Free Republic

Scandal: In a shameful performance, the attorney general Thursday reprised his tap-dancing routine before a panel investigating the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation that got U.S. agents and Mexicans killed. 'It's Groundhog Day, and Brian Terry's family and taxpayers are still waiting for Fast and Furious answers from the Justice Department," Chairman Darrell Issa said before the hearings. "We will not wait until the next Groundhog Day to get answers for the American people." Rep. Issa, R-Calif., has threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn't get answers to questions on Fast and Furious,...

In the hours before Attorney General Eric Holder’s scheduled testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican lawmakers Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) released a new report suggesting top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. The memo, sent to Republican members of the Oversight Committee, was based upon interviews, documents and emails involving key players of the operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The operation allowed some 2,000 weapons cross the border into Mexico and into the hands of cartel...

Over the last three years, we’ve made a number of significant improvements, including policy and personnel changes… the steps that we have taken to ensure that the flawed tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious – and in earlier operations under the prior Administration – are never again used. We also have provided Congress with documents to show how inaccurate information was initially conveyed in a letter sent to Senator Grassley on February 4, 2011. These documents (intended to) ) show that Department officials relied on information provided by supervisors from the relevant components in the best position to know...

Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, PatrickCunningham was to testify before the House Committee last week, then he refused. Congress issued a subpoena forcing him to attend… Senior Justice Department officials have told the Committee, Cunningham, relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department (prior to) its initial response to Congress. These officials testify Cunningham continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used… Instead of taking the opportunity to clear his name, Cunningham’s lawyers advise he offer only his name and title in testimony. The Drug Enforcement Administration is under congressional scrutiny for...

In all of my years fighting on behalf of the National Rifle Association to defend the Second Amendment, I never thought I would see a White House so vehemently opposed to gun ownership that it would be willing to arm violent criminals and endanger American lives in pursuit of a gun control agenda. Readers will recall that a little over two months ago, in this same space, I wrote: "I would like to believe that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder – no matter how much they oppose our Second Amendment rights – would never break the law...

A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate. Operation...

David Codrea published an article today about an interesting letter one law abiding silencer owner received from the ATF. The silencer owner in question owns an AWC .22lr silencer that uses a material made of tangled copper ropes to slow down the expanding gasses, a material not unlike the common Brillo pad or Chore Boy Pot Scrubber. He wanted to know whether it would be legal to replace the worn out material in his legally owned silencer with some pot scrubber material, an act which seems pretty innocuous to the impartial observer. The ATF, on the other hand… From the...

As if Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano didn’t have enough trouble with questions about Operation Fast and Furious, pressure is building on Capitol Hill for Holder to step down, while Sen. Charles Grassley is now asking some probing questions of Napolitano about “sanctuary cities.” Grassley sent a letter to Napolitano Wednesday. Seattle is a “sanctuary city,” where police are not allowed to quickly ascertain someone’s immigration status. The King County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t ask that question, either, but actually likes it that way so that potential crime witnesses do not fear being quizzed about their...

Golden Valley man accused in machine gun conspiracy GOLDEN VALLEY - A local gunsmith is among six men facing a 106-count federal indictment alleging a conspiracy to illegally manufacture and distribute machine guns. According to the July 2010 indictment, George Dibril Clark III of Golden Valley and Gold Canyon and five other men - three from Arizona and two from Maryland - "harvested" serial numbers from pre-1986 machine guns, thereby destroying them. They would then allegedly weld the serial number, or the entire receiver side plate, onto a newly manufactured gun, file the required forms with the Bureau of Alcohol,...

Fast and Furious whistleblower Vince Cefalu supports allegations that ATF Special Agent in Charge Newell just framed one of his own for arson. According to a story by Townhall.com’s Katie Pavlich, credible death threats against one of the ATF agents who blew the whistle on the Operation Fast and Furious debacle were ignored by the ATF. Further, ATF attempted to frame him for arson: Jay Dobyns is a father, husband and 25-year highly respected and highly decorated Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent.…Dobyns has put a number of the nations’ most violent criminals behind bars, which naturally comes...

Crime: An old news tape shows that President Obama directly contradicted Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony to Congress about when he knew of Operation Fast and Furious. How many times will the story change? An administration that keeps shifting its story is obviously trying to hide something. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the latest revelations about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Fast and Furious scandal, which helped arm Mexico's violent cartels as a means to whip up support for gun control. As the gamy details seeped out and Congress started asking questions, Holder testified to...

Was the new acting director of ATF involved at the inception of the criminal gunwalking scandal known as Operation Fast & Furious? The appointment of B. Todd Jones as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, hasn't caused much of a ripple – in the media or in the ATF. By most accounts Jones is a stand-up guy, ex-Marine, and in a refreshing change of pace, apparently not known for ignominious bouts of bad judgment. But who your friends are generally says a lot about you, and Todd Jones is a longtime friend and...

As reported on these pages two days ago, Eric Holder lied in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011 when he said, "I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."   Documents now in the public domain indicate that Holder was extensively briefed numerous times months before the May 2011 Congressional hearing by DOJ officials and had received an official request for an investigation of the ATF gunrunning operation from the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on March 9.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) has been...

Hoping to chart a new path forward in the wake of the controversial "Fast and Furious" investigation, the newly assigned head of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Wednesday that "everything is under review" in the way of investigative practices and processes at the agency. “We've got to hit the reset button and move forward," acting director B. Todd Jones said. The furor over "Operation Fast and Furious" focuses on tactics used by ATF investigators in Arizona to target major gun-runners. Launched in late 2009, the investigation planned to follow gun purchasers in hopes that suspects would...

Could Fast and Furious be the scandal that brings down the Obama administration?  With the full knowledge of the Department of Justice, ATF agents facilitated the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and dropped all surveillance of those weapons once they crossed the border.  Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been used to shoot U.S. border control agents.  Weapons sold during Operation Fast and Furious have been found at dozens of crime scenes in Mexico.  Nobody has been held accountable for this scandal yet.  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been stonewalling all efforts by...

I would like to believe that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder – no matter how much they oppose our Second Amendment rights – would never break the law and endanger human lives in their mission to score political points against gun owners. I’d like to believe operation “Fast and Furious” is just another example of the Obama administration’s gross incompetence, albeit this time with tragic and deadly results. I’d like to believe that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had nothing but good intentions when it illegally helped transfer thousands of guns to violent drug...

Why a gunrunning scandal codenamed “Fast and Furious,” a program run secretly by the U.S. government that sent thousands of firearms over an international border and directly into the hands of criminals, hasn’t been pursued by an army of reporters all trying to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein is a story in itself. But the state of modern journalism aside, this scandal is so inflammatory few realize that official records show the current director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), B. Todd Jones — yes the individual the Obama administration brought in to...

Scandal: New documents reveal the Department of Justice lied to Congress and show how U.S. officials bought guns with tax dollars and then made sure no one stopped their transfer to Mexican drug cartels. The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it. We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday sought to distance himself and other senior Justice Department officials from a botched operation to track guns smuggled to Mexican drug cartels, saying they were not involved. The Obama administration has been under scrutiny after revelations that as many as 2,000 guns were sold to suspected gun traffickers, not properly tracked and ended up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico. The operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious", was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona. Congressional Republicans have questioned...

Emails reveal attempts to hide that Gunwalker guns were present at Brian Terry's murder — within hours of Terry's death. Just days after Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Acting Director Ken Melson was forced into a make-work job at the Justice Department and long-time Janet Napolitano confidant U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke abruptly resigned, the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious rapidly gained momentum with evidence of a coverup instigated within hours of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death.Also, the Justice Department begrudgingly revealed that Fast and Furious guns were recovered at the scene of more than twice...