Operation Fast and Furious - Gunwalker: White House Lied and People Died

Included among the recent shakeup of resignations and transfers in the D.O.J. was the sudden resignation of U.S. attorney Dennis Burke. After the sacking of Burke occurred the investigation into Fast and Furious gained momentum and it revealed evidence of a huge coverup which was initiated within mere hours after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.  Is the coverup worse than the crime? And, yes I do call what the Department Of Justice instituted a crime. The crime and the coverup are both horrific and unconscionable. How much brain power or logic does it take to know you shouldn't put guns in the hands of criminals, let the Mexican drug cartels walk across the border with those guns without their being supervision of the criminals or the guns and then just let the criminals keep the guns courtesy of the U.S. government. This was all about the Obama administration setting up a situation so they could promote their anti-second amendment gun control agenda. They obviously didn't care about the safety of either Americans or Mexicans. Liberalism kills. This is just one more example of that.


Eric Holder lied about when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious. He also covered up for the Obama White House when he claimed that the White House didn't have any knowledge of Fast and Furious but emails have now brought to light that the White House was indeed briefed on fast and Furious.  Plus the investigation has now divulged that guns were recovered from the scenes of twice as many violent crimes that were originally told to investigators.

From Pajamas Media:

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reports that a coverup kicked in within hours of Brian Terry’s murder:

In a letter, Grassley and Issa say the lead prosecutor on Fast and Furious, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, learned almost immediately that guns allowed onto the street in his case, had been recovered at Terry’s murder. “(I)n the hours after Agent Terry’s death,” says the letter from Grassley and Issa, Hurley apparently “contemplated the connection between the two cases and sought to prevent the connection from being disclosed.” The Justice Department recently transferred Hurley out of the criminal division into the civil division.

An internal ATF email dated the day after Terry’s death reveals the quick decision to not disclose the source of the weapons found at the murder scene: “… this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case.”

Another ATF email indicates that the justification both offices used to not charge the suspect with crimes related to the murder scene “was to not ‘complicate’ the FBI’s investigation.”

ATF whistleblowers revealed the link between the two cases to Congressional investigators and CBS News, saying their supervisors were attempting to cover it up.

Citing the documents in their possession suggesting the conspiracy, Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley demanded that the new U.S. attorney for Arizona, Ann Scheel, provide documentation — including emails, memos, and even handwritten notes from members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office — that may relate to the coverup. They also stated that they wanted to hear testimony from three more Justice Department officials: Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emory Hurley and Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Cunningham, chief of the DOJ Criminal Division.

The DOJ originally claimed that Fast and Furious weapons had been recovered at 11 crime scenes in the United States, but a Fox News investigation now reveals that a total of 42 Fast and Furious weapons were recovered at those crime scenes. Revised DOJ figures now also admit that an additional 21 Fast and Furious guns were tracked to violent crimes in Mexico.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Richard Serrano reveals that the White House had been communicating about the gun-running operation, despite previous denials:

The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official.

But the senior administration official said the emails, obtained Thursday by The Times, did not prove that anyone in the White House was aware of the covert “investigative tactics” of the operation.

The White House response involves an interesting choice of phrasing, stating that these emails did not prove that the White House was aware of the tactic of allowing thousands of guns to “walk” to the cartels. Mike Vanderboegh, one of the bloggers most responsible for bringing Gunwalker to light, calls the White House response a “Nixonian ‘modified limited hangout,’” and states that the smoking gun evidence of more White House involvement does exist.

For now, congressional investigators are tightly focusing their probe into the actions of the Department of Justice and the ATF, and have spent very little time — publicly, at least — delving into the roles that the FBI and DEA have played in the scandal. Likewise, investigators have not yet focused their energies on the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney that just resigned as a result of his actions in the plot and coverup, was the long-time chief-of-staff for Napolitano while she was governor of Arizona. It is unlikely that a high-risk operation run on Napolitano’s “home turf,” where she had been both governor and state attorney general and was still responsible for national security, happened without her being personally briefed.

Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa have made it clear that they aren't going to let the recent shake-up in the DOJ due to "Operation Fast and Furious" slow down their investigation into the criminal questionable program. Not long after this they have made good on their promise and demanded any correspondence such as emails, memos, notes, and other documents from six top officials from the Phoenix office.

From Hot Air:

“The level of involvement of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” the letter states. It continues:

Operation Fast and Furious was a prosecutor-led Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Strike Force case. The congressional investigation has revealed that your office, and specifically Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Emory Hurley, played an integral role in the day-to-day, tactical management of the case. In fact, Mr. Hurley served as a prosecutor on this case until very recently.

Witnesses have reported that AUSA Hurley may have stifled ATF agents’ attempts to interdict weapons on numerous occasions. Many ATF agents working on Operation Fast and Furious were under the impression that even some of the most basic law enforcement techniques typically used to interdict weapons required the explicit approval of your office, specifically from AUSA Hurley. It is our understanding that this approval was withheld on numerous occasions. It is unclear why all available tools, such as civil forfeitures and seizure warrants, were not used in this case to prevent illegally purchased guns from being trafficked to Mexican drug cartels and other criminals. We have further been informed that AUSA Hurley improperly instructed ATF agents that they needed to meet unnecessarily strict evidentiary standards merely in order to temporarily detain or speak with suspects.

It is essential for Congress to fully understand your office’s role in Operation Fast and Furious. … In addition, it is imperative that the Committee have an opportunity to discuss the facts above with individuals in your office who are familiar with the details of this operation. It is not our intention to second guess day-to-day decisions of your staff, but rather to make sense of them. The Attorney General has said that “letting guns walk is not something that is acceptable.  … We cannot have a situation where guns are allowed to walk, and I’ve made that clear to the United States Attorneys as well as the agents in charge of various ATF offices.” Operation Fast and Furious is unique in that guns were allowed to walk with the apparent knowledge of, and authorization by, officials in your office.

Oh my!  Did Eric Holder and the Obama administration seriously think that by shuffling personnel and scapegoating the guys at the bottom of the totem pole was going to stop the investigation this letter makes it abundantly clear that those involved with this investigation are not going to be played for fools.  Eric Holder and the Obama administration better not mess with Sen. Grassley and Rep. Issa.  They mean business and are determined to get to the bottom of this huge scandal and coverup.  

Operation Fast and Furious: Report Shows that ATF 'Stonewalled' Agents on Gun "Walking" Scandal Probe

To be honest I haven't posted much on "Operation Fast & Furious".  I posted something when the whistleblower  broke the story wide open but other than that I've been watching from the sidelines as this whole fiasco has become unveiled and as revelations from the investigation being conducted by Rep. Issa have come to light.  This whole operation was nonsensical.  What kind of rejects would jeopardize lives both here in America and in Mexico with a policy where you don't follow the guns but let them "walk"?  I guess having an agenda to push - gun control - was more important to this administration than caring about peoples' lives.  I feel so sorry for Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's family.  My continued thoughts and prayers go out to his family. They deserve answers, they deserve to know the truth.  The persons who authorized this operation need to be held accountable for their actions. Now the report shows that the ATF has 'stonewalled' agents on this gun "walking" scandal probe.  That's not too surprising since this administration either lies, misinforms or covers up anything that doesn't favor this administration's policies.

I found this article via Roger Hedgecock.

Washington (CNN) -- U.S. officials kept their Mexican counterparts in the dark about a widely criticized gun-trafficking probe even as rising numbers of weapons reached the hands of Mexico's drug cartels, a congressional committee reported Tuesday.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also held back key details about "Operation Fast and Furious" from agents based in Mexico City when they raised alarms, according to the report.

"Not only were they stonewalled by their colleagues, they were actively thwarted in their attempts to find out what was happening," the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee concluded.

"Fast and Furious" has been the subject of congressional investigations since December, when two weapons traced to the operation were found at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent's killing in Arizona. More than 2,000 guns may have reached the hands of the cartels as a result of the probe, in which ATF agents allowed weapons bought in the United States to "walk" into Mexico.

"ATF senior leadership allegedly feared that any such disclosure would compromise their investigation," states the report, written by the joint staff of the committee. "Instead, ATF and DOJ leaderships' reluctance to share information may have only prolonged the flow of weapons from this straw purchasing ring into Mexico."

Carlos Canino, the ATF's acting attache in Mexico City, informed the country's attorney general of the probe only after learning that guns monitored by the investigation were involved in the killing of the brother of a top prosecutor in Mexico's Chihuahua state. Canino said he disclosed the operation despite the absence of clear direction from Washington "because I did not want her to find out through media reports where these guns had come from."

"If I hadn't told the attorney general this, and this had come out in the news media, I would never be able to work with her ever again, and we would be done in Mexico," the report quotes Canino. "We just might as well pack up the office and go home."

Even then, ATF officials in Mexico City did not learn the full extent of the "Fast and Furious" probe until after it was shut down, following the December killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The operation began in late 2009 and concluded in January. Investigators say the ATF allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be purchased illegally and transported in to Mexico, where heavily armed drug gangs have been battling Mexican authorities for control of the streets for several years.

CONTINUED 

Huge Scandal: ATF is "Letting Guns Walk" into Hands of Mexican Cartels

From CBS News:  

WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.

He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?

"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.

Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.

Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets... the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles."

Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. "I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two," he said. "The more our guys buy, the more violence we're having down there."

Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.

Their answer, according to Dodson, was, "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."

What???? This is outrageous!! ATF agents are being ordered to just sit back, watch and allow assault weapons to get in the hands of the drug cartels, allowing the drug cartels to walk away with those guns in a strategy which was supposed to culminate with taking down a major cartel. The ATF's job was to stop gun trafficking across the border but was ordered to simply watch so they could see where the cartels would end up, whether these guns crossed the border into Mexico or ended up back into the U.S.  These orders were traced all the way up the line to the Justice Department approving this policy of "letting guns walk".  These same guns are killing our own people.  Brian Terry, a border patrol agent was gunned down in December.  The two guns which were found next to him were allowed to "walk".  This is unbelievable!   An ATF agent named John Dodson has gone public with this information and is blowing this scandal wide open. So, the ATF - essentially the U.S. government - is partially responsible for the escalating violence in Mexico.  Our government is responsible for innocent lives being lost.  This program clearly needs to be investigated by Congress.  The "letting guns walk" program has had a devastating impact on both Mexico and our country so this needs to be stopped.

For some reason the embed code on the CBS video would only show half of the picture on the video so here are the links to the videos:

Here is a link to the interview with ATF agent Dodson


Here is the the link to the investigative report on the ATF