Posted on 10/11/2011 12:38:31 AM PDT by Watchdog85
"It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF."
It was a brutal weekend for the Obama administration: Gunwalker continued unraveling at a faster pace, with new developments suggesting that Attorney General Eric Holder may not be the only Obama appointee destined for a political fall and possible criminal charges.
In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa revealed for the first time that the Drug Enforcement Administration was far more involved in running the operation than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:
It wasn’t an ATF operation. They were part of that. It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF.
This directly conflicts with prior statements by DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart — she claimed that the DEA only played a supporting role and that her DEA agents in El Paso and Phoenix were only “indirectly involved in the ATF operation through DEA-associated investigative activity.” She further absolved her agency by claiming that “DEA personnel had no decision-making role in ATF operations” associated with Fast and Furious.
The DEA’s higher-profile role will not absolve ATF personnel for their roles in carrying out the plot politically, but it could potentially make a difference in future criminal proceedings if ATF agents on the front lines of the operation thought they were participating in a legitimate law enforcement operation.
Unfortunately for the Department of Justice, the higher level of collusion between different federal law enforcement agencies that report to the attorney general make it even more unlikely that Eric Holder and other senior DOJ personnel were unaware of the real goal of the operation.
Issa’s committee is in the process of preparing subpoenas for members of the Obama administration to try to find out who authorized the operation, and to ask why they have not been forthcoming if they believed the operations to be legal:
Why are they denying knowing about something that they were briefed on? … Exactly when, the American people want to know, how did it happen?
Issa also revealed for the first time the magnitude of the largest individual gunwalking incidents, noting that one effort involved the shipment of 700 guns to the Sinaloa cartel.
Issa continued:
This is about Justice Department knowing, and this is where the American people have a right to know more, knowing that these guns were deliberately intended to end up in the hands of the drug cartels without any kind of traceability, except if you find a gun in the scene of the crime. That is the reason that it is felony and stupid — and I use the word “felony” deliberately — program.
A massive stockpile containing dozens of Operation Fast and Furious weapons was recovered in Mexico at an arsenal hidden in the Ciudad Juarez home of Sinaloa cartel enforcer Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo. The raid occurred on April 30; the revelation that 40 of the guns were from the gunwalking plot constitutes breaking news and confirmation that the plot worked as designed.
Mexican politicians and media are far more enraged than their complacent U.S. counterparts. One op-ed asked if the U.S. should be considered an “ally or enemy.” Mexico’s Attorney General Marisela Morales, who stated that more than 200 Mexican citizens have been killed with Fast and Furious weapons, referred to the Obama administration plot as “an attack on Mexicans’ security.”
The mainstream media, perhaps fearing even more damage to their credibility and bottom line, finally started covering the scandal late last week. A sad example of this me-too, late-to-the-game journalism is David Jackson’s article at USA Today — four paragraphs of current information grafted onto a nine-paragraph blockquote from an existing CBS News article.
House Republicans showed no sign of backing down. One of the most outspoken on this scandal, Rep. Paul Gosar, continued to blast the administration:
Gosar told The Daily Caller that “In Main Street America, you’d never get away with” dissembling about the gun-walking program, and that in different circumstances, ”the people who’ve been responsible would’ve already been in jail.”
A bipartisan group of ten Arizona sheriffs (5 Republican, 5 Democrat) has called for a special counsel to investigate the gunwalking operations, joining House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and a number of others.
Mike Vanderboegh, one of the bloggers who broke open the scandal, is continuing a detailed series of articles that increasingly point to a State Department role in setting up these gunwalking operations. Vanderboegh’s sources within the Department are the first to name names, including: Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Andrew J. Shapiro, Clinton’s assistant secretary for political-military affairs.
State insiders apparently referred to the gunwalking plot as “the Mexican Hat Dance,” and claim the goal of the plot was, as we’ve indicated before, to support the 90-percent lie.
With State and DOJ coming under fire, it seems only a matter of time before evidence comes forth to implicate Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the person that would have been most integral in supporting this plot. Operation Fast and Furious took place in Arizona, where Napolitano had been governor and her former chief of staff, Dennis Burke, was the U.S. attorney theoretically in charge of the multi-agency task force.
In the interim, Holder’s letter attacking the messenger last week was returned with even greater force by Issa in a letter which pulled no punches:
Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.
Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.
With three cabinet-level secretaries and their staffs involved in a plot to create a murderous reality to match White House rhetoric, it seems only a matter of time before subpoenas are directed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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In ANY serious organization there would have been heads rolling many months ago.
But the top guys don’t want to fire themselves do they? And nobody wants to be the fall guy.
That said, it may be possible that Holder is merely incompetent (which is why Clinton had him do the pardons, -—he’s easily fooled) and Napolitano is the real criminal.
“Big Sis Goes to Jail” —future NY Post Headline
“Motherly Matron Stumbles” —future NY Times headline
700 guns. That's enough to arm 2 entire Marine Corps Battalions.
This is life in Federal prison stuff, folks.
Libs just love those short sound bites.
Gunwalker had better be mentioned in the next debate.
The ones who sign up early get the best deals.
+++++++++++++++
Who do you make a deal with? Not the Justice Department that’s for sure. Can Congress guarantee immunity from prosecution?
It's conceivable that they're all her flying monkeys, and most likely not even cognizant of that fact.
Look at the letter: ..."DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail."
Hey!
Does anybody have Napolitano's remarks from April 2nd, 2009 at the in Cuernavaca, Mexico?
At this juncture, we would be better served as a nation by an idiot like Biden as President than this crooked cabal!
What did 0bama know and when did he know it?
It won't be brought up by the main stram press, ever.
However when they ask the inane questions everyone is already very sick of ("mormonism," "evolution," the Bible, the Pope, etc.), it would be great if they would just turn it around with something like:
"With all due respect, let's get away from these peripheral insignificant issues, and turn to more substantive things like "Did this administration supply the weapons that killed Border Agents Jaime Zapata and Brian Terry and a hundred Mexican citizens, and how would you handle the current investigation?"
[ However when they ask the inane questions everyone is already very sick of (”mormonism,” “evolution,” the Bible, the Pope, etc.), it would be great if they would just turn it around with something like:
“With all due respect, let’s get away from these peripheral insignificant issues, and turn to more substantive things like “Did this administration supply the weapons that killed Border Agents Jaime Zapata and Brian Terry and a hundred Mexican citizens, and how would you handle the current investigation?” ]
If any of the GOP Candidates responded to an inane question with this response, I think I would faint (in a good way).
Amazing document from DOJ and Holder’s speech there.
1. The Conference is called “The Mexico/United States Arms Trafficking Conference.”
2. He notes it’s his first trip outside the US as AG (subtext: “this is important to me”).
3. Holder says he’s focused on the single issue of going after the cartels.
4.The topic of cross-border arms trafficking “could not be more important.”
5, The AG says the centerpiece of this important strategy centers around an augmentation of Project Gunrunner.
6. Holder says the Obama administration has launched a “major new effort” involving 100 new ATF people focused on the SW border, as well as resources from the DEA and the FBI.
...but he never heard of the details of the “major new effort” until April of this year....
Oh my,either he’s lying or he is stupid. Make that deeply stupid.
SECRETARY CLINTON: I also want to commend Foreign Secretary Espinosa for the excellent leadership that she and Mexico provided for the recently concluded Cancun Climate Conference. This was a very significant outcome, and it will be important going forward to build on the work and agreement that was reached in Cancun, and it validates the international approach towards solving these very significant global problems. So I really want to express my admiration and gratitude to her.
As Minister Cannon just summarized, the three of us had a very productive discussion today across a wide range of issues, and I want to say first and foremost that the partnership between Canada, Mexico, and the United States is of critical importance. To each of our countries, it goes without saying: We’re not only neighbors, but we bear leadership responsibilities and we care deeply about our neighbors and the global community as a whole.
The work we do together every day – whether it is to drive economic progress, or strengthen our security, or address urgent problems such as climate change or violent extremism in places like Afghanistan, or narco-traffickers or pandemic disease – has a profound impact on every level: locally, regionally, and globally. No partnership means more to the United States or to the hundreds of millions of North American citizens whose lives and futures are increasingly intertwined.
So I appreciate once again this opportunity to affirm and deepen our ties. We have a very robust, comprehensive agenda that we’re working on together that we will be following up on, and I look forward to continue working closely with my North American counterparts to achieve a safer, more secure, and more prosperous North America region and world
FOREIGN SECRETARY ESPINOSA: ...The transnational nature of organized crime also makes it necessary for us to cooperate based on the principle of joint responsibility involving agents that are beyond our borders.
Either Hillary is lying to Espinosa and exhibiting a grandiose condescension to the Mexican people or Hillary and Espinosa are complicit in this anti-gun scam as a means to gaining tighter control of the 'region' in the future North American Union.
Holder Lied, Mexicans Died.
Never mind the 200+ life sentences waiting for them afterwards when they’re extradited to Mexico.
Yes, Impeachment would only bring out the NBP to join the OWS idiots, making it worse.
Holder should have been busted for the NBP voter intimidation crime.
Letting Clinton skate for his crimes has just set this country up for some messy solutions to it’s corruption problems.
Yes, Impeachment would only bring out the NBP to join the OWS idiots, making it worse.
Holder should have been busted for the NBP voter intimidation crime.
Letting Clinton skate for his crimes has just set this country up for some messy solutions to it’s corruption problems.
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