Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread

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Executive Priviledge 

so you believe the foreign drug dealer, and not every president since Reagan?

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'Fast and Furious' guns ended up in Colombia
 Columbia News ^ | 9/10/12 | Adriaan Alsema

Posted on Monday, September 10, 2012 1:54:10 PM


U.S. weapons that were exported to Mexico as part of the controversial "Fast and Furious" program ended up in the hands of Colombia crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado, reported newspaper El Tiempo Monday.

According to the newspaper, investigations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have established that some of the weapons found during the arrest of Oficina boss "Sebastian" were part of the thousands of arms lost in the Fast and Furious program.

"Two rifles that were seized in February with "Frank," the brother of Sebastian also are part of the tracking operations of the ATF, the same with 14 Five-seven guns we have found in several raids," an anonymous high-ranking source within Colombia's National Police was quoted as saying by El Tiempo.

The source added that ATF agents are in Medellin where the Oficina operates and inspect every seized firearm found in raids in Colombia's second largest city.

In the U.S., a House Judiciary Committee and the Department of Homeland Security have been investigating the Fast and Furious scandal which is held responsible for the export of at least 2,000 firearms.

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ATF Whistleblower Vince Cefalu Fired
ticklethewire.com ^ | 10 October, 2012 | Allan Lengel
Posted on October 11, 2012 6:29:44 AM EDT by marktwain

Veteran ATF agent Vince Cefalu, a whistleblower who became a particularly controversial figure after voicing concern about the failed Operation Fast and Furious, was “unceremoniously” handed his dismissal papers on Tuesday, according his spokesman.

An ATF official met him at the Denny’s parking lot in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada, near his home, where Cefalu turned in his credentials, said his spokesman Patrick Crosby, a former spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, who now has his own public relations firm.

Crosby said Cefalu was fired for “lack of candor.” He did not elaborate.

Cefalu has hired an Atlanta law firm to fight the dismissal.

Cefalu worked for more than two decades for ATF, often in an undercover capacity in major cases involving motorcycle gangs in California and the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.

Wade Drew, a spokesman for ATF, said he could confirm that Cefalu worked for ATF for nearly 25 years and that he was no longer with the agency. But he said ATF does not comment on personnel or disciplinary matters.

In recent years, Cefalu has been one of the more publicly vocal critics of ATF management. He claims to have gone through all the proper channels to voice his concerns about ATF management, but all to no avail.

“I have just been trying to do my job: make good cases, put away the bad guys, keep the our citizens and our agents safe,” he said in a statement after his termination. “ATF management has been bending the rules and breaking the rules. The agents want ATF to be the proud agency it once was, not a place where some managers jeopardize our citizens and our cases. The behavior of ATF management has been speaking for itself with all the transfers, reassignments, resignations. It has been a mess and an embarrassment. That’s not the ATF I have devoted my career and life to, and I do not regret trying to change it.”

Zahra S. Karinshak, an Atlanta-based attorney from Krevolin & Horst, who represents Cefalu, said in a statement:

“Vince has tremendous courage. Anyone who infiltrates the KKK and biker gangs to bring them to justice has an incredible sense of dedication. Vince has a team who will fight for him in court as aggressively as he fought violent crime on our streets.”

ATF had tried firing Cefalu last year. However, he appealed the termination. It became final on Tuesday.

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Click to Add Topic

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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/20/DOJ-Inspector-General-confirms-US-Attorney-DOJ-headquarters-leaked-documents-to-smear-Fast-and-Furious-whistleblower



The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.
 
The DOJ IG said it found “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”

“We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member,” the IG wrote.
 
Burke resigned from his post as U.S. Attorney over the incident in August 2011, the first major Department of Justice official to leave his or her post in the Fast and Furious scandal. He said after the fact, in interviews with congressional investigators, that he now views leaking the document as a “mistake.”
 
In addition to Burke’s involvement in leaking the document, emails the IG uncovered show senior officials at the Department of Justice discussed smearing Dodson.
 
One of those was Tracy Schmaler, the Director of the Department’s Office of Public Affairs, who resigned her position at the DOJ after emails uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that she worked with leftwing advocacy group Media Matters for America to smear whistleblowers and members of Congress and the media who sought to investigate DOJ scandals under Attorney General Eric Holder.

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IG: ex-US Attorney retaliated in Fast and Furious
By PETE YOST | Associated Press – 1 hr 41 mins ago..
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Attorney in Arizona violated Justice Department policy by providing Fox News with information apparently aimed at undercutting the credibility of a federal agent who helped reveal the botched arms-trafficking probe called Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department's inspector general said Monday.
 
There was substantial evidence in the 2011 incident that then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke's motive for disclosing a memo by federal agent John Dodson was retaliation, the inspector general's report said. In testimony to a House committee just two weeks earlier, Dodson had raised serious concerns about Operation Fast and Furious.
 
In Dodson's memo, which was eventually leaked, Dodson proposed a tactic similar to the one being used at the time in Operation Fast and Furious. Dodson proposed acting in an undercover capacity to deliver firearms to a suspected firearms trafficker, but taking no enforcement action upon delivering the firearms.
 
Dodson later told investigators that he and other ATF agents had proposed the transaction in hopes that it would shock their superiors into realizing what they were doing in Operation Fast and Furious. Instead, a superior approved Dodson's proposal and Dodson sold six firearms to the suspect. Dodson later told investigators that he regretted delivering the firearms.
 
The Fast and Furious operation used a tactic called gun-walking in an attempt to follow illicit gun buyers to major arms traffickers and dismantle the gun rings supplying weapons to drug cartels in Mexico. The tracking effort was largely unsuccessful and hundreds of weapons wound up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico. Two of the weapons were found at the site of the slaying of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.
 
After Terry's death, Dodson and several other agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives described the gun-walking tactic to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
 
As the controversy grew, Burke and Justice Department officials exchanged emails about Dodson's earlier memo, the report said.
 
"Unbelievable," Burke said in one message. "This guy called Grassley and CBS to unearth what he in fact was proposing to do by himself. When you thought the hypocrisy of this whole matter had hit the limit already..."
 
The report noted that in a separate incident, Burke had told the deputy attorney general that he himself had improperly disclosed information to The New York Times about a criminal suspect in Operation Fast and Furious.
 
According to the IG, Burke knew at the time of his disclosure of the Dodson memorandum that he was under investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility for that earlier leak.
 
The inspector general's office is referring its report to OPR to determine whether Burke's conduct violated rules in the states where Burke is licensed to practice law.

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IG Report Says U.S. Attorney Sought to Undermine Credibility of Fast and Furious Whistleblower
 Senator Chuck Grassley ^ | May 20, 2013 | Senator Grassley

Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:37:16 AM


Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement after an Office of Inspector General Report showed that U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke leaked a sensitive document to the press regarding a whistleblower who had come forward with allegations of gunwalking, that he leaked an internal memo regarding Fast and Furious suspect Jaime Avila to the New York Times, and that he lied to Deputy Attorney General James Cole. The document leaked to Fox News was deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that it was not provided to Congress, except in a secured room at department headquarters.

“The Inspector General outlined the Justice Department’s efforts to undermine Special Agent Dodson’s credibility, the whistleblower who had the guts to come forward and tell Congress the truth about Operation Fast and Furious. The Inspector General confirmed that Mr. Burke went to great lengths to discredit Special Agent Dodson and Congress’ investigation into the gunwalking that led to the death of Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Mr. Burke’s refusal to cooperate with the Inspector General’s investigation shows me that he didn’t operate in good faith. His actions are indicative of this administration’s willingness to attack whistleblowers who cooperate with Congress and show the administration’s commitment to undermine legitimate congressional oversight.

“The report brings into question, yet again, the treatment that whistleblowers receive from this administration. Instead of examining the allegations that came forward, the Justice Department almost immediately began to attack the credibility and good name of a dedicated federal agent upset with what he was ordered to do.”

Further background information The Inspector General report does not include the following important context regarding the Dodson Memo that was leaked to Fox News. The memo is addressed in Grassley’s first report on Operation Fast and Furious, written with House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa. That segment of the report (Appendix III) can be found here and sections regarding the Dodson memo are highlighted (pp. 33-39). The full report can be found here.

Here is some additional information from the report that addresses the Dodson memo. • As Dodson’s supervisor, David Voth had responsibility for the Fernandez case, ordered the memo to be written, and edited it before it was approved by the Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Phoenix. Still, Dodson did not hide from what he did. In fact, he expressed remorse for it.

• In his very first public appearance on CBS Evening News, Dodson told the world in a powerful interview that he had walked guns: “Here I am. Tell me I didn’t do the things that I did. Tell me you didn’t order me to do the things I did.”[1] He also apologized to the Terry family: “First of all, I’d tell [Agent` Terry’s family] that I’m sorry.”[2]

• Agent Dodson was upfront about the Fernandez case throughout his interactions with Congressional investigators, and Senator Grassley’s letter attaching the Fernandez documents came out the same day Dodson went on the CBS Evening News and publicly expressed remorse for his admitted role in walking guns.

• As the documentation makes clear, Dodson’s participation in walking guns in the Fernandez case came just weeks after Voth’s schism email, which warned dissenters to fall in line or find another job.