young Hispanic man bought a half-dozen semi-automatic rifles. He paid $1,600 cash.
Detty recalled, "But then he asked if I had more, and I told him that later in the month I would have another 20 from my supplier. And he said, 'I'll take 'em all.'"
Detty said he suspected the buyer was trafficking for a drug cartel. Tucson is just an hour from the Mexican border and a popular shopping center for smugglers.
Detty notified ATF - the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. To his surprise, ATF told him to go ahead with the big sale and sent an undercover agent to watch. Then, a local ATF manager made an unusual and dangerous proposition: He asked Detty to be a confidential informant.
Detty told CBS News, "He said, 'Mike, I think we've got a real chance at taking out a powerful cartel. Can you help us?' I made that commitment. And I really thought I was doing something good."
Detty said he even signed an informant contract. As he understood it, he'd sell to suspected traffickers. Agents would track the weapons, expose the cartel's inner workings, and then interdict the guns before they could ever get loose on the street - or so Detty thought.
Detty said his business, "Mad Dawg," catered to this dangerous clientele in his living-room showroom. ATF agents watched and listened outside.
In an audio recording from a sale, Detty can be heard saying, "if your guys need more guns - " A suspect replies, "I do." Detty says, "You let me know."
"I do," the suspect repeats. Detty says, "And it's cool with me, OK?"
"I want to buy all of them that are like that. All of them I can get," the suspect says. Detty responds, "OK, I have a lot of them like that."
"I want to buy them all," the suspect responds.
Detty said ATF would have a small audio recording device. Sometimes it was hidden in a box of Kleenex," he said. One of the biggest cases was code-named: "Operation Wide Receiver."
Attkisson asked Detty, "Do you know about how many guns we're talking about?"
Detty said, "It's right around 450."
Detty came forward after things didn't work out as Detty had thought they would. Detty says he realized ATF was letting guns "walk" and instead of helping to take down cartels, he'd helped ATF arm them.
Attkisson asked, "When you look back and think in hindsight knowing what we know now - that all those guns were going on the street - what do you think about?"
Detty said, "It really makes me sick."
Attkisson noted that all this happened under the Bush administration - three years before the start of "Fast and Furious," the better-known ATF operation under the Obama administration that has come under scrutiny . "Fast and Furious" allegedly let thousands of weapons fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, and is now the subject of two investigations.
The "Fast and Furious" tactic of letting guns "walk" was exposed after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered last December and at least two assault rifles from "Fast and Furious" were found at the scene.
As for its predecessor, "Wide Receiver,": prosecutors finally, quietly, rounded up seven suspects last fall. No cartel leaders, just buyers who - critics say - should never have been allowed to put even one weapon on the street, let alone operate for years.
Detty said, "My first day as an informant, if they had said, 'Here's our plan, Mike: We're going to let as many guns go across the border as they can haul, and we're just gonna look and see where they pop up,' I'd have said, 'No way. That's not a plan. That's idiocy.' "
Attkisson said efforts to reach former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who was in office when "Wide Receiver" started under the Bush administration, were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, his successor is under fire. Republicans are calling for a special prosecutor to investigate whether Attorney General Eric Holder told the truth when he testified earlier this year to Congress about when he first knew about 'Fast and Furious.'"
According to Atkisson, "gunwalking" may not be limited to border towns.
She said, "We have found allegations of gunwalking in at least 10 cities in five states, so this apparently was not isolated to Arizona."
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Holy Shit Batman
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Holder Challenges 'Fast and Furious' Allegations in Scathing Letter to Congress
By Mike Levine
Published October 07, 2011
FoxNews.com
Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a conference at the 66th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters on Sept. 19.
Attorney General Eric Holder, under new pressure from Republicans over when he learned of "Operation Fast and Furious," has mounted his most forceful defense to date, accusing critics of using "irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric" and insisting his statements have been "truthful and accurate."
"I have no recollection of knowing about 'Fast and Furious' or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it," Holder wrote in a letter to congressional leaders Friday. "Prior to early 2011, I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation."
. . .
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/07/holder-challenges-fast-and-furious-allegations-in-scathing-letter-to-congress/
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His letter was pure nonsense.
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10 Arizona Sheriffs Call For Eric Holder to Resign or Be Fired
Stand With Arizona ^ | 10-07-2011 | John Hill
Posted on October 7, 2011 10:06:13 PM EDT by montag813
by John Hill
Stand With Arizona
Sheriff Paul Babeu led a press conference with 9 other Arizona sheriffs today, to blast Attorney General Eric Holder and the Administration for the disastrous 'Operation Fast and Furious', calling it a a "betrayal of state law enforcement".
Standing in front of a Phoenix memorial for fallen law enforcement officers, including Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry - murdered as a direct result of the operation - the sheriffs called for the president to launch an independent investigation and for Attorney General Eric Holder to step down or be fired. They are demanding that Holder reveal the truth behind the scandal, and believe that those responsible should be criminally accountable for allowing 2,000 guns to be purchased on U.S. Soil and turned over to the Mexican drug cartels.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said:
We are here to help defend America, whether it's beyond the border or any place north where the tentacles of these cartels reach into our communities across this nation every single day. And for our own government to be complicit in helping them conduct that business is offensive to us.
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu remembered Brian Terry's family, saying their "hearts are broken":
They want the truth, and they haven't been given the truth," he said. "Where's the honor of our country and us in law enforcement when a brother officer is murdered in our state here in Arizona, protecting our country, and then we find out months later that two of these weapons were weapons from Fast and Furious?
Five of the sheriffs are Democrats, and the other five are Republicans. But they spoke in united outrage over the conduct of the Obama Administration in this scandal...and demanded results.
On Tuesday, Republic Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas also called for a special counsel to investigate Fast and Furious, saying that Holder may have misled Congress about his knowledge of the operation. In his press conference on Thursday, Obama said Holder had his "full confidence" in Holder, but did not address accusations that Holder perjured himself in his May 2011 testimony before Congress.
And of course, a compliant media did not even ask Obama about Holder's testimony, the perjury allegations, or even the special prosecutor request. Hugo Chavez has a more challenging press than does Obama. Disgraceful.
The House GOP must act if Obama refuses to...and impeach Eric Holder.
Video coverage below:
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2789650/posts
Good article. holder is fos and nneds to come clean.
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So it did start under Bush and continued under Obama?
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interesting timeline on the bullshit going on down there:
You can see when it starts and then starts escalating. In the same year it starts, we're sending guns to these guys and that continues into the Obama admin? This all seems so freaking insane. No arrests in all that time on these programs? Hell, that almost looks like we were backing the cartels against the Mexican government who were trying to crack down on them... Why the hell would we do that lol...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Mexican_Drug_War
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‘Wide Receiver’ CI: ‘It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ’
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David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
October 7, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.
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Exclusive report by Gun Rights Examiner
“The ATF, the agency that's supposed to stop gun smuggling, turned a blind eye for years, as hundreds of guns ‘walked’ across the Mexican border,” Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reported Wednesday. The subject of the report was licensed firearms dealer Mike Detty, who volunteered to become a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after he suspected straw purchases were being made by suspicious customers to arm drug cartels.
“The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers - the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday,” Peter Yost of the Associated Press also reported on Wednesday.
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Both reports focused on the “Operation Wide Receiver” program, a gun interdiction effort now being compared as an earlier parallel to “Fast and Furious,” unsruprisingly by the same media outlets that have been providing cover fire for the administration throughout the unfolding "Project Gunwalker" story.
There were significant differences, however, Detty advised Gun Rights Examiner yesterday via email. As background, this correspondent has been communicating with him since March of this year, introducing him to investigators for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in August. This has not been reported on previously due to guarding Detty’s interests, and the same commitment not to exploit information shared in confidence that whistleblowing ATF agents have learned to trust.
Because some of the new reports have created no small amount of speculation about Bush administration involvement in what some are representing to be an identical enterprise, Detty felt compelled to offer clarification, and has consented to sharing his observations:
The AP story said that under Bush this case was never prosecuted and it took the Obama administration to find this Bush debacle and prosecute.
The truth is that the first two AUSA's assigned to this case declined to prosecute it because ATF, ASAC, SAC and above, lied to him and told him that the guns were being followed on the other side of the border. One AUSA told me, "Why would I take this case to court when I'd have to sacrifice my integrity and professional credibility because ATF screwed up so badly?"
There you have it. It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ at that point. ATF decision makers made the decision to devote 3 years worth of resources on a case based on a lie.
Detty’s coming forward now with this revelation should help those interested in preventing the lies from being compounded and conflated.
UPDATE: The following was received from Mr. Detty upon his reading this report:
I feel one more point worth mentioning is how can a new prosecutor take this case to court when the fundamentals have not changed? The foundation of the investigation was based on a lie.
Also see:
Kurt Hofmann: 'Gunwalking' then and now: The differences
Bob Owens: Gunwalker: Gunning Down the ‘Bush Did It, Too’ Lie
A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner.
Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
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Oh Brother ::) nice double standard.
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Oh Brother ::) nice double standard.
If I'm not mistaken, under Bush gun buyers were tracked and then intercepted immediately. Under Osama, the guns disappeared across the border to make Swiss cheese out of innocent people.
Does the double standard make more sense now?
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I have to wonder what 33 and others will do if/when it ends up F&F got its initial start under Bush.
Sure, holder is a lying POS... but how many repubs will give a shit about mex drug violence on the other side of teh border if Obama doesn't have exclusive ownership?
If if if this thing got its foothold under Dubya... it'll be interesting. Obama and holder will still be guilty as shit... but will they be as loud/?
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YEah yeah... screw facts.. Blame bush
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YEah yeah... screw facts.. Blame bush
Gunrunner was a lot different and Gunwalker. Educate yourself and stop kneepadding.
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Gunrunner was a lot different and Gunwalker. Educate yourself and stop kneepadding.
how were they different? Is one "okay"?
Or one is just more evil? The one on obama's watch?
If Bush started such a program, this discussion will be great.
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How many people died in Gunrunner? Looks like 0.
How many people died in Gunwalker? Over 200.
Thanks for playing.
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How many people died in Gunrunner? Looks like 0.
How many people died in Gunwalker? Over 200.
Thanks for playing.
Oh, death toll is now the measurement tool?
Slippery slope there...
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Oh, death toll is now the measurement tool?
Slippery slope there...
Not really.
You can go a step further.
One was designed to arrest straw purchasers before they crossed the border, thus ensuring no guns were put into cartel hands.
One was designed to purposely allow straw purchases across the border, thus ensuring guns were put into cartel hands.
Keep swinging, douche.
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Oh, death toll is now the measurement tool?
Slippery slope there...
No dickhead-- One program was successful= Nobody Died, no guns crossed into Mexico
One program was a catastrophe= Hundreds died including US agents, guns made it into Mexico
What's slippery about that?
Bush's program worked. Obama's program was a mess.
Hope this helps.
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Gunwalker: Dems Abandoning Ship?
Pajamas Media ^ | October 8, 2011 | Bob Owens
Posted on October 8, 2011 12:14:11 PM EDT by Kaslin
The typical gun-control advocates don't have the president's and attorney general's backs this time.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has come under fire this week: evidence revealed he either ignored weekly reports in the summer of 2010 that discussed Operation Fast and Furious, or he committed perjury when he claimed he first found out about the program in early 2011. The former suggests incompetence, the later criminality — either would be legitimate reasons to see him removed from office.
Despite recent developments, the Department of Justice is publicly pushing back in favor of their boss, even as a key source claims career employees’ morale is at an all time low and that “Stalinesque complete control” over internal communications has been implemented to squelch leaks.
The White House is also publicly standing up for Holder, with President Obama providing unqualified support:
“He’s indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious,” the president said in support of Holder, speaking at a White House news conference Thursday. “Certainly I was not. And I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America.”
The President also touted the DOJ inspector general’s investigation of the scandal. He did not note that Cynthia A. Schnedar is an acting inspector general who has already been accused of using her office to obstruct the House Oversight Committee’s investigation, and who works for an administration that tends to fire inspector generals that do not report what the administration would like to hear.
However, it seems that the Obama administration’s allies are falling silent in regards to Holder, Obama, Fast and Furious, and allegations of other gunwalking programs.
When the story first broke early in 2011, Democratic lawmakers and leftist gun-control groups rallied to the administration’s defense, and they still provided support through midsummer. Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign wrote a typical screed of the type on June 29, attempting to blame Republicans for the plot:
If California Rep. Darrell Issa and other congressional members who are in lock-step with the NRA bosses want to get to the bottom of the ATF gun trafficking operation, they need to start looking at their own actions and lack of action. By blocking and loosening laws to prevent gun violence they, too, are culpable in ATF’s “Fast and Furious” apparent debacle.
This poorly executed operation had agents skulking around gun shops to watch and possibly document numerous illegal firearms sales in Arizona. The unstopped gun runners then resold about 2,000 assault weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. Further tragedy unfolded when two of the guns were found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
Helmke would later testify at a dog and pony show organized by Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings that sought to be a rhetorical counter against Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s congressional investigation. Cummings and a handful of fellow Democrats then tried in July to use Operation Fast and Furious as an excuse to call for more gun control. This also fell flat.
Since that last effort the administration’s allies have fallen silent.
New York Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney hasn’t said a word about Operation Fast and Furious since she supported the doomed “Stop Gun Trafficking and Strengthen Law Enforcement Act” in mid-July. Neither has her even more zealously anti-gun collegue Carolyn McCarthy.
As pressure has increased on the administration this week, the silence from House Democrats has been deafening. And like House Democrats, Senate Democrats are quietly abandoning the White House and attorney general.
Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein have consistently pushed for gun control throughout their Senate careers. Along with Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, they fabricated a report in June that supported the administration with a walked-back version of the 90-percent lie.
Schumer in particular has been a strong ally of the president, and yet he has also been silent on Operation Fast and Furious.
How many major political scandals have there been in recent memory where an entire political party fell silent for months at a time — and how should we interpret that silence?
Democratic senators and representatives may feel they have nothing to gain by speaking out on behalf of the gunwalking scandals. It would be a logical position to adopt if they’re assuming that Operation Fast and Furious is a serious political liability.
Regardless of the specific reason, the Obama administration’s usual allies of gun-control groups and Democratic members of the House and Senate seem to have abandoned the executive branch to sink or swim on its own.
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Deputy AG received detailed Fast and Furious briefing
By Sharyl Attkisson Topics News
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(Credit: CBS) Documents recently turned over by the Justice Department to Congressional investigators indicate that then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler received a detailed briefing on Fast and Furious more than a year and a half ago.
"Deputy Attorney General" is the Justice Department's No. 2 figure, directly under Attorney General Eric Holder.
Grindler moved from Deputy Attorney General to a spot as Holder's chief of staff last January.
The briefing Grindler attended was on March 12, 2010, six months into ATF's Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons on the street in an attempt to track down Mexican drug cartels. Portions of the documents are redacted.
In handwritten notes about Fast and Furious that are not all legible, Grindler writes about "seizures in Mexico" and "links to cartel." He also noted "seizures in Mexico" on a map of Phoenix, the home base for Fast and Furious, and Mexico locations where some guns ended up. And Grindler made notations on a photograph of several dozen rifles.
There is no specific mention of the controversial tactic known as "letting guns walk" which, law enforcement sources say, was the heart of the Fast and Furious case.
Late today, a spokesman for the Justice Department told CBS News that "Much like presentations given in 2010 on the status of ATF's investigative efforts along the SW Border to many others - including a briefing to Chairman Issa within the same timeframe - this one did not get into the operational tactics that have since raised concerns... Indeed, as both the former U.S. Attorney in Arizona and the former Acting Director of ATF (who provided this briefing) have made clear, they did not themselves know the operational details and did not brief Justice officials on them."
Yesterday, the President stated he has full confidence in Holder and reiterated that neither he nor Holder knew of the controversial tactics being used in Fast and Furious. Holder has asked the Inspector General to investigate.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20117305-10391695.html
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Wide Receiver’ CI: ‘It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ’
By David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
..Exclusive report by Gun Rights Examiner
“The ATF, the agency that's supposed to stop gun smuggling, turned a blind eye for years, as hundreds of guns ‘walked’ across the Mexican border,” Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reported Wednesday. The subject of the report was licensed firearms dealer Mike Detty, who volunteered to become a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after he suspected straw purchases were being made by suspicious customers to arm drug cartels.
“The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers - the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday,” Peter Yost of the Associated Press also reported on Wednesday.
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Both reports focused on the “Operation Wide Receiver” program, a gun interdiction effort now being compared as an earlier parallel to “Fast and Furious,” unsruprisingly by the same media outlets that have been providing cover fire for the administration throughout the unfolding "Project Gunwalker" story.
There were significant differences, however, Detty advised Gun Rights Examiner yesterday via email. As background, this correspondent has been communicating with him since March of this year, introducing him to investigators for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in August. This has not been reported on previously due to guarding Detty’s interests, and the same commitment not to exploit information shared in confidence that whistleblowing ATF agents have learned to trust.
Because some of the new reports have created no small amount of speculation about Bush administration involvement in what some are representing to be an identical enterprise, Detty felt compelled to offer clarification, and has consented to sharing his observations:
The AP story said that under Bush this case was never prosecuted and it took the Obama administration to find this Bush debacle and prosecute.
The truth is that the first two AUSA's assigned to this case declined to prosecute it because ATF, ASAC, SAC and above, lied to him and told him that the guns were being followed on the other side of the border. One AUSA told me, "Why would I take this case to court when I'd have to sacrifice my integrity and professional credibility because ATF screwed up so badly?"
There you have it. It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ at that point. ATF decision makers made the decision to devote 3 years worth of resources on a case based on a lie.
Detty’s coming forward now with this revelation should help those interested in preventing the lies from being compounded and conflated.
UPDATE: The following was received from Mr. Detty upon his reading this report:
I feel one more point worth mentioning is how can a new prosecutor take this case to court when the fundamentals have not changed? The foundation of the investigation was based on a lie.
Also see:
Kurt Hofmann: 'Gunwalking' then and now: The differences
Bob Owens: Gunwalker: Gunning Down the ‘Bush Did It, Too’ Lie
A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner.
Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
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Continue reading on Examiner.com ‘Wide Receiver’ CI: ‘It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ’ - National gun rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/wide-receiver-ci-it-had-nothing-to-do-with-bush-or-even-doj#ixzz1aFWSDYl4
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High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.
In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The smugglers' tactics — quickly moving the weapons far from ATF agents in southern Arizona, where it had been assumed they would circulate — vividly demonstrate that what had been viewed as a local problem was much larger. Six other Fast and Furious guns destined for El Paso were recovered in Columbus, N.M.
"These Fast and Furious guns were going to Sinaloans, and they are killing everyone down there," said one knowledgeable U.S. government source, who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. "But that's only how many we know came through Texas. Hundreds more had to get through."
Torres Marrufo, also known as "the Jaguar," has been identified by U.S. authorities as the enforcer for Sinaloa cartel chieftain Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. The Fast and Furious weapons were found at one of Torres Marrufo's homes April 30 when Mexican police inspected the property. It was unoccupied but "showed signs of recent activity," they said.
The basement had been converted into a gym with a wall covered with built-in mirrors. Behind the mirrors they found a hidden room with the Fast and Furious weapons and dozens more, including an antiaircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.
"We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez," Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said at the time, though he did not know that many of the weapons came from the U.S. and Fast and Furious.
Torres Marrufo has been indicted in El Paso, but authorities have been unable to locate and arrest him.
In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.
Under Fast and Furious, begun in fall 2009, the ATF allowed illegal buyers to walk away with weapons in the hope that agents in Phoenix could track the guns and arrest cartel leaders.
Three months into the program, El Paso began to emerge as a hub, perhaps the central location, for Fast and Furious weapons. On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.
Alberto Sandoval told authorities he acquired the weapons three days after they were purchased from someone he knew only as "Rudy." He said he was paid $1,000 to store the guns and "knew the firearms were going to Mexico."
Sandoval pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. A month later, on Dec. 17, 2010, he escaped from a minimum-security prison in Tucson; officials believe he fled to Mexico.
Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.
Chavira and Galvan pleaded guilty. Chavira received eight years in prison; Galvan is to be sentenced next month.
richard.serrano@latimes.com
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Wow!!!! this thing is like a dirty bomb.
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Fast and Furious fallout puts Holder on collision course with Congress
By Jordy Yager - 10/08/11 09:30 AM ET
The fierce battle over a botched gun-tracking operation is intensifying and has put Attorney General Eric Holder on a collision course with his critics in Congress.
Republicans are calling for his resignation in the wake of Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation that may have inadvertently contributed to the death of at least one federal agent.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for an independent investigation of Holder, and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants to have Holder testify again before Congress.
Holder replied Friday to mounting accusations against him in a scathing letter to the congressional leaders who are investigating his involvement.
Holder wrote in a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of three Congressional committees that he has been "truthful and accurate" about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms operation and that the rhetoric coming from Republican legislators has been "irresponsible and inflammatory."
The torrent of scrutiny comes after a series of internal Justice Department memos were released this week and show that Holder was informed about the existence of Operation Fast and Furious last year.
Holder testified in May before the House Judiciary Committee that he did not learn about the operation until earlier this year. Officials with the DOJ say Holder was referring to when he learned about the controversial tactics, known as “walking” guns into the hands of known and suspected criminals, that were employed by the operation.
"My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout," Holder wrote Friday night. "I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it."
President Obama has thrown his full support behind Holder, but the coming weeks will be the true test as Republicans put the administration under the microscope.
After receiving Holder's letter, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) promised the investigations would continue.
"The Attorney General’s denials of any personal knowledge will have to be tested against all the evidence as the investigation continues, just as the Department’s initial denials were," Beth Levine, a Grassley spokeswoman, said.
The following is a timeline of events surrounding Holder and Congress’ dealings with Operation Fast and Furious:
2009 — Operation Fast and Furious is launched under the supervision of the ATF's Group VII, based out of Phoenix.
March 12, 2010 — Group VII Supervisor David Roth sends an email to the group acknowledging a “schism” in the attitudes of the agents. ATF agents in the group would later testify they were conflicted over the tactics being used. “Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case,” wrote Roth.
July 2010 — Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), wrote three memos to Holder in which he mentions Operation Fast and Furious. In one memo, Walther advises Holder that NDIC and a Phoenix drug enforcement task force would assist the ATF with an investigation of a suspected gun trafficker, Manuel Celis-Acosta, being run under Operation Fast and Furious.
“This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix police department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring Manuel Celis-Acosta,” the memo states. “Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
Nov. 2010 — Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer sent a weekly memo to Holder notifying him of a sealed indictment against alleged gun traffickers in Arizona by the DOJ’s organized crime and gang section. Breuer wrote that the indictment would remain sealed “until another investigation, Phoenix-based ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’ is ready for takedown.”
Nov. – Dec. 2010 — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is contacted by whistleblowers within ATF about the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.
Dec. 15, 2010 — Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is killed in a firefight in Arizona. Two of the guns found at the scene were sold to suspected straw buyers under the operation.
Jan. 2011 — Grassley meets with Holder and DOJ officials to discuss the whistleblower allegations.
Feb. 2011 — DOJ sends a letter to Grassley denying that the ATF would knowingly sell assault weapons to straw purchasers and that the agency makes every effort to prevent weapons from going to Mexico.
March 2011 — Holder asks the DOJ’s Inspector General to investigate Operation Fast and Furious.
March 8, 2011 — Eleven people are federally indicted for alleged weapons trafficking crimes in connection with Fast and Furious.
March 16, 2011 — Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sends his first letter to ATF’s acting-director Kenneth Melson requesting documents pertaining to the origin of Fast and Furious and who authorized it.
March 31, 2011 — Issa issues first subpoena on Fast and Furious to DOJ for documents he requested in March.
May 3, 2011 — Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee saying, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
June 15, 2011 — Issa holds his first hearing on Fast and Furious where former and current ATF agents testified about the controversial tactics employed under the operation and their efforts to stop them. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, who operates as a legislative liaison to Congress, also testifies that the DOJ was doing everything in its power to assist Issa with his investigation. Republicans have said the DOJ is “stonewalling” their efforts to get information about the operation.
June 29, 2011 — Obama says he will not comment on Fast and Furious further until the IG investigation is complete. “My attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun running to be able to pass through into Mexico,” said Obama. “I'm not going to comment on a current investigation. I've made very clear my views that that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we've got to find out how that happened.”
July 4, 2011 — Melson testifies in a closed setting before Issa and Grassley’s investigators. Melson acknowledges that Fast and Furious was under the jurisdiction of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office.
August 30, 2011 — Holder transfers Melson out of his position as acting director and Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke resigns.
Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/186351-fast-and-furious-probe-puts-holder-on-collision-course-with-congress
The contents of this site are © 2011 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
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Gunwalker: Punch-Drunk Eric Holder Swings Back at Critics, Hits Self
Pajamas Media ^ | October 8, 2011 | Bob Owens
The evidence continues to cast strong doubts on the attorney general's truthfulness.
Friday was just another day in a continuing series of bad days for the administration of President Barack Obama, as the furor surrounding the executive branch’s gun-walking scandal continues to escalate.
The day began with a gritty montage-style video from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asking the question few in the media are willing to ask about the gun-walking program: Holder vs. White House: Who Is Responsible? Like a duffel bag stuffed with straw-purchased Draco pistols, the day quickly went “south” from there.
The White House attempt to implement a weak “Bush did it too” defense collapsed in spectacular fashion, in the worst possible way. The administration – specifically the Department of Justice — leaked a claim that a Bush-era operation called “Wide Receiver” also walked guns to Mexican cartels, just like Obama’s Operation Fast and Furious. The claim served as a “hook” to draw out news agencies that had up until now largely ignored the scandal out of partisan deference to the White House.
But the claim simply wasn’t true.
While the steady drip-drip-drip of evidence has destroyed claims that the Obama administration program was anything but a way to arm criminals to support the 90-percent lie and the president’s gun control agenda, the Bush-era Operation Wide Receiver was a legitimate “botched” law enforcement operation that failed because of an over-reliance on new and unproven technologies and an underestimation of the cunning of cartel smugglers. One of the key witnesses testifying about Wide Receiver even came forward to debunk the DOJ’s claims of “Bush did it too,” noting that the 2006-2007 operation was a small local ATF operation, conducted without Justice or White House support.
The Obama DOJ created more media interest with the Bush claim, only to have the claim fall apart as the national interest in the case finally began to rise. Oops.
Just as the Wide Receiver claim was falling apart, new documents surfaced that seemed to undermine Eric Holder’s defense that he was unaware of Operation Fast and Furious, the best-known of the administration’s gun-walking scandals. Sharyl Attkisson released documents that showed then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, the second-highest ranking official in Justice, received a detailed briefing on the operation and made hand-written notes in the margins. The briefing was on March 12, 2010, six months into Operation Fast and Furious:
In handwritten notes about Fast and Furious that are not all legible, Grindler writes about “seizures in Mexico” and “links to cartel.” He also noted “seizures in Mexico” on a map of Phoenix, the home base for Fast and Furious, and Mexico locations where some guns ended up. And Grindler made notations on a photograph of several dozen rifles.
As the evidence continues to cast strong doubts on the attorney general’s truthfulness, one of his defensive measures seems to be collapsing. The Obama administration and Holder’s Department of Justice have repeatedly fallen back on using the DOJ inspector general’s investigation as a way to keep from answering the hard questions about the gun-walking operations. When pressed about the plot, they defer to the inspector general’s investigation.
Now we know why.
It turns out that acting DOJ Inspector General Cynthia A. Schnedar, who had leaked information gathered by congressional investigators to the subjects of her investigation, is an old colleague of Eric Holder:
It turns out that Ms. Schnedar has long and close ties to Mr. Holder. According to her biography on the Justice Department website, she became assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. in 1994. Eric Holder had become the U.S. attorney in Washington the previous year, so he in effect was Schnedar’s boss from 1994 until 1997, when he left to become President Clinton’s deputy attorney general. Holder would become a key player in the scandalous pardons of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich and members of the Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist group known as FALN.
But during Ms. Schnedar’s tenure before Holder had departed, it happened that they had ended up working a number of cases together. According to the LexisNexis website, there were at least fourteen of them, usually at the appellate level. For Holder, it was more than just “in name only”; in some of those cases, they apparently co-filed legal briefs.
A responsible inspector general would have immediately noted the obvious conflict of interest and stepped aside after calling for a special counsel to conduct an impartial inquiry. The fact that Schnedar chose not to disclose this conflict of interest indicates possible collusion and corruption of the DOJ Inspector General’s Office. Schnedar may very well find herself the star of her own corruption trial.
Despite the continuing collapse of the attorney general’s defense — or perhaps in response to it — Holder went on offense late Friday with a scathing letter to the chairmen and ranking congressional committee heads investigating the scandal, seeking to both attack his critics and, incredibly, call for more gun control.
Holder’s ostensible excuse for attacking those trying to investigate his department — other than keeping himself out of prison — was to claim that he:
…could not sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who dedicate their lives to protecting our citizens be considered “accessories to murder.”
Holder appears to have been passive-aggressively attacking Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, who repeated a similar claim Wednesday. Unfortunately for the embattled Holder, Gosar was only relaying the thoughts of his state’s law enforcement community. While Holder’s lawyers were vetting his letter for release, ten Arizona sheriffs — five Democrats and five Republicans — came together to call the gun-walking operations “a betrayal of state law enforcement.” The sheriffs demanded President Obama appoint a special counsel to investigate, and stated bluntly that Attorney General Holder should resign or be fired. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu stated:
We want to get to the bottom of this. One, to find out what truly happened, and two, to ensure this never happens again. This is not political. This is a public safety issue, this is a threat against our deputies and local officers, not only in Arizona but across the Southwest.
It was an earlier statement by Babeu and cited by Rep. Gosar that Holder criticized:
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu recently pointed out: “If somebody gives a gun to somebody knowing they’re going to commit murder, guess what we call them? … We call them accomplices.”
Holder no doubt chose to castigate the congressman instead of the front-line law enforcement officers who are our soldiers in this conflict against the very narco-terrorists Holder’s Department has allegedly armed in ten cities in five states with enough weapons to arm a U.S. Army division.
As part of his constant effort to impose gun control, Holder also tried to claim, as other Democrats have, that current laws are insufficient to stop weapons trafficking and that “penalties for straw purchasers are inadequate.”
Someone should tell him about a long-running program called Don’t Lie For The Other Guy, a joint effort of his own ATF and the National Shooting Sports Foundation that reminds straw purchasers that buying a weapon for someone you know can’t legally get a gun could get you ten years in prison.
Or was that in another memo he didn’t read?
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No justice from Justice
Last Updated: 4:49 AM, October 9, 2011
Two things to know about Attorney General Eric Holder: He lied to the American people -- under oath, before Congress -- and thus is unfit to investigate allegations of criminal negligence in the Justice Department.
This is why House Republicans have called for a special prosecutor to investigate Holder for apparent perjury regarding his testimony on the administration’s “Fast and Furious” gun sting -- during which the US armed Mexican drug cartels with 2,500 high-powered, military-style weapons.
We’re no fans of special prosecutors; they tend to get out of control.
But the Justice Department has spent the summer obstructing a congressional investigation into the sting, and therefore can’t be trusted to police itself.
Here’s why: On May 3, Holder was asked the simplest of questions before the House Judiciary Committee: When did you first know about Fast and Furious?
His answer: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Yet documents published last week show he began receiving weekly memos from top lieutenants about the operation at least 10 months before that, in July 2010.
Press aides claim Holder misunderstood the question, which is unlikely. But his answer contained enough weasel-words -- e.g., “not sure” and “probably” -- to provide functional deniability.
Late Friday, Holder released a letter to Congress saying he has “no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.”
Normal people, however, will recognize a lie when they hear one.
This is no small matter, given that:
* Starting in 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms sold 2,500 firearms to mules who smuggled them over the border to the cartels.
* The point of the exercise was to track the weapons and snare cartel leaders -- but the agency lost track of nearly all the guns.
* Those weapons were later found abandoned at 200 crime scenes in Mexico -- and near the body of a murdered US Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry.
It was all just fuel for the fuego : Mexico is locked in an infernal drug war that has claimed 40,000 lives in the past five years.
So here was the ATF’s idea: Stop the flow of guns into Mexico ... by funneling thousands of guns into Mexico.
The leaked documents show Holder knew what was up even before Terry’s murder. Yet on Thursday, President Obama spoke of his “complete confidence” in Holder, whom he said had been “very aggressive in going after gun running ... in Mexico.”
Meanwhile, Justice officials have been fighting like rabid animals to cover up the operation since the moment the story broke -- further underscoring the need for a special prosecutor.
If Holder refuses to appoint one, the president needs to order him to do so.
Whatever Obama decides, though, it remains that an American agent was murdered, probably by a Fast and Furious weapon, and the Justice Department refuses to do anything about it.
This is shameful.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/no_justice_from_justice_QBY3tMJGtJbaI5DjVLoTDM#ixzz1aJNsQmcd
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Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home
http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-na-atf-guns-20111009/10
Guns illegally purchased under the ATF operation were found in April hidden in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, court records show.
This arsenal uncovered by police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in April turned out to include weapons from the ATF's ill-fated Fast and Furious operation. (Associated Press)
October 8, 2011, 8:46 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.
In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The smugglers' tactics — quickly moving the weapons far from ATF agents in southern Arizona, where it had been assumed they would circulate — vividly demonstrate that what had been viewed as a local problem was much larger. Six other Fast and Furious guns destined for El Paso were recovered in Columbus, N.M.
"These Fast and Furious guns were going to Sinaloans, and they are killing everyone down there," said one knowledgeable U.S. government source, who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. "But that's only how many we know came through Texas. Hundreds more had to get through."
Torres Marrufo, also known as "the Jaguar," has been identified by U.S. authorities as the enforcer for Sinaloa cartel chieftain Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. The Fast and Furious weapons were found at one of Torres Marrufo's homes April 30 when Mexican police inspected the property. It was unoccupied but "showed signs of recent activity," they said.
The basement had been converted into a gym with a wall covered with built-in mirrors. Behind the mirrors they found a hidden room with the Fast and Furious weapons and dozens more, including an antiaircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.
"We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez," Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said at the time, though he did not know that many of the weapons came from the U.S. and Fast and Furious.
Torres Marrufo has been indicted in El Paso, but authorities have been unable to locate and arrest him.
In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.
Under Fast and Furious, begun in fall 2009, the ATF allowed illegal buyers to walk away with weapons in the hope that agents in Phoenix could track the guns and arrest cartel leaders.
Three months into the program, El Paso began to emerge as a hub, perhaps the central location, for Fast and Furious weapons. On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.
Alberto Sandoval told authorities he acquired the weapons three days after they were purchased from someone he knew only as "Rudy." He said he was paid $1,000 to store the guns and "knew the firearms were going to Mexico."
Sandoval pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. A month later, on Dec. 17, 2010, he escaped from a minimum-security prison in Tucson; officials believe he fled to Mexico.
Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.
Chavira and Galvan pleaded guilty. Chavira received eight years in prison; Galvan is to be sentenced next month.
richard.serrano@latimes.com
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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Is Holder the same guy that didn't investigate and further condoned voter intimidation?
Obama is awesome for having this guy at the helm!
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Is Holder the same guy that didn't investigate and further condoned voter intimidation?
Obama is awesome for having this guy at the helm!
Holder is also the same piece of racist ghetto trash behind the Marc Rich and FLAN Terrorist pardons.
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Fast And Furious: 22 Shocking Facts About The Scandal That Could Bring Down The Obama Administration
http://www.boanow.com ^ | 10/5/11
Posted on October 5, 2011 2:29:00 PM EDT by Lucky9teen
Could Fast and Furious be the scandal that brings down the Obama administration? With the full knowledge of the Department of Justice, ATF agents facilitated the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and dropped all surveillance of those weapons once they crossed the border. Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been used to shoot U.S. border control agents. Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been found at dozens of crime scenes in Mexico. Nobody has been held accountable for this scandal yet. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been stonewalling all efforts by members of Congress to look into Fast and Furious. A CBS reporter that has been aggressively investigating this story was recently screamed at and cussed at by a high ranking official that works in the White House. It has become abundantly clear that the Obama administration desperately wants to hide what went on during Operation Fast and Furious. So will they succeed or will we eventually find out the truth?
What you are about to read should shock the living daylights out of you. The U.S. government purposely armed Mexican drug cartels with thousands of guns and then ordered agents not to follow the weapons across the border.
This should be a story that the mainstream media is pounding on every single day.
But they aren't.
In fact, they are mostly ignoring it.
However, if the truth starts getting out and the American people start grasping what really happened this thing could become absolutely huge.
In fact, this could end up being Obama's Watergate.
The following are 22 shocking facts about the scandal that could bring down the Obama administration....
#1 During Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents purposely allowed thousands of guns to be sold to individuals that they believed would get them into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
#2 ATF agents were specifically ordered not to intercept the guns before they crossed the border. The following is a brief excerpt from a CBS News report that detailed the fierce objections that many ATF agents expressed when they were ordered to stand down....
On the phone, one Project Gunrunner source (who didn't want to be identified) told us just how many guns flooded the black market under ATF's watchful eye. "The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That's how many guns were sold - including some 50-calibers they let walk."
50-caliber weapons are fearsome. For months, ATF agents followed 50-caliber Barrett rifles and other guns believed headed for the Mexican border, but were ordered to let them go. One distraught agent was often overheard on ATF radios begging and pleading to be allowed to intercept transports. The answer: "Negative. Stand down."
CBS News has been told at least 11 ATF agents and senior managers voiced fierce opposition to the strategy. "It got ugly..." said one. There was "screaming and yelling" says another. A third warned: "this is crazy, somebody is gonna to get killed."
#3 Operation Fast and Furious remained a secret until the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Two guns that were sold during Operation Fast and Furious were found at the scene of the murder.
#4 ATF Special Agent John Dodson was one of the first to blow the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious. Dodson explained to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee on June 15, 2011 that many ATF agents were becoming extremely frustrated when they were ordered to cut off surveillance on the weapons that were being sold because they knew "that just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico."
#5 It appears that Operation Fast and Furious began some time around September 2009. At that time, the ATF began pressuring gun shops near the border with Mexico to participate in a new covert operation that was being set up. The gun store owners were told to help the ATF get guns into the hands of people that would take them back to the Mexican drug cartels.
The following description of the mechanics of Operation Fast and Furious comes from a recent Los Angeles Times article....
In the fall of 2009, ATF agents installed a secret phone line and hidden cameras in a ceiling panel and wall at Andre Howard's Lone Wolf gun store. They gave him one basic instruction: Sell guns to every illegal purchaser who walks through the door.
For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semiautomatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns, and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border.
When Howard heard nothing about any arrests, he questioned the agents. Keep selling, they told him. So hundreds of thousands of dollars more in weapons, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, walked out of the front door of his store in a Glendale, Ariz., strip mall.
#6 In some gun stores, cameras were set up so that top ATF officials could actually watch these transactions take place. Back in June, U.S. Representative Darrell Issa stated the following....
"Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and himself watch a live feed of straw buyers entering the gun stores and purchasing dozens of AK-47 variants."
#7 It has also come out that in some cases ATF agents were actually the ones buying the guns and getting them into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The following is how author Michael A. Walsh recently explained this in an article in the New York Post....
This just might be the smoking gun we’ve been waiting for to break the festering “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal wide open: the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.
Let that sink in: After months of pretending that “Fast and Furious” was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.
#8 According to the Los Angeles Times, guns that were purchased during Operation Fast and Furious have "turned up at dozens of additional Mexican crime scenes, with an unconfirmed toll of at least 150 people killed or wounded."
#9 Mexican authorities were never informed that thousands upon thousands of guns were being allowed into Mexico.
#10 Authorities in Mexico have asked the U.S. government over and over to explain what in the world happened during Operation Fast and Furious but they have not been given an adequate answer. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Obama administration has not even responded to questions from the attorney general of Mexico....
Marisela Morales, Mexico's attorney general and a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico, told The Times that she first learned about Fast and Furious from news reports. And to this day, she said, U.S. officials have not briefed her on the operation gone awry, nor have they apologized.
#11 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been withholding key documents about Fast and Furious from Congress and has been consistently stonewalling U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley and other members of Congress that have attempted to look into this matter.
#12 The acting director of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, had been cooperating with the investigation. At the end of August he was suddenly transferred to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.
#13 Several other key officials that were heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious actually got promoted.
#14 On May 3rd, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious. During that testimony, Holder made the following statement....
"I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
#15 Since that time, a large amount of evidence has come out that Holder was not telling the truth. For example, a recent Fox News article discussed some of the very revealing memos about Fast and Furious that have been discovered recently....
However, newly discovered memos suggest otherwise. For instance, one memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
Other documents also indicate that Holder began receiving weekly briefings on the program from the National Drug Intelligence Center "beginning, at the latest, on July 5, 2010,"
#16 Holder now claims that he simply misunderstood the question. He now says that he had heard of Operation Fast and Furious previously but that he was not aware of the specific details.
#17 Emails exchanged between two Department of Justice officials last October make it abundantly clear that high level officials at the DOJ were very aware of what was going on...
Two Justice Department officials mulled it over in an email exchange Oct. 18, 2010. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions," says Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit James Trusty replies "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."
#18 House Republicans are now asking for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate whether or not U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress during his recent testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious.
#19 U.S. Representative Darrell Issa believes that those involved in the Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation may have violated international arms trafficking agreements and could potentially face very serious criminal charges.
#20 U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is absolutely convinced that a major coverup is going on....
"But I can tell you this. They're doing everything they can, in a fast and furious way, to cover up all the evidence or stonewalling us. But here's the issue, if he didn't perjure himself and didn't know about it, the best way that they can help us, Congressman Issa and me, is to just issue all the documents that we ask for and those documents will prove one way or the other right or wrong."
#21 Did Barack Obama ever know about Operation Fast and Furious? He says that he did not authorize the program. On March 22, 2011 Obama made the following statement....
"I did not authorize [Fast and Furious]. Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that’s the case, then we’ll find — find out and we’ll hold somebody accountable."
#22 CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson claimed on the Laura Ingraham show the other day that officials in the Obama administration were literally screaming and yelling at her for aggressively investigating the Fast and Furious scandal....
Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."
Where there is smoke there is usually fire.
Something about this whole thing really stinks.
It would be a shame if Operation Fast and Furious is allowed to be swept under the rug.
The weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious are going to be used to kill a lot of people. The legacy of this scandal will be felt on both sides of the border for years to come.
The Mexican government deserves some answers.
The American people deserve some answers.
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Pressure Grows for Holder's Resignation; Subpoenas Threatened
Sunday, 09 Oct 2011
By Newsmax Wires
Pressure is intensifying rapidly for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder over the fatally flawed Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal — with Rep. Paul Gosar demanding that Holder quit immediately and Arizona sheriffs saying he should be fired if he won’t resign.
Gosar, an Arizona Republican, issued the call for Holder’s resignation on “Fox and Friends” today.
Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa said on “Fox News Sunday” that his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee may issue subpoenas against top Justice Department officials as early as this week over the controversial Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal. The California Republican indicated that some government actions in the Fast and Furious scheme of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) could have been felonious.
Arizona sheriffs would welcome such subpoenas, as they called Friday not only for Holder to step down or be fired but also for President Barack Obama to instigate an independent investigation into the controversy.
And U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has been dogging Fast and Furious along with Issa, maintains that Holder is stonewalling their investigations — and he’s tired of it. I always tell every agency . . . that I have been investigating, the longer you stonewall, when the truth comes out, the more egg you are going to have on your face,” the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Newsmax last week.
Under Fast and Furious, at least 1,400 weapons were allowed to cross the border into Mexico in the hope that they could be traced and would lead ATF agents to cartel bosses.
But ATF lost track of most of the weapons, many of which have been linked to dozens of crimes, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the slaying of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata.
The Arizona sheriffs, speaking at the state capitol in Phoenix on Friday, denounced the 2009 ATF program as a betrayal of state law enforcement. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu noted that the sheriffs joining him in calling for the investigation are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
“This is not a partisan issue, but a serious public safety issue that threatens the safety of our citizens and our deputies,” Babeu said. “Our own federal government has armed the very cartels that our law enforcement are fighting with on a daily basis.”
The sheriffs’ plea for an inquiry came even as Holder himself acknowledged Friday in a five-page letter he sent to six leading members of Congress that the gunrunning operation was “fundamentally flawed” and “completely unacceptable."
However, much of Holder’s letter spurned responsibility for the backfired program and assailed Republican criticism instead. Holder’s letter attacked Gosar specifically for his statement last week that administration officials could be considered “accessories to murder” for their role in the ATF program.
“Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms,” Holder's letter said. “Those who serve in the ranks of law enforcement are our Nation’s heroes and deserve our Nation’s thanks, not the disrespect that is being heaped on them by those who seek political advantage. I trust you feel similarly and I call on you to denounce these statements.”
Gosar refuses to do any such thing, insisting instead that the real issue is the need for government officials to take accountability for their actions.
“This starts with accountability from the top,” said Gosar, who also is a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Pinpointing accountability also is the intent of subpoenas that Issa promises. Issa, who indicated on “Fox News Sunday” that some government actions in Fast and Furious could have been felonious, said his committee intends to grill Justice officials, including Holder, to determine "what did they know and when did they know it?"
"Very clearly he [Holder] had to know when Brian Terry was killed and everyone realized these were Fast and Furious weapons," Issa said. "He had to know something serious had happened, and that's months before he says he knew. If we assume for a moment he didn't know, the question is, is he competent? If in fact a border patrol agent has been murdered, 2,000 weapons have gone [missing], this program has completely gone off the rails — why didn't he know?"
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Holder-resignation-Issa-Gosar/2011/10/09/id/413756
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I'm hearing Hillary is gong to be enmeshed in this soon too.
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I'm hearing Hillary is gong to be enmeshed in this soon too.
I'm hearing Hillary is gong to be enmeshed in this soon too.
where are you hearing it? secret sources that the rest of us don't have access to?
linkpleaes
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where are you hearing it? secret sources that the rest of us don't have access to?
linkpleaes
Cleanupatf.org.
Apparently treaties were violated and Hillary was involved in the new gun tracing effort as she spent a lot of time making those speeches right before fast n furious got underway in Mexico. Look up a guy named Voth.
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Rep. Issa says Fast and Furious subpoenas will be issued soon
cnn.com ^ | Oct. 9, 2011 | CNN Wire Staff
Posted on October 9, 2011 10:19:31 PM EDT by Free ThinkerNY
Washington (CNN) -- House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said Sunday that he could issue subpoenas to the Justice Department this week in connection to a now-discredited federal gunrunning operation.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Issa said that he wants a better understanding of who knew what, when about Operation Fast and Furious.
"But more importantly, we have to understand at what level did the authorization really come?" he said.
"People at the top of (the) Justice (Department) were well briefed, knew about it and seemed to be the command and control and funding for this program."
The operation involved agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowing illegal sales of guns believed to be destined for Mexican drug cartels to "walk" from Phoenix, Arizona, gun stores into Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
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sounds like some conspiracy theory shit.
doesn't mean it's false.
but we at getbig like to paint all CTs as stupid and impossible until they're on FOX news.
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sounds like some conspiracy theory shit.
doesn't mean it's false.
but we at getbig like to paint all CTs as stupid and impossible until they're on FOX news.
Apparently a waiver needed to be granted in order to go through with the scheme since it violated along standing treaty dealing with arms and the waiver needed to come fro state department.
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33,
are you saying there was a concerted effort by top ranking officials in the US govt to allow the sale of thousands of weapons to drug gangs?
And the purpose was to cause violence which can help their political agenda?
You do know how CT that sounds. Don't you? You are prob right... but how does it sound? lol...
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33,
are you saying there was a concerted effort by top ranking officials in the US govt to allow the sale of thousands of weapons to drug gangs?
And the purpose was to cause violence which can help their political agenda?
You do know how CT that sounds. Don't you? You are prob right... but how does it sound? lol...
actually - that is one of the top CTs going around. Obama feared ZETAs and tried to arm the Sinola cartel to ward off violence by the Zetas over the border.
The other CT is the 2 nd amend CT.
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lots of parallels to the wars overseas in this one ;)
But wait, repubs don't arm bad guys to serve their goals. Only dems do that shit. Bush lost all those money and guns, but that shit wasn't on purpose...
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lots of parallels to the wars overseas in this one ;)
But wait, repubs don't arm bad guys to serve their goals. Only dems do that shit. Bush lost all those money and guns, but that shit wasn't on purpose...
It's a lot different when it involves local gun stores who say they were used and dead LE.
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It's a lot different when it involves local gun stores who say they were used and dead LE.
2 dead americans LE, right?
pallets of guns and millions and milions of dollars disappearing in Iraq...
Maybe given to local warlords to 'keep the peace' and subdue other groups we dislike...
And these guns and $ used on way more than 2 of our troops....
You're right, it is a lot different. A lot worse. :(
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i'm not defedning obama btw. i think holder and rummy should share a cell lol...
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2 dead americans LE, right?
pallets of guns and millions and milions of dollars disappearing in Iraq...
Maybe given to local warlords to 'keep the peace' and subdue other groups we dislike...
And these guns and $ used on way more than 2 of our troops....
You're right, it is a lot different. A lot worse. :(
difference is, wrongly or rightly, what goes on 3000 miles away os a lot more easily concealed.
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difference is, wrongly or rightly, what goes on 3000 miles away os a lot more easily concealed.
it's only concealed by fox and the white house. the rest of us kinda knew about it.
IMHO, 9 BILLION (as of 2005 alone... more since) in lost money and weapons hurts american (troops!) much worse than guns sent down south. but yeah, both suck.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
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Has anyone come up with a date Obama is resigning yet?
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Local radio host scores Fast & Furious interview with Sharyl Attkisson
By John Goodman, Philadelphia Conservative Examiner
..Local early morning radio host Chris Stigall landed a huge interview with CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson this Thursday on 1210 WPHT.
The Washington bureau reporter has been at the center of a political firestorm since disclosing that White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz “literally screamed at me and cussed at me," after she pursued a CBS investigation into the Justice Department’s (DOJ) botched “Fast and Furious” operation.
Investigations into the fallout of the debacle seem to implicate one cabinet level official of misleading a congressional hearing and may encompass the Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security.
Fast and Furious itself involved DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) funneling hundreds of guns into Mexico for intelligence gathering purposes. US officials lost track of the weapons, which have since been linked to a series of deaths involving drug cartels as well as the murder of border patrol agent Brian Perry last December.
Advertisement
This Thursday, Philadelphia CBS radio host Chris Stigall interviewed his colleague regarding her investigation, asking her to put the story’s significance into perspective.
“Since the very beginning, those who knew a lot more about this case than I did, including officials who work for the Obama Administration – this is nothing particularly against him or anyone else who happened to be in charge – they have said this is bigger than Iran Contra. They have said this is bigger than Watergate.” Attkisson replied.
The CBS investigative reporter also noted, “The idea that this started as one whistleblower that pretty much all the officials were painting out to be a liar – an ATF agent in Phoenix. And to see where this has moved over the months to officials admitting, okay this program was going on but it was isolated to Phoenix, Arizona. Then saying, okay people did know about it at ATF headquarters, but that’s where it stopped. To saying, ok the White House and DOJ did know about Fast & Furious but they didn’t know about the details.”
Stigall asked Attkisson whether Justice Department head Eric Holder was aware of the operation when he testified before Congress in May.
Attkisson answered that, “Fast and Furious was mentioned at least as far back in memos to the Attorney General as July, 2010. There are briefings from two different organizations, the National Drug Intelligence Center that went directly to the Attorney General as well as from Lanny Breuer, the head of his criminal division in DOJ that mentioned Fast and Furious.”
She then elaborated, “And not just in passing, not just one sentence – these are paragraphs that discuss – they don’t say anything about gun walking. They don’t say we’re letting guns walk into Mexico. But they say things like we have a program going on that’s getting ready for prosecution this is called Fast and Furious. And it’s resulting in over 1,000 guns that are…being found in Mexico with the drug cartels. It mentions specific cartels in some cases. I mean, it’s there. And we don’t have all the briefings. We don’t know what verbal briefings took place. And we don’t have all the documents yet. These are partial documents that have been turned over by the Department of Justice to congress.”
The Philadelphia radio host then queried, “Do you believe Sharyl that this goes beyond the Department of Justice because of the international nature and the homeland security nature? I have read people surmising that this has to involve almost by definition it must involve the Secretary of State’s office and the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Congress is trying to find that out, they’ve been asking for documents from the State Department and other departments and haven’t always gotten – well, they haven’t gotten a lot of what they asked for, so they don’t know yet.” Attkisson replied.
Chris Stigall’s interview with Sharyl Attkisson not only illustrated Eric Holder’s prior knowledge of Fast and Furious; it revealed the unfolding story’s scope to be far greater than what first appeared an embarrassment for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
That questions about ‘who knew what when’ span multiple federal departments indicate this may be only the tip of a sizable political iceberg.
A free podcast of Chris Stegal's full interview with CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is available here
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Continue reading on Examiner.com Local radio host scores Fast & Furious interview with Sharyl Attkisson - Philadelphia Conservative | Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-philadelphia/local-radio-host-scores-fast-furious-interview-with-sharyl-attkisson#ixzz1aNxA9tve
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it's only concealed by fox and the white house. the rest of us kinda knew about it.
IMHO, 9 BILLION (as of 2005 alone... more since) in lost money and weapons hurts american (troops!) much worse than guns sent down south. but yeah, both suck.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
33,
how angry would be be if over nine BILLION DOLLARS had gone missing to mexican gangs? And if 4000 americans were dead as a result?
that's how pissed the anti-war people are. You're starting to show some serious passion. That's how they feel. They realize it is entirely possible for our govt to "let" guns and ammo and $ get sentto bad guys. Serves some agenda.
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CCRKBA To Obama: We May Hire ‘Shadow’ Investigator If You Don’t Appoint One(gunwalker)
Ammoland ^ | 9 October, 2011 | CCRKBA
BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- If President Barack Obama does not appoint a special, independent prosecutor to investigate the Justice Department’s cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious, and find out what Attorney General Eric Holder knew and when he knew it, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms may hire its own “shadow” investigator.
“President Obama told reporters yesterday that he has complete confidence in Eric Holder,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “From our perspective, it looks like the president has complete confidence that Holder will continue to stonewall Congress and cover up this mess. The President has been asked to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the attorney general. If he doesn’t, then someone else must act.”
Gottlieb said the Fast and Furious scandal is “far worse than Watergate, because nobody got killed as a result of Watergate.”
The investigation began when two on-line journalists uncovered evidence that the gun trafficking scheme put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican cartel gunmen. Two of those guns were recovered at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry last December
“Fast and Furious has gotten a lot of people killed,” he observed, “including Brian Terry. CBS News disclosed Friday morning that former Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler knew about Fast and Furious 18 months ago. He’s now Holder’s chief of staff. Yet the President and Holder both stick to the claim that they had no knowledge of the operation. Just how much longer does this administration think the American public is going to believe that story? People aren’t that gullible.
“The public deserves to know whether the Attorney General, the top law enforcement official in the United States, committed perjury when he testified before Congress,” Gottlieb said.
“What’s happening right now is a travesty,” he concluded. “Obama isn’t going to fire Holder or accept his resignation. He desperately needs Holder to stay on the job and continue obfuscating and stonewalling. Obama is more interested in damage control than he is in gun control.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.
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wow, a partisan political group hiring its own investigator.
when 911 victims' families did this, they were mocked.
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by AWR Hawkins
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2790593/posts
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to stall the momentum building behind the Fast and Furious investigation by submitting a letter to Senate and Congressional investigators in which he continued to plead ignorance, and in which he did his best to undercut the progress of the investigation to this point.
In the letter, Holder actually had the gall to re-affirm his feigned ignorance of Fast and Furious: “[I have] no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.” (In other words, Holder’s holding to the timeline he provided to the House Oversight Committee on May 3rd, when he claimed he’d only learned of Fast and Furious over the last “few weeks.”)
However, as I wrote last week for Big Government, documents have been released that show Holder has been receiving briefings on Fast and Furious since July 2010 (and a recently uncovered ATF slideshow makes it feasible that he was briefed as early as March 2010).
Anyway, the good news is that Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) isn’t deviating from his pursuit of justice. Therefore, instead of dropping or slowing the Fast and Furious investigation (in light of Holder’s letter), Issa appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on October 9th and announced that “new subpoenas” will soon be headed Holder’s way.
This news was made worse for Holder by the weekend revelation that 40 Fast and Furious weapons were found in the arsenal of a single cartel member – Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo – and that there is hard proof that approximately 100 Fast and Furious weapons were moved to El Paso, TX (after being purchased in Phoenix) for distribution purposes.
(In addition to assault rifles, these weapons included an anti-aircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.)
Isn’t comforting to know our taxpayer dollars may have been used to buy an anti-aircraft gun for the cartel?
Folks, this is a mess beyond the scope of anything we’ve seen in decades. And we can’t trust Holder to get to the bottom of it: As the New York Post put it, “Holder lied to the American people — under oath, before Congress — and thus is unfit to investigate allegations of criminal negligence in the Justice Department.”
Taking all these things in their totality, issuing the new subpoenas is a great idea, because those come on the heels of Holder’s refusal to admit he wasn’t honest in Congressional testimony on May 3rd. Now, when he’s under oath with all the evidence that’s come out in the last three weeks, his story will have to change or he’ll join Bill Clinton as one of the great obstructionists of our time.
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Issa to Holder: “You OWN Fast and Furious;” resignation calls grow
By Michelle Malkin • October 10, 2011 12:19 PM
Eric Holder is on the hot seat, and GOP Rep. Darrell Issa’s cranking up the temperature.
Sent this morning:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa today sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder responding to his letter of October 7. The text of Chairman Issa’s letter to Attorney General Holder is below:
Dear Attorney General Holder:
From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.
Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.
To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.
Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.
Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.
The Mexican Cartels
A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.” You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”
Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.
Your September 7, 2011 Statement
On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don’t think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we’ll see that’s not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.
Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.
For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.
This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the known drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation.
Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:
I had pulled out all Patino’s — and ROIs is, I’m sorry, report of investigation — and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.
At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.
Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he alerted you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.
In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and Furious and a specific Mexican cartel – the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.
You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. Holder Letter, supra note 1. As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.
The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department – you.
Your May 3, 2011 Statement
On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.
In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.
The February 4, 2011 Letter
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.
As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.
These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.
Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.
Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.
Sincerely,
Darrell Issa
Chairman
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
ICYMI over the weekend:
Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer’s home
Reporting from Washington—
High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF’s Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.
In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The smugglers’ tactics — quickly moving the weapons far from ATF agents in southern Arizona, where it had been assumed they would circulate — vividly demonstrate that what had been viewed as a local problem was much larger. Six other Fast and Furious guns destined for El Paso were recovered in Columbus, N.M.
Cartoon of the day from ATF Report:
Resignation calls grow:
[Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho)] is not the first Republican to call for Holder’s resignation over Fast and Furious.
Earlier this week, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the “only honorable thing” for Holder to do is resign — though he said he doubted he would.
“There are two options: He was lying or he was not doing his job, keeping up with what the Justice Department was doing,” Farenthold said in an interview on NRA News radio. “I would probably resign if that came out, if I had done that.”
There have been a plethora of calls for Holder to resign since he became attorney general in 2009.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) called for Holder to resign in June over his role in Fast and Furious.
Bachmann joins the calls.
Just a reminder: The 19 Senate Republicans who joined Dems to approve corruptocrat Holder’s nomination in the first place:
Alexander (R-TN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Chambliss (R-Ga)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Here are the 21 Republicans who voted no…and can say “I told you so:”
Barrasso
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
McConnell
Risch
roberts
Shelby
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
Posted in: Corruption,Eric Holder,GunsPrinter Friendly comments (34) trackb
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How's the resignation letter coming along?
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Issa: Holder's defense on Fast and Furious ‘has reached a new low'
The Hill ^ | October 10, 2011 | Jordy Yager
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued a scathing reply to Attorney General Eric Holder over his role in the authorization of a botched gun-tracking operation and the Justice Department’s cooperation with a congressional investigation.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa said the DOJ has tried to detract his panel’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious since it began, offering “a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program.”
In a letter sent to Holder on Sunday and publically released on Monday, Issa lists several instances in which the DOJ either denied the existence of the gun “walking” tactics used in Fast and Furious — the process of allowing for the sale or delivery of firearms into the hands of suspected criminals — or dragged its feet in turning over documents the committee had subpoenaed.
“All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees,” wrote Issa.
Holder has found himself at the center of Issa’s investigation, launched with cooperation from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.), into Fast and Furious, which may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
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•Holder on collision course with Congress
•Issa says new subpoenas coming in probe
Internal Justice Department memos released last week show that Holder was notified about the existence of the operation as early as last year. Holder testified in May before the House Judiciary Committee that he did not know about the operation until recently. The White House and the DOJ said that Holder was referring to when he was made aware of the controversial and taboo tactics used in the operation.
After enduring a week’s worth of criticism from Republicans — including calls for his resignation, accusations that he was trying to devise a cover-up, and a statement that he was an accessory to murder — Holder wrote a letter to the chairman and ranking members of three committees with jurisdiction over the DOJ. Holder said the latest fury of congressional reaction was irresponsible.
"I cannot sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered 'accessories to murder,'” wrote Holder.
“Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms."
But Issa shot back in his most recent letter, saying that instead of addressing the shortcomings of the DOJ to deliver pertinent and timely information about the operation to Congress, Holder denigrated the already contentious relationship between the Justice Department and Congress even further with his letter.
Holder’s letter “did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization” of Fast and Furious, said Issa.
Issa, who is pushing for Holder to appear before Congress again to testify, said it called into question his ability to serve the American people as attorney general.
“It appears your latest defense has reached a new low,” wrote Issa.
“Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility in serious doubt.”
In his letter, Issa pointed to Gary Grindler, Holder’s chief of staff and the former acting deputy attorney general, as one example that senior DOJ officials knew about Fast and Furious and the tactics it employed as early as last year.
In March 2010, Grindler was made aware of the operation’s gun sales to a suspected straw buyer who lived on food stamps, according to Issa’s letter. The buyer paid for more than 700 guns with cash and Grindler did nothing to stop the operation, said Issa.
Issa said that Grindler either told Holder about the operation and its tactics, or he did not. If he did tell Holder, then the attorney general was not being truthful when he told Congress that he was only made recently aware of the operation. If Grindler did not tell Holder, then it would be considered a “dereliction of his duties.”
Issa concludes that Grindler must have told Holder because he was not fired for “dereliction” and was instead given his current job as Holder’s chief of staff.
This story was updated at 1:47 p.m.
BBBOOOMMM!!!!
The new Obama Defense: "I am not a criminal, i am just incompetent"
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Any date yet when he will resign?
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Any date yet when he will resign?
getting closer and closer - be patient.
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What happens when he doesn't?
Just another little bullshit prediction of yours that didn't come true?
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What happens when he doesn't?
Just another little bullshit prediction of yours that didn't come true?
holder will go first - then he will turn on MAObama and the entire ponzi scheme admn will collapse like a house of cards.
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and get this it's going to cost 200 million a day
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How's the resignation letter coming along?
Try reading Michelle's lips - I think she mentions it after trashing the flag!
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Breaking: new evidence shows Hillary a mastermind behind Gunwalker
By Anthony Martin, Conservative Examiner
..Last week it was reported that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were deeply involved in the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, or Project Gunwalker. Today, however, new evidence has surfaced indicating that not only was Hillary deeply involved in the scandal but was one of the masterminds behind it.
According to investigative citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh, sources close to the development of the Gunwalker scheme state that early on, Hillary and her trusted associated at State, Andrew J. Shapiro, devised at least part of the framework of what would later become Operation Fast and Furious. It was Shapiro who first described the details of the proposed scheme early in 2009 just after the Obama Administration took office.
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Vanderboegh relates the following:
My sources say that as Hillary's trusted subordinate, it was Shapiro who first described to the Secretary of State the details of what has become the Gunwalker Scandal.
The precise extent to which Hillary Clinton's knowledge of, and responsibility for, the Gunwalker Plot, lies within the memories of these two men, Shapiro and Steinberg, sources say.
The sources also express dismay that the Issa committee is apparently restricting itself to the Department of Justice and not venturing further afield. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, they say, needs to summon these two men and their subordinates -- especially at the Mexico Desk at State -- and question them under oath as to what Hillary Clinton knew about the origins of the Gunwalker Scandal and when she knew it.
There is one other thing those sources agree upon. The CIA, they say, knows "everything" about the "Mexican hat dance" that became the Gunwalker Scandal.
The 'Steinberg' mentioned in the quote above is Hillary Clinton's former Deputy Secretary of State, who was appointed directly by Barack Obama and was considered from the start to be an 'Obama man' whose objective was to carry out the wishes of the President in the State Department.
Hillary had said of Steinberg,
Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.
That statement is key. Hillary herself stayed out of all meetings dealing with strategy concerning the euphemism the Administration used to designate Gunwalker, 'strategy meetings on Mexico and the problem of drug and gun trafficking.' Hillary's absence would give the impression that she had no connection to the scheme while making sure that her views were represented by Steinberg and Shapiro, both of whom were fully complicit with the details that developed concerning how to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico.
According to sources, Hillary was obsessed with gun statistics that would prove that '90% of the firearms used by Mexican criminals come from the United States.' As previouly reported, that meme, repeated incessantly by Democratic Senators, Barack Obama, certan members of the ATF, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton was patently and blatantly false. The fact that they all knew it was false is borne out by the lengths to which each of the above named co-conspirators went to attempt to 'prove' that the 90% figure was true.
Again, Vanderboegh relates the following:
My sources say that this battle of the "statistics" was taken very seriously by all players -- the White House, State and Justice. Yet, WHY was this game of statistics so important to the players? If some weapons from the American civilian market were making it to Mexico into the hand of drug gang killers that was bad enough. What was the importance of insisting that it was 90 percent, 80 percent, or finally 70 percent? Would such statistics make any difference to the law enforcement tactics necessary to curtail them? No.
This statistics mania is similar to the focus on "body counts" in Vietnam. Yet if Vietnam body counts were supposed to be a measure of how we were winning that war, the focus on the 90 percent meme was certainly not designed to be a measure of how we were winning the war against arming the cartels, but rather by what overwhelming standard we were LOSING. Why?
Recall what the whistleblower ATF agents told us right after this scandal broke in the wake of the death of Brian Terry: "ATF source confirms ‘walking’ guns to Mexico to ‘pad’ statistics."
Thus, from the beginning the scheme was to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico in order to be in a strengthened position to call for gun bans and strict gun control at a time when it was politically unpopular. Further, the scheme would involve a made-up statistic, out of thin air--90%--which then had to be proved by using civilian gun retailers along the southern border as unsuspecting pawns to walk U.S. guns into Mexico by ATF agents, straw purchasers, and others with connections to Mexican drug cartels.
And the evidence points to the fact that Hillary Clinton was one of the original Administration officials who was 'in the loop' on the scheme from the very beginning.
Continue reading on Examiner.com Breaking: new evidence shows Hillary a mastermind behind Gunwalker - National Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/breaking-new-evidence-show-hillary-a-mastermind-behind-gunwalker#ixzz1aPmqJHUQ
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Sipsey Street Exclusive: "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal. Part 3. "Caesar's Wife" and the "Mexican hat dance."
"Hillary doesn't have to audition for the part of Caesar's wife. She knows when to be out of the room." -- Anonymous State Department source.
Since it has been a few days, readers might want to refresh their memories by revisiting "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal. Part 2. The 90% Myth. "I have not backed off" an AWB. The last four paragraphs:
My sources say that this battle of the "statistics" was taken very seriously by all players -- the White House, State and Justice. Yet, WHY was this game of statistics so important to the players? If some weapons from the American civilian market were making it to Mexico into the hand of drug gang killers that was bad enough. What was the importance of insisting that it was 90 percent, 80 percent, or finally 70 percent? Would such statistics make any difference to the law enforcement tactics necessary to curtail them? No.
This statistics mania is similar to the focus on "body counts" in Vietnam. Yet if Vietnam body counts were supposed to be a measure of how we were winning that war, the focus on the 90 percent meme was certainly not designed to be a measure of how we were winning the war against arming the cartels, but rather by what overwhelming standard we were LOSING. Why?
Recall what the whistleblower ATF agents told us right after this scandal broke in the wake of the death of Brian Terry: "ATF source confirms ‘walking’ guns to Mexico to ‘pad’ statistics."
In "In at the beginning, Part 3," our sources tell us how the demand to "pad statistics" from on high apparently led to the tactic of "letting the guns walk."
Indeed, our sources say, Hillary was obsessed with defending the 90 percent meme. There was a pervasive sense at the highest levels of the White House, State, Justice and in DHS that the Mexican agony could provide domestic opportunities for Rahm Emanuel's dictum: "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the sources say.
At the strategic level, this meant that there were increasing demands for "better statistics." In other words, if the 90 percent meme was not provable it must be because enough statistics of the "right" sort were not being gathered. Again, the comparison with Vietnam War body counts was striking, say the sources. The demand this time though, as noted above in Part 2, was for statistics indicating defeat, not victory.
The political implications of this, say the sources, were evident at State long before the knowledge about Fast and Furious and gunwalking became public. From the repeated statements from Obama to Hillary and on down the Obama administration food chain it was obvious to the the State Department sources that what the "Mexican hat dance" (to use the words of one my sources) was about was to justify more federal firearms restrictions.
The sources hastened, in every case, to explain to me that Hillary kept herself at arms-length from some of the critical strategy meetings at both the White House political level (Obama and Emanuel) and the National Security Council policy administrative level about Mexico and Project Gunrunner program.
Said one, "Hillary doesn't have to audition for the part of Caesar's wife. She knows when to be out of the room." The source added that while her demands for "better," i.e., higher, statistics of American civilian market firearms seized at Mexican crime scenes were "incessant," Hillary knew instinctively to stay out of the meetings where HOW those "better statistics" were to be achieved were discussed.
They also cautioned against expecting any mention of the tactic of "walking guns" at the higher levels of this scandal. More guns in Mexico from American civilian firearm sources found beside dead bodies was the implicit goal, they say, but don't look for any specific mention of the tactic of "gunwalking" at Hillary's level in documents yet to be discovered. As my "old spook" source said in early March:
"Do you think," he asked me, "that this happened accidentally in a vacuum?" Meaning that one day "Gunwalker Bill" Newell, Phoenix SAC, just got a wild hair and decided to invent his own foreign policy. "Things like this happen because of meetings. People sit in meetings and they decide what they want to happen. And then they take decisions, make policy and implement that policy to achieve those ends." He added, "That's why State is so nervous. They signed off on this. In a meeting."
. . . He added, "Of course the meeting transcripts won't reflect the truth so plainly, but then neither did the Wannsee Conference. These bastards always talk in riddles about what they're really after. Watch what they do, not what they say."
The sources at State repeatedly cautioned about looking for mentions of the tactical ("gunwalking") in strategic level documents and meeting transcripts. "They will all say that they didn't know about any 'Fast and Furious' or 'gunwalking,'" one source said, "and they will be accurate. . . as far it goes." What such statements are hiding, all the sources said, is the strategic fact that the higher ups wanted to achieve: the 90 percent myth. Exactly HOW that was accomplished with the tactic of gunwalking, my sources say, probably was closely held within a small group at the National Security Council and designated "in the know" people at various critical command and control points in the various agencies.
The sources believe that there were two people close to Hillary (one by position, one personally) who knew the broad outlines of the "gunwalking strategy," and thus are culpable in its bloody tactical results. One was Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg. Recall Hillary's statement upon Steinberg's resignation from "In at the beginning," Part 1:
Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.
Part of this was that Steinberg was, first and foremost, an Obama man and not "loyal" to Hillary as the Clinton partisans saw it. Part also was that Hillary preferred to maintain personal distance from the White House staff, preferring to run her shop and not have to deal with Obama minions, but rather with Obama himself when she felt the need to. But part of it, too, say the sources was Hillary's cat-like sense of danger where the Obama partisans were concerned.
The Obama White House denizens, said one source, were inexperienced, reckless and arrogant, whereas Hillary had been taught by experience the virtues of not getting caught in policy blow-back. There was also a sense of Hillary preserving her political options if an Obama presidency imploded from the aforementioned inexperience, recklessness and arrogance. Hillary demanded to KNOW everything that was going on, said one source, but wanted insulation from the execution of reckless policy, which the gunwalking policy certainly was. But that demand for information led to a closer exposure of Clinton herself to the Gunwalker Scandal, say the sources.
The other man close to Hillary but familiar about the overall gunwalking strategy, sources say, was Andrew J. Shapiro, Clinton's Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State.
A Hillary intimate, Wikipedia says:
Shapiro then became a legislative assistant for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D–NY). In 2005, Clinton appointed him as her senior defense and foreign policy adviser. In this capacity, he was Senator Clinton's liaison with the Pentagon and worked closely with her in connection with her work as a member of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. According to The New Republic "it is Shapiro, Hillaryites say, who is in the room for most of her important foreign policy decisions" as senator. Shapiro has been described as a hawk on defense and Israel, and was reportedly influential in Clinton's decision to vote in favor of the Iraq Resolution in 2002.
During the 2008 presidential election, Shapiro was a member of Hillary Clinton's campaign team, with his special focus being on foreign affairs.
During the presidential transition of Barack Obama, Shapiro was a member of the Obama-Biden Department of Defense Agency Review Team. Following the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as United States Secretary of State on January 21, 2009, President of the United States Barack Obama nominated Shapiro as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. After Senate confirmation, Shapiro was sworn into office on June 22, 2009.
My sources say that as Hillary's trusted subordinate, it was Shapiro who first described to the Secretary of State the details of what has become the Gunwalker Scandal.
The precise extent to which Hillary Clinton's knowledge of, and responsibility for, the Gunwalker Plot, lies within the memories of these two men, Shapiro and Steinberg, sources say.
The sources also express dismay that the Issa committee is apparently restricting itself to the Department of Justice and not venturing further afield. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, they say, needs to summon these two men and their subordinates -- especially at the Mexico Desk at State -- and question them under oath as to what Hillary Clinton knew about the origins of the Gunwalker Scandal and when she knew it.
There is one other thing those sources agree upon. The CIA, they say, knows "everything" about the "Mexican hat dance" that became the Gunwalker Scandal.
In Part 4 of "In at the beginning" we will explore the interface between the State Department, the CIA and the Gunwalker Plot.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/10/sipsey-street-exclusive-in-at-beginning_10.html
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I told you guys - this thing goes to Hillary - MaoBama - Holder - etc.
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Dear Attorney General Holder:
From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.
Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.
To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.
Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.
Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.
The Mexican Cartels
A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.” You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”
Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.
Your September 7, 2011 Statement
On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don't think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we'll see that's not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.
Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.
For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.
This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the known drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation.
Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:
I had pulled out all Patino's -- and ROIs is, I'm sorry, report of investigation -- and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.
At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.
Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he alerted you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.
In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and Furious and a specific Mexican cartel – the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.
You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. Holder Letter, supra note 1. As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.
The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department – you.
Your May 3, 2011 Statement
On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.
In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.
The February 4, 2011 Letter
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.
As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.
These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.
Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.
Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.
Sincerely, Darrell Issa Chairman
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http://www.examiner.com/drug-cartel-in-national/drug-tr...
examiner.com's Dave Gibson, drug cartel Examiner:
"The same drug trafficker, Vicente Zambada Niebla, who now claims the U.S. government entered into a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel to allow tons of drugs into the country over the last five years, has also alleged that thousands were murdered in Mexico as a result of the now, infamous ATF scheme.
"Though the U.S. government has denied his claims, it now appears that they may have some merit."
Gibson claims that Niebla's claim is bolstered by discovery of a recent cache of weapons found in the residence of drug Torres Marrufo in Ciudad Juarez. The cache included "40 assault weapons," a grenade launchers, and an "anti-aircraft gun." At the time of the seizure earlier this year, the seizure was hailed by the Chihuahua state Governor Duarte as the biggest load of weapons seized in Juarez. But according to Gibson:
"Gov. Duarte was not yet aware that the ATF was responsible for sending most of the weapons to the cartel operative.
Though Torres Marrufo has been indicted in the United States, he remains at-large at this time."
Niebla, according to Gibson, is seeking papers from the U.S. government which will prove a guns-for-drugs swap, including an okay for his participation.
Bigger than Iran contra and watergate.
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""The same drug trafficker, Vicente Zambada Niebla, who now claims the U.S. government entered into a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel to allow tons of drugs into the country over the last five years, has also alleged that thousands were murdered in Mexico as a result of the now, infamous ATF scheme."
This is bigger than obama, 33. You're starting to see what the CTers have been saying for 20 years. We let drugs & guns happen. End of story. Move on to a new topic. Dancing with the stars?
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""The same drug trafficker, Vicente Zambada Niebla, who now claims the U.S. government entered into a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel to allow tons of drugs into the country over the last five years, has also alleged that thousands were murdered in Mexico as a result of the now, infamous ATF scheme."
This is bigger than obama, 33. You're starting to see what the CTers have been saying for 20 years. We let drugs & guns happen. End of story. Move on to a new topic. Dancing with the stars?
You would love that wouldn't you?
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You would love that wouldn't you?
I'll be happy when you see this isn't an obama crime. It's ongoing govt policy that isn't talked about. And it is not going to stop.
Some shit is bigger than the president, and serves its purpose. Above our pay grade.
have a beer and enjoy the bears loss
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That Issa letter was a punch in the mouth. Holder is in deep kimchee. Definitely possible he does not survive this.
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Gunwalker: Issa reveals DEA involvement.
Pajamas Media ^ | 11 October, 2011 | Bob Owens
Posted on October 11, 2011 3:38:31 AM EDT by Watchdog85
"It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF."
It was a brutal weekend for the Obama administration: Gunwalker continued unraveling at a faster pace, with new developments suggesting that Attorney General Eric Holder may not be the only Obama appointee destined for a political fall and possible criminal charges.
In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa revealed for the first time that the Drug Enforcement Administration was far more involved in running the operation than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:
It wasn’t an ATF operation. They were part of that. It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF.
This directly conflicts with prior statements by DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart — she claimed that the DEA only played a supporting role and that her DEA agents in El Paso and Phoenix were only “indirectly involved in the ATF operation through DEA-associated investigative activity.” She further absolved her agency by claiming that “DEA personnel had no decision-making role in ATF operations” associated with Fast and Furious.
The DEA’s higher-profile role will not absolve ATF personnel for their roles in carrying out the plot politically, but it could potentially make a difference in future criminal proceedings if ATF agents on the front lines of the operation thought they were participating in a legitimate law enforcement operation.
Unfortunately for the Department of Justice, the higher level of collusion between different federal law enforcement agencies that report to the attorney general make it even more unlikely that Eric Holder and other senior DOJ personnel were unaware of the real goal of the operation.
Issa’s committee is in the process of preparing subpoenas for members of the Obama administration to try to find out who authorized the operation, and to ask why they have not been forthcoming if they believed the operations to be legal:
Why are they denying knowing about something that they were briefed on? … Exactly when, the American people want to know, how did it happen?
Issa also revealed for the first time the magnitude of the largest individual gunwalking incidents, noting that one effort involved the shipment of 700 guns to the Sinaloa cartel.
Issa continued:
This is about Justice Department knowing, and this is where the American people have a right to know more, knowing that these guns were deliberately intended to end up in the hands of the drug cartels without any kind of traceability, except if you find a gun in the scene of the crime. That is the reason that it is felony and stupid — and I use the word “felony” deliberately — program.
A massive stockpile containing dozens of Operation Fast and Furious weapons was recovered in Mexico at an arsenal hidden in the Ciudad Juarez home of Sinaloa cartel enforcer Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo. The raid occurred on April 30; the revelation that 40 of the guns were from the gunwalking plot constitutes breaking news and confirmation that the plot worked as designed.
Mexican politicians and media are far more enraged than their complacent U.S. counterparts. One op-ed asked if the U.S. should be considered an “ally or enemy.” Mexico’s Attorney General Marisela Morales, who stated that more than 200 Mexican citizens have been killed with Fast and Furious weapons, referred to the Obama administration plot as “an attack on Mexicans’ security.”
The mainstream media, perhaps fearing even more damage to their credibility and bottom line, finally started covering the scandal late last week. A sad example of this me-too, late-to-the-game journalism is David Jackson’s article at USA Today — four paragraphs of current information grafted onto a nine-paragraph blockquote from an existing CBS News article.
House Republicans showed no sign of backing down. One of the most outspoken on this scandal, Rep. Paul Gosar, continued to blast the administration:
Gosar told The Daily Caller that “In Main Street America, you’d never get away with” dissembling about the gun-walking program, and that in different circumstances, ”the people who’ve been responsible would’ve already been in jail.”
A bipartisan group of ten Arizona sheriffs (5 Republican, 5 Democrat) has called for a special counsel to investigate the gunwalking operations, joining House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and a number of others.
Mike Vanderboegh, one of the bloggers who broke open the scandal, is continuing a detailed series of articles that increasingly point to a State Department role in setting up these gunwalking operations. Vanderboegh’s sources within the Department are the first to name names, including: Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Andrew J. Shapiro, Clinton’s assistant secretary for political-military affairs.
State insiders apparently referred to the gunwalking plot as “the Mexican Hat Dance,” and claim the goal of the plot was, as we’ve indicated before, to support the 90-percent lie.
With State and DOJ coming under fire, it seems only a matter of time before evidence comes forth to implicate Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the person that would have been most integral in supporting this plot. Operation Fast and Furious took place in Arizona, where Napolitano had been governor and her former chief of staff, Dennis Burke, was the U.S. attorney theoretically in charge of the multi-agency task force.
In the interim, Holder’s letter attacking the messenger last week was returned with even greater force by Issa in a letter which pulled no punches:
Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.
Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.
With three cabinet-level secretaries and their staffs involved in a plot to create a murderous reality to match White House rhetoric, it seems only a matter of time before subpoenas are directed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Gunwalker: Issa reveals DEA involvement.
"It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF."
Just admit the CTers were right. Just admit it. This is way more than Obama, holder and hilary whispering about some evil plan. This is what the govt does. Say it, 33!! :)
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holder will go first - then he will turn on MAObama and the entire ponzi scheme admn will collapse like a house of cards.
What happens when he doesn't?
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Operation Wide Receiver: It Was Different
Flopping Aces ^ | 10-11-11 | Warren Beatty
Similar Operations?
By now everyone has heard of Operation Fast and Furious, and how the Congressional investigation of it is getting closer and closer to Attorney General Eric Holder. But did you know that Operation Fast and Furious was not the first such operation? Operation Wide Receiver, predecessor of Fast and Furious, was an operation during the George W. Bush administration.
Operation Wide Receiver, begun in 2006 and ended in 2007, had 500 weapons straw purchased, while Fast and Furious, begun in 2009 and ended in late 2010, shortly after border agent Brian Terry's death, had at least 2000 guns involved. Of the 2,000 guns released by ATF agents in Operation Fast and Furious, only 600 were recovered, leaving 1,400 guns unrecovered. (Some reports put the number of unrecovered guns at over 2000)
Same Tactics?
Pete Yost, reporter for the Associated Press, "The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers - <i>the same tactic</i> that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday. [emphasis mine]
Did both operations allow for straw purchasers to buy guns? Yes, but... the primary difference between Operation Fast and Furious under Obama and Operation Wide Receiver under Bush is that under Obama guns were allowed to go back into Mexico without interdiction or arrests. The "same tactic" was not used under President Bush. Project Gunrunner, started as a pilot program in Laredo, Texas, of which Operation Wide Receiver was a part, involved straw purchasers buying weapons, but those purchasers were immediately apprehended before crossing back into Mexico or transferring arms to dangerous criminals. In fact, straw purchaser arrests and prosecutions have been way down under Obama's administration, so much so it's almost as if the Obama Justice Department has no interest in prosecuting illegal straw purchasers at all.
The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Darrell Issa (R-CA), is ready to look at any evidence that the Obama administration will turn over regarding Operation Wide Receiver, but the Justice Department has so far refused to turn over documentation relating to that case, even though his committee subpoenaed them months ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
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and get this it's going to cost 200 million a day
SWAT is going to be called on him.
um.. his security detail will
um er...
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Fast and Furious: Holder To Be Hit With Subpoena
Flopping Aces ^ | 10-11-11 | Curt
Sharyl Attkisson, the same CBS reporter who was screamed at by the White House to stop reporting on the Fast and Furious gun scandal, is reporting today that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) will be issuing a subpoena to DOJ head Eric Holder:
CBS News has learned a congressional subpoena directed to Attorney General Eric Holder could go out as early as Tuesday, ordering him to turn over documents to lawmakers about when he was aware of a controversial gun smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports the the subpoena will come from the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Darrell Issa. It will ask for communications among senior Justice Department officials related to Fast and Furious and “gunwalking.”
The subpoena will list those officials, says Attkisson – more than a dozen of them – by name.
This is the latest salvo after Holder did his best song and dance routine to weasel out of the spotlight:
I cannot sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered "accessories to murder."
As I have said, the fact that even a single gun was not interdicted in this operation and found a way to Mexico is unacceptable. Equally unacceptable however, is the fact that too many in Congress are opposed to any discussion of fixing loopholes in the laws that facilitate the staggering flow of guns each year across our border to the South.
While failing to interdict weapons is an unacceptable tactic to stop the flow of illegal weapons, it seems clear that some in Congress are more interested in using this regrettable incident to score political points than in addressing the underlying problem.
Until we move beyond the current political divide where real solutions take a back seat to both political posturing and making headlines on cable news programs...nothing is going to change.
After which Issa laid out a detailed letter explaining why Holder OWNS the Fast and Furious gun scandal:
From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.
Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.
To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.
And just over the weekend more news came out about those guns:
This arsenal uncovered by police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in April turned out to include weapons
from the ATF's ill-fated Fast and Furious operation. (Associated Press)
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
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SWAT is going to be called on him.
um.. his security detail will
um er...
I think michelle mentioned the flag during that whitey tape.
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BREAKING - FNC: Eric Holder presser in 30 minutes
FoxNews | October 11, 2011
Breaking on Fox ...
________________________ ________________________
GET THE LEG IRONS OUT!
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BREAKING - FNC: Eric Holder presser in 30 minutes
FoxNews | October 11, 2011
Correct, 33.
His FBI just worked with DEA to defeat iran/mex assasination ring.
Holder gets to play the hero today.
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BREAKING - FNC: Eric Holder subpoenad in 30 minutes
10/11/2011
"Gunwalking" subpoena for AG Holder imminent
CBS News - 7 minutes ago
CBS News has learned a congressional subpoena directed to Attorney General Eric Holder could go out as early as Tuesday, ordering him to turn over documents to lawmakers about when he was aware of a controversial gun smuggling operation known as Fast ...
Congressional Investigators to Subpoena Holder in Fast and Furious Probe
Fox News - William Lajeunesse - 2 hours ago
EXCLUSIVE: Congressional investigators probing the failed anti-gunrunning operation Fast and Furious are sending a new subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder -- seeking communications from about a dozen top Justice Department ...
Congressional Investigators to Subpoena Holder in Fast and Furious ...
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
Fox News - William Lajeunesse - 2 hours ago
Congressional investigators probing the failed anti-gunrunning operation Fast and Furious are sending a new subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder.
Video: Obama Defends Holder on Fast and Furious
YouTube
Opinion: Eric Holder, Obama's albatross Washington Post
In-Depth: Source: Congress to issue "Fast and Furious" subpoenas CNN
CBS News - BusinessWeek
all 814 news articles »
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I think michelle mentioned the flag during that whitey tape.
Did Obama have his feet on the furniture when she said it?
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Issa Issues Subpoena to Holder in Fast and Furious Investigation (BREAKING)
fox ^ | 10/12/2011 | fn
Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a subpoena Wednesday to Attorney General Eric Holder as part of his investigation into the gun trafficking operation known as "Fast and Furious." "Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," the California Republican said in a statement. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth." The subpoena seeks, among other things, all communications regarding the operation from 16 top Justice officials, including Holder, his chief of staff, Gary Grindler, and the head of the department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, as well as correspondence on specific dates to and from the former head of the ATF's Phoenix field division, William Newell. It also asks for all documents and communications referring or relating to the murder of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, including any correspondence outlining the details of Zapata's mission at the time he was murdered. Congressional investigators are demanding information regarding the investigation into the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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Did Obama have his feet on the furniture when she said it?
Seems to me that any politician who tries to sink Holder - when he is leading hte charge to stop these Iranian terrorists - is aiding and abetting the enemy.
I mean, holder is THE GUY who caught them. He made it happen. He's searching for the bad guy on the loose now.
And republicans want to focus on some old fialed law enforcement directive that is derived from Bush allowing the drug trade?
I just wish people would let holder save america from the iranians. Keep america safe!
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Fast and Furious Subpoenas
10:19 am October 12, 2011, by Jamie Dupree
House Republicans today announced that they had sent subpoenas to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to gain more information about Operation Fast and Furious, the controversial gun-walking program that allowed weapons to go to Mexican drug gangs.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) says his Oversight Committee wants some very basic information, described below.
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The subpoena seeks the following:
In accordance with the attached schedule instructions, you, Eric H. Holder Jr., are required to produce all records in unredacted form described below:
1.All communications referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious, the Jacob Chambers case, or any Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) firearms trafficking case based in Phoenix, Arizona, to or from the following individuals:
a. Eric Holder Jr., Attorney General;
b. David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General;
c. Gary Grindler, Office of the Attorney General and former Acting Deputy Attorney General;
d. James Cole, Deputy Attorney General;
e. Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General;
f. Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General;
g. Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;
h. Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;
i. John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;
j. Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;
k. Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General;
l. Ed Siskel, former Associate Deputy Attorney General;
m. Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General;
n. Kevin Carwile, Section Chief, Capital Case Unit, Criminal Division;
o. Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section, Criminal Division; and,
p. James Trusty, Acting Chief, Organized Crime and Gang Section.
2. All communications between and among Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and Executive Office of the President employees, including but not limited to Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any other firearms trafficking cases.
3. All communications between DOJ employees and Executive Office of the President employees referring or relating to the President's March 22, 2011 interview with Jorge Ramos of Univision.
4. All documents and communications referring or relating to any instances prior to February 4, 2011 where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) failed to interdict weapons that had been illegally purchased or transferred.
5. All documents and communications referring or relating to any instances prior to February 4, 2011 where ATF broke off surveillance of weapons and subsequently became aware that those weapons entered Mexico.
6. All documents and communications referring or relating to the murder of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, including but not limited to documents and communications regarding Zapata's mission when he was murdered, Form for Reporting Information That May Become Testimony (FD-302), photographs of the crime scene, and investigative reports prepared by the FBI.
7. All communications to or from William Newell, former Special Agent-in-Charge for ATF's Phoenix Field Division, between:
a. December 14, 2010 to January 25, 2011; and,
b. March 16, 2009 to March 19, 2009.
8. All Reports of Investigation (ROIs) related to Operation Fast and Furious or ATF Case Number 785115-10-0004.
9. All communications between and among Matt Axelrod, Kenneth Melson, and William Hoover referring or relating to ROIs identified pursuant to Paragraph 7.
10. All documents and communications between and among former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., former Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any OCDETF case originating in Arizona.
11. All communications sent or received between:
a. December 16, 2009 and December 18, 2009, and;
b. March 9, 2011 and March 14, 2011, to or from the following individuals:
•Emory Hurley, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
•Michael Morrissey, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
•Patrick Cunningham, Chief, Criminal Division, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
•David Voth, Group Supervisor, ATF; and,
•Hope MacAllister, Special Agent, ATF.
12. All communications sent or received between December 15, 2010 and December 17, 2010 to or from the following individuals in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona:
a. Dennis Burke, former United States Attorney;
b. Emory Hurley, Assistant United States Attorney;
c. Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney; and,
d. Patrick Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division.
13. All communications sent or received between August 7, 2009 and March 19, 2011 between and among former Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual; Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer; and, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz.
14. All communications sent or received between August 7, 2009 and March 19, 2011 between and among former Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual and any Department of Justice employee based in Mexico City referring or relating to firearms trafficking initiatives, Operation Fast and Furious or any firearms trafficking case based in Arizona, or any visits by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer to Mexico.
15. Any FD-302 relating to targets, suspects, defendants, or their associates, bosses, or financiers in the Fast and Furious investigation, including but not limited to any FD-302s ATF Special Agent Hope MacAllister provided to ATF leadership during the calendar year 2011.
16. Any investigative reports prepared by the FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) referring or relating to targets, suspects, or defendants in the Fast and Furious case.
17. Any investigative reports prepared by the FBI or DEA relating to the individuals described to Committee staff at the October 5, 2011 briefing at Justice Department headquarters as Target Number 1 and Target Number 2.
18. All documents and communications in the possession, custody or control of the DEA referring or relating to Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta.
19. All documents and communications between and among FBI employees in Arizona and the FBI Laboratory, including but not limited to employees in the Firearms/Toolmark Unit, referring or relating to the firearms recovered during the course of the investigation of Brian Terry's death.
20. All agendas, meeting notes, meeting minutes, and follow-up reports for the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys between March 1, 2009 and July 31, 2011, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious.
21. All weekly reports and memoranda for the Attorney General, either directly or through the Deputy Attorney General, from any employee in the Criminal Division, ATF, DEA, FBI, or the National Drug Intelligence Center created between November 1, 2009 and September 30, 2011.
22. All surveillance tapes recorded by pole cameras inside the Lone Wolf Trading Co. store between 12:00 a.m. on October 3, 2010 and 12:00 a.m. on October 7, 2010.
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LMFAO.
Look for these people to be too busy with this Iran thing.
Look for the emails to get lost in a convenient backup.
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LMFAO.
Look for these people to be too busy with this Iran thing.
Look for the emails to get lost in a convenient backup.
Once Holder goes down - the damn will burst. The Insider Blog who posts on this said the WH is in sheer panic over this.
you can joke all you like about this since to you this is no biggie at all and you want obama for life, thats cool, but this scandal is going to topple obama and you know it.
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right, cause we all know that Andy Sipowicz will have Holder writing a confession in 3 minutes, right?
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit....
It'll be Pardon City.
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If you are so sure... why don't you place money on it?
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http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/12/gunwalker-is-only-the-tip-of-a-scandal-iceberg
Wow!
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Issa subpoenas Justice Department, Holder for Fast and Furious documents
The Hill ^ | 10/12/11 | Jordy Yager and Daniel Strauss
Posted on October 12, 2011 10:47:50 PM EDT by neverdem
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) subpoenaed Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday for documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.
Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, contends Holder knew more about the botched operation than he has told Congress. His subpoenas are directed to Holder and other senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged,” Issa said in a statement announcing the subpoenas.
“The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It’s time we know the whole truth.”
The 22-item subpoena seeks documents and communication records between Holder, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona, Executive Office of the President employees — including the White House’s associate communications director, Eric Schultz — and nearly 20 other high-ranking officials within the DOJ.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on Issa’s committee, called the subpoena a “political stunt.”
“This subpoena is a deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee’s authority,” Cummings said in a statement. “It demands tens of thousands of pages of highly sensitive law enforcement and national security materials that have never been requested before and are completely unrelated to Operation Fast and Furious.”
Under Operation Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) oversaw the sale of thousands of firearms to known or suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels in the hope of dismantling their gun trafficking routes. But the guns weren’t given proper supervision and most of them disappeared. Two of the guns sold under the operation were found at Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder scene in Arizona last year.
Recently released internal Justice Department memos show Holder was notified about Operation Fast and Furious as early as last year, but the DOJ and the White House have said Holder didn’t learn about the operation’s controversial gun “walking” tactics until earlier this year when he requested an internal inspector general (IG) investigation.
Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have said DOJ is “stonewalling” their efforts by not delivering the documents they’ve requested.
In a recent letter to Holder, Issa said the DOJ has used a “roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program.” Issa also said that the delaying tactics have been used “to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.”
The DOJ has said that it doesn’t want to jeopardize its prosecutions of straw buyers being tried with evidence gathered from Fast and Furious. As a result, the department has declined to turn over some documents but instead has offered them for in-camera review.
At a press conference on Tuesday announcing the DOJ’s disruption of an alleged assassination plot, Holder said that the agency had complied with Issa’s requests for documents in the past and planned to turn over any requested material in the future.
“We have sent thousands of pages of documents up to the Hill,” said Holder. “We’ll look at the subpoenas. I’m sure we will undoubtedly comply with them. But what I want the American people to understand is that in complying with those subpoenas and dealing with that inquiry, that will not detract us from the important business that we are here to do at the Justice Department, including matters like the one that we have announced today.”
The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers (Mich.), said he didn’t think the timing of the alleged bomb-plot disruption was meant to detract attention from the Fast and Furious issue.
“The timing of this was designed around the case itself, I can clearly tell you that,” Rogers said Tuesday night on Fox News. “The arrest of the individual started the clock ticking for arraignment. And so, what you saw today was a result of our judicial clock, not necessarily a political clock.”
Holder and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly clashed in recent weeks. Several members have called for him to resign, while the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), is pushing for an independent counsel to investigate the attorney general.
On Wednesday, Judicial Watch announced it had filed a lawsuit against DOJ and ATF, which oversaw the botched gun tracking operation — to obtain documents and communication records between the ATF’s former acting director, Kenneth Melson, and DOJ officials regarding Fast and Furious.
Melson was removed as head of the ATF in August.
“Given their dissembling, Justice and ATF are apparently in cover-up mode,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “We think it is important that an independent investigation of this scandal take place, and our lawsuits are a good way to do it.”
Issa has issued a number of subpoenas since taking over as chairman of Oversight after Republicans won back the House in 2010.
He issued his first, more narrow, subpoena to the DOJ for documents and communications dealing with the Fast and Furious case in March.
In February, Issa issued his first subpoena of documents relating to Bank of America’s VIP mortgage program through the Countrywide Financial Corp., in an attempt to determine whether members of Congress received preferential treatment from the bank in return for their legislative support.
In March, he issued a subpoena for documents pertaining to the then-general counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) relationship and financial dealings with Bernie Madoff.
In August, he subpoenaed the National Labor Relations Board for documents relating to its case against Boeing.
— This story was posted at 10:40 a.m. and updated at 4:10 p.m. and at 7:55 p.m.
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http://www.breitbart.tv/how-did-obama-know-about-fast-and-furious-before-holder
Busted!!!!
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http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Furio
Good video
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If you are so sure... why don't you place money on it?
Bump
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Hillary's smoking gun--the next segment in State Department's role in Gunwalker
By Anthony Martin, Conservative Examiner
.."We have to recognize and accept that the demand for drugs from the United States drives them north, and the guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America."
The person who spoke the words quoted above was Hillary Clinton. The year was 2009 in an interview with Lara Logan of CBS News, just prior to a trip to Mexico City to meet with Mexican officials concerning gun and drug smuggling. The statement shows that not only was the State Department heavily involved in the Gunwalker scandal, as reported earlier today, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself was at the forefront of pushing the false assertion that '90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States.' It has only now been discovered the extent to which Clinton was involved.
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This is, in essence, Hillary's smoking gun, the bombshell proof that she was personally involved in what became known as the Project Gunwalker scandal--an illegal scheme that was concocted in order to claim that draconian new gun restrictions and gun bans were needed in the United States, given that 'most of the guns criminals use in Mexico come from America.'
As previously reported, the meme parroted by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton concerning the number of American guns used by criminals in Mexico was patently false, and they knew it was false. This is precisely why the Obama Administration concocted the scheme in the first place. If the facts do not prove that 90% of the guns come from the States, then make sure those numbers can be proved correct by walking the guns straight across the southern border directly into the hands of criminals.
Thus, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the ATF, the FBI, ICE, and a host of other federal agencies went to work to send thousands of guns across the border, deliberately placing them in the hands of the cartels.
And despite the Administration's claim that this was done only in order to trace the guns to criminals so that they could be found, arrested, and prosecuted, not a single arrest was made resulting from Gunwalker in spite of the fact that at the very least, 2500 guns were sent to Mexican criminals by the U.S. government.
One month after Hillary's trip to Mexico, Barack Obama visited with Mexican President Calderon, where he stated once again,
“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”
This was a blatant, barefaced lie.
But where did this notoriously false assertion originate? Mike Vanderboegh has uncovered the source. It came from none other than rabid anti-gun Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin, both Democrats, who stated in a hearing during March of 2009:
Durbin said: "According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America." Feinstein added: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that."
The problem, however, is that when both NPR and Fox News--one liberal, one conservative--put that 90% figure to a fact-check, it came up sorely lacking. The actual number was closer to 17% at the most, according to Fox. And even NPR, after a contentious interview with an Obama Administration official, totally debunked the 90% claim, although they could not determine the exact number. And as Pajamas media later discovered, the correct figure was a mere 8%.
This prompted Vanderboegh to state the following:
So, not 17 percent, says the NPR expert, but not 90 percent either. This is doubleplus ungood for the administration. The Secretary of State said 90 percent. The President said 90 percent. The Senators said 90 percent. NPR is not FOX. Even their supporters watch NPR, so does most of the media elite and nattering nabobs, as Spiro Agnew once called them. 90 percent has been discredited, at least in part. According to my sources, this did not go over well with Hillary. Not at all.
Documents and data made available from this time period in the scandal also show that the big question among Administration officials was how to push for massive new gun control and 'assault weapons' bans without paying a heavy political price for it...more evidence that from the start the entire scheme was not about catching criminals but restricting the Constitutional rights of American citizens.
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Continue reading on Examiner.com Hillary's smoking gun--the next segment in State Department's role in Gunwalker - National Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/hillary-s-smoking-gun-the-next-segment-state-department-s-role-gunwalker#ixzz1alN2ymxY
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Eric Holder’s ‘fast and furious’ demise
By: Michael Dorstewitz
Source: BIZPAC ReviewDate: October 14, 2011
http://www.bizpacreview.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.details&ArticleId=48741&returnTo=michael-dorstewitz
“Fast and furious” isn’t just the name of a flawed government gun-running scheme. It’s also turning out to be the speed of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s fall from grace.
Pressure for Holder to resign has been mounting daily amid growing evidence that he knew details of the failed gun-running operation almost from its inception. Fast and Furious was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives scheme that ultimately resulted in firearms being supplied to Mexican drug cartels. Those same guns later killed two U.S. agents and at least 200 Mexican citizens.
Holder testified under oath before Congress that he first knew of the operation at about the same time as the general public. When memos and emails surfaced suggesting that he knew of the details much earlier, the attorney general first stated he “misunderstood the question,” then later corrected himself to say he doesn’t read all his memos. If it hasn’t already done so, Congress is expected to issue a subpoena for Holder’s appearance soon.
Although Holder maintains his innocence, his detractors say he’s been lying about his knowledge and participation from the start. So which is it? Although we may never learn the truth with certainty, an examination of his character may tell us what is probable.
Holder’s mettle was first tested by the New Black Panther case, which left-wing lawyer-turned-publisher Bartle Bull called "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen." It involved nightstick-toting Black Panther members harassing white voters at a poll during the 2008 presidential election. When winning the case became a mere formality, Holder dropped the prosecution. Later, a Justice Department lawyer testified that the matter was terminated because the suspects were black and their victims were white. Perhaps it’s time for our attorney general to review the last four words in the Pledge of Allegiance: “and justice for all.” He would also do well to research the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., who envisioned a colorblind society.
When the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was caught red-handed engaging in voter registration fraud, Holder’s Justice Department chose to sit on the sidelines, leaving prosecution to individual states. When evidence of ACORN’s fraud became irrefutable, Congress prohibited ACORN or any group associated with it from receiving federal funding. Holder’s Justice Department later lifted the ban to allow the group to continue receiving funds for contractual obligations already made. That pretty much includes everything ACORN would have received before the ban. One can’t help but recall that the attorney general’s boss, Barack Obama, was once deeply associated with ACORN. That begs the question: “What influence did that association have on the decision to take it easy on ACORN?”
Commenting on the Fast and Furious case, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said, “It seems like this is the Moe, Curly and Larry show. And we're looking for Larry.” It’d be too easy to say we’ve found our “Larry” in Eric Holder. Instead, I’ll refer to the attorney general’s own remarks. When speaking on race relations, he once accused us of being “a nation of cowards.” I have to believe that he imagined himself looking in the mirror when he said those words.
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October 14, 2011 8:19 AM
"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalker" scandal
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/earlyshow/main20120395.shtml?tag=contentBody;cbsCarousel
(CBS News) There's a new twist in the government's "gunwalking" scandal involving an even more dangerous weapon: grenades.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who has reported on this story from the beginning, said on "The Early Show" that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)'s so-called "Fast and Furious" operation branches out to a case involving grenades.
Sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels.
Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He's accused of smuggling parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for killer drug cartels -- sometimes under the direct watch of U.S. law enforcement.
For more on this investigation, visit CBS Investigates.
Law enforcement sources say Kingery could have been prosecuted in the U.S. twice for violating export control laws, but that, each time, prosecutors in Arizona refused to make a case.
Grenades are weapons-of-choice for the cartels. An attack on Aug. 25 in a Monterrey, Mexico casino killed 53 people.
Sources tell CBS News that, in January 2010, ATF had Kingery under surveillance after he bought about 50 grenade bodies and headed to Mexico. But they say prosecutors wouldn't agree to make a case. So, as ATF agents looked on, Kingery and the grenade parts crossed the border -- and simply disappeared.
Six months later, Kingery allegedly got caught leaving the U.S. for Mexico with 114 disassembled grenades in a tire. One ATF agent told investigators he literally begged prosecutors to keep Kingery in custody this time, fearing he was supplying narco-terrorists, but was again ordered to let Kingery go.
The prosecutors -- already the target of controversy for overseeing "Fast and Furious," wouldn't comment on the grenades case. U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke recently resigned and his assistant, Emory Hurley, has been transferred. Sources say Hurley is the one who let Kingery go, saying grenade parts are "novelty items" and the case "lacked jury appeal."
Attkisson added on "The Early Show" that, in August, Mexican authorities raided Kingery's stash house and factory, finding materials for 1,000 grenades. He was charged with trafficking and allegedly admitted not only to making grenades, but also to teaching cartels how to make them, as well as helping cartel members convert semi-automatic rifles to fully-automatic. As one source put it: There's no telling how much damage Kingery did in the year-and-a-half since he was first let go. The Justice Department inspector general is now investigating this, along with "Fast and Furious."
________________________ ________________________ ___
THIS IS YOUR PRESIDENT AND AG YOU FOOLS!
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In Holder Subpoena, Issa Also Probes White House Press Aide
By Jonathan Strong
Roll Call Staff
Oct. 14, 2011, 5 a.m.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) made headlines this week by issuing a subpoena for documents from Attorney General Eric Holder about a botched weapons investigation, but Holder is apparently not Issa’s only target.
A little-noticed provision of the subpoena targets the White House, specifically naming Eric Schultz, a communications aide who was hired in May to respond to media inquiries on oversight matters.
Issa issued the subpoena as part of his investigation into a program called Fast and Furious, which whistle-blowers have described as allowing assault weapons and military-grade sniper rifles to transfer into criminal networks.
The subpoena demands “all communications” to or from Holder and 15 other top Justice Department officials on Fast and Furious, as well as every weekly update memo to Holder on any topic over a nearly two-year period. Issa contends that Holder may have learned about the program much earlier than he has acknowledged, and the California Republican been conducting a blitz of media interviews making that point.
The subpoena also requires Holder to produce “all communications between and among Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and Executive Office of the President employees, including but not limited to Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any other firearms trafficking cases.”
“We know there were communications that did go to the White House on Fast and Furious. We’ve been told that they were personal communications that just happened to occur. We wanted an official assurance on that,” Issa told Roll Call on Wednesday, jokingly referring to Schultz as “my friend.”
But a GOP source familiar with the committee’s investigation said there was more to the request.
“The question is whether the White House has been instructing the Justice Department on what [documents] to release,” the source said.
The source added that recent allegations by a CBS reporter that Schultz yelled at her over her coverage of Fast and Furious in part prompted Issa’s questions on the matter, but the source maintained that the inquiry is unrelated to Schultz’s communications with reporters.
“This investigation is focused on discussions and communications among officials and not their interactions with outside parties, including reporters,” the source said.
This source noted that “there’s nothing necessarily inappropriate about the White House playing some role” but added that the documents produced by the subpoena will provide a fuller picture of what interaction is taking place.
A lawyer close to the Obama administration said it would not be unusual for the Justice Department to keep the White House informed of how it is responding to Issa’s document demands or to give the White House a heads-up before documents involving White House personnel are sent to Congressional investigators.
But Democrats familiar with the investigation scoffed at the idea that a member of the White House communications staff is telling the Justice Department how to respond to Issa’s document demands.
Other portions of the subpoena also appear to reach beyond Holder’s involvement in the program.
For instance, the subpoena demands that the Justice Department provide all photographs of the crime scene of the slaying of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and “surveillance tapes recorded by pole cameras inside the Lone Wolf Trading Co. store between 12:00 a.m. on October 3, 2010 and 12:00 a.m. on October 7, 2010.” Both the store and Zapata’s slaying have been linked to the Fast and Furious operation.
Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Elijah Cummings assailed Issa’s document demands. “This subpoena is a deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee’s authority,” the Maryland Democrat said. “It demands tens of thousands of pages of highly sensitive law enforcement and national security materials that have never been requested before and are completely unrelated to Operation Fast and Furious. Rather than legitimate fact-gathering, this looks more like a political stunt.”
JonathanStrong@cqollcall.com | @j_strong
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Fast and Furious Demonstrates ‘Ruling Class,’ Country Divide
Pajamas Media ^ | October 14, 2011 | AWR Hawkins
The good ol' boys feel immune to the mortal danger that Gunwalker caused.
Apart from CBS News, the mainstream media has essentially ignored “Fast and Furious.” Instead of reporting on the illegal sale and transport of more than 2,000 guns, the hundreds of deaths in Mexico that resulted, and the nearly sixty Fast and Furious weapons that have been recovered at crime scenes in the United States, they have simply continued business as usual: fulfilling their self-appointed role as defenders of the ruling class.
There is no other ready explanation for why a supposedly “free press” looks the other way when “the DHS, IRS, DEA, ATF, ICE, and the Obama Justice Department” are all named under oath as being tied to Fast and Furious in one way or another. The same media personalities that still get a sparkle in their eye when talking about Watergate staunchly refuse to report on what could and should be the biggest scandal in the last fifty years.
As I type, the talking heads on MSNBC are clearly more worried about Michele Bachmann’s promise to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should she win the presidency than they are with ascertaining who oversaw the sale of the weapons used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Ultimately, the mainstream media ignores Fast and Furious for the same reasons they report the supposed racism of the Tea Party. They don’t want to do anything that might undermine the ruling class and usher in a changing of the guard.
For the record, members of the ruling class can be found in both parties. Those in the Republican Party are of the “establishment” stripe, while those in the Democratic Party are proud to count Barack and Michelle Obama, Eric Holder, the Kennedys, and Senator John Kerry among their numbers.
Angelo M. Codevilla alluded to this bipartisan nature of the ruling class:
America’s real divide is certainly not between the Republican and Democratic parties. Rather, on one hand, there is a class of people who dominate both parties as well as academe and the media.
It should come as no surprise that John Kerry is mute on Fast and Furious or that Chris Matthews has yet to mention it. Obama only talks of it in response to questioners, and even then all he does is defend other members of the ruling class from charges of being involved. In response to a post-press conference question on October 6 regarding Holder’s misleading statements to the congressional investigators, Obama said:
With respect to … Fast and Furious, I think I’ve been very clear that I have complete confidence in Attorney General Holder in how he handles his office. … He’s indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious; certainly I was not. And I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America.
Of course, 90% of what the president said in defense of Holder consisted of fluff or falsehoods — there’s tangible evidence that Holder knew about Fast and Furious at least as early as July 2010. Yet that doesn’t matter to Obama. What matters is defending the other members of the ruling class, of which Holder is one (for the time being).
Consider the words of Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County. He is not a member of the ruling class, and looks upon Holder and the rest of those involved in Fast and Furious with rationality:
It is insanity that they [ATF/DOJ] could try and rationalize this and still withhold and try to cover up information that implicates them.
He went on to say that those who were involved should “absolutely” be labeled and charged as accomplices to the murders associated with the operation.
The members of the ruling class feel themselves sufficiently insulated from the physical dangers of Fast and Furious, and they are quick to provide alibis to spare themselves political danger as well. On the other hand, those charged with the duty of living in the real world and facing the threat of being shot with a gun that Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, or the ATF’s William Newell knew about aren’t easily appeased with the excuses and contradictions that characterize the good ol’ boys club on this one.
Fast and Furious demonstrates a chasm between the ruling class and the people. And the quickest way to bridge that chasm is to follow Sheriff Babeu’s recommendation and start filing charges.
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i'm not sure i'm comfy with these bush-era tactics taht were employed, but i'm not about to question the judgment of top law enforcement.
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i'm not sure i'm comfy with these bush-era tactics taht were employed, but i'm not about to question the judgment of top law enforcement.
ITS NOT THE SAME TACTIC MORON! WTF is wrong w you?
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actually the article detailed how we used the same tactics, but the results were different. they lost the guns, couldn't track them. that was an enforcement failure, but i'm not about to attack a US law enforcement agency. Police do good work. Did you not see Beach Bums' law enforcement appreciation thread? I suggest you read that thread before you blindly throw criticism at our brave american law enforcement agents.
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actually the article detailed how we used the same tactics, but the results were different. they lost the guns, couldn't track them. that was an enforcement failure, but i'm not about to attack a US law enforcement agency. Police do good work. Did you not see Beach Bums' law enforcement appreciation thread? I suggest you read that thread before you blindly throw criticism at our brave american law enforcement agents.
They didnt lose anything moron! They intentionally let them walk w no tracing at all.
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They didnt lose anything moron! They intentionally let them walk w no tracing at all.
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Did you watch any of the hearings?
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Did you watch any of the hearings?
I do not need to. Holder lied over and over. Video proves it. They fed guns to gangs for their own agenda. fact.
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Worse Than Gunwalker? State Dept. Allegedly Sold Guns to Zetas
Pajamas ^ | 7/22/11 | Bob Owens
Posted on July 22, 2011 3:10:58 PM EDT by ZGuy
Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapons:
Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso.
Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, told the Times he supported Jordan’s allegations, adding that the Zetas have reportedly bought property in the Columbus, N.M., border region to stash weapons and other contraband.
“From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales Program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas.”
The U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program is run from the U.S. State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. It regulates and licenses private U.S. companies’ overseas sales of weapons and other defense materials, defense services, and military training. This does not include the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which authorized sales to foreign governments.
An El Paso Times article – as of now ignored by mainstream media — went into much more shocking detail:
“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.
“The information about the arms trafficking was provided to our U.S. authorities long before the ‘Columbus 11′ investigation began,” said Plumlee, referring to recent indictments accusing several Columbus city officials of arms trafficking in conjunction with alleged accomplices in El Paso and Chaparral, N.M.
Jesús Rejón Aguilar, the number three man in the Zeta’s hierarchy, disclosed last week that the Zetas bought weapons in the United States and transported them across the Rio Grande. Mexican federal authorities captured Rejón on July 3 in the state of Mexico, and presented him to the news media the next day. His recorded video statement was uploaded on YouTube.
Jordan agreed with Plumlee’s allegations that the Zetas are operating in the Columbus-Palomas border.
Plumlee, who has testified before U.S. congressional committees about arms and drug trafficking, said the roads in Southern New Mexico provide smugglers easy access to Mexico’s highway networks.
Insight.org provides a map of the air-smuggling route originating in Dallas at Alliance Airport and ending in Columbus, New Mexico — a small town that has also been rocked by the arrests and guilty pleas of the town mayor and other elected officials who were running guns to a cartel safehouse, and then apparently into Mexico.
There is no direct link made as of yet between the Columbus, NM, officials case and the allegations of the Dallas-to-Columbus air smuggling route, but the possible connection should raise eyebrows.
If these allegations can be verified: what on Earth was the State Department thinking supplying the direct sale of military weapons to a cartel front company? Weapons that were then smuggled out of the very airport used by the Drug Enforcement Agency charged with bringing down the cartels?
Anthony Martin at the Examiner brings up one of the most damning and compelling questions that the State Department and Obama administration must answer if this story is true:
The program is set up so that the sale of U.S. guns to foreign entities involve direct negotiations with the governments of those countries purchasing the weapons. The description of the program specifically states that it regulates the sale of U.S. firearms to other countries or international organizations.
How, then, did a drug cartel purchase weapons through this program when it is neither an international organization nor a government?
At The Truth About Guns, Brad Kozak opines:
The ATF was not the only ones running guns to Mexico. Apparently the State Department was playing, too. And then consider this angle — was the State Department competing with the ATF for the hearts and minds of the Mexican drug trade?
…
If the ATF is supplying the Sinaloas (with Calderón’s tacit approval and/or help) and State is playing for the Zetas, where does that leave the rest of America?
It sounds like a fictional thriller, but considering what we’ve already learned of Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department, and the possibility of even more gunrunning operations (Operation Castaway) out of DOJ, is a rival program being run out of State really a bizarre accusation?
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‘Fast and Furious’ Flashback: Big Sis Brags About Weapons Tracing Program In 2009 (video)
Breitbart.TV ^ | 10/14/2011
At a March 2009 press conference announcing tough initiatives to help with crime on the US/Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napalotano brags about and takes ownership of a program that sounds mysteriously like "Fast and Furious"
http://www.breitbart.tv/fast-and-furious-flashback-big-sis-brags-about-weapons-tracing-program-in-2009
BOOM!
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‘Hiding in plain sight’—How did Obama know about ‘Gunwalker’ before Holder?
Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 14 October, 2011 | David Codrea
Posted on October 15, 2011 7:49:27 AM EDT by marktwain
“CNN's John King discovers an interview with President Barack Obama that directly refutes Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony before congress,” the caption for a video posted on BreitbartTV claims.
The reason for this claim is because Obama spoke about “Fast and Furious” in March. Holder declared in May that he had only heard about the gunwalking program “for the first time over the last few weeks.”
“CNN's John King discovers an interview with President Barack Obama that directly refutes Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony before congress,” the caption for a video posted on BreitbartTV claims.
The reason for this claim is because Obama spoke about “Fast and Furious” in March. Holder declared in May that he had only heard about the gunwalking program “for the first time over the last few weeks.”
“I'm ashamed I didn't pick up on this before,” Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars admits. “Sheesh, it was hiding in plain sight.”
Vanderboegh is not the only one who missed the obvious. Even more embarrassing, Gun Rights Examiner reported “Holder revelations contradict Obama’s ‘Gunwalker’ assertions” on October 4, referencing the same video King “discovered,” but failed to notice and note the date of the president’s interview. Advertisement
The King report concludes with Rep. Elijah Cummings, who continues with his partisan covering for Holder while, in other venues, he attacks the efforts of Darrell Issa as “a gross abuse of Committee authority.” Considering his personal culpability in ignoring allegations of corruption and abuse by ATF agents at a time when “Gunwalker” could have been nipped in the bud, that is hardly surprising.
See the sidebar video player for the president’s admission that he—and Holder—knew about “Fast and Furious” before Holder testified he did.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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End of the week: Fox’s O’Reilly thinks Holder will have to resign(gunwalker)
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 14 October, 2011 | Dave Workman
Posted on October 15, 2011 8:41:44 AM EDT by marktwain
It has been a tough week for Attorney General Eric Holder, despite an attempted defense by Democrat spinmeister Lanny Davis, and it was wrapping up Friday morning with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly predicting Holder will have to resign, and Sen. Charles Grassley saying he will ask for the resignation of whomever “signed off’ on Operation Fast and Furious.
“I think he’s going to have to resign.”—Bill O’Reilly
For an administration that came into office in 2009 promising to be the most transparent in history, the Obama administration is suddenly drowning in scandals. Not only is there Fast and Furious, but there is also Solyndra — a controversy that has nothing to do with firearms or gun rights, but everything to do with how this administration has evidently been conducting its affairs.
This column will focus on Fast and Furious, because this could be the career killer, not only for Holder, but for several career bureaucrats at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Advertisement
O’Reilly’s remarks came during a segment of the morning show “Fox and Friends.” He appeared just days after an exchange on his own program with former prosecutors Lis Wiehl and Kimberly Guilfoyle, both of whom also thought Holder is essentially toast. This column discussed that.
For his part, Davis— writing in The Hill — is attempting to spin the Fast and Furious probe as nothing more than crass partisanship, and he wants it to end. Of course he does, as do all Democrat Obama loyalists, because they recognize this as an anchor that could drag down their president in 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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Plot Against Second Amendment
Newsmax ^ | 10/15/2011 | Martin Gould and Ashley Martella
The government-sanctioned gunrunning operation, Fast and Furious, was a plot to undermine Second Amendment rights in the United States, National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre charged on Friday in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” LaPierre said. “Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
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"“It’s the only thing that makes any sense"
Sorry, but WLP is going to need more evidence than that.
To a 5 year old, santa leaving presents under his tree "“is the only thing that makes any sense".
LaPierre is seeing dropping donations and recently had to admit Obama hasn't gone after gun rights. NRA is in very weak position for 2012. THis is the only lifeline WLP has seen in 3 years... he's BEGGING for it to be connected to 2nd amendment, for his own political viability.
So his bias (plus admitted lack of any evidence) excludes him from being credible on this matter.
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Issa: Justice Dept. answers on Fast and Furious full of 'inconsistencies'
The Hill ^ | October 16, 2011 | Meghashyam Mali
Posted on October 16, 2011 2:54:43 PM EDT by jazusamo
Video 1:39 minutes
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Attorney General Eric Holder "clearly knew more than" he revealed to Congress about a controversial gun-tracking program and said his probe of the matter had revealed clear “inconsistencies.”
"He clearly knew more than he -- than he said when he said he only first heard of this program a few weeks before,” said Issa on CBS News' Face the Nation.
“I take him at the word, but only if we can have the kind of dialogue that allows us to ask, if you will, the 20 questions," he said defending his decision last week to subpoena Holder and other senior Justice Dept. officials for documents related to the Fast and Furious gun tracking operation. At issue is when Holder first learned about the botched operation.
"What he said was he first heard of this program a few weeks before. If he now wants to say that he knew a lot about it from the at least five briefings he had but he didn't know as much, we'd like him to come back and say, OK, that was an inaccurate statement; here's what I knew and when I knew it," Issa said.
Under the operation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives oversaw the sale of firearms to known or suspected straw buyers for Mexican gun cartels. However, the guns were not properly supervised. Two guns sold through the operation were found at the murder scene of a Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry, last year.
On Sunday, Issa also questioned the FBI's handling of evidence at the murder scene.
"When you have tickets that are numbered 2 and 3 and there's no ticket 1, in other words, the weapon -- one weapon has a 2; one has a three on it, there's no 1, when agents who were at Brian Terry's funeral made statements to his mother indicating that there were three weapons, when the two weapons that they have tested don't conclusively match up, then you look and say, well, was there a third weapon at the scene?" said Issa.
The congressman said he had found "inconsistencies" in his investigation. "You get these inconsistencies. In an investigation, as you know, because you are an investigative reporter, you follow the inconsistencies,” he noted.
“Some of them lead nowhere. In this case, these inconsistencies and the fact that the family is still not getting the kind of treatment you would expect as crime victims and crime victims of a law enforcement officer cause us to say, well, let's look at the FBI," he added.
Issa would not call though for the attorney general's resignation, saying the issue was "for the president to decide."
Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) the ranking Democrat on the committee however blasted Issa for failing to provide a "responsible and balanced investigation."
"Chairman Issa goes out there and Republicans accusing the highest law enforcement officer in the land of being an accessory to murder, and things of that nature and calling for his resignation," said Cummings. "All we want is what I've said. We want a responsible and balanced investigation..."
Cummings said that the controversial gun-tracking program was hatched by local agents in the Phoenix office and not by Holder or senior officials in Washington.
"The supervisors in the Phoenix office never communicated with people higher up. And all the evidence that I've seen points that this was more of a local issue that never got to higher-ups," he said. "And certainly there is nothing, that nobody has said that the attorney general was briefed about it," he added in defense of Holder.
Cummings is nothing but an Obama cum receptacle
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http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/17/fast-furious-how-a-botched-operation-spawned-fatal/?page=all
Great frigging article!!! Too long to post, but very informative on this topic.
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Obama's Gunwalker damage control--"nobody knew"
Conservative Examiner ^ | 17 October, 2011 | Anthony Martin
As the Administration of Barack Obama continues to shift into damage control mode in light of the Project Gunwalker scandal, not only are officials seeking to blame George W. Bush, but the overall strategy seems to be to engage in the unanimous claim that 'nobody knew about it.'
Congressman Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, appeared on CBS News' Face the Nation yesterday morning and provided viewers with a sample of the nature of the damage control in which the Administration and Democrats in Congress intend to engage. The following is a portion of the transcripts from the show during which Cummings told reporter Bob Schieffer that nobody in the top tier of the Justice Department knew anything about Operation Fast and Furious:
REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS: And so in other words, it-- it was hatched in the Phoenix office of the ATF. And the-- the sad part about it is that the supervisors in the Phoenix office never communicated with people higher up. And all the evidence that I've seen points that this was a more of a local issue that never got to higher-ups. And certainly there was nothing, that nobody has said that the attorney general was briefed about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS: And so in other words, it-- it was hatched in the Phoenix office of the ATF. And the-- the sad part about it is that the supervisors in the Phoenix office never communicated with people higher up. And all the evidence that I've seen points that this was a more of a local issue that never got to higher-ups. And certainly there was nothing, that nobody has said that the attorney general was briefed about it.
as I predicted. You just found your fall guy.
the PHX crew will begrudgingly accept responsibility for not reporting it upward. Nobody loses their job - they'll all get quietly promoted in another year or two.
Obama/Holder never get touched by this. As predicted.
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as I predicted. You just found your fall guy.
the PHX crew will begrudgingly accept responsibility for not reporting it upward. Nobody loses their job - they'll all get quietly promoted in another year or two.
Obama/Holder never get touched by this. As predicted.
I think you don't even know thew details of this mess do you?
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I think you don't even know thew details of this mess do you?
as much as I can tell, holder was bragging about it and knew all about it - then lied and said he didn't.
this is the facts, i agree with everything you say.
BUT
I believe nobody is going to jail for it. Middle mgmt will fall on the grenade and get a raise/promotion quietly down the road for it. EVERYONE that dropped the ball on 911 got a raise/promotion within 2 years. They learned from pearl harbor - if you punish people/demand a public embarassment - people talk. Won't happen here. You'll get a nice scooter libby to say "my bad, it was all me" and he'll get paid.
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Newell was in direct communication with the WH over this. The guy was shipped off to Iraq by Hillary and is being kept away from Issa.
Guess why 240?
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Bottoms up? Really?
What Holder and administration apologists expect us to believe about Gunwalker
By David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
..If we are to believe Attorney General Eric Holder, he knew nothing about “Project Gunwalker” while it was being implemented, and did not first hear of it until a few weeks before Darrell Issa asked him about it in a May House Committee on Oversight and Government reform hearing.
If we are to believe him, any briefings he received did not discuss gunwalking. Plus he never read reports from senior staff.
If we are to believe administration apologists, not only is this so, but gunwalking was confined to the Phoenix office and the operations were conducted from the bottom, while senior ATF and DOJ managers were blissfully kept in the dark.
And Issa is on “a witch hunt.” So there.
The purpose of this column is not to debate those points—anyone paying attention knows about the involvement of other departments and agencies and documented reports of gunwalking occurring in other locales.
No, I’d like to address this new “bottom up” meme, slickly articulated by cover-up front man Elijah Cummings yesterday on “Face the Nation”:
And so in other words, it-- it was hatched in the Phoenix office of the ATF. And the-- the sad part about it is that the supervisors in the Phoenix office never communicated with people higher up. And all the evidence that I've seen points that this was a more of a local issue that never got to higher-ups. And certainly there was nothing, that nobody has said that the attorney general was briefed about it…
…Keep in mind we do know that it was the Phoenix office. We-- we know it was hatched there and that's all the-- all the testimony we have heard so far that's what we've heard. And I don't-- and I know that we will get to the-- the very bottom of it. But it is a-- a bottom-up and not a top-down situation. We know that for a fact.
Let us suspend our disbelief (and screaming) and pretend for a moment that Cummings is telling the truth. I know, but try. Here’s what else he and those he shills for are asking us to believe:
No crime has been committed. For that matter, no violations of regulations or policies have been committed, either. Even by those in the Phoenix office.
How do I arrive at that conclusion?
What happens when a law enforcement officer is suspected of criminal involvement? Typically we see them suspended while Internal Affairs conducts an investigation.
That has not happened.
I’ve received and posted a copy of ATF’s “Adverse Action and Discipline” policy and procedure. It covers everything from reprimands to suspensions to terminations, with a special crime provision for those employees who have been arrested or indicted. Despite Holder’s assurance that his Office of Inspector General is on the job and uninfluenced by those they report to, at this point, it looks like no one sanctioning gunwalking has earned themselves so much as a write-up, let alone an indictment.
Besides, does anyone think the Department of Justice would dare test Elijah Cumming’s assertions and indict, say, former Phoenix SAC William Newell, instead of transferring him to the DC office? Does anyone think if they served him up on federal charges that he would stick with the story that nobody above him was green-lighting his actions?
And if we’re to believe Holder and Cummings and the rest of the administration spinners and weavers, here’s something else we must believe:
The only agents who did wrong, warranting chief counsel’s cognizance and internal affairs investigations, and management retaliation/disciplinary actions/termination proceedings, were the whistleblowers.
They were the only bad guys in all of this.
You believe that, don’t you?
Also see:
.....
Continue reading on Examiner.com What Holder and administration apologists expect us to believe about Gunwalker - National gun rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/what-holder-and-administration-apologists-expect-us-to-believe-about-gunwalker#ixzz1b9PSYRQx
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No doubt 240 buys into the lies of obama/
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Gunwalker's Kevin O'Reilly--the man who knows too much?
Conservative Examiner ^ | 14 October, 2011 | Anthony Martin
________________________ __________
A central figure that has emerged in the Project Gunwalker scandal, known as Operation Fast and Furious, is an Obama-Hillary Clinton operative by the name of Kevin O'Reilly, who as it was announced yesterday is the initial focus of the investigation being conducted by Congressman Darrell Issa in connection to his extensive communication with William Newell, head of the Phoenix ATF. O'Reilly worked in the White House as a member of Obama's National Security Council during the Gunwalker fiasco and currently works as a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is now on assignment to Iraq. Is O'Reilly the 'man who knows too much?'
During the 1950s one of Alfred Hitchcock's successful thrillers cast James Stewart in the leading role of a movie entitled, 'The Man Who Knew Too Much.' Stewart played a character who by chance was provided damaging, secret information involving international politics, which placed his life in mortal danger.
Some political observers believe that O'Reilly is a real-life, modern day counterpart to Stewart's fictional character.
Sources close to the ongoing investigation into Operation Fast and Furious indicate that O'Reilly has crucial information concerning how much the White House--and Hillary Clinton--knew about the illegal operation. But when inquiries were made as to O'Reilly's availability to provide testimony in the event of a subpoena, it was disclosed that he is on assignment in Iraq for the State Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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Booom - keep buying into the lies you fools. The whole house of cards is going to collapse.
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Newell was in direct communication with the WH over this. The guy was shipped off to Iraq by Hillary and is being kept away from Issa.
Guess why 240?
cause they're probably over there giving him hookers and riches so he'll come back, take a slap on the wrist, and clear Obama/Holder.
Sucks to see it so far ahead and call it...
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Hillary Clinton to Face Heat Over Fast & Furious Gun Scandal?
Opposing Views ^ | Oct 17, 2011 | John Velleco
Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 1:13:25
The testimony before the Oversight committee by Holder and numerous officials from the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies was a clinic on obfuscation -- and it left Issa with little choice.
“It’s time we know the whole truth,” Issa said of this latest development in the widening scandal. “The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago.”
The California Republican is not a lawyer by profession, but Issa, along with his relatively small staff, has managed to go toe-to-toe with the army of lawyers spread across the federal government.
Holder: Point man on guns
Issa’s focus on the Attorney General is well-placed. Holder became the point man on gun control during his stint with the Clinton administration and was an obvious choice to help navigate the Obama administration through the turbulent waters of gun control.
But he was not alone. Another figure, whose name is conspicuously absent in much of the current debate over Fast and Furious, is also a leader on the gun control issue: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
From the start, Obama, Clinton, Holder and another cabinet member, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, were itching to make headway on restricting guns, but how could that be done without exacting an unacceptable political price?
For that, the foursome looked south. With violence increasing along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2009, the Obama administration found the perfect scapegoat.
Holder was the first to test the waters. In a February 25, 2009 press conference, Holder spoke for the new administration:
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.
Holder was quickly repudiated by Democrats in Congress, more than 60 of whom said in a letter that a renewal of the gun ban was a non-starter, and Holder was forced to back away from his comments.
The 90% Myth
A month later, as she embarked on her first trip to Mexico as Secretary of State, Clinton told CBS news that, “The guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America.”
Clinton’s use of the 90% number sent honest reporters looking for verification. Instead, the number was debunked within days. Still, the administration clung tenaciously to the 90% claim.
The following month, in April 2009, speaking at a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama said:
This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.
Incriminating March 2009 press briefing
Interestingly, the day before Clinton went to Mexico in March, no mention was made of any gun ban or the alleged 90% number at a press briefing on the problem of violence in Mexico held at the White House by Napolitano, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg (both the number two men in their respective departments).
Ogden spoke in broad terms, noting that, “Attorney General Holder and I are committed to taking advantage of all Department resources and those of associated agencies to target the Mexican cartels.”
Ogden also detailed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) efforts “to fortify its Project Gunnrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico.”
From Gunrunner to Fast and Furious
Project Gunrunner was the umbrella under which Operation Fast and Furious, an ATF brainchild in which thousands of firearms were allowed to walk into the hands of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartels, was developed.
On its face, the intent of Fast and Furious was to allow straw purchasers to illegally buy guns in the U.S. and transfer the weapons to cartel members, with authorities following the guns up the criminal supply chain to bring down the cartels.
But that never happened. Over the protests of U.S. gun dealers and rank-and-file ATF agents, thousands of guns were allowed to be purchased and to simply “walk” across the border. ATF never knew exactly where the guns would end up, and in reality the agency became a supplier of firearms to violent drug cartels.
Subsequently, Fast and Furious firearms were found at the murder scenes of two U.S. government agents as well as over 150 Mexican law enforcement officers. American and Mexican police were killed by guns furnished by the U.S. government and paid for by taxpayers.
While Fast and Furious was not specifically mentioned at the press briefing (it would begin operating later in the year), that meeting at the White house shows that the heads of at least three departments of the federal government were intensely aware of what was happening along the border at the very beginning of the Obama administration.
One by one, however, Obama, Holder, Napolitano and Clinton (plus a host of lower level officials) have denied any knowledge of Fast and Furious prior to 2011.
Rep. Issa is hot on the trail of Holder, thanks to a string of incriminating emails and other evidence. But all four were huddled around the border in early 2009, and all four made trips to Mexico in March-April of that year.
Subpoenas for Clinton, Napolitano?
Dissecting what people in the highest levels of government knew and when they knew it leads only to troubling conclusions. Either they all have lied, under oath or in public comments, about their knowledge of Fast and Furious.
Or there exists an unbelievable level of incompetence at the State Department (for not being aware of thousands of guns being sent to violent gangs in another country), at Homeland Security (which claims no knowledge of guns being allowed to walk across a border which falls under its jurisdiction to control) and at the Justice Department (with high-level officials claiming no knowledge of a multi-million dollar operation occurring right under its nose).
Rep. Issa’s 22-point subpoena of documents related to Holder will pull on strings that could unravel a much wider network of corruption. The available evidence strongly suggests that Holder lied to Congress about his knowledge of Fast and Furious. If that’s the case, while it may not be proof positive that the heads of other departments lied as well, it will at least lead Issa’s investigation to take a much closer look at the roles of Clinton and Napolitano.
And even if Holder and the rest lose their jobs, it shouldn’t end there. Guns were illegally run into Mexico, where they could be “found” by Mexican police and traced back to the U.S. Was this done, as some former ATF agents suggest, to pad statistics in order to justify the 90% number and to serve as a rallying cry for a reinstatement of the semi-auto ban? If so, that is criminal behavior, made infinitely worse by the fact that many innocent people have died as a result.
BOOOOM - get the leg irons for that nasty bitch hitlery too!
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[CBS] DOJ: No 3rd gun in "Fast and Furious" murder
CBS News ^ | 18 October, 2011 | Sharyl Attkisson
DOJ: No 3rd gun in "Fast and Furious" murder
By Sharyl Attkisson
The Justice Department released a new statement Monday night regarding evidence in the murder of a Border Patrol Agent connected to the Fast and Furious scandal. The statement said "reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene ... are false."
Two assault rifles from ATF's Fast and Furious case were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Reports of a possible missing weapon surfaced after a ballistics report found neither rifle conclusively matched to the bullet that killed Terry; an indictment said at least one suspect had escaped; and the lead ATF Fast and Furious case agent was secretly recorded discussing a "third weapon."
Issa to press FBI for "gunwalking" info
Holder subpoenaed for documents in "Gunwalker"
AG Holder responds to critics on Gunwalker
Also, on Face the Nation Sunday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Bob Schieffer that "agents who were at Brian Terry's funeral made statements to his mother indicating that there were three weapons" and raised questions about an FBI ballistics report. "Was there a third weapon at the scene? Were there additional people who escaped with weapons?" Issa said.
In response, the Justice Department statement says: "Prior to his appearance on CBS this past Sunday, Chairman Issa's staff was informed that there were two - not three - guns recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry's murder." The statement said because the prosecution for the murder of Terry is ongoing, "further public comment is inappropriate."
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As ‘Fast and Furious’ Investigation Consumes Obama White House, MSM Blames Bush (Spot On!)
Big Jourelism ^ | October 17, 2011 | Ben Howe
In my experience, there are two ways that the mainstream media blames Bush for problems that exist three years after he left the Oval Office:
1. They blame Bush when something is bad that they think should not be considered Obama’s fault.
2. They blame Bush when there is no denying that Obama is at fault, so they try to soften it with a dose of moral relativism (Bush did it too!).
[snip] Last week, after Congressman Darrel Issa (subpoenaed Attorney General Eric Holder,) the media was very quiet on the matter. Some outlets at least went to the trouble of reporting that it occurred, but few actually offered any analysis on its importance or potential political ramifications. This is startling, considering the wall-to-wall coverage granted to “lawyer-gate” when Alberto Gonzales was Attorney General under Bush. That scandal eventually forced Gonzales to resign, and the analysis offered during the drama was seemingly without end.
[snip] The Obama administration, counting on the media to play their role in forwarding the correct narrative, released the documents showing these facts in an attempt to deflect blame for the current debacle by making it appear to be a continuation of Bush policy.
Instead, they have shown that the Obama administration, the DOJ and the ATF decided to use a tactic that, under the Bush administration, had already shown to be ineffective and dangerous. The fact that they pursued the policy in spite of this previous failed attempt, which the ATF acknowledges resulted in hundreds of weapons disappearing into Mexico, is a testament to their incompetence, not a deflection of blame.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigjournalism.com ...
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Issa to press FBI for "gunwalking" info(gunwalker)
cbsnews.com ^ | 17 October, 2011 | Sharyl Attkisson
(CBS News)
WASHINGTON - The head of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, said he plans to send a letter to the FBI this week to ask about apparent discrepancies in the investigation of a murder related to "Fast and Furious," the government's controversial "gunwalking" case, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down near the U.S.-Mexico border last December, and at least two assault rifles from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Fast and Furious case were found at the scene.
That focused blame on the controversial ATF operation that monitored suspects who trafficked the weapons instead of arresting them and seizing the guns.
Holder subpoenaed for documents in "Gunwalker" AG Holder responds to critics on Gunwalker Leahy plans oversight hearing with Holder
But 10 months after the murder, there are questions about how many weapons the FBI recovered at the scene and other key details.
On CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, Issa, R-Calif., told moderator Bob Schieffer there's reason to ask whether there's a third, missing weapon.
(Watch at left)
"When agents who were at Brian Terry's funeral made statements to his mother indicating that there were three weapons ... then you look and say, well was there a third weapon at the scene?" Issa asked. "Were there additional people who escaped with weapons?"
Issa: Holder hiding Fast and Furious facts Dem: Issa is on "Fast & Furious" witch hunt Congressional investigators seek DOD records
Also, a ballistics report turned over to Congress mentions just two rifles, saying it "could not be determined" if one of them fired the bullet that killed Terry.
There's also talk of a third weapon, called an "SKS" rifle, in secret recordings obtained by CBS News. In the following partial transcript of a March 2011 conversation, the lead ATF case agent on Fast and Furious is speaking to a gun dealer who cooperated in selling weapons to suspects.
Gun dealer: "There's three weapons." ATF agent: "There's three weapons." Dealer: "I know that." Agent: "And yes, there's serial numbers for all three." Dealer: "That is correct." Agent: "Two of them came from the store." Dealer: "I understand that." Agent: "There's an SKS that I don't think came from ... Dallas or Texas or something like that."
The FBI wouldn't comment but has implied in the past that there was no third gun. Issa said he's seeking clarity and that, until key questions are answered, it fuels speculation.
The FBI has kept nearly everything about Terry's murder secret, saying that releasing anything would jeopardize their investigation, now beginning its eleventh month.
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Issa probing, Justice is resisting on F&F ‘third gun’ (gunwalker)
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 18 October, 2011 | Dave Workman
Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 8:23:28 AM by marktwain
Congressman Darrell Issa is reportedly preparing a letter to send to the FBI about a mysterious “third gun” allegedly recovered from the December 2010 murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona, but the Justice Department is already firing back with assertions that the gun doesn’t exist.
News of this third gun first surfaced weeks ago, and Issa has been dogging this as part of his investigation as head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He spoke Sunday morning with CBS’ Bob Schieffer and investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, explaining that this investigation is hardly about politics, as Obama administration defenders are asserting.
Now comes the report on Fox News that the Justice Department is firing back at Issa. The department has issued a statement that says:
"The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry's murder are false."
This column is reminded of a letter sent to Senator Charles Grassley on Feb. 4, 2011 by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich in response to the Iowa senator’s inquiry about Operation Fast and Furious. Here’s what Weich told Grassley:
“At the outset, the allegation described in your January 27 letter—that ATF “sanctioned” or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico—is false.”
Who should the public believe, a California congressman whose investigation has already shown that the Weich claim was demonstrably false, or a Justice Department whose leader – Attorney General Eric Holder – may ultimately be the target of that investigation for having possibly allowed Fast and Furious to go forward, and who then possibly misled Congress about the extent of his involvement?
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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DOJ: Issa's Theory That Gun Disappeared After Border Patrolman's Murder 'Maligns' FBI (gunwalker)
tpmmuckraker ^ | 17 October, 2011 | Ryan J. Reilly
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said Sunday that he was worried about what he saw as certain inconsistencies in the investigation into the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and floated the theory that there was a third weapon at the scene. Federal officials say he didn't do his homework.
Two weapons linked to ATF's botched Fast and Furious operation (which allowed guns to "walk" into Mexico) had been found at the scene of Terry's death, but investigators haven't determined conclusively if one of those weapons killed him. It was Terry's murder that lead to complaints from ATF agents about the the bureau's anti-gun trafficking program.
"If weapon number one [which] appears to be missing were ballistically matched," Issa said on CBS "Face the Nation", "we would have an absolute rather than the inconsistency." From the interview:
Host Bob Schieffer: Are you suggesting that maybe that might be the gun, that evidence shows was the murder weapon, and for some reason the FBI has not disclosed that?
Chairman Issa: Well, we certainly want to know in some cases, as you know, there are investigations where there's materials that people feel are very sensitive.
Issa also added that the FBI "has a history in some cases of working with felons and criminals and hiding their other crimes."
A Justice Department spokeswoman said that Issa's false accusation "maligns the dedicated agents investigating the murder of Agent Terry" and "mischaracterizes evidence in an ongoing case."
"The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry's murder are false," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement to reporters.
"When law enforcement analyzes evidence from a crime scene, it refers to some of the items seized as 'known' items or 'Ks' for shorthand," Schmaler explained. "Certain items were analyzed as 'known' items from the crime scene of Agent Terry's murder, including the two firearms referenced by Chairman Issa and designated by the FBI as Known Specimens 'K2' and 'K3'."
"According to the FBI, the item that Chairman Issa refers to as 'K1' is a blood sample from Agent Terry, not a firearm. For this reason, it was not listed on the ballistics report prepared by the FBI," Schmaler continued.
"Prior to his appearance on CBS this past Sunday, Chairman Issa's staff was informed that there were two - not three - guns recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry's murder," Schmaler said.
Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Elijah E. Cummings issued a statement criticizing Issa's comments.
"It is unbelievably reckless for Chairman Issa to go on national television and repeat these baseless accusations, which attack the integrity and credibility of entire law enforcement agencies and undermine the prosecution of those responsible for Agent Terry's death. In a closed briefing with Committee staff earlier this month, the FBI dispelled any allegation that they recovered a third gun at the scene, and the Committee has no evidence to the contrary."
Late update: Issa spokesman Frederick Hill emails this statement: "If there was no third gun then Agent Brian Terry was killed by a weapon from Operation Fast and Furious. The Justice Department has so far failed to acknowledge this or provide appropriate answers."
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Obama: People Responsible for Fast and Furious 'Will Be Held Accountable'
newsmax ^ | 10/19/11 | M Gould
The people responsible for the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal “will be held accountable,” President Barack Obama pledges during an interview for "Nightline" Tuesday night.
“It’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen,” Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper. “And we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.”
Obama told Tapper, “People who screwed up will be held accountable,” according to a report on ABCnews.com in advance of the broadcast.
His comments came on the day that the Senate voted to block funds for any similar operation in the future.
It also came as a fourth Republican congressman, freshman Allen West, called for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder for his role in the fatally flawed scheme which saw hundreds of assault weapons fall into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, West said Holder “definitely could be complicit in what could be criminal actions.” The Florida representative added, “He should do the honorable thing and resign and take full responsibility for what has happened.”
Obama’s comments show that pressure from Republican investigators led by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa of California and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is paying off.
Last week, Issa subpoenaed hundreds of documents to discover how high in the administration knowledge of the scheme went. He has accused Holder of failing to cooperate in the investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
________________________ ___
LOL. So far Obama has not held anyone accountable or even launched a formal investigation.
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The 3rd Gun & "K1" -- not the same thing. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a 3rd gun.
Sipsey Street Irregulars ^ | 20 October, 2011 | Mike Vanderboegh
Posted on Thursday, October 20, 2011 8:42:43 AM by Watchdog85
As part of the recent White House counteroffensive in the Gunwalker Scandal PR battle, Jordy Yager, AP correspondent and go-to guy for White House leaks wrote:
DOJ also issued a statement on Monday night saying that Issa’s comments were offensive and misunderstood how the FBI catalogues evidence found at crime scenes.
“The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder are false,” said the DOJ in a statement.
"Unfortunately, this most recent false accusation not only maligns the dedicated agents investigating the murder of Agent Terry, it mischaracterizes evidence in an ongoing case,” the DOJ said.
Issa contends that since the two weapons found at Terry’s murder scene were catalogued as “K2” and “K3,” there must be a “K1” -- that is, a third gun which has never been revealed to lawmakers or their investigators. The DOJ has said that the “K1” is a sample of Terry’s blood and not another weapon.
Since Monday I have been checking into this controversy. A number of sources in DC, Northern Virginia and Arizona have weighed in. The DOJ, it seems, is likely right. Issa, or rather his staff for I'm sure that's where the error began, made a mistake in thinking that just because K2 and K3 referred to the Kalashnikovs found at the scene, that K1 did too. This email from a source explains:
Mike,
Don't get too far out on a limb, challenging the FBI explanation. All items received at the lab are assigned a "K' number, as received. Different items go to different units, for an examination relating to that unit's specialty. Each unit prepares a report relating to ONLY THE ITEMS THAT IT EXAMINED.
If K-1 is a blood sample, there should be a DNA lab report referencing a K-1 sample.
Note: "All items received at the lab (emphasis supplied, MBV) are assigned a "K' number, as received. (emphasis supplied, MBV.)
Thus, if the lab assigns the numbers, the issue becomes: Did the third gun make it to the lab? For there was a third gun. Other sources as well as the Hope MacAllister - Andre Howard tapes are clear on that. An SKS, traced to Texas, and said to have been linked to the FBI's cartel informant, WAS recovered.
But did it make it to the lab where the numbers are assigned? My sources say no. Thus, Issa's error in assuming that K1 referred to the third gun gave the FBI and DOJ an opening to try to discredit the whole notion of a third gun, but the mistake doesn't disprove that there was, or was not.
Let's revisit the tapes:
Agent: Well there was two.
Dealer: There's three weapons.
Agent: There's three weapons.
Dealer: I know that.
Agent: And yes, there's serial numbers for all three.
Dealer: That's correct.
Agent: Two of them came from this store.
Dealer: I understand that.
Agent: There's an SKS that I don't think came from.... Dallas or Texas or something like that.
Dealer: I know. talking about the AK's
Agent: The two AK's came from this store.
Dealer: I know that.
Agent: Ok.
Dealer: I did the Goddamned trace
Agent: Third weapon is the SKS has nothing to do with it.
Dealer: That didn't come from me.
Agent: No and there is that's my knowledge. and I spoke to someone who would know those are the only ones they have. So this is the agent who's working the case, all I can go by is what she told me.
Now the tapes were recorded some time in mid-March 2011 by the principle Federal Firearms Licensee cooperating with ATF in "Fast and Furious," Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. The agent he's talking with is the lead Phoenix Group VII case agent Hope MacAllister.
This is not the only evidence of a third gun. As FOX reported on 9 September:
A third gun linked to "Operation Fast and Furious" was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government's now infamous gun interdiction scandal.
Sources say emails support their contention that the FBI concealed evidence to protect a confidential informant. Sources close to the Terry case say the FBI informant works inside a major Mexican cartel and provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.
Unlike the two AK-style assault weapons found at the scene, the third weapon could more easily be linked to the informant. To prevent that from happening, sources say, the third gun "disappeared."
In addition to the emails obtained by Fox News, an audio recording from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent investigating the Terry case seems to confirm the existence of a third weapon. In that conversation, the agent refers to an "SKS assault rifle out of Texas" found at the Terry murder scene south of Tucson.
The FBI refused to answer a detailed set of questions submitted to officials by Fox News. Instead, agency spokesman Paul Bresson said, "The Brian Terry investigation is still ongoing so I cannot comment." Bresson referred Fox News to court records that only identify the two possible murder weapons.
However, in the hours after Terry was killed on Dec. 14, 2010, several emails written to top ATF officials suggest otherwise.
In one, an intelligence analyst writes that by 7:45 p.m. -- about 21 hours after the shooting -- she had successfully traced two weapons at the scene, and is now "researching the trace status of firearms recovered earlier today by the FBI."
In another email, deputy ATF-Phoenix director George Gillett asks: "Are those two (AK-47s) in addition to the gun already recovered this morning?"
The two AK-type assault rifles were purchased by Jaime Avila from the Lone Wolf Trading Co. outside of Phoenix on Jan. 16, 2010. Avila was recruited by his roommate Uriel Patino. Patino, according to sources, received $70,000 in "seed money" from the FBI informant late in 2009 to buy guns for the cartel.
As part of my own investigation, I sought to discover just exactly when Andre Howard first learned that there was at least one other firearm found at the Terry murder scene and who told him about it. Sources in AZ and DC say that their understanding is that Howard heard about it from an ATF agent (perhaps MacAllister herself, but this is unclear), in the days after the Terry murder.
In the tapes, when MacAllister assures Howard that "the SKS has nothing to do with it," presumably she is referring to the murder of Brian Terry. Yet how she can know this when it was retrieved at the murder scene is unclear.
Now the previous DOJ "refutation" of the third gun allegation was that experienced crime scene investigators didn't know the difference between an SKS and a Kalashnikov and couldn't count the number of firearms in front of them on one hand.
The DOJ is on firmer ground with this K1 business. K1 does not equal third gun. But that there was a third gun is certain, according to my sources. That it belonged to the FBI informant is also said to be certain.
The question then becomes, was the paid FBI informant at the shoot-out? How did the weapon get there without him, if not? What was the FBI's understanding of the events in the desert outside Rio Rico BEFORE the investigation team arrived? The need to remove the informant's weapon from the evidence stream to protect their source -- even from the charge of murder of a federal officer -- would have been -- and my sources say, was -- overwhelming.
One called him, "The Mexican Whitey Bulger," and added, "They still protect their snitches -- always." He said, "They had an 'Oh shit!' moment. The gun was there, and then it wasn't. Do I have to draw you a picture? Hell, no, it didn't go to the lab. They're not THAT stupid."
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Interesting article. I'm getting the feeling that the guy who killed Terry will turn out to have been on the FBI payroll.
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"Interesting article. I'm getting the feeling that the guy who killed Terry will turn out to have been on the FBI payroll. "
Remember on episode 1 of the shield, where the informant agent Terry was shot by Vic?
Just a coincidence? Was it on a green screen?
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Gunwalker: The Third Gun
Pajamas Media ^ | October 19, 2011 | Bob Owens
Darrell Issa investigates the rumored third gun present at ATF Agent Bryan Terry's murder.
A war within a war appears to have broken out regarding allegations of a third weapon at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder.
The Department of Justice claims that only two semi-automatic AK-pattern rifles were recovered at the scene of the shootout between a Border Patrol tactical team and armed Mexican criminals that night in the Arizona desert. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) ruffled feathers within the DOJ and with Democrats on his committee by repeating allegations of a third weapon at the scene, and by announcing plans to question the FBI about the investigation of Agent Terry’s death.
Border Patrol agents had mentioned a third weapon to Agent Terry’s family. CBS News obtained audiotape of a conversation between an ATF agent who was part of Operation Fast and Furious and the dealer who sold weapons under ATF direction to cartel smugglers. The blunt conversation is very hard to spin:
Agent: Well there was two.
Dealer: There’s three weapons.
Agent: There’s three weapons.
Dealer: I know that.
Agent: And yes, there’s serial numbers for all three.
Dealer: That’s correct.
Agent: Two of them came from this store.
Dealer: I understand that.
Agent: There’s an SKS that I don’t think came from … Dallas or Texas or something like that.
Dealer: I know. talking about the AK’s –
Agent: The two AK’s came from this store.
Dealer: I know that.
Agent: OK.
Dealer: I did the godd***ed trace –
Agent: Third weapon is the SKS has nothing to do with it.
Dealer: That didn’t come from me.
Agent: No and there is — that’s my knowledge. And I spoke to someone who would know those are the only ones they have. So this is the agent who’s working the case, all I can go by is what she told me.
Dallas has long been alleged to be the site of another major gunwalking operation running weapons to the cartel, one of 10 claimed gunwalking operations in five states. The FBI’s statement on the allegation released Monday seems definitive:
The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder are false.
The FBI is very careful with their words: they declare there was not a third gun recovered a) “from the perpetrators,” b) “at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder.”
An inference one could make from the careful phrasing: if there was a third weapon, it was not recovered in direct proximity to one of the Mexican criminals involved in the crime, and it was more than likely dropped as the suspects fled the scene — which is also what allegedly happened with both of the AK-pattern rifles used in the shootout. They were recovered a short distance away.
If the alleged third weapon was an SKS fired by the criminals at the crime scene as ATF agents have indicated, then its absence can be verified if the FBI didn’t carefully sanitize the crime scene. The FBI would have collected and cataloged all evidence at the crime scene, including the shell casings recovered and their precise location. A location map of the recovered casings help tell the story of who fired what and when, and can help track the movements of the shooter.
Shell casings can also be used to “fingerprint” weapons based upon the marks left by the weapon’s firing pin, chamber, and extractor. While less precise than matching a bullet to the rifling of a barrel, the casings recovered at the crime scene will tell us what kind of weapons were used not just by their caliber (SKS and AK-pattern rifles are both chambered to fire 7.62×39 ammunition), but by the marks left on the shell casings themselves. If congressional investigators are sharp, they’ll subpoena every bit of information about the shell casings at the Terry murder scene. If casings consistent with the extractor markings of an SKS can been identified, then the FBI and DOJ are in serious trouble.
Other ATF communications make the DOJ’s claim that there was no third weapon even more suspect:
In one, an intelligence analyst writes that by 7:45 p.m. — about 21 hours after the shooting — she had successfully traced two weapons at the scene, and is now “researching the trace status of firearms recovered earlier today by the FBI.”
In another email, ATF-Phoenix Deputy Director George Gillett asks: “Are those two (AK-47s) in addition to the gun already recovered this morning?”
The DOJ seems once again to be blocking reasonable inquires into their own conflicting stories, and attacking the investigators.
Though Operation Fast and Furious is now in it’s tenth month, the Obama administration has made no attempt to hold the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, State, or Treasury to account for the government’s gun trafficking conspiracy.
We still don’t know:
•who came up with Operation Fast and Furious;
•the identities of the Justice, Homeland Security, State, and Treasury officials that approved the operation;
•why the acting DOJ inspector general has not recused herself from the DOJ investigation considering her past legal work with Eric Holder, a seemingly clear conflict of interest;
•how four cabinet-level agencies could run a high risk, low chance of success operation without the White House approving and monitoring the operation;
•why officials running the plot felt compelled to “dirty up” an ATF agent by forcing him to use taxpayer dollars to buy six Draco pistols and to deliver them personally to cartel weapons smugglers in hopes his involvement would keep him from testifying;
•why the agencies involved refuse to answer direct questions from congressmen and senators who have asked whether there were gunwalking programs in other states.
It appears that the primary mission of Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is to insulate President Obama’s political appointees from the consequences of their actions, and to obstruct the pursuit of justice by Congress as much as possible.
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hiding the 3rd gun.
put that in the pile of things the middle mgmt PHX guy will take blame for.
Wow, you repubs are going to be pissed when Holder and Obama skate. I can just hear Holder laughing... "In case you didn't notice, Mr Fox Reporter, we had so-and-so take responability for everything you're asking. Please put your partisan conspiracy theories away so we can focus upon keeping our nation safe from iranian/mex assassination gangs..."
oh, you'll suddenly see how pissed 911 skeptics were, when bush said "let us not tolerate any 911 conspiracy theories" as Dean revealed Bush KNEW about the attacks ahead of time.
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Reps. Chaffetz and Gowdy Seek Information From President Obama On Flawed Fast & Furious Program
U.S. House of Representatives ^ | October 19, 2011 | NA
Congressmen ask Administration to come clean on what they knew and when
Washington -
On Friday, October 14, 2011, Representatives Chaffetz (UT-3) and Gowdy (SC-4) sent a letter to President Obama seeking information in the "Fast and Furious" investigation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The letter asks what the President knew about the investigation and when he learned of it. This is significant information because both President Obama and Attorney General Holder have spoken about when they were informed of "problems" with the investigation. Reps. Chaffetz and Gowdy believe "Fast and Furious" was a flawed investigation from its origin.
Rep. Chaffetz added, "We're looking for answers. I hope Mr. Holder will come before the Congress and clear up this glaring discrepancy. The President promised he would help get to the bottom of these questions and hold people accountable. We have a number of questions for Mr. Holder to answer."
According to Congressman Gowdy, a former state and federal prosecutor who handled scores of firearms cases, "'Fast and Furious' was both ill-conceived and ill-executed, and any investigation that relies on 'gun-walking' and the recovery of guns at crimes scenes is so fundamentally flawed that whoever approved it needs to be disciplined. Allowing guns to walk away from law enforcement surveillance into another country is serious enough, but adding to that, what seems to be ATF's plan to wait to recapture these guns at crimes scenes – after yet another law is violated – is frankly astonishing in its ineptitude. So, it is not enough for me to know when the President and Attorney General learned of so-called 'problems' with 'Fast and Furious'- 'Fast and Furious' was a problem from its very inception."
The Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform have been focused on "Fast and Furious" for months. To date, ATF Director Ken Melson has stepped down and U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke has resigned. Attorney General Holder continues to deny prior knowledge of the investigation, but documents show he had been informed of the operation more than 6 months before his May 3rd testimony in a Judiciary Committee hearing focused on Department of Justice Oversight.
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ATF Death Watch 107: How Many Guns?(Gunwalker)
The Truth About Guns ^ | 20 October, 2011 | Robert Farago
I find it astounding that the Congressional Oversight Committee and the Justice Department are in a pissing match over a single firearm. Representative Issa’s investigators have every reason to believe there were at least three ATF-enabled firearms at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Their opinion is based, in part, on a recorded conversation between the owner of Badger Guns and an ATF Agent wherein the Agent said “There were actually three weapons [recovered].” As today’s letter from Issa and Senator Grassley to the FBI reveals, it’s possible there were as many as five guns involved. And yet the Justice Department decided to make the number of ATF-enabled murder weapons an issue—accusing Issa of political pandering while continuing to claim that the FBI only found two Fast and Furious-related firearms at the scene. Ah yes, the FBI . . .
The FBI is a completely unreliable source of information; the Bureau stands accused of covering-up the exact details surrounding Agent’s Terry’s murder. At the very least, the Bureau is stonewalling on behalf of the Attorney General by refusing to turn over key documents requested by the Oversight Committee. More likely they’re desperately attempting to conceal their own role in the ATF’s “Guns for Goons” program.
We know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation manipulated their NICS criminal background check system to allow ATF-favored felons to [illegally] purchase firearms from ATF-monitored U.S. gun dealers. Note: that’s not the kind of move an FBI Agent at the sharp end could or would make without authorization from the Bureau’s top officials.
Those FBI “higher ups” would not have agreed to pervert NICS without speaking to the ATF’s top officials. And those ATF officials would have had to have informed the FBI brass WTF they were doing to receive the FBI’s cooperation. Unless . . . someone even higher up in the food chain told the FBI to STFU and push the buttons that let ex-cons carry guns to Sinaloa drug cartel members.
Be that as it may, the FBI was up to its eyeballs in Operation Fast and Furious before Agent Terry was murdered by drug thugs wielding ATF-enabled firearms. When the FBI got the call to deal with the aftermath of Terry’s murder—forensics, witness interviews, the lot—they performed their duties according to the FBI’s number one priority: protect the Bureau.
Even if you focus exclusively on the Terry case, there are a large range of deeply disturbing questions surrounding the FBI’s investigation. Issa and Grassley’s letter lists 16 separate lines of enquiry, drilling down to the most basic: how many people were involved in the shooting and where the hell are they? To find answers, the pols repeat their request for F&F-related internal comms between no less than nine FBI employees.
The letter highlights a three-month delay between the Committee’s initial request and the new missive, and sets a deadline for the FBI’s cooperation: November 2. Meanwhile, high-ranking democrats are calling the new subpoenas a “politically motivated fishing expedition.” At least someone did; I heard them bitch and moan on the radio but can’t find the remarks on Google. Which tells you that the Gunwalker scandal has reached another watershed moment.
The funny thing about all this “how many guns did the FBI recover” skirmish is that Fast and Furious unleashed at least 2000 weapons during its ten-month tenure. What’s a gun or three here and there compared to this “iron river” of weapons walked across the border to the Sinaloans with Uncle Sam’s blessing? And what’s that number compared to the American fully automatic machine guns and grenades walked across town by “defecting” Mexican troops?
elimparcial.com reports that nearly 45,000 soldiers and marines deserted the Mexican Armed Forces since Felipe Calderon assumed the presidency in 2006. If each soldier brought four guns with them (on average), that’s 180k weapons for Mexican drug cartels. Which doesn’t include thousands of firearms and millions of bullets stolen from army arsenals or the thousands of machine guns that the Mexican cartels “requisitioned” from Mexican police. Your tax money hard at work.
All of which leaves the same question on the table that I brought up a bazillion Death Watches ago: why did the ATF bother enabling the smuggling of a couple of thousand guns from a relative handful of U.S. gun stores when the U.S. government had bought (one way or another) tens of thousands of guns through “legitimate” export? Now there’s a question for Representative Issa and Senator Grassley.
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ATF Ignored Death Threats, Tried to Frame Whistleblower Agent to Cover Corruption
Townhall.com ^ | October 21, 2011 | Katie Pavlich
Jay Dobyns is a father, husband and 25-year, highly respected and highly decorated Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent. He was the first law enforcement agent to ever successfully infiltrate multiple layers of the notoriously dangerous and violent Hells Angels motorcycle gang through "Operation Black Biscuit." He has described the Hells Angels as having their "PhDs in violence," and worked undercover in the gang for two years. Dobyns has dedicated his life to undercover service for ATF and took a bullet through the lung at one point for the agency. Luckily, he survived.
Dobyns has put number of the nations’ most violent criminals behind bars, which naturally comes with threats from those criminals and their buddies in return. After he finished his work bringing down the Hells Angels, things were no different.
Approximately a year after Operation Black Biscuit concluded beginning in 2004 through 2008, Dobyns and ATF became aware of credible and substantial violent threats against him and his family. Those threats included plans to murder him either with a bullet or by injecting him with the AIDS virus, kidnapping and torturing his then 15-year-old daughter and kidnapping his wife in order to videotape a gang rape of her. Dobyns and ATF also learned contracts were solicited between the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood and the MS-13 gang to carry out these threats.
During Operation Black Biscuit, Dobyns operated as a special field agent under ATF Phoenix Field Office management. At the time of the threats, that management team included Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Phoenix Field Division William Newell, Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillett and ATF Deputy Assistant Director William McMahon, who served as Newell’s direct supervisor at the time. All were intimately involved in Operation Fast and Furious. Newell and McMahon have both testified before the House Oversight Committee regarding their roles in the lethal gun trafficking operation that deliberately put over 2,000 high powered weapons into the hands of ruthless Mexican drug cartels and lost south of the border.
These threats were laid out in prison letters and confirmed through FBI and ATF interviews of confidential informants inside the Florence Corrections Facility and the Arlington County Detention Center in Virginia. Also found circulating in the Florence Facility by a prisoner known as the captain of the Aryan Brotherhood named "WHITEY," was an extensive hit list with Jay Dobyns as a top target. Leaders of each gang in the prison had a copy of list and had been given "permission to kill" persons listed according to ATF documents and interviews. Dobyns’ name, in addition to a detailed description of his appearance, also came up in prison yard talk.
"A confidential source stated that it observed WHITEY go into a box within his cell that contained a large number of letters. The confidential source stated that WHITEY pulled out a plain white envelope from within the box, removing a legal sized piece of paper that was full of names. The confidential source explained that the list was broken down into columns, with names, the affiliation of the person who was named and who had approved the “green light” (given permission to kill the person or who ordered the "hit"). The confidential source stated that while looking at the list he recalled several names on the list that were law enforcement officers (approximately 16 names), specifically stating the name "JAY DOBYNS ATF," a report from an interview conducted by ATF Special Agents Jeffery Grabman and Frank D’Alesio with FBI Special Agent Laura Kidwell present shows. "WHITEY knew Dobyns had a daughter, stating that if he were to find the daughter he would torture her."
Grabman, D'Alesio and Kidwell verified these threats were credible and management agents in the Washington D.C. ATF office were practically begging the ATF Phoenix Field Office to the threats seriously and investigate.
Dobyns reported these threats to Special Agent in Charge William Newell, asking for protection for his family. The threats were based in Arizona and Dobyns lived in Arizona at the time. Newell was in charge of investigating and handling all threats made against agents working out of the ATF Phoenix Field Office. The threats were ignored. When Dobyns essentially "blew the whistle" on Newell, pointing out his failures to address violent death threats against a federal agent, he was retaliated against. Newell dismissed the threats and then covered up his blatant dismissal of those threats within the Phoenix Field Office.
Additionally, in response to the ATF/FBI interview, despite all the evidence the death threats were credible, Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division John Torres, who like Newell has also been promoted into ATF headquarters, informed Dobyns through an email, "The Chief of Operations Security does not deem the emergency action is required as of this date and time."
Later, a DOJ Inspector General report concluded that management within the ATF Phoenix office, despite having the necessary resources, did not adequately address threats made against Dobyns and found "absence of any corrective measures proposed to address the failure to conduct timely and thorough investigations into the death threats made against Dobyns."
In addition, a U.S. Office of Special Counsel report concluded, "I note with concern the absence of any corrective measures proposed to address the failure to conduct timely and thorough investigations into the death threats made against Special Agent Dobyns. ATF does not appear to have held anyone accountable in this regard. Fully addressing the problems and failures identified in this care requires more than amending ATF policies and procedures. It requires that threats against ATF agents be taken seriously and pursued aggressively and that ATF officials at all level cooperate to ensure the timely and comprehensive investigation of threats leveled against its own agents."
On top of ignoring death threats, recently Dobyns' house was set on fire at 3 a.m. with his wife, son and daughter sleeping inside in a confirmed act of arson. It is suspected members of the Hells Angels, or close associates of the gang carried out the arson in retaliation of Dobyns’ undercover work.
When Dobyns reported the incident to both ATF and Newell and asked for an investigation into the case, Newell not only refused to investigate, calling the incident "just scorching," but allowed his subordinates, including Gillett, to attempt to frame Dobyns, accusing him of purposely burning down his own home with his family inside, has named him as a suspect and is investigating him. Newell conspired to destroy and fabricate evidence to "prove" his case. Emails, witness testimony, phone conversations and other documentation show the ATF Phoenix Field Divisions’ intentions, led by Newell, were to frame Dobyns, yet Newell denied under oath any involvement in this activity. His subordinates Gillett and ATF Tucson Group Supervisor over Operation Wide Receiver Charles Higman, also denied any attempts to frame Dobyns under oath, despite evidence showing otherwise.
The retaliatory actions of Newell, and other ATF management agents, were reported to ATF senior management at the highest levels and were ignored.
ATF is notorious for retaliatory action against field agents, but the Dobyns case brings that retaliation behavior to a new level. Credible death threats, backed by evidence from inside the prison system, the investigation of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and the Office of the Inspector General in the Bush Justice Department, were ignored by ATF management in the Phoenix Field Division Office and at ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. Evidence of the threats was also sent to Congress and the President of the United States.
“Numerous mid-level ATF managers the senior leadership of three ATF field divisions and the Executive Staff of ATF in Washington D.C., along with ATF's Internal Affairs and the Chief Counsel office were all directly involved in, and responsible for the death threats against me. Unfortunately, mine is not an isolated incident. ATF management's pattern of reckless behavior in this area is institutional. It has been historically tolerated and promoted.” Dobyns wrote in a letter to an attorney in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in late October 2008.
So why does this matter? Newell was the brainchild of Operation Fast and Furious in the ATF Phoenix Field office. Newell is also the agent who was in regular contact with a member of the White House national security team, Kevin O’Reilly, about the lethal program. Newell also said he would conduct Operation Fast and Furious again, despite two Americans and hundreds of innocent Mexicans dead as a result of the program.
Newell used Dobyns as a test run, to see just how much he could get away with in his management position within ATF before getting reprimanded. Considering nobody was held accountable for the mistakes made in handling death threats against Dobyns, Newell knew he had the green light to do whatever he wanted, at the highest levels of corruption. The Dobyns case empowered him. Newell was protected and defended for ignoring violent death threats against a federal agent, he had free reign to do what he wanted. This gave Newell everything he needed to get away with Operation Fast and Furious, which started in Fall 2009.
After allowing 2,000 guns to flow freely into the hands of dangerous Mexican cartels, Newell said under oath that he never let guns walk into Mexico, despite massive amounts of evidence, whistleblower testimony and detailed maps proving otherwise. Keep in mind, ATF Operation Fast and Furious Whistleblowers like John Dodson, Pete Forcelli and Vince Cefalu have all experienced retaliation for their efforts to expose corruption within ATF.
Since purposely ignoring death threats made against Dobyns, deliberately trafficking thousands of weapons into Mexico and repeatedly lying under oath, William Newell has been promoted to a position within ATF in Washington D.C. William McMahon is no different. He too was promoted and now oversees the ATF’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations or in other words, ATF’s Internal Affairs Division. George Gillett, who orchestrated the frame job against Dobyns was moved out of the ATF Phoenix office following his heavy involvement in Operation Fast and Furious and is now assigned as ATF’s liason to the U.S. Marshall’s Service in Washington D.C.
"ATF wasn’t going to do anything to Bill Newell. They were going to defend and protect him because he was their golden boy," Dobyns tells Townhall. "Why are you protecting this guy? What has he ever done to even deserve your loyalty let alone your protection?"
If ATF had taken steps to hold Newell, Gillett, McMahon and others responsible for their irresponsible actions surrounding the Dobyns case, Fast and Furious wouldn’t have happened, but because ATF openly rewards bad behavior and corruption, Fast and Furious was utterly predictable. ATF executive leadership left these people in place to rule in this agency. They left management in the ATF Phoenix Field Office in place despite documentation showing they were incompetent.
"The agency and the field agents in the agency know those stories and it’s demoralizing across the board because the agents, the people with their boots on the ground are going to say, 'You know what, Jay Dobyns went out there and laid it down for this agency and he’s getting attacked by the agency where a guy like Bill Newell who never left his desk, basically conducted his career with a suit and tie on is being protected.’ Even after all the things that everybody knows he did, he’s still being hidden and defended and protected,'" Dobyns says.
Throughout the years it has become clear that ATF is more interested in protecting and promoting the corrupt practices of the men who have made careers profiting off of corruption, obstruction of justice and lies, like Newell, rather than rewarding field agents taking out dangerous criminals like ATF Special Agent Jay Dobyns, ATF Operation Fast and Furious Whistleblowers John Dodson, Pete Forcelli, Vince Cefalu and others for their bravery and sacrifice to fight violent crime and for exposing corruption within the agency. The bottom line is, ATF as an agency doesn’t care about recommendations or evidence of misconduct, in fact, the agency rewards screw ups on a regular basis. The Dobyns case could be counted as the most reckless case of retaliation in ATF history, yet nobody has been held accountable for it.
"The identical techniques, tactics, practices and personnel that were used on me were repeated in Fast and Furious. You’ve got a flawed response plan that is not well thought out, both to the gun trafficking in Fast and Furious to the threats against me. You’ve got the same people who are at the tip of the spear in developing the plan to send thousands of weapons to Mexico and ignoring death threats and not realizing when it is failing. Then you’ve got the point when they get called out and caught in their bad acts both in Fast and Furious and my threat response. Then you go into the immediate denial of ‘no we didn’t do that.’ Then, when it starts to be proved, you go into the attack on the person that exposed it, that blew the whistle. They attacked me just like they attacked John Dodson and Pete Forcelli and those guys. Then you go into the cover-up where they are denying the evidence and hiding the evidence of what they did wrong and then you go into the lies under oath that they’re denying and raising their right hand, swearing to tell the truth and willingly and intentionally not telling the truth," Dobyns says.
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As Issa Closes in on FBI Role in Gunwalker, Dems Feign Outrage
Pajamas Media ^ | October 21, 2011 | Bob Owens
Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2011 9:53:31 AM by Kaslin
As the cover-up unravels, the Justice Department and a Democrat congressman play "shoot the messenger."
As the Gunwalker conspiracy continues to unravel, initial claims that the multi-agency plot was an isolated and localized Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation are falling apart.
Following up on comments made this past Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller seeking detailed information in their Fast and Furious investigation. They are particularly focused on the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010.
The letter asserts that as many as five firearms may have been in the hands of the suspects, based upon the claim by the captured suspect that he was traveling with four other individuals — all of whom he says were armed. Neither the search warrant affidavit nor the unsealed indictment stated the total number of weapons recovered after the firefight, a curious omission.
The letter goes on to ask 16 questions. The first three questions cover the ballistics tests run on the weapons recovered, while the next four inquire about the weapons the smugglers may have used in the firefight and how many shots may have been fired from each kind of weapon. The remaining questions are focused on the investigators themselves (specifically the FBI, ATF, and any other “state local, or federal” agencies that may have been present by the time the FBI arrived to the crime scene), the gun trace data, and the total number of suspects involved.
Getting honest answers to these questions is critical, as the FBI seems to be claiming that only two weapons were recovered at the scene. Candid conversations with other law enforcement agents strongly suggest that a third weapon, an SKS tied to an FBI criminal informant, was at the crime scene before disappearing.
The Department of Justice was quick to denounce the letter and the Oversight Committee’s quest to reach the bottom of Operation Fast and Furious:
On Monday, the Justice Department responded to Issa’s accusations about a possible third gun saying, “The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder are false.” They also maintain that Issa’s staff was previously informed of this.
“Unfortunately, this most recent false accusation not only maligns the dedicated agents investigating the murder of Agent Terry, it mischaracterizes evidence in an ongoing case,” the Justice Department said in its statement.
Oversight Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), an Obama administration loyalist, fiercely responded as well:
Frankly, I am shocked that Chairman Issa would continue to spin this conspiracy theory — that the FBI is hiding a third weapon — even after his recent allegations proved false. Rather than acknowledging this embarrassing mistake and apologizing for making false accusations about the FBI, Chairman Issa’s letter is an unprecedented attack on the integrity and credibility of law enforcement that could seriously jeopardize the ongoing prosecution.
To put it mildly, Cummings’ criticism is duplicitous. The ATF’s William Newell boldly lied to the American people when he answered “Hell no!” to inquires on whether guns were walked in Operation Fast and Furious. Instead of being fired, he and his fellow conspirators were promoted “laterally” to desk jobs in Washington, D.C.
The Department of Justice has repeatedly tried to claim that Operation Fast and Furious was a localized operation, when documents prove that numerous Obama administration-appointed officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder himself and the number two man in Justice, Gary Grindler, were briefed on the operation. One document shows Grindler’s personal notes scrawled in the margins.
The FBI, DEA and Justice Department have all attempted to stonewall the Oversight Committee investigation, and have refused to answer direct questions from other congressional committees and individual congressmen and senators as well.
With allegations of gun-walking operations in 10 cities in five states, the congressional reaction of a calm investigation is, if anything, subdued. As noted in a previous article, if we use Operation Fast and Furious as a baseline and assume that the other gunwalking operations were roughly as productive, the U.S. may have run between 10,000 and 20,00o guns to criminal organizations, enough weapons to outfit an entire U.S. Army infantry division.
The constant revelations of new documents and new testimony strongly suggest that President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not been forthright about what they knew of multiple plots carried out jointly by their agencies.
PJM reporter AWR Hawkins notes:
To date, their stories are not believable, and Obama’s pledge to discover who was behind Fast and Furious and hold them “accountable” is simply not trustworthy.
Even the reliably left-leaning Huffington Post tells readers they should be furious over Operation Fast and Furious:
Who in their right mind would think using criminals to smuggle thousands of guns in to Mexico was a good idea?
Our Justice Department refuses to reveal the creator or cost of Operation Fast & Furious. Why?
What the hell is going on in this country? And why don’t our federal officials just man-up and admit when mistakes have been made?
The handful of apologists that still openly support the administration’s gun-smuggling plot are left with little more than bombast, vitriol, and shallow, transparent attempts to smear the investigations that originated in the White House.
New claims suggest that the federal government had “prior knowledge” that poverty-stricken straw purchasers were about to start spending thousands of dollars at a time at Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun dealer cooperating with the investigation. Lone Wolf’s owner, Andre Howard, was allegedly told by ATF Agent Hope McAllister: “The amount of weapons you sell is about to dramatically increase.”
This suggests that either the agents had inside intelligence on cartel buyers, or FBI criminal informants at the heart of the operation were directing the straw purchasers to Lone Wolf to spend money provided by the FBI.
All of the evidence that has come forward in recent months paints an increasingly detailed picture of a government gone mad, with top administration officials contributing willfully to a bloody criminal conspiracy.
It’s a little late for faux outrage.
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Lawmakers blast Justice Department’s ‘Fast and Furious’ probe(gunwalker)
The Washington Times ^ | 20 October, 2011 | Jerry Seper
Two senior Republican lawmakers lambasted the Justice Department on Thursday for its “false denials” in the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation, demanding that the FBI turn over documents in its ongoing probe into the shooting death by Mexican bandits of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
In a seven-page letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Darrell E. Issa of California and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said the lack of answers being given to Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry’s family concerning his Dec. 14 killing and the delay in bringing those responsible to justice “only compounds their anguish.”
“After 10 months of FBI investigation, Agent Terry’s family and the American public deserve to know more about the status of the inquiry, the state of the evidence, and any connections to Operation Fast and Furious,” they wrote.
Two AK-47 assault weapons purchased at a Glendale, Ariz., gun shop as a part of the Fast and Furious operation were found at the killing site — located just north of the U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales, Ariz.
But Mr. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Mr. Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, noted that neither the search-warrant affidavit nor an unsealed indictment in the case described the total number of guns recovered at the scene.
They said that based on the “limited information officially released about the circumstances,” it appeared that the illegal immigrants who shot at Terry may have been armed with a total of five rifles.
“We know that two Fast and Furious rifles were part of a lot of three, all purchased at the same time over a year earlier,” they said. “These circumstances naturally raise questions regarding the whereabouts of that third Fast and Furious gun, whether the other firearms
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
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By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Darrell E. Issa on Monday to expand their formal "Fast and Furious" investigation to include accusations that similar gunrunning probes took place in Texas.
Mr. Cornyn said he asked U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in August to address the "scope and details of any past or present ATF gun-walking programs" in his home state, but never got a response.
"Though their failure to respond is not direct evidence of malfeasance, the department's reluctance to address allegations of additional 'gun-walking' schemes in my state raises serious questions, and Texans deserve a full accounting of the department's role in this matter," he wrote.
Mr. Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general, said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) "gun-walking" schemes have had significant "spillover effects" in Texas. In two separate incidents in January and April 2010, 60 rifles that were "walked" during the Fast and Furious operation were recovered from criminals in El Paso, Texas.
He said the attorney for a federal firearms licensee (FFL) in Houston has charged that his employees were ordered by ATF to conduct suspicious sales of firearms to purchasers who may have been working on behalf of Mexican drug cartels.
Last December, he said, the Justice Department convened a grand jury to investigate whether several salespersons at the Houston gun dealers were criminally liable for selling weapons to straw purchasers. The investigation, he said, was dropped only after the licensed firearms dealers revealed that the illicit sales were carried out at the behest of the ATF.
"I fear that ATF may have pressured other FFLs in Texas to conduct illegal activities, and that many of these weapons may have ended up in the hands of cartels and at the scene of multiple violent crimes in Mexico," Mr. Cornyn said.
He also asked that the investigation include a look into whether a Texas-based "gun-walking" program was responsible for the slaying of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jaime Zapata on Feb. 15, 2011, in Mexico. One of the weapons used to kill Zapata was purchased by Texas resident Otilio Osorio in October 2010 and, according to Mr. Cornyn, later trafficked to Mexico through Laredo, Texas.
Zapata was fatally shot, and his partner, Victor Avila, was wounded twice in the leg in the ambush on a major highway near the city of San Luis Potosi, about 250 miles north of Mexico City. The men, assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, were returning to their office after a meeting with other U.S. personnel in San Luis Potosi.
Neither man was armed, as Mexico does not allow U.S. law enforcement personnel to carry weapons in the country.
Mr. Osorio, 22, and his brother, Ranferi, 27, were arrested at their home on charges of possessing firearms with an obliterated serial number. Kelvin Leon Morrison, 25, also was arrested and charged in a separate complaint with making false statements in connection with the acquisition of firearms and dealing in firearms without a license. He lives next door to the Osorios.
According to court documents, a confidential ATF informant arranged a meeting in early November with people who had firearms to be transported from Dallas to Laredo. The meeting was arranged as part of an investigation of Los Zetas, a violent and ruthless Mexican drug-trafficking gang.
Mr. Cornyn said evidence uncovered by Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, suggests that the ATF was aware of Mr. Osorio's weapons-trafficking activities "long before that date."
"The delay in his arrest raises concerns that the ATF knowingly allowed Osorio to continue trafficking weapons through Texas as part of a broader 'gun-walking' program," he said, adding in his letter that he supported efforts by the two lawmakers "to hold the Department of Justice accountable for their involvement in the Operation Fast and Furious tragedy."
"American tax dollars should never again be spent to arm Mexican drug cartels," he said.
In the Arizona-based Fast and Furious operation, 20 "straw buyers" purchased more than 2,000 weapons between September 2009 and December 2010, many of which were walked into Mexico and turned over the Mexican drug smugglers. The weapons included AK-47 assault weapons, Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles, FN 5.7mm semi automatic pistols and other assorted rifles, shotguns and handguns — many of which remain unaccounted for.
The straw buyers paid as much as $900,000 for the weapons, with much of the illicit cash being furnished by the drug cartels.
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Mexican drug suspect: U.S. gave me immunity
BySharyl Attkisson .12 Comments
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500202_162-20125720/mexican-drug-suspect-u.s-gave-me-immunity
(CBS News) A Mexican drug suspect awaiting trial in Chicago is making a startling claim. He insists he can't be prosecuted because he worked as an informant and had a secret immunity deal with the U.S. government.
ATF Fast and Furious investigation
Napolitano testifies on ATF Fast and Furious: "We're waiting for the Inspector General"
For more on this investigation, visit CBS News Investigates
Prosecutors say Vicente Zambada-Niebla oversaw drug running on a massive scale into the U.S. But now, from behind bars at a maximum security prison in Chicago, he's making his own explosive accusations -- that U.S. government agents have been aiding Mexico's infamous Sinaloa cartel -- even tipping off leaders on how to avoid capture.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports that Zambada's court filings claim federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents gave him, cartel kingpin Chapo Guzman, and other Sinaloa leaders "carte blanche" to "operate their drug business without interference," as long as they snitched on other cartels. For years, Zambada's attorney argues, Sinaloa leaders helped "authorities capture or kill thousands of rivals." Their chief rivals are the Zetas, considered the most vicious and ruthless of all.
Phil Jordan used to head the DEA's Center for Drug Trafficking Intelligence, called "EPIC," in El Paso. He says he doesn't buy Zambada's claim that the DEA promised immunity.
"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalker" scandal
Jordan told CBS News, "We do not have the power to offer immunity."
But in court documents, prosecutors do admit the U.S. had a signed cooperation agreement with a different Sinaloa cartel leader.
That agreement was with Sinaloa cartel lawyer Humberto Loya-Castro. Starting as early as 2004, Loya passed information to the DEA from cartel leaders including Zambada -- the one now on trial. In return, Zambada claims, the U.S. dismissed a major case against Loya and agreed to "not ... interfere with" the cartel's "drug trafficking" or actively prosecute their leadership.
Jordan says any agreement with a cartel leader is controversial, but may be deemed necessary.
He said, "It's probably a matter of trying to get inside or closer intelligence to the whole Mexican federation, as we call it."
Jordan points out that Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was once on the CIA's payroll. And that in Colombia, the U.S. worked with select cartels, allowing them to continue drug smuggling operations in the U.S. as long as they helped in destroying the more dangerous Cali and Medillin cartels.
As to whether the government has similar plans in Mexico, they're not saying, but this case, Attkisson reported, raises the question.
Prosecutors say even if federal agents did promise Zambada immunity -- which they deny -- it's unenforceable.
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
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Issa, Grassley: Holder needs to reveal info on 2nd agent’s murder, connections
Daily Caller ^ | Oct. 26, 2011 | Matthew Boyle
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley lambasted Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter detailing how Holder’s team has failed to provide congressional investigators with critical details surrounding the connections between Operation Fast and Furious and a second federal agent’s murder.
The two top Republicans wrote to Holder on Tuesday criticizing what they said was the Department of Justice’s late and lacking response to Grassley’s March 2011 request for details about the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jaime Zapata. “Not only was the response more than six months late, it completely failed to answer the key questions,” Issa and Grassley wrote.
Issa and Grassley then detail how the DOJ’s severely late response is still rife with inconsistencies. Zapata was murdered in Mexico on February 15, 2011. At least one firearm involved in Zapata’s murder was traced back to Otilio Osorio, his brother, Ranferi Osorio, and their neighbor, Kelvin Morrison. The DOJ arrested the three, and in a March 1, 2011 press release announcing the arrest, revealed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had been investigating since early in November 2010.
Otilio Osorio made the weapons purchase, which included a gun linked to Zapata’s murder, on October 10, 2010. On the same March 1, 2011 press release announcing the three men’s arrests, the DOJ said it was unaware of the weapons purchase.
“According to ATF documents, however, the agency had reason to believe as early as September 17, 2010, that Otilio’s brother and co-habitant Ranferi Osorio and their next-door neighbor Kelvin Morrison were straw purchasers,” Issa and Grassley wrote. “Yet the ATF apparently made no effort to contact Ranferi Osorio or Kelvin Morrison and inquire about how their weapons came to be trafficked to Mexico...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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Rep. Joe Walsh to Eric Holder: ‘Resign immediately and take responsibility’ for Fast & Furious
The Daily Caller ^ | 10/26/2011 | Matthew Boyle
Illinois Republican Rep. Joe Walsh joined the small but growing choir of members of Congress calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over Operation Fast and Furious. Walsh is the fourth member of Congress to make the call for Holder to resign. Republican Reps. Raul Labrador of Idaho, Blake Farenthold of Texas and Paul Gosar of Arizona have each publicly asked Holder to step aside as well.
Walsh made the demand in a letter he sent Holder on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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"But in court documents, prosecutors do admit the U.S. had a signed cooperation agreement with a different Sinaloa cartel leader.
That agreement was with Sinaloa cartel lawyer Humberto Loya-Castro. Starting as early as 2004, Loya passed information to the DEA from cartel leaders including Zambada -- the one now on trial. In return, Zambada claims, the U.S. dismissed a major case against Loya and agreed to "not ... interfere with" the cartel's "drug trafficking" or actively prosecute their leadership."
More evidence that this isn't about Obama - or Bush - Or clinton or anyone else.
US drug border policy seems to be to let some shit in. It's good for the economy, and ppl just wanna get fcking high.
Deal with it. Nobody is going to jail for thei FF stuff. It's just a matter of repubs yelling about shit that they were cool with under Bush, because they hates them some obammers.
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Spoke to a buddy today in spec ops. Said army is in Mexico trying to recover these guns as we speak and that holder is going to jail wo question and everyone knows it.
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i spoke to holder today. Said he fears no prosecutor and respects no law, and as we speak is laughing while smoking a ciggie behind the white house with Obama & Hermann Cain's campaign manager.
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i spoke to holder today. Said he fears no prosecutor and respects no law, and as we speak is laughing while smoking a ciggie behind the white house with Obama & Hermann Cain's campaign manager.
How much do you get from OFA?
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i dont follow... i openly concede holder is guilty as shit.
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BREAKING: PJ Media Finds Gunwalker’s ‘Unreachable’ Man in the White House
PJ Media ^ | October 27, 2011 | David Steinberg
The Obama admin. told Rep. Darrell Issa that Kevin O’Reilly – Gunwalker’s possible connection to Obama -- was “in Iraq and unavailable.” He’s there, but available. After we called him, his phone number was deactivated.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is investigating to what extent the White House was aware of — or involved in — the “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal.
The committee recently requested to speak with former White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. According to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, the Obama administration answered:
O’Reilly is on assignment for the State Department in Iraq and unavailable.
Through a tip, PJ Media learned that Kevin O’Reilly was unexpectedly named director of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau for Iraq (INL-Iraq). Long-time INL-Iraq employee Virginia Ramadan had been expected to get the position — many were quite surprised when she did not.
The previous occupants of the Director, INL-Iraq position — Joe Manso and Francisco Palmieri — were not considered “unreachable” to press or government access. A quick internet search reveals Palmieri, while director, attended a media event on August 23, 2010 .
On October 21, PJ Media reporter Patrick Richardson called the number for Office of the Director, INL-Iraq:
1-240-553-0581, ext. 3275
Richardson reached a voicemail message confirming that it was indeed the correct number. He left a message that was not returned.
On Monday Richardson called again, and an assistant answered. Richardson asked to speak with Kevin O’Reilly, and the assistant asked who was calling. Richardson gave his name and stated he was with PJ Media.
The assistant said O’Reilly was currently on a conference call, and asked if Richardson wanted to leave a message. Richardson gave his phone number. His call was not returned.
This morning, Richardson called again. He received a prerecorded message saying “this number is not in service.”
PJ Media is aware that the number was in service as the line to the director’s office for several years prior to Richardson’s calls.
Today, PJ Media is forwarding this information over to Darrell Issa, along with some suggested questions to ask of the Obama administration:
– Why were we told Kevin O’Reilly was “unavailable” if he was employed in a position that has always been open to media, and indeed was easily reached by PJ Media?
– Why did Kevin O’Reilly suddenly get sent to Iraq for the Director, INL-Iraq position when another employee was widely considered the most-qualified person for the job?
– Now that we know he is in the Director, INL-Iraq position and not in a position ever considered “unreachable,” when will you be sending him to Washington to testify?
The committee’s interest in Kevin O’Reilly stems from documents the White House released last month on September 30 – a late afternoon “Friday document dump.” From Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting on the documents:
The documents show extensive communications between then-ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office Bill Newell — who led Fast and Furious — and then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. Emails indicate the two also spoke on the phone. Such detailed, direct communications between a local ATF manager in Phoenix and a White House national security staffer has raised interest among Congressional investigators looking into Fast and Furious. Newell has said he and O’Reilly are long time friends.
The email exchanges span a little over a month last summer. They discuss ATF’s gun trafficking efforts along the border including the controversial Fast and Furious case, though not by name. The emails to and from O’Reilly indicate more than just a passing interest in the Phoenix office’s gun trafficking cases. They do not mention specific tactics such as “letting guns walk.”
A lawyer for the White House wrote Congressional investigators: “none of the communications between ATF and the White House revealed the investigative law enforcement tactics at issue in your inquiry, let alone any decision to allow guns to ‘walk.’”
Among the documents produced: an email in which ATF’s Newell sent the White House’s O’Reilly an “arrow chart reflecting the ultimate destination of firearms we intercepted and/or where the guns ended up.” The chart shows arrows leading from Arizona to destinations all over Mexico.
In response, O’Reilly wrote on Sept. 3, 2010 “The arrow chart is really interesting — and — no surprise — implies at least that different (Drug Trafficking Organizations) in Mexico have very different and geographically distinct networks in the US for acquiring guns. Did last year’s TX effort develop a similar graphic?”
The White House counsel who produced the documents stated that some records were not included because of “significant confidentiality interests.”
Also included are email photographs including images of a .50 caliber rifle (left) that Newell tells O’Reilly “was purchased in Tucson, Arizona (part of another OCDTF case).” OCDTF is a joint task force that operates under the Department of Justice and includes the US Attorneys, ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE and IRS. Fast and Furious was an OCDTF case.
An administration source would not describe the Tucson OCDTF case. However, CBS News has learned that ATF’s Phoenix office led an operation out of Tucson called “Wide Receiver.” Sources claim ATF allowed guns to “walk” in that operation, much like Fast and Furious.
Congressional investigators for Republicans Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) have asked to interview O’Reilly by September 30. But the Administration informed them that O’Reilly is on assignment for the State Department in Iraq and unavailable.
David Steinberg is the New York editor for Pajamas Media.
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Gun buyer linked to federal agent's murder to plead guilty
CBS News ^ | Oct. 27, 2011 | Kim Skeen and Sharyl Attkisson
A Dallas County man linked to the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata agreed to plead guilty to weapons violations.
Otilio Osorio, 22, of Lancaster, Texas, agreed to plead guilty Wednesday in federal court to three counts of a 21-count indictment against him.
Prosecutors say one of three guns found at the scene in Mexico where Agent Zapata was shot to death on February 15 was traced back to Osorio. Investigators believe he was the straw purchaser of the weapon, bought in Texas four months before the murder. As part of an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Osorio agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to make a false statement in firearms records and possessing a weapons with a removed serial number.
Seven other defendants in the case are also expected to enter guilty pleas. The maximum penalty for each count is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing dates have not yet been scheduled.
As reported by CBS News, Congressional Republicans investigating allegations that the Obama administration allowed thousands of weapons to be trafficked into Mexico have asked for more information about the circumstances surrounding Agent Zapata's death.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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"Issa's Theory"
LOLZERS at republicans all turning into forensic accountants when it comes to nailing Holder to a wall.
Yall bury your head in the sand anytime proof of evolution arrives.
But oh, let's make some noise when a dem acts shady!
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Holder’s days as attorney general may be numbered as resignation calls double overnight
The Daily Caller ^ | 10/28/2011 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on October 28, 2011 10:12:03 AM EDT by martosko
Attorney General Eric Holder’s tenure in the Obama administration may be coming to an end. At least eight members of Congress have now called on Holder to resign over the growing Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
Republican Reps. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, John Mica of Florida, Quico Canseco of Texas and Gus Bilirakis of Florida each told The Daily Caller on Thursday that they believe Holder should step down now. The number of members of Congress calling for Holder to end his career in government because of Fast and Furious is now eight, a number which has doubled in one day.
Previously, Republican Reps. Joe Walsh of Illinois, Raul Labrador of Idaho, Blake Farenthold of Texas and Paul Gosar of Arizona called on Holder to resign.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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Hillary Clinton: No Evidence DOJ Sought Required License to Send Guns to Mexico Fast and Furious
CNSnews ^ | October 28, 2011 | Fred Lucas
Posted on Friday, October 28, 2011 11:55:28 AM by opentalk
Hillary Clinton told a House committee Thursday she did not know about the Obama administration's botched Fast and Furious gun-walking operation until she read about it in the press, even though federal law requires anyone exporting weapons from the United States to get a waiver from the State Department.
"Based on our information from the part of the State Department that would deal with this kind of issue, we have no record of any request for coordination," Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "We have no record of any kind of notice or heads-up, and my recollection is that I learned about it from the press. That's my recollection."
...Clinton's testimony backs up an assertion by Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) that the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -by allowing guns to flow to Mexico -apparently violated a specific law requiring State Department permission to export arms.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
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ATF gunwalker update: Eric Holder to testify on Fast and Furious
CBS News ^ | Oct. 28, 2011 | Sharyl Attkisson
Posted on Friday, October 28, 2011 2:22:12 PM by Smokeyblue
CBS News has learned Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee regarding "Fast and Furious." The hearing will take place Dec. 8th.
Judiciary Committee member and head of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had requested that Holder appear, in part to dig deeper into when-he-knew-what about ATF's so-called "gunwalking" operation Fast and Furious.
In May, Holder testified that he only first heard about Fast and Furious a few weeks before. However, as CBS News reported, documents and memos indicate he had been sent multiple briefings mentioning Fast and Furious in 2010.
Holder later explained in a letter to Congress that he didn't read those memos, and that in any event, nobody at the Justice Department who knew of Fast and Furious was aware of the specific "gunwalking" tactics used.
Also today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) requested a public hearing with the former Director of ATF: Kenneth Melson.
"A hearing with Mr. Melson would help the Committee and the American people better understand what mistakes were made in Operation Fast and Furious, how these tactics originated, who did and did not authorize them, and what steps are being taken to ensure that they are not used again," wrote Cummings in a letter today to Rep. Issa.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
FY-11-22
Contact: ATF Public Affairs Division
(202) 648-8500
ATF Responds to Inaccurate News Reports Regarding "Fast and Furious" Personnel
WASHINGTON – The following statement is from Scott Thomasson, Chief, Public Affairs Division, Office of Public and Governmental Affairs, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF):
"Recent media reports have inaccurately characterized personnel changes involving ATF agents associated with the Fast and Furious operation as promotions. Special Agents David Voth and William Newell and Deputy Assistant Director William McMahon were laterally transferred from operational positions and moved into administrative roles, they were not promoted. They did not receive salary or grade increases nor did they assume positions with greater responsibility."
"On May 13, 2011, McMahon was reassigned to a position within the Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations, back filling a position that had been vacant for more than one year. His transfer was one of six transfers announced that day involving various other positions."
"On August 1, 2011, Newell, who had been selected as Country Attaché to Mexico City, was reassigned to the Office of Management to assist with the OIG investigation and congressional inquiry."
"Furthermore, Voth was reassigned to a headquarters position, a lateral move to a program area."
"These transfers/reassignments have never been described as promotions in any of the documents announcing them."
"Voth was reassigned to a headquarters position, a lateral move to a program area." Uh, huh.
And remember this about Voth?
If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee? -- New York Post editorial, "The gang that couldn't sting straight," New York Post editorial, 22 June 2011.
Well, here's another famous David Voth quote for you, Rep. Issa:
"I'm not going anywhere!" -- David Voth, bragging to co-workers on the sixth floor of Phoenix Field Division Headquarters recently.
Sipsey Street Irregulars has learned that David Voth never was reassigned as the above ATF press release said in August. In fact, he's still in Phoenix, according my sources, still running Group VII and still, at least nominally running "Fast and Furious." In addition, William Newell is still in Phoenix as well.
One source tells this writer:
William Newell and David Voth are still in Phoenix, AZ working on the F&F cover-up. Voth is reporting the the sixth floor ATF office in Phoenix and working with Hope McAllister, Tonya English and Marge Zicha. Voth has been heard boasting that he was not going anywhere soon, because he need to complete his time in Phoenix in order to be promoted to the position of ASAC (Assistant Special Agent in Charge). In addition, it has been related to me that Mr. Voth is close to the new Director and as been seen in close door meetings with the new director on several occasions."
The source continues:
ATF's shuffle of managers is nothing more that a smoke screen and the fact that Newell, Voth, McAllister, Engilsh and Zicha are still working on F&F from within the Phoenix office shows contempt for the whole congressional investigation.
Another confirms:
Voth is still running the Fast and Furious case in Phoenix. The rest of the group was disbanded and sent to other groups. Most of them were not willing participants in that train wreck of a case.
But. But. What about this report from CBS in May? --
Another move involves Agent David Voth, who directly supervised the Phoenix ATF "Group VII," that executed Fast and Furious. Sources say he's also been assigned to the U.S. Attorney's office along with Agent Hope McAllister. Sources say McAllister was the agent in charge of Fast and Furious. Replacing Voth as head of Group VII is Steve Barborini from Miami.
Barborini, a well-respected agent, did go out to Phoenix, the sources say but not forever:
Yes, He was there for about 6 months, but did not work on anything related to that case. He also thought it was bad to the core. Steve is a good guy, and he left to retire. He's an absolute gentleman. If he were there when that case started . . . he'd have been standing up with his hand raised before the committee. Believe me.
As soon as Barborini retired, Voth was put back in charge, He never left Phoenix. Sources say that when Voth was "re-assigned" to the Branch Chief job at HQ, "his first concern was that it not knock him off of the career ladder. Unreal isn't it? The guy completely fell asleep at the wheel and wants to promote higher up the ranks."
Voth has been heard by many bragging about his "stroke" with the new ATF Acting Director, B. Todd Jones, and boasting that "I'm not going anywhere!" until he's made enough time in the job to qualify for further promotion.
As for Newell, sources say, he has been seem recently, also on the 6th floor of Phoenix ATF Field Division headquarters. One source reported that Newell, unlike Voth, who is reported to be as "happy as a pig in shit," has apparently suffered these past months.
He "looks like a fucking ghost," said one source. Said another, "He's lost weight, lost hair, and looks like he irons his clothes with a ball-peen hammer. He looks bad. The stress is clearly getting to him. I didn't think he could lose weight, and look more gaunt. He already was the ATF version of Ichabod Crane."
Perhaps, but he is still sitting in his nice house in Phoenix most days, doing nothing on the taxpayer's dime. And one thing is clear, said a source close to the investigation in DC, "B. Todd Jones is part of the cover-up if he's letting his toady Voth work the system like this after all the smoke and mirrors about transfers." He added, "How in the hell can Voth think that he's got anything to look forward to career-wise other than federal prison is beyond me. Does he smoke crack?"
All the sources agreed that the Senior Executive Service and the Chief Counsels Office of the ATF, the real twin powers in the corrupt agency for many years now, are not afraid of Congressman Issa or Senator Grassley.
Even as they reward the Gunwalker conspirators and victimize the whistleblowers, they apparently are as corrupt and contemptuous as they ever were.
"The committee," said one source, "doesn't scare them."
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Holder’s days as attorney general may be numbered as resignation calls double overnight
The Daily Caller ^ | 10/28/2011 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on October 28, 2011 10:12:03 AM EDT by martosko
Attorney General Eric Holder’s tenure in the Obama administration may be coming to an end. At least eight members of Congress have now called on Holder to resign over the growing Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
Republican Reps. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, John Mica of Florida, Quico Canseco of Texas and Gus Bilirakis of Florida each told The Daily Caller on Thursday that they believe Holder should step down now. The number of members of Congress calling for Holder to end his career in government because of Fast and Furious is now eight, a number which has doubled in one day.
Previously, Republican Reps. Joe Walsh of Illinois, Raul Labrador of Idaho, Blake Farenthold of Texas and Paul Gosar of Arizona called on Holder to resign.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
Uh oh. The Fat Lady is clearing her throat.
And no Michelle Obama jokes. >:(
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Unsatisfactory Fast & Furious answers fuel cover-up beliefs(gunwalker)
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 28 October, 2011 | Dave Workman
Posted on Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:44:13 AM by marktwain
Testimony this week relating to Operation Fast and Furious from two members of the Obama cabinet before two different House committees has left more questions than answers for members of Congress who are trying to get to the bottom of this case.
Instead of getting closer to learning who knew what and when they knew it, Congressmen Darrell Issa, Jason Chaffetz, Trey Gowdy and Connie Mack appear more convinced than ever that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton don’t seem to know much about anything, or at least want it to appear that way.
Clinton, responding to Mack during her appearance before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declined to take a position on whether Fast and Furious – which flooded perhaps 2,000 contraband guns across the border into Mexico – violated existing federal statute, the Arms Export Control Act. Her reaction:
“I cannot offer an opinion…This is the first time I’m being asked. I don’t know…I cannot offer you any opinion on that. I don’t have the information or any analysis.”—Hillary Clinton
Her evasive response paled in comparison to Napolitano, however, whose appearance before the House Judiciary Committee – discussed by this column – placed her squarely on the hot seat. Reacting to a question from Gowdy regarding how Fast and Furious was conducted, Napolitano said:
“I’m not commenting, I’m not second-guessing Fast and Furious, it’s under investigation…”—Janet Napolitano
When it was Issa’s turn, the exchange started in a confrontational mode and seemed to end in verbal combat. Along the way, Napolitano took much the same tack as did Eric Holder when he tried to distance himself from the operation by claiming that he gets hundreds of reports about various activities of his department, so he can’t know details
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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Darrell Issa's Fast and Furious rebuke of AG Eric Holder is one for the ages
Coach is Right ^ | 10/30/2011 | Doug Book
Upon being proven to have perjured himself before the House Government Affairs Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder did what any dedicated leftist would; he changed the subject and blamed someone else.
In a childish and petulant letter to his principle adversary, Darrell Issa, Holder accused the Republican congressman of cynical efforts to “score political points” and repeated his claim to have known nothing of Operation Fast and Furious in 2010.
But Issa would have none of the Attorney General’s bogus claims or pathetic excuses. In a masterpiece of typewritten homicide which has received far too little attention from conservative bloggers–and of course NONE from the mainstream media–Issa exposed Holder’s criminal activities and his lies and misrepresentations concerning Department of Justice involvement in Operation Fast and Furious.
With no trace of the professional courtesy or benefit of the doubt so often accorded one longtime inhabitant of D.C. by another, Issa pointedly accused Holder of deliberately “…undermining the [Fast and Furious] investigation” by offering a “roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its (DOJ) involvement.”
And Issa rightly stated that, in shifting blame for the Operation’s “shortcomings” from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to the Phoenix US Attorney’s Office, Holder’s “efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.”
Of Holder’s letter itself, the congressman made it clear the Attorney General had done little but “obfuscate, shift blame, berate and attempt to change the topic from the [DOJ's] responsibility in the creation, implementation and authorization of this reckless program (Fast and Furious.)
Of course that was obviously Holder’s intent. But rarely has a D.C. Republican had the courage to make such an unequivocal charge and call out a radical leftist for his blatant dishonesty and contempt for the American public.
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
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Eric Holder likely to face Fast & Furious questions from Senate Nov. 8
Politico ^ | Oct. 31, 2011 | Josh Gerstein
Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 8, giving him what could be a friendlier forum to answer questions about the Fast & Furious controversy than a similar House session scheduled for early December.
Holder's Senate appearance was announced Monday by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
The House Judiciary Committee announced last week that Holder was set to testify to that panel on December 8.
The Republican-led House panel is liekly to pepper Holder with questions about Operation Fast & Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation that may have allowed as many as 2000 weapons to flow unimpeded from the U.S. across the border into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Two of the weapons turned up at the scene of the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
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Fast and Furious: 17 Members of Congress Now Calling For Holder to Resign
Human Events ^ | October 31, 2011 | John Hayward
While flocks of reporters chase Herman Cain around and ask probing questions about ancient and nebulous events nobody will go on the record to discuss in detail, some other news is going sadly underreported. Among these stories are the latest ticks of the Eric Holder Career Death Watch. As the Daily Caller notes, nine more members of Congress have called upon Holder to resign over his role in the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, and the gigantic cover-up that major media sources other than CBS News have barely noticed:
The latest group of members includes Republican Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana, Allen West of Florida, Lynn Jenkins of Kansas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, Duncan Hunter of California, Devin Nunes of California and Dennis Ross of Florida.
Burton, who once chaired the House oversight committee that is currently investigating the Justice Department over Operation Fast and Furious, said he has always opposed Holder and didn’t believe he should be confirmed as attorney general in the first place, based on his record of deceiving Congress...
Meanwhile, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight committee, wants to hear more from former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson… in order to shore up the firewall of deniability around Eric Holder, as he obliquely explained in a letter to Oversight chairman Darrell Issa.
...So Cummings wants to give Ken Melson one more chance to serve as the Fast and Furious fall guy, a role he proved surprisingly unwilling to fill.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
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Skip to comments.
DOJ head knew of ATF "gunwalking" in April 2010 [CBS]
CBS News ^ | October 31, 2011 | Sharyl ttkisson
Posted on October 31, 2011 8:51:26 PM EDT by brityank
DOJ head knew of ATF "gunwalking" in April 2010
Sharyl Attkisson
WASHINGTON - There is new information about how much the Department of Justice new about the controversial ATF tactic of letting guns "walk" into the hands of criminals.
Gunwalking is a controversial investigative tactic in which police allow suspects to traffic guns without stopping them in order to see where they end up. Documents just released this afternoon show the head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Lanny A. Breuer, learned about the tactic of ATF gunwalking as early as April of last year.
In a memo, Brueuer's deputy wrote him that, in a case called "Wide Receiver" started under the Bush Administration, "ATF let a bunch of guns walk" in an effort to catch the big fish of Mexican drug cartels and said the gunwalking case could be "embarrassing" to ATF.
Today, Breuer issued a statement saying he "regrets" that he didn't alert others in Justice Department leadership, apparently including his boss Attorney General Eric Holder.
In a separate ATF case reported by CBS News earlier this year, called "Fast and Furious" and started under the Obama Administration, Breuer says he likewise regrets not alerting leaders about the similarities in the cases. That, said Breuer, was a mistake.
Republican Congressional investigators say this new information contradicts the Justice Department's original letter to them earlier this year insisting that gunwalking allegations were "false."
More Fast and Furious coverage:
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Fast and Furious: 17 Members of Congress Now Calling For Holder to Resign
Human Events ^ | October 31, 2011 | John Hayward
While flocks of reporters chase Herman Cain around and ask probing questions about ancient and nebulous events nobody will go on the record to discuss in detail, some other news is going sadly underreported. Among these stories are the latest ticks of the Eric Holder Career Death Watch. As the Daily Caller notes, nine more members of Congress have called upon Holder to resign over his role in the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, and the gigantic cover-up that major media sources other than CBS News have barely noticed:
The latest group of members includes Republican Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana, Allen West of Florida, Lynn Jenkins of Kansas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, Duncan Hunter of California, Devin Nunes of California and Dennis Ross of Florida.
Burton, who once chaired the House oversight committee that is currently investigating the Justice Department over Operation Fast and Furious, said he has always opposed Holder and didn’t believe he should be confirmed as attorney general in the first place, based on his record of deceiving Congress...
Meanwhile, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight committee, wants to hear more from former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson… in order to shore up the firewall of deniability around Eric Holder, as he obliquely explained in a letter to Oversight chairman Darrell Issa.
...So Cummings wants to give Ken Melson one more chance to serve as the Fast and Furious fall guy, a role he proved surprisingly unwilling to fill.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
Seventeen and counting. He's toast.
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Emails, notes give insight into Gunwalker communications
Add a comment David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
November 1, 2011 -
A Sipsey Street Irregulars/Gun Rights Examiner exclusive report
Email correspondence and handwritten notes obtained today by Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars and this correspondent provide details on information and strategy being shared between top level officials of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, including between Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and then-ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson.
A total of seven documents are presented herein, including:
•A Feb. 4, 2011 letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Weich denying the walking of guns, itself the subject of a Feb. 8 Gun Rights Examiner column.
•Email correspondence between Breuer and Melson.
•The assignment of Gang Unit Prosecutor Joe Cooley to Operation Fast and Furious at the time when walked guns from Operation Wide Receiver were being reported by a fellow prosecutor.
•Cooley's handwritten notes.
•Notes from Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler--including about quantities of guns bought by straw purchasers and dollars spent.
•False assurances to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein by Gang Unit Chief Kevin Carwile that ATF did not allow guns to walk but instead learned of that "after the FFL began cooperating."
•Weinstein advising Breuer that guns walked, guns were lost, and no "upstream conspirators" were caught--"only straws."
Advertisement
"Documents in the possession of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee provide a much clearer picture than that given by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in his statement of yesterday of what the Justice Department knew of the tactic of 'letting guns walk' and when they, and Breuer himself, knew about it," Mike Vanderboegh writes in his companion report to this one.
Among some of the elements brought into better focus:
•The revelation by then-Phoenix Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillett to Cooley that "Fast and Furious" was an OCDETF (Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force) operation requiring Department of Justice approval is something Janet Napolitano was unwilling to admit to Rep. Trey Gowdy in an Oct. 26 House Judiciary Committee Hearing.
•The admission in a Dec 2009 email from Melson to Breuer talking about tracing from seizures that "we do seem to be making progress with our Mexican partners."
•A recommended startegy from Weinstein to Breuer that "[T] he best move is to indict both Wide Receiver I and Wide Receiver II under seal and then unseal as part of Project Deliverance, where focus will be on aggregate seizures and not on particulars of any one indictment." The DOJ lauded the success of Deliverance in a June 2010 press release.
•Also bear in mind that Grindler is the No. 2 guy at Justice--Eric Holder's Chief of Staff.
See the accompanying sidebar slideshow for screen captures of handwritten notes and open the sidebar media player to review the pdf file featuring all seven documents or click here to view them.
Click here to read Vanderboegh's analysis on Sipsey Street Irregulars.
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Fast and Furious: DOJ Officials Knew About Gun Walking Last April
Human Events ^ | 11/01/2011 | John Hayward
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News keeps plugging away at the story the Obama Administration very sternly instructed her to drop. Yesterday she published a remarkable new revelation about Operation Fast and Furious, the deadly inter-agency operation that pumped American guns across the border to Mexican drug gangs.
It looks like all those Justice Department assurances of blissful ignorance about the crazy misadventures of those Phoenix ATF renegades just became, as they say, “inoperative”:
Documents just released this afternoon show the head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Lanny A. Breuer, learned about the tactic of ATF gunwalking as early as April of last year.
In a memo, Breuer's deputy wrote him that, in a case called "Wide Receiver" started under the Bush Administration, "ATF let a bunch of guns walk" in an effort to catch the big fish of Mexican drug cartels and said the gunwalking case could be "embarrassing" to ATF.
As you may recall, Attorney General Eric Holder claims he was completely unaware of gun walking until just before he was called before Congress to testify about it. Lying to Congress is a pretty big deal, but Breuer’s got his boss covered:
Today, Breuer issued a statement saying he "regrets" that he didn't alert others in Justice Department leadership, apparently including his boss Attorney General Eric Holder.
In a separate ATF case reported by CBS News earlier this year, called "Fast and Furious" and started under the Obama Administration, Breuer says he likewise regrets not alerting leaders about the similarities in the cases. That, said Breuer, was a mistake.
So… what do the Attorney General and his deputies talk about, exactly?
Operation Wide Receiver, by the way, was very different from the Obama gunwalking program that has killed over 200 Mexicans, plus at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent, and possibly a U.S. Immigration agent. It was less than one-quarter the size of Operation Fast and Furious, it included a serious (but bungled) attempt to follow the “walked” guns with radio tracking devices, it was shut down immediately when the radio tracking system didn’t work, it didn’t involve extensive coordination with other federal agencies… and, of course, it was a novel bad idea, not a vast extension and upgrade of a bad idea that had already failed miserably.
Attorney General Holder is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week. There he will cross paths with ranking Republican Charles Grassley, who will be asking some pointed questions about the new Breuer memo revelations. Grassley previewed those questions in a statement released today:
Yesterday Assistant Attorney General Breuer made a public statement regarding an ATF case known as Operation Wide Receiver. In the statement, he said:
“When the allegations related to Operation Fast and Furious became public earlier this year, the leadership of ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona repeatedly assured individuals in the Criminal Division and the leadership of the Department of Justice that those allegations were not true.”
The Justice Department officially assured me that the allegations were not true. On February 4, 2011, the Department sent me a letter that read: “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.” However, as Mr. Breuer’s admissions in yesterday’s statement made clear, the Department’s claim was not true.
According to documents received last night, Mr. Breuer's deputy asked the most basic question of Wide Receiver that anyone should have known to ask of Fast and Furious upon becoming aware of the number of guns involved: “[D]id ATF allow the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL began cooperating?” In Operation Wide Receiver, around 300 guns were walked by ATF. In Fast and Furious, just 5 of the straw buyers were allowed to purchase nearly 1000 guns while an FFL was cooperating, while being watched by ATF, while their phone calls were being monitored by a wiretap approved by Justice Department headquarters, and while a prosecutor from headquarters was assigned to the case.
The headquarters prosecutor was assigned to Fast and Furious because of an email that ATF Director Ken Melson sent Mr. Breuer in December 2009. Director Melson requested an attorney to work with ATF Phoenix Field Office on a case. Mr. Breuer said it was a “terrific idea” and assigned someone from the Gang Unit by March 2010.
That same month, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler—now the Attorney General’s Chief of Staff—was being briefed in person on investigative details of Fast and Furious. The briefing included a very detailed PowerPoint presentation from ATF, and Mr. Grindler made a number of hand-written notes on a print-out of the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint included such details as the fact that by March 12, one straw buyer had already bought as many guns as were ever walked in Wide Receiver. The PowerPoint also included a map of where in Mexico guns were being recovered and the amount of money each straw buyer had spent on the gun purchases, most in the tens of thousands of dollars, along with a note from Mr. Grindler saying “all cash.”
The American people—and especially the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry—deserve answers from the Justice Department about why they claim they didn’t know gunwalking was occurring in Operation Fast and Furious when the department’s fingerprints are all over it.
(Emphasis in the original.) Hopefully his testimony before Grassley’s committee doesn’t distract Attorney General Holder from his important job of having absolutely no idea what the Justice Department is doing.
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17 out of 535 members want him to resign.
Practically a majority.
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ATF Gunwalking docs show Justice Dept. feared bad press [CBS]
CBS News ^ | 1 November, 2011 | Chris Scholl
ATF Gunwalking docs show Justice Dept. feared bad press
By Chris Scholl
An e-mail exchange among Justice Department officials in 2010 shows some in the Department worried about bad press if reporters knew the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives let guns "walk" into the hands of drug cartels.
The e-mail exchange occurred in October 2010, almost four months before the gunwalking scandal broke publicly.
DOJ official knew of ATF gunwalking in April 2010
It's included among more than 500 pages of documents released Monday by the Justice Department in response to a Congressional subpoena. The exchange is especially revealing because it demonstrates a level of awareness among some at Justice, which oversees ATF, that the practice of "gunwalking" could be viewed as embarrassing.
"It's a good case," wrote Laura Sweeney, a Justice public affairs specialist about a gunwalking case known internally as Operation Wide Receiver started in 2006. "But the only obstacle will be explaining why we let them continue to send guns to Mexico while we were investigating."
ATF Fast and Furious secret audio recordings
Among the recipients of that e-mail was James Trusty, at that time Justice's Deputy Chief for Litigation. "I think we can navigate through this stuff fine," Trusty wrote. "Bottom line is bad guys who trafficked guns into MX (Mexico) are being targeted and indicted, so I don't see any of these questions as being so dreaded as to negate the good news component."
The case prosecutor pointed out that ATF had intercepted 50 of the hundreds of weapons ATF let walk in Wide Receiver. Sweeney in Public Affairs wrote, "Well done!!"
The three agreed to move forward on publicizing arrests in the case, minimizing the negative gunwalking aspect. But a second e-mail exchange later shows that higher officials in the department eventually nixed publicity.
"Why did we decide not to do any press (even a press release) on it?" wrote Mythili Raman, Chief of Staff to the head of Justice's Criminal Division.
"Lots of guns allowed to go south," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein replied. "(we) agreed the case would be weaved into anti-ATF story."
Guns the ATF let walk in a similar case known as Operation Fast and Furious, started in 2009, turned up at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry just a month later.
More Fast and Furious coverage:
Eric Holder to testify on Fast and Furious
Memos contradict Holder on Fast and Furious
Agent: I was ordered to let guns "walk" into Mexico
Gunwalking scandal uncovered at ATF
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AZ Sheriff Says 2 Seized Guns Tied to 'Fast and Furious'
Fox ^ | 11/1/11 | ap
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona sheriff says that two guns seized as part of a major drug smuggling bust have been connected to a botched federal investigation known as "Fast and Furious."
"Fast and Furious" was a controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' investigation that lost track of up to 1,400 weapons that were sold in Arizona gun stores to suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug gangs.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxphoenix.com ...
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New Gun Walking Documents Show Criminal Division Knew More than Previous Acknowledged
U, S. Senate ^ | October 31, 2011 | Senator Chuck Grassley
Posted on November 1, 2011 10:59:01 PM EDT by neverdem
Article
For Immediate Release
October 31, 2011
New Gun Walking Documents Show Criminal Division Knew More than Previous Acknowledged
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley made the following statement after the Justice Department provided more than 650 pages of documents related to the congressional inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious. Grassley has been conducting oversight of the strategy since January.
“There are 652 pages of documents that our investigators will scour over the next several days, beyond the few that the Justice Department pointed out. At first glance, though, the documents indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the criminal division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping the previous Wide Receiver strategy under the rug and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions.
“Most importantly, officials raised very appropriate questions related to Operation Wide Receiver at the same time that many of these same officials were receiving briefings on Operation Fast and Furious. It begs the question why they didn’t ask the same important policy questions about an ongoing case being run out of the same field division.
“It also appears that the impression left to Senate Judiciary Committee staff was false during a briefing by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein and several others last February. Despite their denials of gun walking, it appears that senior DOJ officials clearly knew that it had happened in Operation Wide Receiver and ignored the red flags that it was happening in Fast and Furious.
“With every document that comes out, the Justice Department loses credibility and the faith of the American people.”
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Napolitano and Clinton ‘Gunwalker’ reactions simply not credible
Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 1 November, 2011 | David Codrea
Posted on November 2, 2011 7:31:24 AM EDT by marktwain
“Congressional Republicans are trying to expand the scope of questions over the disastrous ATF gun-sting operation ‘Fast and Furious’ to Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano, asking her why she never investigated even after suspected guns showed up at the scene of a dead U.S. Border Patrol agent,” The Washington Times reports.
“Napolitano responded that her immediate concern was finding the killers of Agent Brian Terry and that she didn't know until the spring of this year that there were indications his death involved weapons that were part of the federal gun trafficking probe,” Politico explains.
The first day of Spring was March 20. Napolitano had already testified on Gunwalker before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 9, but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt here—after all, Attorney General Eric Holder evidently doesn’t see much difference between weeks and months when it comes to recounting timelines under oath.
Take a moment and go through the list of publicized developments that took place before the Secretary’s epiphany of enlightenment, chronicled here by bloggers operating out of their homes, and ask yourself if it seems credible that the head of Homeland Security, with the awesome power and see-all surveillance of the federal government at her disposal, just did not have a clue about Gunwalker. If that’s truly the case, we are entrusting nothing less than the domestic safeguarding of the Republic to an incompetent.
And then ask yourself if it seems credible that, with two agents under her jurisdiction dead, she wouldn’t even ask AG Holder what the hell was going on, OIG investigation or not.
I don’t believe her and neither should you.
Clinton also in the dark?
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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Open Thread: Thirty-strong Congressional Call for Holder's Resignation
By NB Staff | November 02, 2011
The tally now comes to 30 members of Congress calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign following Operation Fast and Furious.
The latest congressman to call for Holder's resignation was Rep. Connie Mac (R-FL). Mack, who just last week announced he will be running for Senate, indicates that calling for Holder's resignation is a widely shared and politically popular view.
Do you think Holder will step down soon? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Mack is not the only congressman to recently declare that Holder must resign, with others lining up to share their opinion, including Mack's wife Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA and Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC):
"Congresswoman Bono Mack is deeply concerned about ‘Fast and Furious’ and certainly a resignation is not out of the question,” her spokesman Cort Bush told TheDC earlier this week.
North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones tweeted on Tuesday afternoon,”It’s time for Eric Holder to go!” He joined 28 other members who had called for Holder to resign by Tuesday morning.
Some have reasons for not demanding a resignation just quite yet. As explained at the Daily Caller,
Another member of the committee who hasn’t yet called for Holder’s resignation, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, is waiting until after Holder testifies on December 8.
“There are apparent inconsistencies in Attorney General Holder’s testimony before Congress and the facts, and Representative Walberg does not believe Mr. Holder and the Department of Justice has taken the investigation of this matter seriously,” Walberg’s spokeswoman Sarah Kuziomko told TheDC. “Attorney General Holder will be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on December 8 and Representative Walberg hopes he uses that opportunity to explain his misleading statements and clarify who it is that authorized ‘Fast and Furious.’”
The Obama administration has yet to defend Holder's actions, suggesting that President Obama is leaving the door open to push Holder out of office and prevent the scandal from dragging on any longer. No Democrats have yet to publicly call for Holder's resignation.
Do you think the pressure will get to Holder soon and he will resign from his post as Attorney General?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb-staff/2011/11/02/open-thread-thirty-strong-congressional-call-holders-resignation
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WH, Justice Dept. silent as 34 congressmen call for Holder’s resignation
Yahoo ^ | 11/2/11 | Matthew Boyle - Daily Caller
Posted on November 3, 2011 12:29:40 AM EDT by NormsRevenge
There are now 34 members of Congress calling for Attorney General Eric Holder’s immediate resignation, as four more called for Holder to step down on Wednesday.
The new members calling for Holder’s resignation are Republican Reps. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, Diane Black of Tennessee, Bob Latta of Ohio and Kenny Marchant of Texas.
“I call upon Attorney General Holder to resign his post as our nation’s top law enforcement official,” Marchant said .. “Ever since the first details of Operation Fast and Furious emerged, Attorney General Holder has been less than forthright with Congress as to his knowledge of Fast and Furious. Unfortunately, this ill-conceived operation has already led to the killing of a border patrol agent.”
Marchant questions Holder’s testimony before Congress at a May 3 Judiciary Committee hearing, during which he said he hadn’t learned of Operation Fast and Furious until a few weeks earlier — even though Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley told TheDC he personally handed Holder a letter on the topic months earlier when the attorney general was in his office. Senior aides also sent Holder numerous briefing memos on the subject, including the name and intimate details of the failed operation, as early as July 2010. Holder now claims he didn’t read the memos.
Another reason it appears as though Holder lied to Congress on May 3 is that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both discussed Operation Fast and Furious in media interviews about a month before Holder claims he knew of it. Republican Reps. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Jason Chaffetz of Utah have asked Obama to clarify how he was able to speak about Operation Fast and Furious in a media interview while Holder was apparently, at least according to his claims, unaware of the operation.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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Feinstein Uses 'Fast and Furious' to Make Case for National Gun Registration
CNSNews.com ^ | November 1, 2011 | Fred Lucas
(CNSNews.com) – Making a case for national gun registration, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said “perhaps mistakes were made” in the botched gun-walking program known as Fast and Furious, but she said trying to assign blame misses the larger problem.
“This is a deep concern for me. I know others disagree, but we have very lax laws when it comes to guns,” Feinstein, an advocate of gun control, said during Tuesday's hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.
“My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that there’s been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made,” Feinstein said. “But I think this hunt for blame doesn’t really speak about the problem. And the problem is, anybody can walk in and buy anything.”
In Operation Fast and Furious, a Justice Department program that began in September 2009, law enforcement knowingly allowed about 2,000 U.S. guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels, with the intent of tracking the weapons and making arrests. However, law enforcement lost track of most of the weapons. The program was halted in December 2010 after two weapons from the program were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, revealed Monday that he knew about Operation Fast and Furious going back to April 2010, but did not inform Attorney General Eric Holder about the matter.
Feinstein asked Breuer about the number of U.S. guns in Mexico.
“From my understanding, 94,000 weapons have been recovered in the last five years in Mexico. Those are just the ones recovered, Senator,” Breuer said. “Of the 94,000 weapons that have been recovered from Mexico, 64,000 of those are traced to the United States. We have to do something to prevent criminals from getting those guns,” Feinstein said.
Then she asked Breuer, “Do you believe that if there were some form of registration when you purchase these firearms that would make a difference?”
“I do, Senator,” Breuer said, adding that “information is the tool we need to challenge the people that are committing this crime.”
BRING IT ON YOU COMMUNIST POFS.
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No conspiracy theory: 'Gunwalker' being used RIGHT NOW to justify more gun laws
St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 2 November, 2011 | Kurt Hofmann
From Jon Stewart and Media Matters, to the more serious news media, it has become fashionable to contemptuously dismiss the idea that "Project Gunwalker" was and remains intended as justification for more onerous gun regulation as a paranoid "conspiracy theory." Yesterday's Arizona Daily Star provides a good example, in observing the problem with comparing "Operation Fast and Furious" to the Watergate scandal (although the article misses the most obviouis weakness with such a comparison--that Watergate did not get anyone killed):
What's missing in the Watergate comparison is a clear motive for the Obama White House to send weapons to Mexico. The National Rifle Association and its allies have filled that void with a theory that, in Babeu's words, Fast and Furious was part of a "master plan" to bring about more gun control.
The thing is, we have already seen this process in action, with gun dealers who had cooperated with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) "gunwalking" scheme consequently pressed to provide far more information about all their sales, specifically because they had sold so many "crime guns" (at the BATFE's behest). We even have direct email proof that publicity about "Fast and Furious"-trafficked guns were used to strengthen the BATFE's argument for its mulitple long gun sales reporting requirement.
Yesterday, we saw it again, with sacrificial lamb Lanny Breuer and rabidly anti-gun Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) using the "gunwalker" discussion at a Senate subcommittee hearing as a platform for advocacy of mandated gun registration and for banning everything from .50 caliber rifles to all semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Mike Vanderboegh provides the transcript:
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
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More Guns Provided Through Fast and Furious Found in Arizona Raid
Townhall ^ | 11/2/2011 | Katie Pavlich
Since finding out about Operation Fast and Furious, Arizona Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has been anything but amused. With no regard for local law enforcement, the Obama Justice Department supplied the most dangerous criminals in North America with high powered weapons, including .50-calibur sniper rifles and AK-47s, leading to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and at least 200 innocent Mexican citizens. Now with the Southern border still wide open, Babeu and his deputies will face the barrels of those guns as they do their job to combat Mexican drug cartels illegally operating in Arizona.
Today, Babeu's office confirmed two guns found during a massive drug smuggling bust against the Sinaloa Cartel in Pinal County, were provided through Operation Fast and Furious.
"I am outraged our Federal Government has armed one of the largest and most dangerous of the Mexican drug cartels with as many as 2,000 high powered weapons. This is the same cartel we have been investigating for the past fifteen months for various crimes including a murder in my County. We have arrested 76 suspects and seized 108 weapons. We have now have learned two of the weapons we seized are in fact linked to Operation Fast and Furious. U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was only doing his job when he was viciously murdered by Mexican bandits with Fast and Furious weapons. Thankfully none of our members were murdered this time," Babeu tells Townhall.
I sat down with Sheriff Babeu in September when he warned of this very situation, noting that guns will be recovered at violent crime scenes for years to come.
“It’s not going to end, there are at least 1500 guns out there and we have no clue where they are,” Babeu said.
While Sheriff Babeu and his deputies are doing their best to fight these cartels with limited resources, the Obama Justice Department has been arming the enemy with weapons Babeu’s deputies don’t even have.
“Outrage and betrayal. This has never happened before in the history of our country. We may have given armaments and weapons to our allies who may have later become our enemy, but we’ve never given them directly to our enemy,” Babeu said when asked about his initial reaction to Operation Fast and Furious.
“These are the most violent criminals in North America and we facilitated and gave weapons, weapons that my deputies don’t even have, to these cartels,” he said. “It’s more than insane, it is horrific to think that our own government did this.”
Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich the News Editor at Townhall.com. Follow her on Twitter @katiepavlich.
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It'd be nice to see him resign, but last check Barry's still backing him.
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Now it's "only" 34 calling for resignation. He's in serious trouble.
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Sipsey Street Irregulars
The gathering place for a merry band of Three Percenters. (As denounced by Bill Clinton on CNN!)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011
SSI Exclusive: FBI involvement in the murder of Brian Terry and the cover-up that followed. Part One. Peck Canyon -- The Killing Ground.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot while in the performance of his duties as part of a BORTAC team just before midnight on the night of 14-15 December 2010 at Peck Well, near Rio Rico, Arizona, while trying to apprehend a "rip crew" -- desert jackals who prey on the columns of human and drug smugglers who pass through Peck Canyon on their way to points north within "Estados Unidos." This series of articles will deal with what happened that night in the canyon, how it happened and who knew about it ahead of time. It will also deal with the efforts of the FBI to cover up the true circumstances of Brian Terry's death and why they did it. It is a story of inexcusable betrayal. In the final analysis, it will be apparent that just as ATF agents like John Dodson might not have blown the whistle about the Gunwalker Plot without the catalyst of the murder of Brian Terry, the true circumstances of the Terry murder would not have been discovered without the link to the Gunwalker Scandal. They are two sides of the same filthy coin.
In 1880, a young New York adventurer and miner named Arthur Leslie Peck settled in southern Arizona in a canyon in the mountains near present day Rio Rico. With him came his wife and child. He called his homestead Peck Canyon and settled near a year-round well which he dubbed Peck Well. Two years later, while Arthur was off prospecting, a renegade band of Apaches raided Peck Well, burned his homestead, raped and killed his wife and slaughtered his child for good measure.
Peck left the canyon, remarried in 1885, and never lived in such a lonely, dangerous place again. He left behind the graves of his wife and child, and his name on the well and the canyon.
Peck Canyon is now U.S. Forest Service land. A riparian area of very rough country, with many caves, the canyon is frequented by migrating birds, and, during the daylight hours only, hikers and nature lovers, although these days the tourists are either fearless, clueless or both. At night, Peck Canyon is inhabited by ghosts and contested by the bahadores, the border bandits, the rip crews, the smugglers they prey on and the Border Patrol special operations teams (called BORTAC teams) who hunt them.
In September 2003 the Tuscon Citizen covered a BORTAC team as it deployed in the desert, calling it a "Stealth Force."
They work in the shadows.
They hide in the hills, crouch under shrubs and lie waiting in holes in the ground.
They are federal agents from the mobile tactical operations unit of the U.S. Border Patrol, called BORTAC, and their latest mission has brought them into Tucson's back yard.
BORTAC has been deployed to work with border police in Albania, Guatemala, Bolivia and Honduras.
In the United States, the unit participates in tracking terrorism, riot control, guarding foreign diplomats and catching human smugglers and drug traffickers, Unit Commander Kevin Oaks said in an interview from BORTAC headquarter in Texas last week.
The agents represent almost every state in the country and have been operating as a
well-kept secret for almost 20 years.
Their most notable assignment - and the one that shattered their shield of anonymity - came in April 2000, when BORTAC agents executed a raid to ensure the safe return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba.
"22 April 2000: Seven-year-old Elian Gonzales became the centre of a major political storm when Miami-based relatives defied a US court order to return the boy to his father's custody in Cuba. After days of protests around the family home, a pre-dawn raid by armed Border Patrol officers was captured on camera, the terrified-looking boy apparently being grabbed by a uniformed man with a gun."
A battle to keep the boy in the United States failed. He had been rescued off the coast of Florida when a boatload of Cuban refugees perished at sea.
"We keep a low profile and we like it that way," Oaks says.
And so an invitation to the Tucson Citizen to observe the work of BORTAC agents came with restrictions, namely that their location and identities not be revealed.
The agents were deployed from Biggs Army Air Field in Texas into the Arizona desert this summer by the Department of Homeland Security.
Their mission: Detect and deter the flow of illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
"Our forte is once we leave the pavement," Oaks says. . .
Their packs are heavy, weighing up to 100 pounds, and are equipped with everything an agent might need should a shift unexpectedly extend into days. The medically trained agents are also prepared to switch from law enforcement mode into humanitarian mode should they encounter a migrant in distress.
Oftentimes, their "lay-in" operations, where they find an observation spot, stay put and monitor desert movement, can last days.
"That's probably the biggest difference between BORTAC and other agents - we're willing to work four days straight," says Agent Bobby, an 11-year veteran of the Border Patrol.
BORTAC'S work is precise and calculated.
These agents use their extensive training to detect groups of people crossing the border, keep them from getting too spread out, and manage their movement in order to get them to walk right into agents who are lying in wait in the cover of darkness.
"We like to call it the 'Surprise' operation," says Agent Bob, 41, a 20-year Border Patrol veteran. "Often we succeed in getting them to walk right into our agents or step on (agents) who are laying on the ground."
On a recent operation, agents find suspicious-looking footprints across a sandy trail.
Clearly, the smuggler leading this group knows that agents will be looking for footprints and he has the group walk heel-to-toe across the trail and carefully step in each others footprints.
The race is on and agents don't know if they will encounter work-seeking migrants or a more sinister group trying to smuggle drugs into the United States.
Three agents take off into the pitch-black desert on foot. By making their presence known, they strategically "push" the group to travel down a path that will lead them to other agents hidden in the desert, where they will be apprehended.
On the next road north, agents sit quietly, watching through night-vision binoculars for signs of the group.
Atop a nearby hill, an agent equipped with infrared lenses watches for movement and reports to the others on the ground whenever a group changes direction or stops.
Less than one percent of the U.S. Border patrol qualifies for BORTAC. The training is tough and like most special operations courses it is designed to eliminate candidates. BORTAC members are trained in special weapons, team tactics and multiple languages. Already a Marine combat veteran, Brian Terry graduated from BORTAC Training Class # 27 in 2009.
The night of 14-15 December was cold and dry. There would be a waxing, gibbous moon that night, just past half -- but the moon was low and would set around 1 AM on the 15th. It had been 78 degrees that day, but with nightfall it gets cold quick in the desert and by the time Brian Terry's BORTAC team was working its way down to the lay-up around Peck Well it was close to freezing. The wind was a steady two miles an hour out of the south-southwest with gusts up to 20 miles an hour. It was crisp and clear. Visibility was ten miles. The BORTAC team was used to operating in the cold. Cold was good, cold and dry was their friend. There was nothing to interfere with the thermal scopes. Anyone who approached them that night would have stood out like a blazing candle in a dark room.
What happened that night? The FBI, the Border Patrol, in fact every other Federal agency that knows what happened in that canyon that night -- and KNEW it BEFORE it happened -- isn't talking. There are, however, some documents that slipped out of the iron curtain of silence.
My fellow citizen investigator, the late Hugh Holub, received an email on 27 December 2010 that included official Customs and Border Patrol reports, including a timeline. Holub wrote:
The real shocker was the following email from a Bob Price. I tried to chase down Mr Price about the email to no avail.
I, too, have sent an email to Mr. Price, also to no avail. But I have verified from other sources that the information in the email is from official Border Patrol documents.
—– Forwarded Message —-
From: ”bprice777@comcast.net”
To: ”Price, Bob”
Sent: Mon, December 27, 2010 10:55:17 PM
Subject: Agent Terry United States Border Patrol
BORTAC Shooting Incident (11 TCANGL 121570000077)
On December 14, 2010, at approximately 11:13 p.m., a report of shots fired was broadcast over the radio by a member of TCA/BORTAC. The agent reported that an agent had been “hit” and that a possible bandit had been struck as well during the armed encounter. The area of the armed encounter is reported to be in an area known as “Peck Well”, near Rio Rico, Arizona.
Nogales Radio (KAK-865) immediately notified Emergency Medical Services (EMS), as well as Life Flight.
Field Operations Supervisor (FOS) Luke Bilow responded and set up a Command Post on Mesquite Seap, in an area known as “Peck Mesa”, where a landing zone was also established for the responding Life Flight. Supervisory Border Patrol Agents (SBPA) Knab and Johnson responded to the scene.
Air Assets: National Guard “Falcon One” and an OAM Blackhawk and Omaha 7AM” en route to assist in locating assailants.
On December 15, 2010, at 12:10 a.m., it was reported that there was one assailant in custody, with multiple gunshot wounds. A second Life Flight was contacted and is en route at this time.
The injured agent, identified as Brian Terry (Class #699/EOD 7/23/07), is currently in a Service vehicle being transported to the landing zone for the awaiting Life Flight helicopter.
Tucson Sector Investigations Branch SBPA Kevin Jones was notified of the situation.
A search for the outstanding assailants (reportedly 2) is ongoing.
Notifications:
11:19 p.m.: (A)APAIC Adame
11:19 p.m.: (A)PAIC Dikman
11:23 p.m.: ACPA Mark Rios
Updated information and timeline as of 2:38 a.m.
Six BORTAC Agents were conducting laying-in operations in the Peck Well area on December 14, 2010. At approximately 11:15 p.m., a group of approximately five individuals approached their position, coming from the east. BORTAC Agents identified that at least two of the individuals were carrying rifles. After identifying themselves as Border Patrol Agents, Detailer BORTAC Agent Gabriel Fragoza (Class 595/EOD; 7/11/05), from the Blythe Station/Yuma Sector, deployed two rounds from a less than lethal device (bean bags from shotgun). Agent Fragoza also discharged an unknown number of rounds from his Service issued sidearm.
BORTAC Agent Timothy Keller (Class 653/EOD: 1/16/07), from the Calexico Station/El Centro Sector, discharged an unknown number of rounds from his Service issued M-4 rifle. After the armed encounter, BORTAC Agent Terry called out that he was hit and couldn’t feel his legs. Agent Terry lost consciousness shortly thereafter.
Updated information and timeline as of 4:10 a.m.
SBPA Raul Chacon of the International Liaison Unit was contacted and he notified Mexican authorities of the situation. C-4 was contacted.
ICAD ticket# 2045 was created for the incident.
Arizona Department of Public Safety dispatching air assets to assist in the search for the outstanding assailant(s).
At 3:40 a.m., the wounded suspect arrived to the landing zone to be air lifted by Life Line to University Medical Center (UMC). Preliminary reports indicate the suspect was shot twice in the abdomen, and once in the upper back. The suspect is coherent and identified himself as Manuel OSORIO-Arellanes (DOB: 8-4-76, POB: Choix, SIN, Mex.).
At 3:41 a.m., Agent Terry was transported by EMS to the Tubac, Arizona Fire Station. Carroon’s Mortuary personnel will be transporting Agent Terry to Carroon’s Mortuary in Nogales, Arizona. Agent Terry is being escorted by Tucson Sector Honor Guard personnel.
The search continues for the outstanding assailant(s).
BORTAC Armed Encounter Timeline:
December 14, 2010
11:15 p.m.: BORTAC reports shots fired near Peck Well
11:18 p.m.: EMS/EMS Agents en route.
11:21 p.m.: Lifeflight and CBP/OAM contacted.
11:28 p.m.: Life Line en route.
11:33 p.m.: Air Omaha 7AM contacted.
11:35 p.m.: FOS Bilow sets up Command Post on Peck Mesa, near Gasline.
11:36 p.m.: National Guard Air Falcon One en route.
11:36 p.m.: Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Deputies arrive at Command Post.
11:38 p.m.: Landing Zone (LZ) created at Command Post (N31.49879 W-111.07986)
11:39 p.m.: EMS at Command Post.
11:39 p.m.: Tucson Investigations Branch (Kevin Jones) contacted.
11:40 p.m.: Reported that the injured agent is unresponsive/no pulse.
11:41 p.m.: Air Omaha 7AM en route.
11:44 p.m.: Tucson Investigations Branch/CIT en route.
11:53 p.m.: Life Line standing by at Landing Zone.
11:58 p.m.: BORTAC Agents report one suspect apprehended (with gunshot wounds).
11:59 p.m.: Omaha 7A9 and Omaha 747 (Blackhawk) in the area.
December 15, 2010
12:03 a.m.: Second Life Line contacted for wounded suspect.
12:09 a.m.: Wounded BORTAC Agent (Brian Terry) loaded into vehicle.
12:10 a.m.: Second Life Line en route.
12:10 a.m.: Mobile Surveillance Unit relocated.
12:14 a.m.: Falcon One in area.
12:19 a.m.: Agents en route to Ramanote Well to head off outstanding assailant(s).
12:23 a.m.: FOB Agents mobilizing further east on Ruby Road.
12:38 a.m.: Second Life Line on site.
12:46 a.m.: BORTAC Agent Terry arrives to Landing Zone.
12:51 a.m.: BORSTAR from Blackhawk rendering assistance.
01:06 a.m.: Dr. Chan pronounces Agent Terry dead.
01:35 a.m.: Reported that there are four subjects in custody at this time (one being gunshot), with one subject outstanding but spotted.
02:04 a.m.: Falcon One goes 10-7 for fuel.
02:40 a.m.: TCA Sector Radio informs Nogales Station that DPS Air Ranger en route.
03:05 a.m.: DPS Ranger in the area.
03:25 a.m.: Falcon One 10-8, on scene to assist.
03:40 a.m.: Wounded suspect arrives to LZ, en route to University Medical Center.
03:41 a.m.: Agent Terry is transported to Carroon’s Mortuary in Nogales, Arizona, escorted by Tucson Sector Honor Guard personnel.
Sad how bureaucratese reduces the greatest tragedy to dry words, isn't it?
In part two, we will explore how it came to be that the "rip crew" headed up to Peck Well that night, and how, according to sources, everybody but the BORTAC team knew what was going down before it went down. Everybody but Brian Terry and teammates. Thus it was that Brian Terry became the first BORTAC duty KIA casualty in the 27 years of its history -- from the stupidity and venal treachery of their fellows in federal law enforcement.
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Now it's "only" 34 calling for resignation. He's in serious trouble.
wow.... the repubs can now get 10% of their house members to sign an agreement. yeah, mainstream creamy goodness.
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you know what's funny?
100% of repubs will get behind a "let's reinforce in God we trust" bullshit.
But only 10% of repubs will get behind investigating the illegal smuggling of guns to arm foreign gangs to feed a border war.
Why is taht? Safer to coddle your bible-tumping base, than to end a war? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
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Holder to call for tighter gun control in Fast & Furious testimony tomorrow
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POSTED AT 9:58 PM ON NOVEMBER 7, 2011 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
PRINTER-FRIENDLY
Why not? We pay for having a terrible federal government every day. Why should this be any different just because it involves lost rights instead of lost money?
Seriously, though, having Obama’s AG mumble about more gun regulation in front of a mic will accomplish two things. One: It’s bound to worry all sorts of swing-state gun owners in Pennsylvania and Ohio once word of his testimony gets around, which is all to the good for election day next year. Two: The more gun owners perk up about Holder’s testimony, the more public interest there’s bound to be in Fast & Furious. And hey — there actually is room for a smart new gun law here if Congress is willing to take it up. I call it the “DOJ Shouldn’t Walk Guns to Psychotic Mexican Drug Cartels Act of 2011.” The text reads, in full, “The DOJ shouldn’t walk guns to psychotic Mexican drug cartels.”
I’m thinking that would be a party-line vote in the House.
“Today, I would like to correct some of the inaccurate — and irresponsible — accusations surrounding Fast and Furious,” Holder’s prepared testimony reads. “Some of the overheated rhetoric might lead you to believe that this local, Arizona-based operation was somehow the cause of the epidemic of gun violence in Mexico. In fact, Fast and Furious was a flawed response to, not the cause of, the flow of illegal guns from the United States into Mexico.”
In his testimony, Holder also advocates for new gun-control laws that he says would have halted, or at least prevented, Operation Fast and Furious. Holder echoes California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s comments from last week, when she argued that stricter gun laws would have stopped law enforcement agents from facilitating the sale of guns to Mexican drug cartels.
“Unfortunately, earlier this year the House of Representatives actually voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles and shotguns in Southwest border gun shops,” Holder’s written testimony declares. “Providing law enforcement with the tools to detect and disrupt illegal gun trafficking is entirely consistent with the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens and it is critical to addressing the public safety crisis on the Southwest border.”
The idea that we need to regulate the wider population more tightly in order to prevent catastrophically moronic operations by the feds gives me a warm glow deep in my libertarian heart. And I do mean catastrophic: Watch this new clip from ace CBS reporter Sharyl Atkisson updating the death toll from gunwalking. It’s not just Brian Terry.
Disgusting!
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Holder concedes ATF let guns "walk" to Mexico
Washington Examiner ^ | 11/8/11 | Philip Klein
Posted on Tuesday, November 08, 2011 11:01:09 AM by Nachum
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder conceded this morning that under his leadership, agents allowed guns to "walk" into Mexico, where they ended up in the hands of drug lords, and he said that the effects of this mistake would be felt for years to come. "I want to be clear: any instance of so-called 'gun-walking' is simply unacceptable," Holder said in his opening statement before the Senate Judiciary committee. "Regrettably, this tactic was used as part of Fast and Furious, which was launched to combat gun trafficking and violence on our Southwest Border.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtone xaminer.com ...
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At least 36 members of Congress want Eric Holder’s immediate resignation
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/08/2011 | Matthew Boyle
North Carolina Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry has become the 36th member of Congress to call for Attorney General Eric Holder’s immediate resignation.
“Attorney General Holder has repeatedly had opportunities to clear the record about Operation Fast and Furious and each time he has provided only misleading half-truths to members of Congress and the media,” McHenry, the chairman of the House oversight committee’s subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs, said in a statement. “Mr. Holder has thus lost all credibility and I believe he should resign as Attorney General immediately so that a proper investigation into Operation Fast and Furious can be completed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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Holder: No apology for ‘Fast and Furious’ death of border patrol agent
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/08/2011 | Matthew Boyle
During a Tuesday Senate hearing, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to apologize to the family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was murdered last December with a gun “walked” to Mexico as part of Operation Fast and Furious..
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn asked Holder if he has apologized to Terry’s family for what happened to him because of the DOJ’s controversial program. Holder replied that he hasn’t.
“I have not apologized to them, but I certainly regret what happened,” Holder said.
Cornyn followed up, asking if Holder has “even talked to them.”
“I have not,” Holder replied.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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Holder: No apology for ‘Fast and Furious’ death of border patrol agent
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/08/2011 | Matthew Boyle
you're a lawyer - what about this?
Non-apology apologizers may be trying to avoid litigation that might result from an admission of guilt or responsibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology
Holder would be opening himself up to lawsuits and more if he apologized. You say things like "mistakes were made, it was regrettable".
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::) ::)
Please - this entire episode is beyond revolting. This is another Obama-Holder treasonos act.
I wish AF1 would fly over the bermuda triangle with those two in it and drop those two out of the plane w a life raft and a few days' rations.
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::) ::)
Please - this entire episode is beyond revolting. This is another Obama-Holder treasonos act.
I wish AF1 would fly over the bermuda triangle with those two in it and drop those two out of the plane w a life raft and a few days' rations.
would you really advise a client to open himself up for legislation by apologizing UNDER OATH?
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would you really advise a client to open himself up for legislation by apologizing UNDER OATH?
I want them to come fucking clean. 2 border agents are dead, 200 mexicans dead, 1000 guns at least still unaccounted for, and your heors are calling for more gun control?
F'ng please.
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During Senate testimony, Holder changes misleading testimony from May hearing
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/08/2011 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on Tuesday, November 08, 2011 4:15:37 PM by martosko
Attorney General Eric Holder flip-flopped his Operation Fast and Furious testimony during a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. During a May 3 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Holder told Congressional investigators at least twice that he had only learned of the controversial Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking program a “few weeks” beforehand. But testifying Tuesday, Holder’s timeline changed.
His new testimony amounts to an admission that he misled Congress during that May 3 hearing. House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz both asked him during that hearing when he had first learned of “Fast and Furious,” and he answered the same way twice.
“I did say a ‘few weeks,’” Holder clarified Tuesday, responding to questions from Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I probably could’ve said ‘a couple of months.’ I didn’t think the term I said, ‘few weeks,’ was inaccurate based on what happened.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
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Holder Plays Dumb, Dems Push Gun Control
PJ Media ^ | November 9, 2011 | Bob Owens
America should be disgusted with Holder's answers and the blame-shifting by his Democratic questioners.
Testifying before an intensely partisan Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder only deepened suspicions about the Department of Justice’s possible criminal involvement in a gunwalking operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. The scheme saw the federal government provide more than 2,000 firearms to Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Holder presented the improbable case that he was not responsible for — or even aware of — the plot:
I have ultimate responsibility for that which happens in the Department, but I cannot be expected to know the details for every operation that is ongoing in the Justice Department on a day-to-day basis. I did not know about Fast and Furious as is indicated in the chart that you have up there until I guess, well, until it became public.
Operation Fast and Furious was run primarily by the DOJ, but involved Obama administration officials spread across four Cabinet-level departments, and included direct links to the White House’s National Security Council.
Attorney General Holder’s claim that he was ignorant of one of the most deadly political scandals in U.S. history, which was run out of his department with key input and the understanding of his top lieutenants, is simply not credible.
Holder used his opening statement to shift the blame to the American gun dealers — whom his Department forced to supply weapons to the cartels — and Congress:
“Unfortunately, earlier this year the House of Representatives actually voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles and shotguns in Southwest border gun shops,” Holder’s written testimony declares. “Providing law enforcement with the tools to detect and disrupt illegal gun trafficking is entirely consistent with the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens and it is critical to addressing the public safety crisis on the Southwest border.”
It took considerable gall for Holder to make that allegation against Congress: the long-gun reporting requirement he mentioned was suggested by the Department of Justice to combat a problem that they had created with Operation Fast and Furious.
The hearing was full of jaw-dropping moments. For the first time, Holder conceded the obvious fact: Justice was responsible for firearms being “walked” to Mexican drug lords:
“I want to be clear: any instance of so-called ‘gun-walking’ is simply unacceptable,” Holder said in his opening statement before the Senate Judiciary committee. “Regrettably, this tactic was used as part of Fast and Furious, which was launched to combat gun trafficking and violence on our Southwest border. This operation was flawed in concept, as well as in execution. And, unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crime scenes both here and in Mexico.”
The concession came after months of the Department’s top officials claiming that just the opposite was true, until the compiled evidence was insurmountable.
Holder also claimed he did not commit perjury in May, when he claimed under oath that he had first heard about gunwalking just weeks before the hearing. Yet a series of five memos addressed to the attorney general were received ten months before, as was a detailed public statement from President Obama and letter from Senator Charles Grassley dated nine months before his testimony.
The attorney general also claimed that he had other “regrets” involving operation Fast and Furious, including a February letter from the Justice Department that blatantly lied and claimed there was never any gunwalking in the operation. Holder also voiced regret that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down — though in the testimony’s most shocking moment, he posited that it was not fair to claim Operation Fast and Furious was responsible for Terry’s death. He made this statement despite the fact that the current official story from the DOJ claims the only two weapons recovered from the murder scene were traced to the operation.
As contentious as the hearing became between Holder and several of the minority Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate’s majority Democrats were almost seditiously uninterested in finding out anything about the plot.
Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dishonestly claimed that the plot was an extension of the Bush-era Operation Wide Receiver. It most decidedly was not, and Holder himself refuted that connection.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Feinstein argued that the plot — in which the government forced firearms dealers to give weapons to criminals — justified more gun-control laws.
And in a surreal moment, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) decided the occasion was a wonderful time to discuss the bullying of gay schoolchildren.
Attorney General Eric Holder will not apologize for the deaths of the U.S. federal agents gunned down as a result of the crimes his Department ramrodded, nor will he or his employer, President Barack Obama, accept responsibility or even demand accountability. They incredibly still insist that they don’t know who came up with the operation or know who approved it, even as documentation points directly to men and women in their employment.
Operation Fast and Furious is beyond impeachable. It was a “felony stupid” plot at best, and at worst a treasonous attempt to amplify violent crime in order to subvert the Constitution.
Playing dumb won’t cut it. Relying on an employee/crony to conduct an investigation while leaking information to those she is investigating won’t cut it. Our government is responsible for arming criminals with thousands of weapons, causing hundreds of deaths.
Either Operation Fast and Furious is investigated by an independent counsel, or there is no rule of law in America.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Grassley: Ex-U.S. attorney admits leaking Fast and Furious document
By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Arizona, who resigned in the wake of a congressional probe into the Fast and Furious undercover investigation his office oversaw, has admitted leaking a sensitive document about a federal agent who blew the whistle on the gunrunning operation, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.
Mr. Grassley, in a statement late Tuesday, said the leaked document was "deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that it was not provided to Congress, except in a secured room at department headquarters."
"Leaking sensitive documents to the press and retaliating against whistleblowers is not good faith cooperation with Congress," Mr. Grassley said.
The leak involved Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent John Dodson, one of several agents who testifed in June before a House committee that their ATF superiors told them to stand down and watch as weapons flowed from gun dealers in Arizona to criminals and violent drug cartels in Mexico as part of the Fast and Furious operation.
Agent Dodson told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the operation facilitated the sale of more than 2,000 firearms, and while hundreds have been recovered, there could be more than 1,000 still out. Agent Dodson said that of those, two-thirds were likely in Mexico and the rest still in the U.S.
"The Justice Department confirmed that the Inspector General continues to investigate the leak, which means there are others who may be involved in drafting and distributing the talking points and document to the press," Mr. Grassley said.
In August, Mr. Burke, who oversaw all federal prosecutions in Arizona, resigned while Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor in the Fast and Furious investigation, was reassigned from the criminal division to the civil division. Kenneth E. Melson, ATF's acting director, was reassigned the same day to a lesser role as senior adviser on forensic science.
The three Justice Department officials had come heavy criticism after Mr. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, discovered that hundreds of weapons sold to straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation had been "walked" to drug smugglers in Mexico.
At least two of those weapons, AK-47 assault rifles, turned up at the site of the fatal Dec. 14, 2010, shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry, killed by Mexican bandits just north of Nogales, Ariz.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the Burke resignation and the reassignments. The Fast and Furious operation has been disavowed by Mr. Holder and President Obama.
Mr. Burke's Phoenix attorney, Lee Stein, said in a Nov. 8 letter to the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General — which was posted on Politico — that his client had provided information to a reporter who was working on several stories involving Fast and Furious. The attorney said "it was clear" to Mr. Burke from their conversations that the reporter already was aware of a memo about Agent Dodson and he wanted "to give context to information the reporter already had."
The attorney wrote that because the memo's topics involved closed investigations, it was not subject to any limitations on disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
"Dennis regrets his role in disclosing the memo but he's a stand-up guy and is willing to take responsibility for what he did," the letter said. "It was absolutely not Dennis's intent to retaliate against Special Agent Dodson or anyone else for the information they provided Congress."
Mr. Stein said Mr. Burke has been "cooperating fully with the Department of Justice and with the Congress and will continue to do so." It is unclear who else at Justice took part in sharing the memo with reporters. The Inspector General's investigation into the leak was first reported by NPR in July.
The Inspector General's Office and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility are investigating the Fast and Furious operation, but it is not known when a final report might be made public.
Agent Dodson's attorney, Robert Driscoll, said in a statement: "Special Agent Dodson demonstrated both tremendous courage and fidelity to the mission of ATF when he came forward to discuss the misguided Fast and Furious investigation. It is unfortunate that his superiors at ATF and DOJ did not listen to his attempts to address the matter internally, and instead chose to attack him once he, out of necessity, stepped forward."
Mr. Driscoll described Mr. Burke's public acknowledgment that he "participated in such misguided efforts to smear Agent Dodson is welcome, but unfortunately Burke did not act alone in attempting to ruin Special Agent Dodson's career."
©
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Murdered Border Patrol agent’s family says Holder ‘should accept responsibility immediately’
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/9/11 | Matthew Boyle
Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s family broke its silence on Wednesday, and is now calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to admit he’s at fault for Operation Fast and Furious.
Terry was murdered with Operation Fast and Furious weapons on December 15, 2010 — nearly a year ago — and Holder refused to apologize to his family during his Senate Judiciary Committee appearance on Tuesday.
“Mr. Holder needs to own Operation Fast and Furious,” Terry’s family said in a statement. “In the end, Mr. Holder may chose not to apologize to the Terry family for the role that ATF and DOJ played in the death of Brian Terry, but the Attorney General should accept responsibility immediately. It is without question, the right thing to do.”
Terry’s family has remained virtually silent until now. This is the first major statement relatives of the Fast and Furious victim have ever made.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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Dems try to turn tables on Fast and Furious (Bush's fault)
The Hill ^ | 11/08/11 | Jordy Yager
Posted on November 9, 2011 9:57:16 PM EST by Libloather
Dems try to turn tables on Fast and Furious
By Jordy Yager - 11/08/11 02:06 PM ET
Democrats are turning up the heat over the use of “gun walking” tactics under President George W. Bush’s administration.
Their effort is an attempt to broaden the debate over the controversial Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation, in which the government authorized the sale of guns to known and suspected criminals with the hope of tracking and convicting them.
The operation has become a thorn in the side of the Obama administration, which has seen GOP calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over Fast and Furious.
By showing that Republicans failed to investigate tactics used by President Bush’s Department of Justice that they now decry, the Democrats hope to at least muddy the water on the issue.
“There's been a selective way in which this investigation has been pursued so far,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter where Holder was grilled by Republicans.
“It's sort of one-sided outrage about the whole issue, when we know now that it began, or its progenitor began, before you took office, before President Obama took office,” Schumer said.
Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) posed a lengthy line of questions to Holder about whether he knew who, in George W. Bush’s White House, was aware of the “gun walking” methods used in Bush’s administration.
Holder said he did not know but would work to find answers for the senators.
Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), meanwhile, asked the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Inspector General (IG), which is investigating the agency’s decision-making process with regards to Fast and Furious, to expand their probe to include the Bush-era gun tracking operations.
One Bush-era program, Operation Wide Receiver, was conducted from 2006 to 2007 and oversaw the sale of about 350 firearms to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels.
Under Operation Fast and Furious, thousands of firearms were sold to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels.
In the House, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has called for former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to testify before the Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, which has been investigating Fast and Furious for most of the year.
According to a 2007 document subpoenaed and recently received by the House committeee, Mukasey was briefed about a gun-tracking operation being run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that — while not explicitly calling it “gun walking” — used the tactics.
The 2007 memo is the first official record showing that an attorney general knew about the tactics, according to the Associated Press. Mukasey served as then-President George W. Bush’s attorney general from 2007 until President Obama took control of the White House in 2009.