Renee Copyright 2011
Once upon a time there was a boy, his name was Cash Walker. He was joined one day for a waltz with his older brother. His brother’s name was Gun Runner. The older brother Gun Runner could run, very fast and furiously.
And they danced, and they walked, and they danced, and they ran…so far away.
Where did they get their music ?
The new story and additional information is here;
http://theobamafile.websitetoolbox.com/post/DEA-quotCashwalkerquot-program-revealed-5608470
https://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/guns-and-no-roses/
A new story to add to the list ?
Bridgette
itooktheredpill
Miri
newssleuth
We the People of the United States 
New post on Holder’s newest scandal w/ the Virgin Islands;
http://wtpotusresearchblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/about-holders-virgins/
Updated;
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/06/20/live_from_capitol_hill_eric_holders_contempt_vote_in_the_house
Wow, rep from Southern State nails it during a rant on the floor. Who IS this guy? How does he do this without a teleprompter, anyway?
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV?id=E036CB4B-30B9-4F8C-BFCE-BECA420E43F0&title=MUST-WATCH-Rep-Gowdy-Demands-Committee-To-Continue-Contempt-Vote-In-Epic-Rant
I embedded your link within the word “rant” so that it works. For some reason, WordPress doesn’t like that link.
I don’t know about you but it seems like when I get really angry about something, the words just pour out. Later on, when I read it (thinking it’s probably incoherent) it ends up that I wrote some of my best stuff, imho. 🙂 I also notice that Bridgette, always eloquent, gets especially eloquent when she’s fired up. This Rep. is probably the same way (unless he prepared and memorized what he wanted to say, but that’s harder to do, I think, then ranting off the cuff)!
Trey Gowdy for VP!!!! This guy is good. Lanny Breuer is up to his freaking eyeballs in this. I hope they nail him, too.
That’s Trey with an ‘e’ not an ‘a’ and no ‘von’….
🙂
It is so sad Miri. This is just the start…
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/obama-declares-executive-privilege-on-doj-documents/?cat_orig=s
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/06/20/white-house-insider-obama-owns-fast-and-furious-now/
UPDATE: This follow up from WHI is now included in this original report:
Received in-house word regarding “scrambling” at the White House. Something has them very spooked. I hinted at this to you last week regarding the meeting that had staff coming out looking very concerned. The Grassley message had to have shook them up. Told Issa has been repeating comparisons to Watergate to staff and fellow House members. White House must be aware Issa and Co. might have something that could inflict a hell of a lot of damage.
Dem leadership sent out signals to staff to prepare for necessary insulation from the White House to limit damage to individual campaigns. Black Caucus member engaged in a 10 minute “explosive” rant against someone from Issa’s office following a recess. Some Dems getting openly fearful and aggressive. Chaffetz had “face to face” with one of them. He is proving very willing to aggressively engage the opposition at any time.
This is far from won but recent events are proving to be damn favorable to those of us who want to defeat the president.
Don’t get over confident though. This administration is gonna fight this hard.
I’ve been called back. That indicates this has become real important real fast to a lot of real important people.
-WHI
Seems Obama himself agrees that invoking executive privilege means the WH is involved. He said in 2008:
“With respect to the ‘core’ of executive privilege, the Supreme Court has not resolved this question, and reasonable people have debated it. My view is that executive privilege generally depends on the involvement of the president and the White House.”
What is this loon smoking out there in San Fran? Pelosi says she could have arrested Karl Rove “on any given day” had she wanted to.
“I’m not kidding. There’s a prison here in the Capitol. If we had spotted him in the Capitol, we could have arrested him.”
These people really are scary and power mad. What the hell is she talking about? “WE COULD HAVE ARRESTED HIM.” Really? Really, Nancy? Is she hitting the barrels in her winery or what?
So by the same token, does this mean that Boehner can arrest Eric Holder and toss him in that prison? If so, then please, Speaker Boehner … http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/20/pelosi-rips-holder-contempt-charges-i-could-have-arrested-karl-rove-on-any-given-day/
What’s sad is that of 17 DemoncRATS on the committee, not ONE of them had the courage, guts, honesty, loyalty to the truth, the People, or their oath to vote to find Holder in contempt. They are ALL PARTY SHILLS. They have NO LOYALTY to the LAW or the Constitution. Vote them ALL OUT. They don’t even respect their own positions in this government.
THEY KNEW!!! BOMBSHELL: Proof Obama and Holder knew about gun walking in 2009
Now we know why Obama issued executive privilege this morning to keep Holder from having to release documents about Fast and Furious.
http://www.therightscoop.com/bombshell-proof-obama-and-holder-knew-about-gun-walking-in-2009/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2897641/posts
Leza – I think we had video’s of Holder giving speeches at the time showing he knew about it. I will look for them. I think it was him that was talking about the money that was allocated to the different programs. They might be scrubbed already.
Leza and Bridgette 3/31/2011
Your right! O’ my gosh, I’d forgotten about that!
If you haven’t read this story yet, prepare to grit your teeth when you see how the lamestream spins this for Barry and Holder:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIW7-81ILG16BxXJgp1JIh2pKUbg?docId=aa08c5fc2ac34726be3e382d6f774135
“Setting up a potential constitutional confrontation, a Republican-controlled House panel voted Wednesday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress, just hours after President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege — for the first time — to withhold documents demanded by the committee.
The party-line vote was 23-17 following hours of caustic debate.”
The other Tim Stanley weighs in: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100166854/the-fast-and-furious-scandal-is-turning-into-president-obamas-watergate/
“Fast and furious hasn’t been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. But the story is slowly unraveling and the public is catching up with the madness. On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the “gun walking” operation – documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come. Be patient, conservatives. It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President.”
What follows is a good, ACCURATE history of the program for those who haven’t been looking for news about it on their own, since the lamestream ignores the scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/executive-privilege-poses-tricky-situation-for-obama/2012/06/20/gJQAgAbRrV_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
“Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University who has testified before Congress on executive privilege, said the question is not how many times the power is invoked but whether there is a legal justification.
The Constitution does not mention executive privilege, said Rozell, who noted that courts have typically ruled that it applies in cases of vital national security interests.
That might be the legal definition, but the political calculus for the White House is whether what Obama is seeking to keep private is more damaging to him than failing to publicly disclose the documents.
“Every time a president claims executive privilege, it brings up memories of President Nixon’s abuses of that doctrine,” Rozell said.
Not all claims of executive privilege hold legal water. Some of President Bill Clinton’s attempts to invoke privilege during grand jury hearings into his relationship with Monica Lewinsky were withdrawn or rejected in court.”
I heard a lawyer on TV today. He said that by initially cooperating and handing over nearly 8000 documents, Holder has given up his opportunity to withhold more. He used the analogy of waiving your Fifth Amendment rights and saying you’ll testify, and then when you get asked a question you don’t want to answer, trying to go back on your waiver. So Obama, if he has the legal leg to stand on with asserting executive privilege, should have done it before. Now that he didn’t, they should cough up the documents and this lawyer thinks a court will rule that’s the case.
What I see happening is that prior to Obama leaving office, he will pardon all of these people so they get away with it. Holder walks once again no matter what sanctions or contempt charges Congress passes. He was corrupt then and still is. Holder got his AG position because the Democrats dominated both houses. He was a political hack before and is one now only more agenda driven.
There was a party line vote out of committee because the Democrats didn’t want to lose the guy that has been protecting all of those involved in multiple aspects of government corruption. The Democrats are holding the communist line and aren’t voting using the facts in front of them. I do expect to see more Democrats up for election jumping ship just to hold their jobs.
Who determines whether executive privilege is allowed in this case? Executive privilege – will they try to tie it to national security? We know it wasn’t done in cooperation with Mexico because they chastised the US decision to do it after it happened.
My mind jumped ahead to the Lame Duck session after Obama and the democrats take a beating in the next election (and I expect they will no matter how they skew the poll numbers now). They still have control of the Senate and will pass all of the things they couldn’t get through before during regular session.
I wonder how detailed those pardons have to be. I mean, does the person have to already be charged with a specific crime or can he just say, “I pardon my good friend and cover-upper-for-me Eric Holder for any crimes past, present, and future?” Surely there’s so much there that even if Obama pardons him for one, two, or three, there will be plenty more to find and charge him with. I suspect they’ll all go
on the lamwork for the UN in Europe or maybe go run for president of Kenya. Holder protected Bill and Hill and he’s just continuing on with this administration. Barry had to weigh what’s more damaging: Producing the documents or claiming executive privilege, running out the clock, and hoping if it does end up in court, he can find a friendly one. So far, he’s been in luck in that regard. The fact that he chose hiding by any means necessary speaks volumes. Will there EVER be justice for the families of Agent Terry and Agent Zapata?This is why the RINOs lose: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/gop-strategist-republicans-were-caught-with-their-pants-down-on-immigration/2012/06/18/gJQAJ94blV_blog.html
This fool Rollins, supposedly a crack GOP advisor, thinks that “The hardest thing [for Republicans] about the immigration debate is that it’s a question of fairness,” continued Rollins, who was chief strategist for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign [No wonder she lost.] and ran Ronald Reagan’s reelection effort in 1984. “A lot of people know a lot of good people who came into this country illegally and are trying to buy into the American Dream.”
IT’S A QUESTION OF FAIRNESS, HE SAYS, IMPLYING THAT THEY CAN’T FIGHT AGAINST THIS. What is FAIR about letting at least, but probably more than, 1.4 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS TAKE JOBS FROM AMERICAN CITIZENS IN THIS ECONOMY?
THE AMERICAN DREAM IS FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS, NOT FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO STARTED OUT BY BREAKING OUR LAWS. BY DEFINITION, A LAW BREAKER IS NOT A “GOOD” PERSON. There’s a right way and a wrong way. You don’t do right by doing wrong. Every illegal in this country is STEALING from a US citizen who deserves that place in school, that job, those benefits as much if not more. Every illegal in this country is STEALING from the US TAXPAYERS. Rollins and the RINOs buy into this notion. They let THEM, the DEMONCRATS, frame the debate.
Hispanic-AMERICANS, African-AMERICANS, Asian-AMERICANS, Jewish-AMERICANS, white AMERICANS ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT’S FAIR AND WHAT’S NOT FAIR. WHAT’S NOT FAIR IS PUTTING ILLEGALS AHEAD OF US CITIZENS. WE ALL KNOW “GOOD PEOPLE” WHO ARE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS OR US CITIZENS WHO ALSO WANT THE AMERICAN DREAM.
Hispanic-AMERICANS, African-AMERICANS, Asian-AMERICANS, Jewish-AMERICANS, white AMERICANS ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT’S FAIR AND WHAT’S NOT FAIR. WHAT’S NOT FAIR IS PUTTING ILLEGALS AHEAD OF US CITIZENS. WE ALL KNOW “GOOD PEOPLE” WHO ARE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS OR US CITIZENS WHO ALSO WANT THE AMERICAN DREAM.
EXACTLY…
Pelosi is already urging Barry to raise the debt limit on his own, no matter what Congress decides.
House committee votes to hold Holder in contempt
Obama fails to stop hearing with last-minute declaration of executive privilege
June 20, 2012 8:30 pm
A House committee has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress – even after the Obama administration asserted executive privilege in an attempt to undercut a congressional investigation of “Fast and Furious,” a program in which the Department of Justice allowed guns to be sold and delivered to Mexican drug cartels.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted 23 to 17 along party lines. Now the contempt resolution goes to the full House of Representatives for a vote.
Today’s vote came more than eight months after the committee issued a subpoena to Holder in 2011 to release all internal Justice Department documents related to the program. Holder responded by only releasing 7,000 documents and withholding thousands more.
In a last-minute effort to stop the vote today, the White House argued that tens of thousands of documents related to “Fast and Furious” were covered by executive privilege and should not be released. Holder had asked President Obama to assert executive privilege in the case.
U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had scheduled the meeting for this morning when word came from James Cole, a deputy attorney general, who said the president asserted the privilege to block the documents from being released.
Immediately, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has been adamant about getting to the bottom of the scandal and find out who was responsible for the circumstances that led to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, said the White House move raised “monumental questions.” “How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen?” he wondered.
~
The committee vote for contempt will be followed by a discussion on the issue in the full House. Ultimately, a contempt citation could be produced and delivered to the U.S. attorney in Washington.
One focal point is a letter delivered to Congress that allegedly was intended to mislead members on the issue. The Justice Department later withdrew the statement.
Analysts said the move on the part of the White House could backfire, in that the investigation now could turn the focus on the White House.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/obama-declares-executive-privilege-on-doj-documents/?cat_orig=us
From Issa’s statement:
The president’s assertion of executive privilege this morning took us by surprise but did not alter the committee’s conclusion that documents had been inappropriately withheld. Executive privilege only applies to materials that directly pertain to communications with the president and his senior advisors. This assertion indicates that the White House’s role in Operation Fast and Furious and the response to whistleblower accusations has been greater than previously acknowledged.
Fox News reports that the White House approved Eric Holder’s request to protect Fast and Furious documents under executive privilege. Did we expect something different?
The Contempt of Congress hearing is expected to proceed as scheduled.
Two updates: http://pjmedia.com/blog/fbi-criminal-informant-complicit-in-brian-terrys-death-pjm-exclusive/?singlepage=true
“The CI used this information to organize an ambush of the drug convoy. A source tells PJM that the FBI knew from wiretaps that the CI was using their information to set up an ambush.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — through its own CIs and communications intercepts — was also aware of the planned assault.
Neither the DEA nor FBI warned Border Patrol about the expected criminal activity.
The federal government will still not reveal if one of the two WASR-10 AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles located near the scene — provided to the Sinaloa cartel via Operation Fast and Furious — was the weapon that put a bullet through Brian Terry’s heart. The existence of a third recovered gun, an SKS carbine, has been disputed by the FBI despite the fact it had been talked about openly in the beginning of the investigation among federal agents.
Multiple sources tell PJM that this third weapon “disappeared” because it was the weapon carried by the FBI CI who ran the rip crew. When it was recovered near the scene of the murder and subsequently traced by the ATF, it traced back to the FBI CI via the gun shop in Texas where it was purchased.
Deconfliction is a major element of high-risk undercover law enforcement work. Undercover agents and informants often cross jurisdictional paths, and deconfliction is the process whereby agencies warn off other agencies so that their assets don’t end up in conflict, putting investigations and lives at risk.
In this case, the FBI and DEA failed to deconflict. Neither agency bothered to warn Border Patrol to keep their BORTAC teams out of Peck Canyon that evening. As a direct result of this FBI and DEA failure — combined with Homeland Security forcing BORTAC units to carry less-lethal beanbag rounds in some of their primary weapons — Brian Terry’s under-armed four-man unit walked into an ambush against a heavily armed rip crew, at least five of whom were carrying rifles.
Brian Terry’s murder was entirely preventable. The incompetence of the DEA and FBI let his Border Patrol unit walk into an ambush. After the ambush, it appears the FBI tampered with evidence to cover up that one of their informants was involved with the murder of a federal agent.
The government has recently sealed the case against the only suspect the FBI chose to keep behind bars.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/22/did-obama-assert-executive-privilege-to-bail-out-holder-before/
“President Barack Obama may have actually asserted executive privilege once before to protect Attorney General Eric Holder from congressional scrutiny, documents and congressional records obtained by The Daily Caller indicate.
During Holder’s 2009 confirmation hearings, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn pressed Holder for details on the role he played in helping get Puerto Rican terrorists — members of the violent Armed Forces for National Liberation, who set off 120 bombs throughout the U.S. killing at least six Americans and permanently harming others — clemency during the Bill Clinton administration.”
These are the FALN Puerto Rican terrorists associated with other domestic terrorists of that time: The Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. BOTH Clintons, Holder, Obama have long associations with these people and their own reasons WHY they were pardoned. Bill Clinton protected the information by using executive privilege, an order that he rescinded when he left office. Therefore, either Holder lied when he said he couldn’t testify during his confirmation hearings or else the Obama administration is lying about Barry never before using executive privilege.
A comment from Gov Rick Perry of Texas, thank you sir;
Obama Executive Privilege Use In Fast And Furious Controversy Is ‘Nixonian
Got that ?
http://congressmantomtancredo.com/breaking-new-evidence-shows-hillary-a-mastermind-behind-gunwalker/
Who mentioned this before here ? Amazing to me.
I linked some other stuff that showed Hillary is knee-deep in this. This is WHY they’re doing a full court press to cover up and cover over this. How much more DISGUSTING can you get than to actually put out TALKING POINTS, to develop a MEME, for the obots to use on national TV IN RESPONSE TO AGENT TERRY’S PARENTS? This is something I know in my gut. First, we see that Juan Williams was saying, on FOX, that people die in law enforcement. Then in today’s paper, I read a letter to the editor that said basically the same thing–that law enforcement people die so the family shouldn’t politicize his death but “honor” it by calling for stricter gun control, so that the REAL criminals pay. They are personally attacking the victim’s family–the OTHER victims of the Holder, Obama, and Clinton plan to inflate gun stats by GIVING GUNS TO CRIMINALS WHO THEN USED THEM TO KILL OUR US AGENTS! The families are VICTIMS but they are being attacked for “politicizing” their family members’ deaths. This is beyond the pale. They do it because they must in order to hide their own crimes. But it is disgusting for these people to actually put out talking points (the Journolist?) to ATTACK the families.
Miri,
All about losing the battle with the cartels and wanting to enact gun control…….. They wanted to prove 90% of the guns were from the US
New evidence shows Hillary a mastermind behind Fast & Furious
Anthony Martin is reporting that last week it was reported that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were deeply involved in the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, or Project Gunwalker. Today, however, new evidence has surfaced indicating that not only was Hillary deeply involved in the scandal but was one of the masterminds behind it.
According to investigative citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh, sources close to the development of the Gunwalker scheme state that early on, Hillary and her trusted associated at State, Andrew J. Shapiro, devised at least part of the framework of what would later become Operation Fast and Furious. It was Shapiro who first described the details of the proposed scheme early in 2009 just after the Obama Administration took office.
Vanderboegh relates the following:
My sources say that as Hillary’s trusted subordinate, it was Shapiro who first described to the Secretary of State the details of what has become the Gunwalker Scandal.
The precise extent to which Hillary Clinton’s knowledge of, and responsibility for, the Gunwalker Plot, lies within the memories of these two men, Shapiro and Steinberg, sources say.
The sources also express dismay that the Issa committee is apparently restricting itself to the Department of Justice and not venturing further afield. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, they say, needs to summon these two men and their subordinates — especially at the Mexico Desk at State — and question them under oath as to what Hillary Clinton knew about the origins of the Gunwalker Scandal and when she knew it.
There is one other thing those sources agree upon. The CIA, they say, knows “everything” about the “Mexican hat dance” that became the Gunwalker Scandal.
The ‘Steinberg’ mentioned in the quote above is Hillary Clinton’s former Deputy Secretary of State, who was appointed directly by Barack Obama and was considered from the start to be an ‘Obama man’ whose objective was to carry out the wishes of the President in the State Department.
Hillary had said of Steinberg,
Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.
That statement is key. Hillary herself stayed out of all meetings dealing with strategy concerning the euphemism the Administration used to designate Gunwalker, ‘strategy meetings on Mexico and the problem of drug and gun trafficking.’ Hillary’s absence would give the impression that she had no connection to the scheme while making sure that her views were represented by Steinberg and Shapiro, both of whom were fully complicit with the details that developed concerning how to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico.
According to sources, Hillary was obsessed with gun statistics that would prove that ‘90% of the firearms used by Mexican criminals come from the United States.’ As previouly reported, that meme, repeated incessantly by Democratic Senators, Barack Obama, certan members of the ATF, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton was patently and blatantly false. The fact that they all knew it was false is borne out by the lengths to which each of the above named co-conspirators went to attempt to ‘prove’ that the 90% figure was true.
Again, Vanderboegh relates the following:
My sources say that this battle of the “statistics” was taken very seriously by all players — the White House, State and Justice. Yet, WHY was this game of statistics so important to the players? If some weapons from the American civilian market were making it to Mexico into the hand of drug gang killers that was bad enough. What was the importance of insisting that it was 90 percent, 80 percent, or finally 70 percent? Would such statistics make any difference to the law enforcement tactics necessary to curtail them? No.
This statistics mania is similar to the focus on “body counts” in Vietnam. Yet if Vietnam body counts were supposed to be a measure of how we were winning that war, the focus on the 90 percent meme was certainly not designed to be a measure of how we were winning the war against arming the cartels, but rather by what overwhelming standard we were LOSING. Why?
Recall what the whistleblower ATF agents told us right after this scandal broke in the wake of the death of Brian Terry: “ATF source confirms ‘walking’ guns to Mexico to ‘pad’ statistics.”
Thus, from the beginning the scheme was to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico in order to be in a strengthened position to call for gun bans and strict gun control at a time when it was politically unpopular. Further, the scheme would involve a made-up statistic, out of thin air–90%–which then had to be proved by using civilian gun retailers along the southern border as unsuspecting pawns to walk U.S. guns into Mexico by ATF agents, straw purchasers, and others with connections to Mexican drug cartels.
And the evidence points to the fact that Hillary Clinton was one of the original Administration officials who was ‘in the loop’ on the scheme from the very beginning.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/25/Poll-fast-furious-loser-obama?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+25%2C+2012&utm_campaign=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+25%2C+2012&utm_term=More
By 2 to 1, likely voters disapprove of Barry using executive privilege to prevent telling the truth about Fast and Furious.
Issa has written a letter to Barry, calling him out on his claim of executive privilege: http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/rep-darrell-issa-s-letter-to-president-obama-on-executive-privilege-and-fast-and-furious–20120626
“Courts have consistently held that the assertion of the constitutionally-based executive privilege — the only privilege that ever can justify the withholding of documents from acongressional committee by the Executive Branch — is only applicable with respect to documents and communications that implicate the confidentiality of the President’s decision-making process, defined as those documents and communications to and from the President and his most senior advisors. Even then, it is a qualified privilege that is overcome by a showing of the committee’s need for the documents. The letters from Messrs. Holder and Cole cited no caselaw to the contrary. Accordingly, your privilege assertion means one of two things. Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it,including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee, or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation. To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case. …
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a firefight with a group of armed Mexican bandits who preyed on illegal immigrants in a canyon west of Rio Rico, Arizona on December 14, 2010. Two guns traced to Operation Fast and Furious were found at the murder scene. The Terry family appeared before the Committee on June 15, 2011, to ask for answers about the program that put guns in the hands of the men who killed their son and brother. Having been stonewalled for months by the Attorney General and his senior staff, the Committee issued a subpoena for documents that would provide the Terry family the answers they seek.The subpoena was served on October 12, 2011. Internally, over the course of the next eight months, the Justice Department identified 140,000 pages of documents and communications responsive to the Committee’s subpoena. Yet,the Department handed over only 7,600 of these pages. …
In his letter, the Attorney General stated that releasing the documents covered by the subpoena, some of which he offered to the Committee hours earlier, would have “significant, damaging consequences.”
It remains unclear how — in a matter of hours — the Attorney General moved from offering those documents in exchange for canceling the contempt vote and ending the congressional investigation to claiming that they are covered by executive privilege and that releasing them — which the Attorney General was prepared to do hours earlier — would now result in “significant, damaging consequences.””
The whole letter is worth reading and saving because it’s a good summary of what has happened to date.
These are the actual emails the ATF sent regarding retaliation against whistleblowers
See attachments to the Grassley letter
Click to access 2012-06-29-CEG-DEI-to-DOJ-OIG-Thomasson-whistleblower-retaliation.pdf
The biggest scandal in U. S. history
Ann Coulter says Forget executive privilege, contempt of Congress, “Fast and Furious,” how many documents the government has produced and who said what to whom on which date.
The Obama administration has almost certainly engaged in the most shockingly vile corruption scandal in the history of the country, not counting the results of Season Eight on “American Idol.”
Administration officials intentionally put guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, so that when the guns taken from Mexican crime scenes turned out to be American guns, Democrats would have a reason to crack down on gun sellers in the United States.
Democrats will never stop trying to take our guns away. They see something more lethal than a salad shooter and wet themselves.
But since their party was thrown out of Congress for the first time in nearly half a century as a result of passing the 1994 “assault weapons ban,” even liberals know they were going to need a really good argument to pass any limitation on guns ever again.
So it’s curious that Democrats all started telling the same lie about guns as soon as Obama became president. In March 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced to reporters on a trip to Mexico: “Since we know that the vast majority, 90 percent of that weaponry (used by Mexican drug cartels), comes from our country, we are going to try to stop it from getting there in the first place.”
As she sentimentally elaborated on Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren show: “The guns sold in the United States, which are illegal in Mexico, get smuggled and shipped across our border and arm these terrible drug-dealing criminals so that they can outgun these poor police officers along the border and elsewhere in Mexico.”
Suddenly that 90 percent statistic was everywhere. It was like the statistic on women beaten by their husbands on Super Bowl Sunday.
CBS’ Bob Schieffer asked Obama on “Face the Nation”: “It’s my understanding that 90 percent of the guns that they’re getting down in Mexico are coming from the United States. We don’t seem to be doing a very good job of cutting off the gun flow. Do you need any kind of legislative help on that front? Have you, for example, thought about asking Congress to reinstate the ban on assault weapons?”
At a Senate hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said: “It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States.”
And then, thanks to Fox News — the first network to report it — we found out the 90 percent figure was complete bunkum. It was a fabrication told by William Hoover, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), and then spread like wildfire by Democrats and the media.
Mexican law enforcement authorities send only a fraction of the guns they recover from criminals back to the U.S. for tracing. Which guns do they send? The guns that have U.S. serial numbers on them. It would be like asking a library to produce all their Mark Twain books and then concluding that 90 percent of the books in that library are by Mark Twain.
You begin to see why the left hates Fox News so much.
Obama backed away from the preposterous 90 percent claim. His National Security Council spokesman explained to Fox News that by “recovered,” they meant “guns traceable to the United States.” So, in other words, Democrats were frantically citing the amazing fact that almost all the guns traceable to the U.S. were … traceable to the U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that even if the percentage is inaccurate, the “vast majority” of guns seized in crimes in Mexico come from the United States. (And he should know, because it turns out he was sending them there!)
This was absurd. Most of the guns used by drug cartels are automatic weapons — not to mention shoulder-fired rockets — that can’t be sold to most Americans. They are acquired from places like Russia, China and Guatemala.
Right about the time the 90 percent lie was unraveling, the Obama administration decided to directly hand thousands of American guns over to Mexican criminals. Apart from the fact that tracking thousands of guns into Mexico is not feasible or rational, the dumped guns didn’t have GPS tracing devices on them, anyway. There is no conceivable law enforcement objective to such a program.
This is what we know:
(1) Liberals thought it would be a great argument for gun control if American guns were ending up in the hands of Mexican criminals;
(2) They wanted that to be true so badly, Democrats lied about it;
(3) After they were busted on their lie, the Obama administration began dumping thousands of guns in the hands of Mexican criminals.
We also know that hundreds of people were murdered with these U.S.-government-supplied guns, including at least one American, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
But let’s look on the bright side. The BATF was originally going to ship warheads to Iran until realizing the explosions might disable the tracking devices.
(Contrary to more Democrat lies, there was no program to dump thousands of guns in Mexico under George W. Bush. The Bush administration did have a program that put GPS trackers on about 100 guns in order to actually trace them. That operation was ended almost as soon as it began because of the lack of cooperation from Mexican officials. You may as well say Holder’s program was “started” by the first cop who ever put tracer dye on contraband.)
No one has explained what putting 2,500 untraceable guns in the hands of Mexican drug dealers was supposed to accomplish.
But you know what that might have accomplished? It would make the Democrats’ lie retroactively true — allowing them to push for the same gun restrictions they were planning when they first concocted it. A majority of guns recovered from Mexican criminals would, at last, be American guns, because Eric Holder had put them there.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, some brave whistleblower inside the government leaked details of this monstrous scheme. As soon as Congress and the public demanded answers, Holder clammed up. He just says “oops” — and accuses Republicans of racism.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/high-ranking-mexican-drug-cartel-member-makes-explosive-allegation-fast-and-furious-is-not-what-you-think-it-is/
A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody is making startling allegations that the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious” isn’t what you think it is.
It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.
The explosive allegations are being made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” He was extradited to the Chicago last year to face federal drug charges.
Jesus Vincente Zambada-Niebla (Source: MSNBC)
Zambada-Niebla claims that under a “divide and conquer” strategy, the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa Cartel through Operation Fast and Furious in exchange for information that allowed the DEA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies to take down rival drug cartels. The Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly permitted to traffic massive amounts of drugs across the U.S. border from 2004 to 2009 — during both Fast and Furious and Bush-era gunrunning operations — as long as the intel kept coming.
This pending court case against Zambada-Niebla is being closely monitored by some members of Congress, who expect potential legal ramifications if any of his claims are substantiated. The trial was delayed but is now scheduled to begin on Oct. 9.
Zambada-Niebla is reportedly a close associate of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the son of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia, both of which remain fugitives, likely because of the deal made with the DEA, federal court documents allege….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaloa_Cartel
very interesting Renee, lots of ramificatations.Course I can’t claim I understand this highly complicated relationship with the US as drug smugglers, but if one reads Afghanistan’s opium/hashish history,the US looks suspiciously right in the thick of things there as well…Great Brittain also and of Course Russia was delighted to be a part of efforts focused on opium curbing efforts. Seems all the major countries govern the drug trade except for the Afghanis themselves. It will take years to understand all the players in the drug/money/ weapons/terrorist/political schemes and it goes back hundreds of years. So much is hidden; unless you’re on the inside you never get to the real juice of the matter. Only now…if this case can stir up trouble for Bush regime without connecting the present administration…I figure we won’t get the clearest information about it.