Fast and Furious Roundup

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’ - Fred Lucas

Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

In 255-67 vote, House places Holder in contempt of Congress - Jordy Yager and Pete Kasperowicz

The House voted Thursday to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not complying with a congressional subpoena.

Seventeen Democrats bucked party lines and voted with Republicans to pass a criminal contempt resolution in a 255-67 vote. House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pushed that resolution as part of his 16-month investigation into the  botched "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking operation.

Fast and Furious Noose Tightens Around Justice Department - Andrew C. McCarthy

Explosive reports are now surfacing that Justice Department officials clearly knew about the Fast and Furious “gunwalking” tactic, in which the federal government — actually, a task force comprised of Justice Department agencies and led by ATF, a Justice Department agency — allowed upwards of 1400 illegally purchased firearms to be routed to violent Mexican drug gangs. This recklessness led, quite foreseeably, to the murder of at least one federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and probably a second, Homeland Security Agent Jaime Zapata. There are reportedly also scores of victims in Mexico.

The reports, including this one from Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times, explain that this gunwalking information was contained in applications the Justice Department made to the court for wiretapping authorization beginning no later than March 2010 (i.e., over eight months before Agent Terry was killed). Readers of Ordered Liberty will not be surprised to hear this. As I explained in a post last week:

[T]here were wiretaps in the F&F investigation, and when the government seeks a wiretap, federal law requires it to explain what investigative tactics have been used in the case, an explanation that is vetted by top DOJ officials because the government cannot apply for the wiretap without the approval of the attorney general or his designee (a high Justice Department official) — it seems highly unlikely, assuming DOJ complied with wiretap law, that top Justice Department officials did not know about the gun-walking tactic until late in the game.

Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record - Jonathan Strong

While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.

In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.

“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.

The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.

It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.

Fast and Furious Update

With Eric Holder testifying before Congress, and the release of new documents in the case, many new reports have appeared:

A Fast & Furious state of mind - Scott Johnson

Holder, Grilled on Gun Inquiry, Says He Won’t Resign - Charlie Savage

‘Furious’ twisting, Eric Holder stonewalls on - Michael A. Walsh

Sparks fly during Eric Holder 'Fast & Furious' testimony - Josh Gerstein & Tim Mak

Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations - Sharyl Attkisson

Documents: ATF Used ‘Fast and Furious’ to Make Case for Gun Control - Publius

Fast and Furious - Matthew Hoy

Rep. Matthew Hoy (R-Hoystory): Shame? Shame!? Hundreds of Mexicans are dead. Border Agent Brian Terry is dead. The department that you have authority over allowed more than 2,000 guns to cross the border into the hands of violent drug cartels and you have the gall to chide elected representatives of the American people who seek to hold you to account for your lawlessness?

Shame?

Your deputy submitted a letter to Congress that you withdrew only after subsequent disclosures proved it to be full of lies. You can split legal hairs about there being no “intent” to deceive Congress when that letter was originally submitted, but as time goes by that claim begins to look flimsier and flimsier.

Shame?

We found out just days ago that that ATF officials sought to use the violence in Mexico and the fact that U.S.-bought guns were showing up at crime scenes in that country as a pretext to push for further restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. You, of course, were ignorant of this.

Shame?

It’s been the better part of six months, or maybe 9 or 12, depending on the quality of your memory and the meaningless difference between “weeks” and “months” in your concept of time, since you knew about this operation and not a single individual has lost their job, let alone has had charges filed against them for violations of federal laws.

Hundreds are dead as a direct result of actions undertaken by your subordinates and you wish to shame Congress?

Mr. Attorney General, if you had any integrity. If you had any honor, you would fire those most responsible for this travesty and then resign yourself.

The only person in this committee room who should be feeling shame is you and what you allowed—either by design or by neglect—to happen in Operation Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious vs. Wide Receiver

Under oath, Holder discredits 'Bush did it too' excuse for 'Gunwalker' - Kurt Hofmann

In 75 seconds of pointed questioning of Attorney General Holder (see sidebar video), Senator John Cornyn has perhaps left the excuse makers scrambling for something better. In that time, he asked Holder if he knew that Operation Wide Receiver (the Bush-era operation) actually did involve an attempt to track the firearms, while Fast and Furious did not. Cornyn then asked Holder if he knew that Operation Wide Receiver was run in conjunction with the Mexican government--Fast and Furious was kept secret from not only Mexico, but from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) attaché to Mexico, Darren Gil. Gil, in fact, after discovering on his own what was going on, was basically pushed into retirement when he balked at the near act of war of "walking" guns into Mexico without the Mexican government's knowledge or permission.

Holder was eventually forced into the position of having to put the "Bush did it too" excuse out of its misery himself:

Senator, I have not tried to equate the two--I have not tried to equate Wide Receiver with Fast and Furious. . . . Again, I'm not trying to equate the two.

Follow the link for many other related articles.

‘Furious’ excuse-making - Michael A. Walsh

Blame Bush. The latest defense is that Fast and Furious grew out of a superficially similar Bush-era operation, Operation Wide Receiver, which also sought to trace illegal firearms in Mexico.

Yet the differences are crucial: The Bush op was tightly controlled, with the illegal purchases conducted under tight surveillance, and was a joint Mexican-American endeavor. Plus, it involved only about 500 guns, some fitted with radio tracking devices.

F&F, by contrast, involved thousands of guns, whose purchases were actively encouraged by federal officials and whose transfers across the border went deliberately unmolested. And it was kept secret from our Mexican allies.

Even More Fast and Furious

‘Fast & Furious’: How a botched operation spawned fatal results - Jerry Seper

Agent Carlos Canino, ATF’s acting attache to Mexico, angrily told the committee that “walking guns” was not a recognized investigative technique, adding that hundreds of weapons ultimately went to ruthless criminals in Mexico.

“It infuriates me that people, including my law enforcement, diplomatic and military colleagues, may be killed or injured with these weapons,” he said, adding that “never in my wildest dreams” would he have thought that ATF agents would allow guns to be walked to Mexican criminals.

Noting that Fast and Furious ended with the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, one high-ranking former Border Patrol official described the operation as “scary.”

“The only thing I can figure is that the politicians in the upper management of the agencies involved decided it would work,” the official told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of being reprimanded. “They sure as hell couldn’t have run it by the agents in the field who would have known what would happen.”

...

Mr. Newell testified that ATF had good intentions when it began the operation in 2009 and that it was not its purpose to permit the transfer of firearms to Mexico. He said he would do such an investigation again with some changes.

Emphasis added.

The Sheriff's Press Conference

Sheriff Paul Babeu: “And You Should Ask Yourself, My God, What Have I Done” - Robert Farago

Some may ask what’s the issue here: All of this gunfire is happening in run-down small towns in a country that’s always been a mess. Sheriff Babeu clearly lays out why Operation Fast and Furious isn’t just Mexico’s problem, it’s a problem for all of us.

Every time there’s a shooting or there’s a crime committed on American soil, the first question SHOULDN’T be, ‘My God, were these the guns that our own government gave these criminals.’

The Reasonable Press

Has the press ever been "reasonable" in the past? Have they ever eased up on Republican administrations?

• Watergate
• Iran/Contra
• Scooter Libby

Or how about the highly vaunted public's "right to know"?

• Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
• Terrorist Surveillance Program

Except for a few bravely inquisitive reporters, they suddenly seem to have decided "There's nothing to see here folks. Move along."

Why Obama’s Flacks Bullied a CBS Reporter - Keith Koffler

President Obama’s press office bullies are in high gear, a sure sign that there are legs to the story about Attorney General Eric Holder’s potential perjury before the House Judiciary Committee.

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is doggedly pursuing the case, reporting that Holder knew about the Fast and Furious operation well before he said he did under oath last May, when he testified to the panel he’d just learned of it “over the last few weeks.” In fact, it appears, he was told about Fast and Furious in 2010.

A Justice Department spokeswoman and White House spokesman launched at Attkisson what few people realize is a routine Obama administration tactic – attempt to quash good journalism that’s bad for Obama by intimidating reporters.

...

ATTKISSON: They will tell you that I’m the only reporter- as they told me- that is not reasonable. They say ‘The Washington Post’ is reasonable, the ‘LA Times’ is reasonable, ‘The New York Times’ is reasonable- I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.