Partisan Politics Plague Probe of 'Fast and Furious'

Los Angeles Times ^ | March 29, 2012 | Sandra Hernandez

[nickcarraway]

"Fast and Furious," the federal government's ill-fated operation to track gun sales along the Mexican border, set out to penetrate drug cartels before it spiraled out of control.

Under the program, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives watched, but did not arrest, purchasers of high-powered weapons with hopes of tracking the guns back to the cartels. Instead, the ATF lost track of more than 1,700 guns, some of which later turned up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, including two found near Tucson where a Border Patrol officer was shot to death. Others could well have found their way to street gangs on both sides of the border.

The Times has reported in recent weeks that nearly two years ago, agents caught the main target of the gun-smuggling investigation, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta, red-handed as he tried to sneak ammunition across the border. But agents released him after he promised to cooperate with an agent who wrote her telephone number on a $10 bill. Acosta, who was wanted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, disappeared across the border and was not arrested until last year, after Fast and Furious was shut down. As it turns out, the drug lords ATF hoped to snag with Acosta’s cooperation were also FBI informants. Yet the ATF only learned about the drug cartels' ties to the FBI much later.

How did so much go so wrong with this operation? Unfortunately, congressional attempts to investigate Fast and Furious have become mired in partisan politics. Darrel Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has demanded that the Department of Justice produce some 93,000 documents. But Issa's demand loses some of its credibility and lapses into political theater when he threatens Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder

[Berlin_Freeper]

Democrats are treasonous murderers.

How are you supposed to make politics with that?

[SandRat]

Only because the Dems are sitting have got their heads stuck up their collective third eye.

[lowbridge]

I see. The los Angeles times trying to turn the republicans into the bad guys over fast and furious. And some of you wonder why republicans in the house are so timid in trying to impeach obama. Partly because they know the liberal media will circle the wagons around obama while portraying the republicans as the bad guys. Same way they did with the investigation and impeachment of Clinton.

[drpix]

The fundamental lie of the article: "Instead, the ATF lost track of more than 1,700 guns."

In fact, FnF was not designed or implemented to "track" those 1,700 weapons. They were turned lose with the sole purpose of turning up at crime scenes to manufacture evidence for the Obama Regime's discredited claim that 'most weapons used in Mexican drug violence came from US gun dealers.

[dirtboy]

But Issa's demand loses some of its credibility and lapses into political theater when he threatens Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. with criminal contempt for failing to cooperate. Still, his questions deserve an answer.

What a pinhead. The Obama Admin will stonewall, deceive and lie every opportunity they get. Brute force is the only thing such brutes understand.

[freedom_forge]

So the LA Times pretends that the government simply lost control of the operation rather than explain that agents ordered gun dealers to engage in what would have been illegal activity.

And if the administration refuses to cooperate with either the Republican House or the Democrat Senate, the villain is, obviously, the Republican Congressman.

[Da Coyote]

Dear LAT,

Your logic is on a par with global warning researcher’s math.

Such are the products of poor education.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Another Obama defense piece....my how strange!

[dgbrown]

If this investigation doesn’t start moving Holder’s ticket to a pardon will be gone.

[SandRat]

What you’ll always get from the LASlimes.

[stephenjohnbanker]

L.A.Slimes is right.....no crime here.....they just “lost track” of the weapons....

[detective]

This is a stupid article. The problem is not “partisan politics". The problem is criminal contempt of Congress by the Obama Justice Department, destruction and hiding of documents by the Obama Administration, perjury and suborning perjury by the Obama Administration and deliberate lying and covering up by the media.

It is as simple as that.

[TigersEye]

bttt

[Jacquerie]

We still don’t even know who signed and approved F&F at DOJ.

[MurrietaMadman]

Was the LAT reporter who worked this story last year replaced or has he finally choked on his own vomit?

If that’s the case, the Times has recruited one who appears dedicated to the Jesuit motto, ‘the ends justify the means’ and incapable of a vomitus self-realization. If personal advancement comes along with the opportunity to further leftist chaos, all the better.

Sandra Hernandez, a 2007 Loyola Fellow, http://www.lls.edu/cjp/jls/07/2007Fellows.html
surely has more advanced writing skills than those on display in this Times article. Read a sample of her more strident style here...

http://detentionwatchnetwork.org/node/437

She has had a number of years at the Los Angeles Daily Journal to hone those skills before joining the Times two months ago.

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2011/02/new_editorial_writers_at.php

[flatfish]

Yeah, it’s partisan politics all right. The GOP want the truth and the Dems want anything but the truth...

.

[MestaMachine]

Land of the Lost ping.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Good post.

[Kansas58]

I am trying to find someone who has lost a family member due to Mexican drug violence.
I am working with Floyd Brown in a political advertising project.
Please let me know if you have any contacts.