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  1. #12
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    Gunwalker: more “walked” firearms found at US crimes
    Posted by: Phineas on August 17, 2011


    This isn’t the first time “walked” guns from Operation Fast and Furious (“Gunwalker”) have shown up at US crime scenes, but it is an illustration of the old adage that there’s never just one roach:
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7742514.story


    Firearms from ATF sting linked to 11 more violent crimes

    Firearms from the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious weapons trafficking investigation turned up at the scenes of at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., as well as at a Border Patrol agent’s slaying in southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.

    The department did not provide details about the crimes. But The Times has learned that they occurred in several Arizona cities, including Phoenix, where Fast and Furious was managed, as well as in El Paso, where a total of 42 weapons from the operation were seized at two crime scenes.

    The new numbers, which expand the scope of the danger the program posed to U.S. citizens over a 14-month period, are contained in a letter that Justice Department officials turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.

    In the letter, obtained by The Times on Tuesday, Justice Department officials also reported that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials advised them that the agency’s acting director, Kenneth E. Melson, “likely became aware” of the operation as early as December 2009, a month after it began.

    Melson has said he did not learn about how the operation was run until January of this year, when it was canceled.

    To recap, Gunwalker was an operation to permit firearms to be purchased in the US and “walked” over the border to Mexico, where theoretically they could be traced to the cartel kingpins, who would then be arrested and charged. The guns were bought by “straw buyers,” people who would buy the guns not for themselves, but for cartel criminals who normally would be prevented from buying them. Even though the straw-buyers were known, or when there was a suspicious firearms order, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would tell the gun dealer to let the purchase go through.

    One problem: they lost track of the guns.

    Now those guns have been involved in one, perhaps two deaths of US federal agents. They have been “in action” in the deaths of over 150 Mexican soldiers, federal agents, and civilians. US federal agents working in Mexico and the Mexican authorities were lied to about the extent of the operation. The guns are showing up more and more at American crime scenes.

    And the US Justice Department is throwing roadblock after roadblock in the way of what may well be the biggest federal scandal in decades.

    Right now, Gunwalker is overshadowed by the US debt crisis and the politics of the upcoming election. But it won’t stay that way. Some time in the next year, whether through dogged investigation by Rep. Issa’s House Oversight Committee or, God forbid, some major crime the media can’t ignore, the guns of Operation Fast and Furious are going to come back to haunt the Obama administration.

    http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...-at-us-crimes/
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  3. #13
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    U.S. guns agency chief reassigned after botched sting
    By Jeremy Pelofsky | Reuters – 55 mins ago

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the agency that oversaw a botched attempt to track arms flowing to drug cartels in Mexico is being reassigned to Justice Department headquarters, the Obama administration said on Tuesday.

    Kenneth Melson, who has been acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has been under fire and admitted mistakes in the sting operation meant to try to crack down on the flow of weapons to violent drug gangs.

    He will be reassigned to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy as an adviser on forensic science, the Justice Department said. The attorney for Minnesota, Todd Jones, will serve as acting ATF director.

    In further fallout from the operation, the attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, has resigned and the lead prosecutor on that case in the office has been reassigned, according to an administration official.

    Another administration official said this is a chance for a "fresh start given everything they've gone through lately" at ATF.

    The operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious," has spawned congressional and internal Justice Department probes and put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether dangerous weapons were knowingly allowed to cross the border.

    Republicans in the U.S. Congress have been demanding the Obama administration explain who knew what and when about the ATF program, which was conceived of and run out of the agency's Phoenix division.

    Authorities had hoped they would be able to follow the guns to cartel leaders, but ATF agents did not track the weapons after they were transferred from the initial buyer to others. Some agents have said they were not allowed to continue the pursuit.

    Instead, numerous weapons from the operation, which began in late 2009 and ran through 2010, have shown up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.

    U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry died in a December 2010 shootout on the American side of the border and two guns found there have been traced to the sting. It is not yet known if those guns were used to fire the fatal shots.

    Mexican authorities have complained bitterly about the thousands of guns that cross the border from the United States each year and want Washington to do more to stem the flow.

    President Barack Obama has nominated a permanent director for ATF, Andrew Traver of the agency's Chicago office, but the gun industry has opposed him. Melson is a career federal employee.

    Melson took the unusual step of being interviewed on the July 4 holiday by congressional investigators. During those discussions he acknowledged mistakes had been made and other law enforcement agencies had had critical information that they did not share about their targets.

    http://news.yahoo.com/atf-chief-reas...161949768.html

    comments

    The Obama administration wants to prosecute CIA people for "waterboarding" when it was legal to waterboard. Why aren't the ATF liable for willfully distributing weapons to foreign drug dealers? They should be held partly responsible for every man, woman, and child murdered with these weapons.on both sides of the border. Bet you wont see that!

    ~~~

    Melson is taking the fall now BECAUSE HE TESTIFIED TO CONGRESS and pointed the finger at Holder. Darryl Issa is doing good work on this. Should blow up Obama's ever fading chances at re-election

    ~~~

    Reassigned?!?!?! This man should be in prison! There should be charges of aiding and abbetting filed against the ATF, and look for payoffs from the golden snitch.

    ~~~

    They have a video of AG Eric Holder in 2009, stating quite smugly, that they had acquired more money for their "gun running program'. So, why is he not going down with Melson. It's obvious in that statement that he was very much, aware of the program, if he didn't - start the operation! He should resign! Eric Holder lied - American citizens died!

    ~~~

    and people wonder where the conspiracy people come up with the stuff they think needs to be looked at. It's always glaring at you, but some people are selective with what they look at. And note that I didn't mention any certain conspiracies or parties.
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  4. #14
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
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    American nabbed for smuggling grenade parts to Mexico
    By Rachel Uranga | Reuters – 30 mins ago


    MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police arrested an American accused of trafficking grenade and gun parts to one of the country's deadliest drug cartels in a sign the gangs could now be making their own weapons, authorities said on Tuesday.

    Federal police captured Jean Baptiste Kingery last week at a house in the Pacific tourist town of Mazatlan in Sinaloa state, where they seized a small cache of guns and found a Hummer sports utility vehicle parked outside.

    Law enforcement officials accuse Kingery of delivering parts used to make grenades and firearms, some bought at stores and online in the United States, to the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

    Kingery's capture raises the possibility powerful cartels are manufacturing weapons inside Mexico and not just smuggling arms from the United States, the attorney general's office said.

    Drug gangs frequently use grenades and automatic weapons in an escalating battle between rival gangs and against law enforcement that has claimed more than 42,000 lives since late 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched a war on traffickers.

    As part of the sweep that netted Kingery, Mexican police also found gunpowder, grenade pins and other components to assemble firearms in several different houses in Sinaloa state, home to the dominant drug cartel with the same name.

    The arrest is part of an ongoing operation with U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents which led to the arrest of another American gun runner last month.

    The Obama administration recently announced a major shake-up at the U.S. agency after it botched an operation to track smuggled guns into Mexico, known as "Fast and Furious," that allowed weapons to flow freely over the border.

    Last week, Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke resigned in the wake of the bungled operation. On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that prosecutions related to Fast and Furious would now be handled in California. "Out of abundance of caution and in the best interest of these prosecutions, the United States Attorney's office has asked that these cases be reassigned to prosecutors in offices in Los Angeles and San Diego," Manny Tarango, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix said in a statement.

    http://news.yahoo.com/american-nabbe...005843271.html
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  5. #15
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
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    Botched U.S. Gun Smuggling Operation Let Grenades, IEDs 'Walk' Into Mexico
    Grace Wyler | Sep. 6, 2011, 11:33 AM

    Amid brewing controversy over the ATF's botched Fast and Furious gunrunning operation comes new allegations that the Department of Justice also let off an Arizona man suspected of supplying grenades to Mexico's drug cartels.

    The WSJ reports today that federal authorities are now investigating why the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix — the same office that oversaw Fast and Furious — released Jean Baptiste Kingery after he confessed to providing military-style weapons to the now-defunct La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.

    Kingery, who was arrested and released in June 2010, confessed to manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using grenade components from the U.S. He also admitted to helping the cartel convert semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. Mexican criminal organizations are increasingly using these military-style weapons as the cartels' escalate their wars against the government and one another.

    Despite Kingery's confession, and over loud protestations from the arresting ATF officers, the U.S. Attorney's office let Kingery go within hours of his arrest.

    Kingery's release is now the subject of an internal probe by the DOJ inspector general. The findings in the DOJ probe were a major catalyst in the recent staff shakeup that ousted Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennie Burke and Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson from their posts.

    The Phoenix U.S. Attorney's office denies that it declined to prosecute the case, saying that it wanted to continue surveillance. The office alternatively told investigators that ATF agents wanted to make Kingery an informant, but lost contact with him within weeks of his release.

    Prosecutors involved in the case also accuse ATF agents of devising a failed sting that allowed Kingery to take hundreds of grenade parts across the border in the months about six months prior to his arrest.

    The Congressional Oversight Committee has also expanded its Fast and Furious investigation to include the Kingery case. The Committee is investigating who in the Obama administration knew about the gunrunning program, under which ATF agents allowed more than 2,000 guns to "walk" across the border.

    The Fast and the Furious case has escalated over the past weeks, with news that at least three White House national security officials knew about the gunrunning program.

    Emails obtained by the Committee last week show contact between the head of the Phoenix ATF and Kevin O'Reilly, then-director of North American affairs, about the operation. The White House confirmed that O'Reilly briefed Dan Restrepo, senior director for the Western Hemisphere, and Greg Gatjanis, director of counterterrorism and narcotics.

    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/disas...#ixzz1XEcFJWki



    Now here's everything you need to know about the Fast and Furious scandal >

    http://www.businessinsider.com/insid...-holder-2011-8
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  6. #16
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
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    Congress expands Fast and Furious probe to White House
    By Richard A. Serrano September 9, 2011, 12:47 p.m.[/i]

    Congressional investigators reviewing the failed gun-tracking program Operation Fast and Furious have formally asked the Obama administration to turn over copies of "all records" involving three key White House national security officials and the program, other ATF gun cases in Phoenix, and all communications between the White House and the ATF field office in Arizona.

    The letter signed Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was sent to National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, a top aide to President Obama.

    It marks a significant step in the committee's investigation into the failed gun-tracking operation, as the committee begins to broaden its investigation from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and targets White House and Department of Justice officials.

    This material, Issa and Grassley said, "will enable us to determine the extent of the involvement of White House staff in Operation Fast and Furious."

    White House officials, along with those at the Justice Department, said they have been cooperating in the widening probe, begun earlier this year when several ATF whistleblowers alerted Congress that Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene of the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

    A White House official said that "no one at the White House knew about the investigative tactics being used in the operation, let alone any decision to let guns walk."

    The official, who asked not to be identified Friday because the case is continuing, also said White House staffers and some members of Congress, including Issa, were given Fast and Furious briefings as early as April of 2010, but not about the investigative tactics of the operation.

    "These e-mail exchanges show nothing more than an effort to give local color to a policy initiative that was designed to give more resources to help with the border problem," the official added.

    Under the program, ATF agents allowed illegal gun purchases and hoped to track the weapons to Mexican cartel leaders. But most of the more than 2,000 firearms were lost. Hundreds have reportedly turned up in Mexican crime scenes, two at the shooting where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed, and a semi-automatic was used in an altercation and assault with police in Maricopa, Ariz.

    The congressional letter comes after a series of emails surfaced last week showing that William D. Newell, the ATF field supervisor in Phoenix during Fast and Furious, was in routine contact with Kevin O'Reilly, then the White House director of North American Affairs for the National Security Council. The emails discussed a broad range of gun-trafficking investigations on the Southwest Border, and White House officials have since acknowledged that the cases were part of Fast and Furious.

    The White House has said that O'Reilly forwarded the emails to two other White House officials – Dan Restrepo, special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the NSC, and Greg Gatjanis, director for Terrorist Finance and Counternarcotics, Counterterrorism Policy, also on the NSC.

    In their letter, Issa and Grassley discussed a new email in which Newell told O'Reilly about a specific case that ATF agents had been aware of for three months involving a 22-year-old illegal gun purchaser whom the ATF allowed to buy nearly 700 firearms.

    The purchaser was on food stamps and, Newell said in a follow-up email to O'Reilly, "when a 22-year-old kid on State financial assistance walks into a gun store and plops down $12,000 in cash to buy a tripod mounted .50 caliber rifle that's a clue (even for us) that he's involved in trafficking firearms for a Mexican DTO [cartel].'

    According to Issa and Grassley, that exchange of information makes it "clear that the case Mr. Newell and Mr. O'Reilly were communicating about was Fast and Furious."

    The letter requests all emails, documents, briefing papers and handwritten notes involving O'Reilly, Restrepo and Gatjanis during the Fast and Furious period, which ran for 15 months between fall 2009 and January 2011. The committee also wants to personally interview O'Reilly by the end of this month.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...s&dlvrit=56325

    commetns

    This was NEVER a sting operation. This is, and always was, an attempt by the GOVERNMENT to MANUFACTURE evidence to support radical new gun control laws. The idea was to flood Mexico with US guns to support Obama's original claim of, "We need stricter gun control laws because we are contributing to the Drug murders in Mexico". Obama never thought he would lose the "House", so he didn't worry about getting caught. If the democrats still controlled the "House", we would never have heard one word about this conspiracy. This should scare the hell of of Americans.

    ~~~

    I'm a Democrat. But if I might make an observation or two... First, it is 100% on the mark when you say the economy had already collapsed. In addition, you didn't mention that the Treeasury had been sacked to pay for the Bush-Cheney wars, so there is a lot less the feds can do to help pull us out of it. That said, however....I have been unimpressed with Obama's response to our economic troubles. His first response was to ignore it and follow his campaign script -- get his healthcare legislation passed.

    His part of the bailouts did help keep the banking system from collapsing, at great expense, but then it was a game of footsie with the people who caused that mess. That back-room dealing with Wall Street is one of the factors that led to the Tea Party being so powerful. Cash for clunkers was a weak, inadequate response. Help for mortgage holders has been weak. In fact, his solutions have all been top-down: put $$ and power in the hands of banks and corporations and hope they will hire people.

    They haven't. The ultra-rich continue to get ultra-richer, and he hasn't even been willing to tell the conservative middle class that they are being duped. He specifically said "This is not class warfare" last night.

    Well, the heck it isn't. There was a class war, and the rich won. And he won't speak up about it.

    He is a failure.

    ~~~

    Not bad, I can agree with about 75% of what you say, and for a Conservative, that's sayin something.

    Oh, I'm not a Republican, I don't drink party Kool Aid, Democrat or Republican. I believe party people have blinders and can't see very far. It allows me to listen to both sides and make my own decisions.

    If I were to pick anything, it would probably be Libertiarian (we could use smaller Govt), but since they'll never amount to much, why bother. Ranks up there with the Tea Party. You have to admit, the Tea Party people sure have ruffled the Democrat feathers. Which tell me there must be some truth there somewhere.

    ~~~

    a long time ago, I worked for a U.S. senator , a Democrat, who was defeated by Chuck Grassley. Out of pure spite, I've watched Grassley off and on since then. And here is what I have seen: frequently, he's right. He does a better job of being a level-headed senator than the brilliant but fulminating John Culver, whom he replaced.

    In addition, it is their job to ask this kind of questions. And this Fast and Furious insanity -- selling 2,000 (?) guns to narcos -- is easily the worst-conceived law "enforcement" plan I have ever heard of. And I've known some pretty dumb cops.

    So I think it is entirely appropriate that they look into it. What President Obama should do is get there first and clean house. Throw the participants in this madness to the wolves on Capitol Hill and do it without remorse.

    I've never been in law enforcement, but if someone had come to me with a plan like that, my response would have been, "Here's your hairnet- -- you've just been transferred to work in the cafeteria. Make sure you wash your hands."

    ~~~

    I must be clueless, but could someone explain to me in a best case scenario how this operation was suppose to work. I am not getting how we were to track the weapons once they were sold. Again, if you were selling this how would someone present it so it makes sense.

    ~~~

    This may be worse than Watergate, as murder is involved. Long past time for the President to appoint a Special Prosecutor. Let the investigation lead to the truth. We won't know until it's done, but it certainly appears that at least the Attorney General and his staff are not being forthright and "transparent."

    ~~~

    It was never meant to work. There was NO mechanism to track the guns. All they did was flood Mexico with US guns. PEROID. Numerous ATF agents are "Telling All".
    Last edited by Jolie Rouge; 09-09-2011 at 07:43 PM.
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  7. #17
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    2nd Arizona crime scene yields guns from ATF sting
    AP – 20 hrs ago


    PHOENIX (AP) — Guns tied to a botched federal weapons-smuggling investigation have been recovered at a second Arizona crime scene, according to federal and state authorities.

    The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/oB98j1) reported Saturday that two guns were found in the back of a stolen car in Maricopa last year that had rammed two Arizona Department of Public Safety vehicles.

    Federal agents contacted the DPS this week and said a trace of the guns revealed they were part of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sting in 2009 that inadvertently put hundreds of weapons bought at Arizona gun stores into the hands of Mexican criminals.

    The probe was known as Operation Fast and Furious.

    Two guns also were recovered at a December shootout in Rio Rico, where a Border Patrol agent was fatally shot.

    A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation. Attorney General Eric Holder requested the inquiry now being conducted by the Inspector General's office at the Justice Department.

    U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has asked the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a hearing as soon as possible on Operation Fast and Furious.

    McCain, a member of the committee, wrote in a letter that the panel must "ensure further damage from this operation does not persist."

    According to an investigative report compiled for two congressional committees investigating the operation, 122 weapons have been recovered at 48 crime scenes in Mexico.

    In addition, an unspecified number of weapons tied to Fast and Furious were recovered earlier this year when Mexican authorities raided a compound in Michoacan state to arrest members of La Familia cartel.

    The joint report for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary also details how guns from the ATF operation were used in the kidnapping and murder of a Mexican official's brother.

    It is unclear how many guns from Arizona made it to Mexico. Operation Fast and Furious was part of a multiagency federal drug-enforcement task force to trace weapon sales made to straw buyers working for Mexican cartels.

    Three Phoenix ATF agents told Congress that instead of interdicting the straw buyers, they were ordered to monitor sales and track the weapons up the cartel-leadership chain.

    Agents said that as many as 1,800 guns were sold and as many as two-thirds were smuggled into Mexico after they lost track of them. The goal of the operation was to use wiretaps on the straw buyers to snare high-ranking cartel members.

    Arizona DPS officials said the Maricopa incident took place in March 2010 when officers with the Motor Vehicle Theft Task Force attempted to stop a truck with two Mexican citizens inside.

    The driver refused to stop, and officers used their vehicles to block the road. Inside the car, officers recovered a pistol and an AK-47-type rifle.

    "It was found, after the fact, that the guns were part of Operation Fast and Furious," said DPS spokesman Bart Graves, adding that the weapons had little to do with the actual incident.

    ___

    Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com

    http://news.yahoo.com/2nd-arizona-cr...193514788.html
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  8. #18
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    New Fast & Furious audio: Border Patrol agent killed by F&F weapons was “collateral damage”
    posted at 6:18 pm on September 21, 2011 by Allahpundit [/i]

    It’s not an ATF agent who utters those magical words, it’s the Arizona gun dealer who was working with the ATF on Fast & Furious. He utters them to an ATF agent http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_16...html?tag=stack though, to which she replies with a cryptic “mm-hmm.” Callousness — or strategy? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...unner-scandal/

    However, the lawyer representing the Lone Wolf Trading Co. says owner Andre Howard made the tapes only after he suspected he was being lied to, and his language is meant to get Hope MacAllister, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to implicate herself and her agency in their illegal gun running scheme. “He became very suspicious and in his own defense would tape key conversations with Ms. MacAllister and try to get her to make admissions about the truth of the matter,” said Dallas attorney Larry Gaydos. “Andre was trying to get her to admit that indeed they let guns go to Mexico.”…

    Howard made the tapes in March 2011 after a meeting he and his attorneys held with federal officials. In that meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley continued to insist the guns Lone Wolf sold were stopped and seized before reaching Mexico.

    But ATF officials are quoted in a Washington Post article and the Spanish language daily La Opinion saying just the opposite — blaming Lone Wolf for “selling guns to the cartels” with no mention that Howard was operating under the federal government’s direction, encouragement and approval.
    The “collateral damage” exchange comes in the first clip below. The second clip, also between Howard and MacAllister, was posted yesterday at CBS and apparently shows MacAllister this time suggesting that the DOJ would have to tell Chuck Grassley to “sit your ass down” if he insisted on calling a hearing and demanding more info on F&F. And that’s where we’re at today in the curious case of an American law enforcement official shot dead by guns provided to drug cartels by the Department of Justice — aong with 200-300 Mexican citizens, of course. Exit question: Anyone covering this story anymore except CBS and Fox News?


    Update: New from Reuters, just as I’m posting this. Is the DOJ’s probe of Fast & Furious actually a way to derail the House’s investigation?

    In a letter released on Wednesday to Acting Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, they expressed deep concern over her decision to turn over to U.S. prosecutors in Arizona audio recordings obtained during her investigation.

    Representative Darrell Issa, head of the House Oversight Committee, and Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Schnedar apparently did not consider the significant harm caused by giving the recordings to those under investigation.
    They criticized the move as potentially obstructing the congressional probe into the operation because potential witnesses may have colluded about what to tell investigators…

    The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, “We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”
    http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/2...ateral-damage/
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  9. #19
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    Makes one yearn for the innocent days of Watergate. Watch nothing come of this though.

  10. #20
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    Fast & Furious update: BATFE *sold* modified AK-47s to Mexican narco-terrorists!
    No, I am not making this up.

    Posted by Moe Lane Monday, September 26th at 6:00PM EDT


    http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/201...co-terrorists/

    Fox News has the basic story, which goes as follows: an agent of the BATFE was ordered to go and buy six Draco semi-automatic pistols from gun shops. Those guns were then resold to “known illegal buyers:” i.e., people known to resell guns illegally. So far, this is not actually bad, because this would be how standard sting operations go… except that they didn’t arrest the buyers immediately. Which makes… sense, right, because Dracos are legal-to-own guns in the USA; so the BATFE would just have to keep a constant watch on the guns to make sure that they didn’t miss it when the bad guys tried to smuggle the guns out of the country – no, wait, it’s reported that ATF group supervisor David Voth ordered that there be no 24 hour surveillance. Well. Good thing that Agent John Dodson ignored that order and did a personal stakeout of the bad guys for six days, huh? Because he was there when they moved out with the guns! He was able to call in a request for an interdiction team!

    …Which was refused.

    This would be the point where I show you what a Draco semi-automatic pistol looks like.




    If you’re saying to yourself right now, Gee, Moe, that looks a lot like the Romanian PM md. 90 carbine – i.e., their version of the AK-47 – with the folding stock removed in order to be legal for the US gun market – well, if you did then you probably didn’t need to look up the precise details on Wikipedia like I did. But, honestly, you probably saw the picture and said “AK-47 without a stock” (which is pretty much the right answer anyway); and you probably even know how difficult it is to make one of these things fully automatic again. Or to put a stock back on it. Or do any number of modifications that are, in point of fact, illegal under American (and presumably Mexican) law. WHICH IS WHY WE HAVE LAWS REGULATING THE SALE OF FIREARMS. Laws that were apparently being broken by the very federal agencies that we were counting on to enforce them.

    And if this story is true, they were personally being broken.


    PS: We really need a special prosecutor for this mess at this point.

    [UPDATE: Via Hot Air comes a copy of the letter in question. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/2...yers-directly/ And as Sipsey Street Irregulars notes, if this letter is genuine then we can stop pretending that Fast & Furious was a botched sting operation. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogsp...e-us-govt.html The government wasn't even trying to make it a sting operation, frankly.]


    .... a copy of the letter in question.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/66315131/V...-Authorization


    comments

    What other possible reasons could there be to commit an act of war – arming rebel groups in other countries is an act of war – against our neighbor and ally Mexico?

    ...

    Pure and Simple. *Identify* a problem, *Show* the problem is because of our loose gun laws. Use problem to force changes in gun laws to combat evil gun sellers and evil gun owners.

    Become a hero to the suddenly safer public.

    They need better script writers for their fantasies, apparently.

    .
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    Gunwalker: Holder lied, over 200 died
    Posted by: Phineas on October 4, 2011 at 12:01 pm


    Is it too soon to begin the Eric holder career death-watch? After the revelation that the worst Attorney General since A. Mitchell Palmer lied to Congress, I expect we’ll be hearing Obama make the traditional “He has my complete confidence” statement — just before he throws Holder under the bus: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_16...-10391695.html

    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.”

    Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.

    The documents came from the head of the National Drug Intelligence Center and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.

    Links to the memos are available at the original CBS article. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_16...-10391695.html


    According to Philip Klein at the Washington Examiner, the Department of Justice is now trying to… nuance Holder’s testimony before Congress, saying he knew of the operation, just not its details. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_16...-10391695.html

    Yeah. Right.

    Go read the first of the linked memos and emails, from the NDIC on July 5th, 2010 (PDF): it specifically mentions 1,500 firearms bought by straw buyers and supplied to the Mexican drug cartels. The memo from Lanny Breuer is from the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, one of the highest-ranking, most important officials in the DoJ.

    There are only two possibilities here: either Eric Holder lied in his testimony before Congress, or he is so derelict that he doesn’t bother to read memos from key staff on important law-enforcement operations (1), rendering him incompetent. Either way, he is unfit to be Attorney General of the United States and must be removed from office, whether by impeachment or being thrown under the presidential bus fired.

    And, while were at it, how about a special prosecutor?

    http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...over-200-died/

    If Justice is blind, Holder and some of his subordinates go to jail over this operation and their failed coverup. Libby went to jail, not for the crime of which he was accused, but for incorrectly naming the day, NOT THE YEAR! If Obama then pardons these criminals, then we know for sure that he is complicit in the providing of weapons to the cartels. I am wondering, in exchange for what?

    There seems to be a strong possibility that there is more to the story than we yet know. Why have so many documents requested been held back from the congressional investigation? It must be really bad because otherwise they would want to get all the bad stuff out and over prior to the election season. By dribbling out info, the media’s appetite for scandal is continually being whetted.

    This along with the Green collapse seem to herald the end of this administration. Possibly this is why the MSM is attacking Republican candidates at an unprecedented pace. I would have believed they would have preferred to hang onto the Perry Rock issue until next year…
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    CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious
    12:55 PM, Oct 4, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAY


    The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun trafficking operation. Recently released documents say Holder was briefed about the operation long before he told the Judiciary Committee he was first aware of what was going on. (Holder now claims he misunderstood the question was being asked.)

    What's more, CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson -- who's been covering the scandal from the beginning -- says in an interview on the Laura Ingraham Show today that the White House and Justice Department have taken to screaming at her for reporting on the story. You can listen to the full interview below, but here are the key excerpts from Attkisson:

    In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman--who would not put anything in writing, I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said, she wouldn't put anything in writing--so we talked on the phone and she said things such as the question Holder answered was different than the one he asked. But he phrased it, he said very explicitly, 'I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.'
    And:

    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."
    Finally, Attkisson notes that the White House is claiming that a thorough investigation of the scandal is unwarranted:

    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.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...us_595011.html

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...us_595011.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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