Free Republic

The ATF isn’t all bad. In fact, they had a policy of letting illegal gun purchases go between 2006 and 2011. It ended up getting U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry killed on December 14, 2010, and let Mexican criminals get enough guns that they were found at over 150 crime scenes where Mexican citizens were either killed or maimed. And some of the guns were used in the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris at the Bataclan. But other than that, it turned out just fine. (In case you’re not picking up on it, we’re laying on the sarcasm...

".................In one email from March 2011, after being sent a news story about the Fast and Furious investigation, Holder told staff, "I hope there is another side to the story." Later, after the ATF deputy director assured Holder aides that "we did not allow guns to walk," Holder responded to staff with, "Do they really, really know?" That August, Holder was told by staff that about 25 U.S. attorneys was upset that the resignation of Dennis Burke, then the U.S. attorney in Arizona, was announced simultaneously with the reassignment of ATF Acting Director Ken Melson. Holder wondered "why wouldn't we...

First Deposition Testimony from Clinton Email Discovery Released State Department Office of Inspector General Slams Clinton Email Practices Justice Department Documents Reveal the Widespread Use of Fast and Furious Weapons by Major Mexican Drug Cartels – Linked to at Least 69 Killings Memorial Day: Why We Fight First Deposition Testimony from Clinton Email Discovery Released The court-ordered discovery to uncover details about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email system has produced the first testimony from her top aides. This week we released the deposition transcript of Ambassador Lewis Lukens, former deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director...

Full title: Judicial Watch: Justice Department Documents Reveal Widespread Use of Fast and Furious Weapons by Major Mexican Drug Cartels – Linked to at least 69 Killings From December 2012 to March 2016, 94 Fast and Furious weapons were seized; Fast and Furious weapon found in “Chapo” Guzman hideout(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today released Justice Department documents showing that weapons sent from the U.S. into Mexico as part of the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning program have been widely used by major Mexican drug cartels. According to the new records, over the past three years, a...

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Special Agent John Dodson blew the whistle on the Department of Justice (DOJ) ill-fated “Fast and Furious” operation in an interview with me in 2011. Dodson explained that the U.S. government had been instructing federal agents like him to encourage gun dealers to sell thousands of assault rifles and other weapons to traffickers for Mexican drug cartels. ... Beyond Fast and Furious, similar “gunwalking” cases by the government were reported in numerous cities: Phoenix, Tucson and Houston to name a few. “Walked” guns were used by illegal Mexican bandits in an Arizona shootout that killed...

The U.S. government is fighting to keep details of how its own federal gun agents let Mexican drug cartels buy rifles in Arizona illegally out of an upcoming murder trial in which two men will be tried for the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry who died after he ran into men carrying those same illegal guns. In a court filing Monday, prosecutors are trying to keep some details about the guns found at the slain agent’s murder scene away from the jury. Terry, 40, was part of the Border Patrol’s elite BORTAC unit. In December 2010, the...

Full title: Judicial Watch Obtains Fast and Furious Crime Scene Photos from Phoenix 2013 Gang-Style Assault with Rifle Supplied by Obama Justice Department Photos include close-up shots of Fast and Furious AK-47 rifle, blood-stained apartment, victim with massive head wound (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained graphic crime scene photos taken at the site of a 2013 gang-style assault on a Phoenix, AZ, apartment building, including a close-up photo revealing the serial number of the AK-47 rifle used by the assailants. As a result of Judicial Watch’s October 2, 2014, public records lawsuit, the weapon...

ATF Meets Congress' Deadline for Fast & Furious Info  Some materials "highly redacted" by Sharyl Attkisson April 1, 2013 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Director Todd Jones today met a 5 p.m. deadline to provide Congress with some information related to disciplinary action, or lack thereof, against key players involved in ATF’s Fast and Furious gunwalking case. That’s according to an official with the House Oversight Committee who says committee members haven't yet thoroughly reviewed the materials but that they are often “highly redacted.”  Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) set the deadline in a letter...

House lawyers late Monday filed court papers asking a federal judge to force the Justice Department to turn over records to reveal the extent of efforts to stonewall a congressional probe into a botched weapons investigation known as Fast and Furious. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants the records to wrap up its probe, which has shifted from the bungled gun-walking operation to “an apparent effort, over a period of many months, by high level DOJ officials” to hinder the investigation, lawyers argued in a court pleading filed Tuesday night in federal court in Washington. The request marks...

The Obama administration's handling of its multiple scandals paints a picture of those who believe they are above the law. There's a pattern of arrogance, dismissiveness, denial, scapegoating, stonewalling, lying, false professions of ignorance, assurances of accountability and punishing whistle-blowers. The numerous parallels in the administration's handling of the Fast and Furious and Internal Revenue Service scandals alone are too striking to be coincidental. The recurring theme is that the buck never stops at the Obama White House. With Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives adopted an ill-conceived, indefensible plan to deliberately walk guns into...

ATF agents let a man armed with a gun and threatening to shoot someone walk out of their storefront sting operation in Milwaukee last summer, failing to arrest him or take the weapon, the Journal Sentinel has learned. The suspect, Bobby Ball - a felon with a violent history - promised to return to the store and sell the agents that gun and others but he never came back, according to sources familiar with the case. Instead he spent four months on the loose, until he was picked up in Minnesota on a drunken-driving arrest. He is now awaiting sentencing...

President Barack Obama, speaking in Mexico City on Friday, said the United States is responsible for much of the crime and violence in Mexico because of the demand for drugs and the illegal smuggling of guns across the southern border. … Obama acknowledged the illegal smuggling of guns into Mexico by American criminals, but did not mention the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious that allowed the flow of about 2,000 U.S. guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009 and was halted in December 2010 after two of the weapons from the...

The second of two reports examining who's to blame over the federal anti-gunrunning scheme known as Operation Fast and Furious exonerates top officials at the Department of Homeland Security, but paints a picture of ineptitude, ignorance and mismanagement at the DHS operations in Arizona. A report by the Homeland Security inspector general, obtained Friday by Fox News, concluded many in the agency's Arizona operation knew for a long time the U.S. helped criminals smuggle guns to Mexico in violation of policy, but did nothing to stop it. Further, the report said word of the gun-smuggling operation within DHS never traveled...

A comprehensive lawsuit charging government conspiracy and cover-up was filed Tuesday in the United States District Court Southern District of Texas Brownsville Division by the parents of murdered Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata and Special Agent Victor Avila, Jr., against the government, straw purchasers, individual government officials, gun dealers and others deemed to share in responsibility per the complaint. Gun Rights Examiner has obtained copies of the Plaintiff’s Original Complaint and the related docket sheet. On first reading, the complaint appears to have the potential to uncover specifics about government-sanctioned “gunwalking” and those who authorized it beyond what...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

It was January 2010, and Hugh Crumpler III was sitting at a Brevard County gas station with a Chevrolet Suburban full of really dangerous guns. It wouldn’t last. He was there to meet interested buyer Jorge Acosta, who left with 12 Fabrique Nationale Herstal semi-automatic handguns. They are termed “matapolicias,” or cop killers, by drug cartels in South and Central American. Federal court documents say Acosta was a Texas resident who was living in the Jacksonville area. He made clear to Crumpler that the guns were not heading to the First Coast. “Jorge Acosta has advised Crumpler on several occasions...

.................Ryan now becomes the 131st House GOP member to demand Holder’s resignation over the scandal. Fast and Furious was a program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, overseen by Holder’s Department of Justice. It sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers — people who purchased guns in the United States with the known intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else. Fast and Furious guns were used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on Dec. 14, 2010, in Peck Canyon, Ariz. Others whose murders have been connected to Fast and Furious weapons...

Capitol Hill-The Department of Justice [DOJ] Inspector General [IG] Michael Horowitz testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee Thursday and answered questions about his recently released report [OIG] from his office about Operation Fast and Furious. The internal investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has been going on for 18 months. Horowitz and his staff reviewed over 100,000 pages and conducted interviews with 140 people. In his opening remarks, Chairman Darrell Issa said the IG report and its findings are huge steps toward restoring the faith of the American people in the DOJ, but that the Committee’s work...

Yesterday Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley issued a 211-page report and more than 2,000 documents, pinning much of the blame for Operation Fast and Furious on five ATF supervisors. This is the first in a series of three reports expected to be released. An initial look at the report and the documents reminds us of a few things and also brings us new information. First, it was just over a month ago when Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting cabinet member in history to be...

Operation Plodding and Pointless might do. The probe into the failed federal effort to track U.S.-purchased guns trafficked to Mexican drug cartels has reached a new height of dudgeon. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives (along with a handful of Democrats) have found Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Issa. The committee’s hearings on Fast and Furious have droned on for more than a year now. Yet, to date, no testimony has been taken to address the problem that lay at the heart of the so-called...