Posted on 07/10/2011 6:04:09 PM PDT by marktwain
Gunwalker: Holder’s resignation is almost inevitable
And the only way that doesn’t happen is if he is fool-enough to stay in office, Obama is fool-enough not to fire him, and Congress has no choice but to remove him from office.
Consider: On the 4th of July, a national holiday, acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives gave testimony to House and Senate investigators on Operation “Fast and Furious,” aka “Gunwalker.”
Without telling his bosses.
And bringing his own lawyer, not the Bureau’s and not the Department of Justice’s.
To quote Allahpundit — Dude!
This morning, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley released a copy of a letter (PDF) they sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on July 5 about Melson’s testimony. Melson’s revelations raise even more serious issues not only about the operation itself, but about apparent attempts by the Justice Department to mislead Congress on the details of the operation.
Contrary to the Justice Department’s denials, according to Melson, ATF agents specifically witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without taking any further action. Melson claimed that it was not until the public disclosure of the operation that he personally reviewed the “hundreds of documents” related to the case. He said he became “sick to his stomach” when he learned the full story. Even more shocking is that some of the “gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants” by agencies such as the FBI and the DEA.
Melson provided detailed information and documents to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department. But that information was not given to Congress by then-Acting Deputy Attorney General James Cole. In fact, “Melson was not allowed to communicate to Congress” and “Justice Department officials directed [ATF’s senior leadership] not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.” According to the letter Issa and Grassley sent to Holder, it was “two days after [Melson] told [Cole] about serious issues involving lack of information sharing” that the Wall Street Journal suddenly reported that Melson was about to be ousted by the Obama administration.
Emphasis added. The Deputy Attorney General is the Attorney General’s chief assistant — the department’s number two. Here is how his authority is described by the DoJ:
The Deputy Attorney General advises and assists the Attorney General in formulating and implementing Departmental policies and programs and in providing overall supervision and direction to all organizational units of the Department. The Deputy Attorney General is authorized to exercise all the power and authority of the Attorney General, except where such power or authority is prohibited by law from delegation or has been delegated to another official. In the absence of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General acts as the Attorney General.
Think about this: Melson, head of the BATF, gave Cole, Holder’s chief deputy, “detailed information and documents,” after Melson had seen enough to make him sick. And instead of letting himself be set up as the fall-guy, he got his own lawyer –a former US Attorney– rather than let government lawyers “represent” him. Gee, I wonder why he’d feel that need?
But wait, there’s more!
In a related article, Bob Owens quotes an email from the Phoenix BATF office referencing an inter-agency meeting that shows how widespread knowledge of Gunwalker was:
The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
* Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer,
* Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF
* William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
* Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
* Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session. Their names were redacted in the released document. U.S. attorneys for all four southwest border states also attended.
With all this legal and bureaucratic firepower in one room being briefed on Gunwalker, there is absolutely no way Attorney General Eric Holder did not know what was going on, which may make the DoJ’s actions in response to requests for information from Issa’s committee Obstruction, a felony. And interference with Melson’s testimony may also be Tampering, under Title 18, Section 1512 of the US Code. (See subsections (b) and (c).)
This is why I say Eric Holder is a “Dead Bureaucrat Walking.” There is too much to indicate he is either monumentally detached from his supervisory responsibilities and thus incompetent, or (more likely) knew all along about an operation that let thousands of firearms be sold to straw buyers who were acting as cutouts for the Mexican drug cartels, in order to trace a putative “gunrunning network.” An operation that has cost at least 150 Mexican lives (1) and the lives of two US federal officers.
And thus my strong guess is that he will resign to protect President Obama, rather than be impeached and to try to head off an independent prosecutor, because I find it very hard to believe the President didn’t know, either.
LINKS: More from Moe Lane and Power Line. “El Mamito” says the Zetas buy all their weapons in the US. Given what we’re learning about Gunwalker, perhaps that should be “from the US.”
Footnotes: (1) It’s no wonder the Mexicans are talking about extradition; I’d be screaming mad, too.
“Wonder how many voting Hispanics north of the border are ticked off at the regime.”
That’s a good question. I live in Chicago, which has the second largest hispanic population in the US. Today, I was at the store, and there was a front page splash in the Spanish language newspaper, with pictures of all sorts of guns, and while I don’t know much Spanish, the words “Fast & Furious” were easy to pick out.
The MSM may be burying this way back in the papers, but it’s front page news in the Latino papers!
Sorry Joe. Nobody is going to pick this up unless Congress brings charges of some kind. Then it will be called racism if they concentrate on Holder.
Maybe this will help you to keep “gunrunner” and “gunwalker” separate:
Gunrunner, started under the Bush administration. What do you think of when you hear the term “gunrunner?” Myself, I think of someone that gets guns, in quantity, and gets them to someone that shouldn’t have them. The Gunrunner program was supposed to determine who these folks were by letting them make the purchase, and then the gunrunners would be arrested. It was successful in that they had over 1,200 arrests.
Fast and Furious: The Obama administration made modifications to the Gunrunner operation and relabeled the morphed operation as “Fast and Furious.”
Gunwalker: I heard on TV, and I wish I could remember who was being interviewed at the time, but I can’t. It was someone familiar with the ATF, maybe a former employee? Anyway, he said that when they are tracking a gun and lose track of it, the gun is said to be “walking.” Hence, “Gunwalker” is a nickname that was applied, not by the ATF, but by outsiders when this scandal broke. It is really more a a description of what was happening to the guns under “Fast and Furious,” not the official name of any law enforcement program.
The new operation, “Fast and Furious,” allowed the guns to actually walk — ON PURPOSE. It is ridiculous to believe that would help to find and stop the drug cartels. We can’t track guns after they cross the border and the guns won’t turn up unless they happened to be dropped and left at the scene of a crime and people are already dead, and the thugs that made it out alive are long gone.
We'll see - dems can take a long time getting off the stage...
What an evil witch.
“ebony ass”
Sounds like a good name for a rapper.
Jail that SUCKER!
We are a sick and twisted Nation.
No way will Holder resign.
And Obama will back him all the way.
These people have no humility or sense of right and wrong.
They have a value system foreign to American culture and are not concerned about rules, laws, ethics, morality or the US constitution.
If Congress fails to bring charges, they will be accessories after the fact, imho.
When the full details of all of this are exposed (or as many as we are allowed to hear), this makes it CLEAR that we should all be well-armed so that we can defend ourselves.
Because of what this administration has done in putting weapons in the hands of those that wouldn’t hesitate to do us harm, and not knowing where the heck these guns are now, we are in more danger in our everyday lives than we have ever been before. Their actions have made the case even stronger for safeguarding the second amendment. Because of their scheme, the average citizen has a much greater need to protect themselves from these thugs that the Obama administration has armed. It also makes the case, due to their gross negligence, that it is even more imperative that we have secure borders.
If they are going to put us in danger, we need a way to protect ourselves. Do you feel safer since Obama was elected? I sure don’t.
Let us look at certain scenarios in this catch 22
If Holder resigns, you get an O appointed replacement=continued Marxist regime.
If O, in our dreams is impeached, which is highly unlikely considering the composition of the Senate, you then have Biden or HRC as his replacement=continued Marxist regime.
More than likely, they will both or either do like Bubba did in 98 and flip off the American public and stay right where they are....further embolding the Marxist regime.
As they said before; “What did the President know and when did he know it”?
Ok. Now I can keep everything straight when the “journalists” are intermingling Gunrunner, Gunwalker and F&F. Thank you!
I have considered them pursuing the Ron Brown scenario too. Still=continued Marxist regime.
Yep. You got it. And we will pay. The top dog in the GOP is using the lame Anthony trial to try for points. That says it all.
Shades of the Reagan campaign against Carter. Are you safer than you were 4 years ago? GOP, take heed!!
the infowarrior
I know what Gunrunner means but what is the meaning of Gunwalker?
You’re welcome! The confusion is understandable, there are those that want it that way. You’re way ahead of the game.
What baffles me is when I am talking to people that consider themselves to be up-to-date on what is going on politically, and I casually mention this situation to them -— and I get a “huh?” They have no idea what I’m talking about and have not heard about any of this.
Thanks for the ping, so busy lately I can’t find all the good stuff!
Just read the article. What a disgusting bunch of evil fiends in DC, eh.
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