Posted on 01/06/2012 11:01:26 AM PST by neverdem
The Justice Department sent nearly 500 pages of documents to Republican lawmakers Thursday that suggest the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may have used questionable tactics and lost track of American-made weapons in a gun trafficking investigation on the Mexican border as early as 2006.
The documents sent to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) could add a new dimension to a political controversy that's raged on Capitol Hill for a year. Issa and other Republican lawmakers have accused the Obama administration of acting recklessly by losing track of almost 2,000 guns on the Southwest border in a botched ATF operation called Fast and Furious. Two of those weapons were recovered near the body of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
The newly released email messages and briefing papers suggest there may be similarities between the Obama operation "Fast and Furious" and an earlier effort during the Bush administration to target the flow of guns into Mexico. The papers include several communications between ATF supervisors and Justice Department prosecutors in Arizona who were trying to build a case against "a very powerful, aggressive and violent" Mexican drug cartel in an earlier operation dubbed "Wide Receiver."
A senior Obama administration Justice Department official who briefed reporters on the documents said the papers show law enforcement officers in the Bush years could have filed criminal conspiracy and false statements charges against lower level figures in the gun trafficking operation, but they decided to watch and wait until they could move higher up the chain of command.
"We want the... manufacturing and distribution pieces also – we want it all," an ATF official wrote in March 2006.
The case ultimately languished in the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona until the Obama administration sent help from Washington D.C. and indictments were handed down in May and October 2010. Six people have been convicted in connection with Wide Receiver, the senior Justice Department official said.
The new disclosures could be featured in a Feb. 2 hearing where Attorney General Eric Holder will square off against Issa over the ATF failures. The last time the two men met on Capitol Hill, fireworks erupted, when Issa likened Holder to the Nixon era Attorney General John Mitchell and Holder reached back to the era of Joseph McCarthy and asked Issa whether he "had any shame."
In Wide Receiver, the ATF FOLLOWED the guns to the border, NOTIFIED the Mexican gov’t the bad guys were crossing, and DISCONTINUED the operation when they figured out that the bad guys were disabling the RFID tracking devices the agents planted on the guns.
In F&F, the ATF field agents were ordered NOT to follow the straw buyers, NO tracking devices were planted on the guns, the Mexican gov’t was NOT notified that the program even EXISTED, and the whole thing was only stopped when Agent Terry was murdered.
Not quite. This “proves” (in liberal land)that Bush is guilty and Obama is innocent. Furthermore any accusations of wrongdoing by Obama and Holder are “racist”.
Shep what’s-his-name did a short piece on this on Fox Report last night. I missed the beginning & looked for a repeat of his show (it doesn’t repeat)-— and no video that I can find.
At the time, I thought WTH??? It was short and insinuating. BUSH DID IT TOO, and DOJ concerned We are going to see this kind of PR for an entire month leading up to the hearing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESZcRMCBKk&feature=player_embedded
LOL! It might possibly suggest that there could be a perceived similarity!
A huge difference.
The administration must have been talking to their buddies at NPR.
things were a little different for bushies little exersise:
1) the mexican government was fully informed and was an active participant in bushies thingie.
2) all weapons allowed across the border had trackers installed in them, and they were actively tracked.
3) when 1 weapon was lost, the whole program was immediately shut down.
Now, lets compare to fubo’s little operation;
1) mexico did not know we were allowing weapons across the border ( violation of treaties, and since these weapons were going to cartels that used them against the mexican government, it is a bona fide act of war )
2) NONE of the weapons had trackers on them, and no effort was made to track them, or to arrest perps.
3)This program was shut down only after 200 dead mexican civilians and 2 federal agents could be directly linked to the weapons.
yeah, I guess they were exactly the same (sarcam on)
Say that NPR is right... which I know they aren’t, it makes matters worse for the current Administration. It also bolsters the need to remove Government control of firearms as a punitive measure. Our Government has shown beyond any doubt that they cannot be trusted in regards to gun control and that they MUST relinquish such control.
If both sides of the isle are dipping into this illegal activity, then we need to demand that the Government no longer have anything to do in any way shape or form with private sales and ownership of firearms. END OF STORY.
The NPR is not right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESZcRMCBKk&feature=player_embedded
All government is corrupt and out of control.(THIS IS WHY I back Perry as he is the only one saying part time senate and would truly shake things up)But in the meantime Obama and Holder are not getting away with murder,corruption,obstruction.
We do so Agree— Thank you for saying it first. Point is Eric Holder-and his bunk buddy have 0 excuse for the blood on their hands over this Stupid idea of allowing guns walk across the border... to see where they would go.The bear went over the mountain was a fine song when I was a child—but aren’t our Government employees supposed to be adults?
The author is just a whore for obama.
LLS
Just remember when spoken properly the "t" in racist is silent.
His eyes blink a lot when he lies.
LLS
npr=NATIONAL PROPAGANDA RADICALS
Rats didn’t take over Congress until January 2007.
Are we the taxpayers still paying for this Obama propaganda of lies called NPR?
The Gunwalker Scandal Made Simple
There are five key accusations against ATF and DOJ made by
ATF whistleblowers and other sources within FedGov:
1. That they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.
2. That they allowed or even assisted in those guns crossing the U.S. border into Mexico to “boost the numbers” of American civilian market firearms seized in Mexico and thereby provide the justification for more firearm restrictions on American citizens and more power and money for ATF.
3. That they intentionally kept Mexican authorities in the dark about the operation, even over objections of their own agents.
4. That weapons that the ATF let “walk” to Mexico were involved in the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, as well as at least hundreds of Mexican citizens.
5. That at least since the death of Brian Terry on 14 December, the Obama administration is engaged in a full-press cover-up of the facts behind what has come to be known as the “Gunwalker Scandal.”
“Documents ‘suggest’...”
Suggest is good enough for the left.
Holder DOJ’s documents PROVE Obama engaged in Fast and Furious.
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