Author Topic: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread  (Read 30427 times)

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #225 on: June 27, 2012, 02:14:34 PM »
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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #226 on: June 27, 2012, 02:39:53 PM »
Slain officer’s parents call President Obama a liar
 thenewsherald.com ^ | 26 June, 2012 | Scott Held


Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 3:23:40

WASHINGTON — A slain former Downriver police officer is at the center of criticism of President Barack Obama’s dealings with an investigation into a federal program that allowed guns to end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and bandits.

The parents of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was fatally shot by bandits, appeared on a Fox News program last week and called Obama a liar after he asserted executive privilege to keep Attorney General Eric Holder and other Department of Justice officials from a congressional investigation of “Operation Fast and Furious.”

“It sounds like they’re hiding something,” Kent Terry said Thursday during an interview. “They’re lying big time and passing the buck. That’s how I feel. I just know they’re hiding something big.

“Something happened out there and we’re not supposed to know.”

Kent and Josephine Terry’s son was shot Dec. 14, 2010, and died a day later after his group encountered some men near Rio Rico, Ariz. The unit was targeting so-called “rip crews” that stalk and rob drug runners crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. Terry was 40.

Two of the guns used by the bandits — four were captured and another escaped — were traced to a dealer who sold them to a suspected Mexican drug cartel. The sales were allowed during a surveillance program conducted by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Terry’s family filed a $25 million wrongful death suit against the federal government in February, claiming the ATF created the conditions for his death by allowing more than 1,400 guns to be sent to Mexico and fall into the hands of traffickers who supply the country’s drug cartels. The suit also alleges that the federal government attempted to cover up the ATF’s role in the gun-running program.

In 2009, ATF agents noticed large numbers of guns being purchased in the United States by suspected drug cartels, but didn’t stop the sales. Instead, they allowed the transactions to go through and followed the guns into Mexico, presumably hoping to trace them to drug organizations.

After Terry was killed, Holder issued a directive stopping the so-called “gun walking.” The Department of Justice initially denied any role in allowing the guns to cross the border, but an agent later told CBS News he was part of a group that did just that.

Kent Terry said he was amazed when he learned the guns used to shoot his son were procured while federal agents watched.

“I was furious; I was shocked,” he said. “I don’t think my son should’ve went before me. It’s very hard.”

The couple said they received a call from Obama before their son’s funeral but have not had any correspondence with the White House or Department of Justice since learning that guns procured under the “Fast and Furious” period were used in his shooting.

In a party-line vote, Holder was held in contempt last week by a House subcommittee.

Terry was buried a week after his death at Michigan Memorial Park in Huron Township, and the Border Patrol office in Bisbee, Ariz., was renamed in his memory.

The Flat Rock Community High School graduate, like an uncle, Robert Heier, a former Lincoln Park police chief and mayor, went into law enforcement after a four-year stint in the Marine Corps. He became an Ecorse police officer in 1998 and later transferred to Lincoln Park.

He was accepted into the Border Patrol Academy in 2007 and was assigned to the Tucson (Ariz.) sector. He eventually became part of the patrol’s elite BORTAC unit.

Kent and Josephine Terry could not be reached for comment by yesterday. Brian Terry’s family created a website (rememberbrianterry.com) and foundation to honor his memory.

Contact Staff Writer Scott Held at 1-734-246-0865 or sheld@heritage.com. Follow him on Facebook and @ScottHeld45 on Twitter.

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #227 on: June 27, 2012, 03:41:03 PM »
THE BIGGEST SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY

June 27, 2012

 



 


Forget executive privilege, contempt of Congress, "fast and furious," how many documents the government has produced and who said what to whom on which date.
 
The Obama administration has almost certainly engaged in the most shockingly vile corruption scandal in the history of the country, not counting the results of Season Eight on "American Idol."
 
Administration officials intentionally put guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, so that when the guns taken from Mexican crime scenes turned out to be American guns, Democrats would have a reason to crack down on gun sellers in the United States.
 
Democrats will never stop trying to take our guns away. They see something more lethal than a salad shooter and wet themselves.
 
But since their party was thrown out of Congress for the first time in nearly half a century as a result of passing the 1994 "assault weapons ban," even liberals know they were going to need a really good argument to pass any limitation on guns ever again.
 
So it's curious that Democrats all started telling the same lie about guns as soon as Obama became president. In March 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced to reporters on a trip to Mexico: "Since we know that the vast majority, 90 percent of that weaponry (used by Mexican drug cartels), comes from our country, we are going to try to stop it from getting there in the first place."
 
As she sentimentally elaborated on Fox News' Greta Van Susteren show: "The guns sold in the United States, which are illegal in Mexico, get smuggled and shipped across our border and arm these terrible drug-dealing criminals so that they can outgun these poor police officers along the border and elsewhere in Mexico."
 
Suddenly that 90 percent statistic was everywhere. It was like the statistic on women beaten by their husbands on Super Bowl Sunday.
 
CBS' Bob Schieffer asked Obama on "Face the Nation": "It's my understanding that 90 percent of the guns that they're getting down in Mexico are coming from the United States. We don't seem to be doing a very good job of cutting off the gun flow. Do you need any kind of legislative help on that front? Have you, for example, thought about asking Congress to reinstate the ban on assault weapons?"
 


At a Senate hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
 
And then, thanks to Fox News -- the first network to report it -- we found out the 90 percent figure was complete bunkum. It was a fabrication told by William Hoover, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), and then spread like wildfire by Democrats and the media.
 
Mexican law enforcement authorities send only a fraction of the guns they recover from criminals back to the U.S. for tracing. Which guns do they send? The guns that have U.S. serial numbers on them. It would be like asking a library to produce all their Mark Twain books and then concluding that 90 percent of the books in that library are by Mark Twain.
 
You begin to see why the left hates Fox News so much.

Obama backed away from the preposterous 90 percent claim. His National Security Council spokesman explained to Fox News that by "recovered," they meant "guns traceable to the United States." So, in other words, Democrats were frantically citing the amazing fact that almost all the guns traceable to the U.S. were ... traceable to the U.S.
 
Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that even if the percentage is inaccurate, the "vast majority" of guns seized in crimes in Mexico come from the United States. (And he should know, because it turns out he was sending them there!)
 
This was absurd. Most of the guns used by drug cartels are automatic weapons -- not to mention shoulder-fired rockets -- that can't be sold to most Americans. They are acquired from places like Russia, China and Guatemala.
 
Right about the time the 90 percent lie was unraveling, the Obama administration decided to directly hand thousands of American guns over to Mexican criminals. Apart from the fact that tracking thousands of guns into Mexico is not feasible or rational, the dumped guns didn't have GPS tracing devices on them, anyway. There is no conceivable law enforcement objective to such a program.
 
This is what we know:

(1) Liberals thought it would be a great argument for gun control if American guns were ending up in the hands of Mexican criminals;
 
(2) They wanted that to be true so badly, Democrats lied about it;

(3) After they were busted on their lie, the Obama administration began dumping thousands of guns in the hands of Mexican criminals.
 
We also know that hundreds of people were murdered with these U.S.-government-supplied guns, including at least one American, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
 
But let's look on the bright side. The BATF was originally going to ship warheads to Iran until realizing the explosions might disable the tracking devices.
 
(Contrary to more Democrat lies, there was no program to dump thousands of guns in Mexico under George W. Bush. The Bush administration did have a program that put GPS trackers on about 100 guns in order to actually trace them. That operation was ended almost as soon as it began because of the lack of cooperation from Mexican officials. You may as well say Holder's program was "started" by the first cop who ever put tracer dye on contraband.)
 
No one has explained what putting 2,500 untraceable guns in the hands of Mexican drug dealers was supposed to accomplish.
 
But you know what that might have accomplished? It would make the Democrats' lie retroactively true -- allowing them to push for the same gun restrictions they were planning when they first concocted it. A majority of guns recovered from Mexican criminals would, at last, be American guns, because Eric Holder had put them there.
 
Unfortunately for the Democrats, some brave whistleblower inside the government leaked details of this monstrous scheme. As soon as Congress and the public demanded answers, Holder clammed up. He just says "oops" -- and accuses Republicans of racism.
 
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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #228 on: June 29, 2012, 05:48:25 AM »

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #229 on: June 29, 2012, 07:12:39 AM »
THE BIGGEST SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY

June 27, 2012


Read this list of top 10 US presidential scandals-

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/tp/presidential_scandals.htm

Then come back and tell me losing 2000 guns is the biggest scandal in US history.

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #230 on: June 29, 2012, 02:07:19 PM »
Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record
By Jonathan Strong
Roll Call Staff
June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.




In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
 
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
 
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
 
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
 
Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.
 
The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.
 
In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.
 
The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.
 
Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.
 
While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.
 
In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.
 
“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.
 
The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.
 
It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.
 
In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.
 
The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.
 
“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.
 
Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.
 
Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.
 
A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.
 
Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.
 
A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.
 
"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents," a Democratic committee staffer said. "His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why."


JonathanStrong@cqrollcall.com | @j_strong

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #231 on: June 29, 2012, 02:26:51 PM »

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #232 on: June 29, 2012, 04:41:10 PM »
Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’







By Fred Lucas

June 29, 2012

Subscribe to Fred Lucas's posts



   

 



Former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke (AP Photo)

 
(CNSNews.com) – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.
 
When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.
 
“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.
 
Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.
 
Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working in that capacity for several years on an assault-weapons ban, which was finally enacted on Sept. 13, 1994 as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act expired on Sept. 13, 2004. (See NYT: Dennis Burke, Sen. DeConcini, Weapons Ban.pdf)
 
From 1994-95, Burke served in the Clinton Justice Department in the Office of Legislative Affairs, and in 1997-99, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona.
 
From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.
 
In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-contributor-who-helped-enact-assault-weapons-ban-ran-fast-and-furious


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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #233 on: July 09, 2012, 06:58:31 PM »
DOJ charges five with Brian Terry’s murder, FBI offers $1M reward for arrests
Washington Examiner ^ | 7/9/12 | Joel Gehrke
Posted on July 9, 2012 2:06:37 PM EDT by Nachum

Justice Department (DOJ) officials indicted five individuals for the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — who was murdered by drug traffickers armed through Operation Fast and Furious – and a $1 million reward for information leading to their arrest.

“Agent Terry served his country honorably and made the ultimate sacrifice in trying to protect it from harm, and we will stop at nothing to bring those responsible for his murder to justice,” Attorney General Eric Holder said today. “This investigation has previously resulted in one defendant being charged with Agent Terry’s murder and taken into custody, and today’s announcement reflects the department’s unrelenting commitment to finding and arresting the other individuals responsible for this horrific tragedy so that Agent Terry’s family, friends and fellow law enforcement agents receive the justice they deserve.”

Terry’s death sparked a national scandal when House investigators learned that U.S. law enforcement facilitated the arming of his shooters through the gun-walking scheme, Operation Fast and Furious. The Justice Department wrote a letter in February 2011 to Congress denying that law enforcement knowingly allowed guns to be trafficked into Mexico. That claim was retracted in December of that year.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives cited Holder for contempt of Congress due to his refusal to hand over documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious. Holder is the first sitting cabinet member cited for contempt.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #234 on: July 09, 2012, 07:29:32 PM »



TUCSON, Ariz. — Authorities made a rare disclosure Monday linked to the botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious, revealing identities and requesting the public's help in capturing four fugitives accused in the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent 18 months ago.

The announcement comes in the wake of pressure from U.S. House Republicans who led a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, criticizing the nation's top prosecutor for withholding information related to the probe.

"We believe it's in the best interest of this ongoing investigation to unseal the case at this point in time and to enlist the assistance of the general publics in both Mexico and the United States," said federal prosecutor Laura Duffy. She said the decision to release the information came independently and would not discuss the recent congressional action against Holder.

Operation Fast and Furious was launched in 2009 to catch trafficking kingpins, but federal agents lost track of about 1,400 of the more than 2,000 weapons – including AK-47s and other high-powered assault rifles.

Some of the guns purchased illegally with the government's knowledge were later found at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S.

Critics have hammered federal authorities for allowing informants to walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with weapons, rather than immediately arresting suspects and seizing firearms.

Since the fatal shootout near the U.S.-Mexico line in December 2010, deep flaws in the government's weapons trafficking case have come to light. Federal authorities have repeatedly declined to disclose information related to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, such as what became of the gun used to kill him.

The release of the suspects' identities in a newly unsealed indictment Monday came with the offer of a $1 million reward for information leading to their capture.

The FBI says it is seeking information related to Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, 31, Ivan Soto-Barraza, 34, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, 34, and Lionel Portillo-Meza.




Portillo-Meza's age and birthplace were unavailable. The other three fugitives were born in Mexico, but their hometowns were not available.

Authorities had previously released the identity of the fifth suspect, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, of El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. He was shot during the gunfight, and has been in custody since the night of the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty in the case, telling investigators that he raised his weapon toward the agents during the shootout but didn't fire, the FBI said in records.

His age was not immediately available.

All five have been charged with murder. They also face charges of assaulting four federal agents.

FBI agents declined to discuss which fugitive is suspected of firing the shot that killed Terry. They also would not comment on whether the weapon was linked to an Operation Fast and Furious purchase.

The five men, plus another who faces lesser charges in the case, came to the U.S. from Mexico in order to rob marijuana smugglers, the indictment said.

The disclosures are among the few details released by authorities despite repeated requests from congressional leaders and news organizations, including The Associated Press. The FBI, ATF, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have all denied Freedom of Information Act requests that seek reports and other documents in the investigation of the shooting.

Patrick McGroder, an attorney for the Terry family, said in a statement that Monday's information shows that the prosecution is moving forward, but efforts to hold federal officials accountable for the flawed investigation remain stalled.

McGroder says Holder's office should release the documents sought by members of Congress.

Agent Terry "and his family rightly deserve a full and thorough explanation of how Operation Fast and Furious came to be," McGroder said.

Terry, a former Marine and Michigan police officer, was part of an elite squad similar to a police SWAT team that was sent to the remote areas north of Nogales known for border crime, drug smuggling and violence.

FBI Special Agent James Turgal said in announcing the reward that "we stand in support of the Terry family and our partners in Border Patrol."

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #235 on: July 10, 2012, 05:55:58 AM »
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/07/09/DOJ-Reveals-Brian-Terry-Was-Shooting-Bean-Bags-At-Men-Who-Killed-Him


DISGUSTING! 

WTF! 

Imagine losing a relative knowing that our govt only let Terry fire back w Bean Bags? 

Speechless at the actions of our disgusting government. 


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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #236 on: July 10, 2012, 07:18:55 AM »
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/07/09/DOJ-Reveals-Brian-Terry-Was-Shooting-Bean-Bags-At-Men-Who-Killed-Him


DISGUSTING! 

WTF! 

Imagine losing a relative knowing that our govt only let Terry fire back w Bean Bags? 

Speechless at the actions of our disgusting government. 



Hold on there cowboy...

You are making assumptions that contradict common practice. Police Officers are also issued less lethal shotguns that fire bean bags in ADDITION to their regular side arms and AR15's. Knowing that, and knowing border patrol agents are not ONLY armed with less lethal, it is certainly POSSIBLE that at the time, the agents thought the situation called for less lethal, maybe they didn't see firearms at the moment. To shoot bean bags at rifle carrying people is just plain stupid. Agents are not stupid. We are required to have lethal force at the ready when we use less lethal, i.e. an officer with a real gun covering the bad guy just in case... I don't see them having a different policy. So given the limited information, let's not go off the deep end thinking agents were on patrol with just bean bag guns and that was the only weapons they had. It is more LIKELY the situation quickly deteriated from a less lethal situation to a very lethal situation   

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #237 on: July 10, 2012, 07:22:18 AM »
Hold on there cowboy...

You are making assumptions that contradict common practice. Police Officers are also issued less lethal shotguns that fire bean bags in ADDITION to their regular side arms and AR15's. Knowing that, and knowing border patrol agents are not ONLY armed with less lethal, it is certainly POSSIBLE that at the time, the agents thought the situation called for less lethal, maybe they didn't see firearms at the moment. To shoot bean bags at rifle carrying people is just plain stupid. Agents are not stupid. We are required to have lethal force at the ready when we use less lethal, i.e. an officer with a real gun covering the bad guy just in case... I don't see them having a different policy. So given the limited information, let's not go off the deep end thinking agents were on patrol with just bean bag guns and that was the only weapons they had. It is more LIKELY the situation quickly deteriated from a less lethal situation to a very lethal situation   

They just released this yesterday.  I agree it seems bizarre if he had a regular firearm he would use a bean bag gun. 

I guess they will release more data as time goes on. 

I also wonder how far was the distance he was shot from. 

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #238 on: July 10, 2012, 09:00:47 AM »
Hold on there cowboy...

You are making assumptions that contradict common practice. Police Officers are also issued less lethal shotguns that fire bean bags in ADDITION to their regular side arms and AR15's. Knowing that, and knowing border patrol agents are not ONLY armed with less lethal, it is certainly POSSIBLE that at the time, the agents thought the situation called for less lethal, maybe they didn't see firearms at the moment. To shoot bean bags at rifle carrying people is just plain stupid. Agents are not stupid. We are required to have lethal force at the ready when we use less lethal, i.e. an officer with a real gun covering the bad guy just in case... I don't see them having a different policy. So given the limited information, let's not go off the deep end thinking agents were on patrol with just bean bag guns and that was the only weapons they had. It is more LIKELY the situation quickly deteriated from a less lethal situation to a very lethal situation   
Havent you seen the new release instructing agents to run and hide when fired upon, or to throw things at them?
Serious.

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #239 on: July 10, 2012, 09:02:08 AM »
Havent you seen the new release instructing agents to run and hide when fired upon, or to throw things at them?
Serious.

Like what ?  Tennis balls or frisbees? 

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #240 on: July 11, 2012, 07:07:07 PM »
Obama mum on Fast and Furious - President speaks up for Holder.
The Hawkeye ^ | 7/11/12 | CHRISTINIA CRIPPES
Posted on July 11, 2012 9:54:27 PM EDT by Nachum

CEDAR RAPIDS - President Barack Obama didn't answer a question posed by The Hawk Eye about the so-called Fast and Furious scandal, citing the ongoing investigation.

But he took the opportunity to defend Attorney General Eric Holder's actions so far. The U.S. House voted to find Holder in contempt of Congress last week, due to the fact that his office did not turn over key documents to aid in Congress' investigation of the scandal.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has been at the forefront of the investigation, which alleges that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed guns to be sold to straw dealers in Arizona who then sold the weapons to criminals across the border. The "gun-walking" resulted in the deal of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. On Monday, five individuals were indicted on charges in connection with Terry's death.

"What I will say is this: Everybody acknowledges that gun-running to Mexican cartels is a big problem along the borders," Obama said, adding that it's a challenge for not only the ATF but also other federal officials. "Attorney General Holder has been the first to acknowledge that anything that happened under his watch, you know, he takes responsibility for."

(Excerpt) Read more at thehawkeye.com ...

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #241 on: July 17, 2012, 12:18:01 PM »
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DOJ withheld 'Fast and Furious' whistleblower memo
 Washington Guardian ^ | 7/17/12 | John Solomon

Posted on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 12:09:18 PM by Nachum

The Justice Department has withheld from Congress memos showing that senior officials inside the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began preparing as early as February 2011 to treat the agents who unmasked the bungled Fast and Furious gun operation as whistleblowers.

The memos, obtained by the Washington Guardian, were triggered by the agents' allegations, Justice officials confirmed. In them, ATF officials in Washington instructed field supervisors not to retaliate against the agents in Arizona who complained they had been ordered to let semiautomatic weapons flow to suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels rather than interdicting them.

Even as the warning was being sent, Obama administration political appointees were publicly undercutting the agents’ credibility, insisting to Congress that ATF never knowingly let weapons cross the border into Mexico’s violent drug wars - a denial that turned out to be false.


(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonguardian.com ...

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #242 on: August 02, 2012, 07:46:15 PM »
ATF official resigns after Issa, Grassley nail him in congressional Fast and Furious report
The Daily Caller ^ | 8/2/12 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on August 2, 2012 10:32:39 PM EDT by Nachum

The man who served as the deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives during Operation Fast and Furious resigned on Tuesday, an agency spokesman told The Associated Press on Thursday.

William Hoover was one of the five ATF officials House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley singled out as responsible for Operation Fast and Furious. ATF spokesman Drew Wade told the AP that Hoover resigned on Tuesday – the day Issa and Grassley released the congressional report in which they singled out Hoover and four of his colleagues.

Wade did not immediately responded to a request from The Daily Caller seeking confirmation that the GOP lawmakers’ report prompted Hoover’s resignation, and did not answer whether or not resignations are in the works for the other four officials.

The other four ATF officials Issa and Grassley blamed Fast and Furious on in this report are:

William Newell, the special agent in charge of the phoenix field division William McMahon, Newell’s boss who was ATF’s deputy assistant director for field operations Mark Chait, McMahon’s boss who was ATF’s assistant director for field operations Kenneth Melson, former acting ATF director

Since Fast and Furious broke out as a major national scandal, all five of those ATF leaders have since been reassigned within ATF and the Justice Department.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #243 on: August 08, 2012, 09:15:09 AM »
Report: Drug cartel used Fast and Furious weapon in failed assassination plot

Published: 11:24 PM 08/07/2012


By Matthew Boyle
 
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Drug cartel operatives used weapons from Operation Fast and Furious in a failed attempt to assassinate a high-ranking Mexican law enforcement official, the El Paso Times reports in an article that follows up on an initial report from Breitbart News’ Mary Chastain.
 
The gun — which “was seized in Tijuana in connection with a drug cartel’s conspiracy to kill the police chief of Tijuana, Baja California, who later became the Juárez police chief” — is tied to Fast and Furious.
 
“The firearm was found Feb. 25, 2010, during an arrest of a criminal cell associated with Teodoro ‘El Teo’ García Simental and Raydel ‘El Muletas’ López Uriarte, allies of the Sinaloa cartel,” Diana Washington Valdez wrote on Monday for the El Paso Times. “Tijuana police said they arrested four suspects in March 2010 in connection with a failed attempt to take out Julián Leyzaola, and that the suspects allegedly confessed to conspiring to assassinate the police chief on orders from Tijuana cartel leaders.”
 
“Leyzaola, a retired Mexican army officer, reportedly survived several attempts on his life while trying to bring order to Tijuana, a city torn apart by turf battles following the arrests and deaths of Arellano Felix cartel leaders,” Valdez added.
 
Leyzaola has since moved to Ciudad Juarez, a town right across the border from El Paso, Texas, to become the police chief there.
 
This new information comes on the heels of the release of a lengthy congressional report into Fast and Furious from House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley. That report — the first of three — named five Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials Grassley and Issa believe are ultimately responsible for Fast and Furious. On the same day of the report’s public release, one of those officials — former deputy ATF director William Hoover — resigned his position.
 
That congressional report also saw the release of new evidence that Obama administration ATF officials sought to cover up the Fast and Furious connection to a death other than that of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
 


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Mario Gonzalez, the brother of then-Mexican prosecutor Patricia Gonzalez, was killed with Fast and Furious weapons in early November 2010. According to internal ATF emails congressional investigators obtained and released in this report, one ATF agent had discovered that two of the guns found at Mario Gonzalez’s murder scene were Fast and Furious weapons.
 
That agent, Tonya English, emailed her supervisors David Voth and Hope MacCallister asking them to “not release any information” on the Fast and Furious connection to that murder.
 
House Republicans are gearing up their lawsuit against President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to withhold Fast and Furious documents from Congress and the American people. Because the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has refused to enforce the congressional citation finding Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress, the House is moving on the civil contempt of Congress resolution. That civil contempt resolution allows the House to fight the president’s privilege claim in court.
 
Issa recently said he’s “100 percent” confident a federal judge will force Obama to cough up the documents.
 
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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/report-drug-cartel-used-fast-and-furious-weapon-in-failed-assassination-plot/#ixzz22yJqYJ3x


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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #244 on: August 08, 2012, 09:57:27 AM »
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/07/09/DOJ-Reveals-Brian-Terry-Was-Shooting-Bean-Bags-At-Men-Who-Killed-Him


DISGUSTING! 

WTF! 

Imagine losing a relative knowing that our govt only let Terry fire back w Bean Bags? 

Speechless at the actions of our disgusting government. 



youre making quite an assumption there.  that's not like you.

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #245 on: August 09, 2012, 10:02:58 AM »
High-Ranking Mexican Drug Cartel Member Makes Explosive Allegation: ‘Fast and Furious’ Is Not What You Think It Is
Posted on August 9, 2012 at 8:00am by Jason Howerton



Comments (237)


A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody is making startling allegations that the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious” isn’t what you think it is.
 
It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.
 
The explosive allegations are being made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” He was extradited to the Chicago last year to face federal drug charges.
 

Jesus Vincente Zambada-Niebla (Source: MSNBC)
 
Zambada-Niebla claims that under a “divide and conquer” strategy, the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa Cartel through Operation Fast and Furious in exchange for information that allowed the DEA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies to take down rival drug cartels. The Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly permitted to traffic massive amounts of drugs across the U.S. border from 2004 to 2009 — during both Fast and Furious and Bush-era gunrunning operations — as long as the intel kept coming.
 
This pending court case against Zambada-Niebla is being closely monitored by some members of Congress, who expect potential legal ramifications if any of his claims are substantiated. The trial was delayed but is now scheduled to begin on Oct. 9.
 
Zambada-Niebla is reportedly a close associate of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the son of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia, both of which remain fugitives, likely because of the deal made with the DEA, federal court documents allege.

 



Based on the alleged agreement  ”the Sinaloa Cartel under the leadership of defendant’s father, Ismael Zambada-Niebla and ‘Chapo’ Guzman, were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States and were also protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels which helped Mexican and United States authorities capture or kill thousands of rival cartel members,” states a motion for discovery filed in U.S. District Court by Zambada-Niebla’s attorney in July 2011.
 
A source in Congress, who spoke to TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity, said that some top congressional investigators have been keeping “one eye on the case.”  Another two members of Congress, both lead Fast and Furious Congressional investigators, told TheBlaze they had never even heard of the case.
 
One of the Congressmen, who also spoke to TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because criminal proceedings are still ongoing, called the allegations “disturbing.” He said Congress will likely get involved once Zambada-Niebla’s trial has concluded if any compelling information surfaces.
 
“Congress won’t get involved in really any criminal case until the trial is over and the smoke has cleared,” he added. “If the allegations prove to hold any truth, there will be some serious legal ramifications.”
 
Earlier this month, two men in Texas were sentenced to 70 and 80 months in prison after pleading guilty to attempting to export 147 assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition to Mexico’s Los Zetas cartel. Compare that to the roughly 2,000 firearms reportedly “walked” in Fast and Furious, which were used in the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry, and some U.S. officials could potentially face jail time if they knowingly armed the Sinaloa Cartel and allowed guns to cross into Mexico.
 
If proven in court, such an agreement between U.S. law enforcement agencies and a Mexican cartel could potentially mar both the Bush and Obama administrations. The federal government is denying all of Zambada-Niebla’s allegations and contend that no official immunity deal was agreed upon.
 
To be sure, Zambada-Niebla is a member of one of the most ruthless drug gangs in all of Mexico, so there is a chance that he is saying whatever it takes to reduce his sentence, which will likely be hefty. However, Congress and the media have a duty to prove without a reasonable doubt that there is no truth in his allegations. So far, that has not been achieved.
 
Zambada-Niebla was reportedly responsible for coordinating all of the Sinaloa Cartel’s multi-ton drug shipments from Central and South American countries, through Mexico, and into the United States. To accomplish this, he used every tool at his disposal: Boeing 747 cargo planes, narco-submarines, container ships, speed boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers and automobiles. But Guzman and Zambada-Niebla’s overwhelming success within the Sinaloa Cartel was largely due to the arrests and dismantling of many of their competitors and their booming businesses in the U.S. from 2004 to 2009 — around the same time ATF’s gun-walking operations were in full swing. Fast and Furious reportedly began in 2009 and continued into early 2011.
 
According Zambada-Niebla, that was a product of the collusion between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Cartel.
 

Soldiers and police officers guard packages of seized marijuana during a presentation for the media in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
 
The claims seem to fall in line with statements made last month by Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico who said U.S. agencies ”don’t fight drug traffickers,“ instead ”they try to manage the drug trade.”
 
Also, U.S. officials have previously acknowledged working with the Sinaloa Cartel through another informant,  Humberto Loya-Castro. He is also allegedly a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel as well as a close confidant and lawyer of “El Chapo” Guzman.
 

Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka "El Chapo" (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
 
Loya-Castro was indicted along with Chapo and Mayo in 1995 in the Southern District of California in a massive narcotics trafficking conspiracy (Case no. 95CR0973). The case was dismissed in 2008 at the request of prosecutors after Loya became an informant for the United States government and subsequently provided information for years.
 
In 2005, “the CS (informant Loya-Castro) signed a cooperation agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California,” states an affidavit filed in the Zambada-Niebla case by Loya-Castro’s handler, DEA agent Manuel Castanon.
 
“Thereafter, I began to work with the CS. Over the years, the CS’ cooperation resulted in the seizure of several significant loads of narcotics and precursor chemicals. The CS’ cooperation also resulted in other real-time intelligence that was very useful to the United States government.”
 
Under the alleged agreement with U.S. agencies, “the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya-Castro, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government,” a motion for discovery states.
 
In return, the United States government allegedly agreed to dismiss the charges in the pending case against Loya-Castro (which they did), not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel and not actively prosecute him or the Sinaloa Cartel leadership.
 
Taken directly from the motion filed in federal court:
 

“This strategy, which he calls ‘Divide & Conquer,’ using one drug organization to help against others, is exactly what the Justice Department and its various agencies have implemented in Mexico. In this case, they entered into an agreement with the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel through, among others, Humberto Loya-Castro, to receive their help in the United States government’s efforts to destroy other cartels.”
 
“Indeed, United States government agents aided the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
 
The government has denied this and says the deal did not go past Loya-Castro.
 
Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican soldiers in late March of 2009 after he met with DEA agents at a Mexico City hotel in a meeting arranged by Loya-Castro, though the U.S. government was not involved in his arrest. He was extradited to Chicago to face federal drug charges on Feb. 18, 2010. He is now being held in a Michigan prison after requesting to be moved from Chicago.
 
“Classified Materials”
 
During his initial court proceedings, Zambada-Niebla continually stated that he was granted full immunity by the DEA in exchange for his cooperation. The agency, however, argues that an “official” immunity deal was never established though they admit he may have acted as an informant.
 
Zambada-Niebla and his legal council also requested records about Operation Fast and Furious, which permitted weapons purchased in the United States to be illegally smuggled into Mexico, sometimes by paid U.S. informants and cartel leaders. Their request was denied. From the defense motion:
 

“It is estimated that approximately 3,000 people were killed in Mexico as a result of ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’ including law enforcement officers in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, the headquarters of the Sinaloa cartel. The Department of Justice’s leadership apparently saw this as an ingenious way of combating drug cartel activities.”
 
“It has recently been disclosed that in addition to the above-referenced problems with ‘Operation Fast & Furious,’ the DOJ, DEA, and the FBI knew that some of the people who were receiving the weapons that were being allowed to be transported to Mexico, were in fact informants working for those organizations and included some of the leaders of the cartels.”
 
Zambada’s attorney has filed several motions for discovery to that effect in Illinois Federal District Court, which were summarily denied by the presiding judge who claimed the defendant failed to make the case that he was actually a DEA informant.
 
In April, 2012, a federal judge refused to dismiss charges against him.
 
From a Chicago Sun Times report: “According to the government, [Zambada-Niebla] conveyed his interest and willingness to cooperate with the U.S. government, but the DEA agents told him they ‘were not authorized to meet with him, much less have substantive discussions with him,’” the judge wrote.
 

In this courtroom artist's drawing Jesus Vincente Zambada-Niebla appears before U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Verna Sadock)
 
In their official response to Zambada-Niebla’s motion for discovery, the federal government confirmed the existence of “classified materials” regarding the case but argued they “do not support the defendant’s claim that he was promised immunity or public authority for his actions.”
 
Experts have expressed doubts that Zambada-Niebla had an official agreement with the U.S. government, however, agree Loya Castro probably did. Either way, the defense still wants to obtain DEA reports that detail the agency’s relationship with the Sinaloa Cartel and put the agents on the stand, under oath to testify.
 
The documents that detail the relationship between the federal government and the Sinaloa Cartel have still not been released or subjected to review — citing matters of national security.
 
(Editor’s note: The impetus for this article came from author Reed A. Williams, whose upcoming book “The Weed That Just Won’t Die” delves deeply into the Zambada-Niebla court case. Get more details on the book here.)
 
Follow Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) on Twitter

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #246 on: August 09, 2012, 10:12:01 AM »
A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody

if there's one person I'd believe, it's a drug dealer locked in jail.

No motive to lie or anything like that. 

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #247 on: August 09, 2012, 10:12:56 AM »
if there's one person I'd believe, it's a drug dealer locked in jail.

No motive to lie or anything like that. 

As opposed to obama and Holder? 


LOL!!!!!

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #248 on: August 09, 2012, 10:16:01 AM »
As opposed to obama and Holder? 


LOL!!!!!

so they're all a pack of liars?  It's tough to believe a foreign drug dealer, than it is the leaders of my own nation.

I mean, say it slowly... "I believe a busted drug dealer espousing some serious conspiracy theory that goes against everything my govt has said for the last 100 years".

So the US is feeding guns and allowing drugs, to keep their budgets and profit, huh?  Kinda a wild theory there, 333386.

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Re: Fast n Furious & Obama Drug Money Laundering Thread
« Reply #249 on: August 09, 2012, 10:20:20 AM »
so they're all a pack of liars?  It's tough to believe a foreign drug dealer, than it is the leaders of my own nation.

I mean, say it slowly... "I believe a busted drug dealer espousing some serious conspiracy theory that goes against everything my govt has said for the last 100 years".

So the US is feeding guns and allowing drugs, to keep their budgets and profit, huh?  Kinda a wild theory there, 333386.

Executive Priviledge