Tag Archives: Fast & Furious

Troubling Information

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On Wednesday, Judicial Watch posted an article about one of the guns used in the Paris terrorist attack. According to law enforcement sources, the gun was illegally purchased in Phoenix, Arizona. The obvious question is how did it get from Phoenix to Paris.

The article reports:

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

It’s not clear if the agency, which is responsible for cracking down on the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, did this because the individual was involved in the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme. An ATF spokesman, Corey Ray, at the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters told Judicial Watch that “no firearms used in the Paris attacks have been traced” by the agency. When asked about the ROI report linking the weapon used in Paris to Phoenix, Ray said “I’m not familiar with the report you’re referencing.” Judicial Watch also tried contacting the Phoenix ATF office, but multiple calls were not returned.

The gun was probably sold as part of ‘Fast and Furious,’ which is troubling enough, but I want to know how you get a gun from Phoenix to Paris in this age of airline security. Was it packed in the person’s checked luggage or did he manage to get it through the metal detectors? Did it go from the United States to France or from Mexico to France? How did the gun get into France, which has very strict gun laws? It would be very interesting to trace the journey of the gun from Phoenix to Paris. It is also interesting to note that this story is based on law enforcement leaks. The people who are charged with enforcing our laws have reached the point where they are so frustrated with the unequal enforcement of the laws that they are speaking out.

Fast And Furious Shows Up Again

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Yesterday Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall.com about the shooting in Texas at a Mohammed cartoon contest. Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson were the two gunmen who carried out the attack, after driving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Garland, Texas.

The article reports:

It turns out Soofi purchased his gun under the Holder Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious back in 2010. As a reminder, Operation Fast and Furious was a program that ran from 2009-2010 in which federal agents purposely allowed the sale of thousands of weapons, including handguns, AK-47s and .50-caliber rifles, to known drug cartels. Agents deliberately allowed weapons to be trafficked and lost in Mexico.

On Saturday, The Los Angeles Times reported some of the details of the gun purchase:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

As the owner of a small pizzeria, the Dallas-born Soofi, son of a Pakistani American engineer and American nurse, would not have been the primary focus of federal authorities, who back then were looking for smugglers and drug lords.

He is now.

The Fast and Furious Program has fallen out of the national spotlight. However, the consequences of the poor judgement exercised in the conception of that program is still with us. It is ironic that a poorly conceived program to capture drug lords would be used by terrorists to push forward their agenda.

 

This Lady Has More Courage Than All Of Congress

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Sharyl Attkisson has set up a website. I strongly recommend that you follow the link and visit the site. Ms. Attkisson resigned her job at CBS after encountering significant interference in her reporting on Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and other administration scandals. At one point her computer was hacked. She is a fantastic investigative reporter who was blocked from doing her job. The website is organized by topic, with links to various stories she has written on specific topics. I wish her the best and hope her website gets a million hits!

 

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Do Americans Really Have A Right To Privacy?

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The argument in Roe v. Wade was about Americans‘ right to privacy. This isn’t an article about abortion, but I think it is interesting to remember that argument in light of everything that is happening in America today–the NSA is spying on Americans, the IRS is targeting Americans, political opposition is being targeted, etc. Don’t Americans have the right to express themselves privately? Are we losing that right if we don’t agree with the people in power?

On Monday, CBS in Philadelphia reported that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer had been hacked. Ms. Attkisson is a CBS reporter who was pursuing stories on both Fast and Furious and the attack at Benghazi. I posted an article about her in May concerning her problems with the Obama Administration because of her reporting.

The article reports Ms. Attkisson’s comments on the hacking::

“Whoever was in my work computer, the only thing I was working on were work-related things with CBS were big stories I guess during the time period in questions were I guess Benghazi and ‘Fast and Furious.’ The intruders did have access to personal information including passwords to my financial accounts and so on, but didn’t tamper with those, so they weren’t interested in stealing my identity or doing things to my finances. So people can decide on their own what they might have been trying to do in there.”

…“We’re continuing to move forward aggressively, CBS News takes this very seriously, as do I. I think whenever an unauthorized party comes into the home of an American, whether it’s any private citizen or journalist and gets in their house, searches their computers — these are computers my family uses — and they’re inserting or removing material for whatever their reasons are, I think that’s a really serious and disturbing matter and we’re gonna follow it up and keep pursuing it.”

It will be interesting to see how far CBS News takes this investigation. I have a feeling that they may not like what they find and may be reluctant to report it.

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I Think There Is A Problem With This

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 America has three branches of government–the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. The idea is to divide the power so that no one branch takes control of the government. There is also the added benefit that each branch protects its own interests by keeping an eye on what the other branches are doing. Thus, we have Congressional hearings when the Executive branch gets a little feisty. The purpose of these hearings is to hold everyone accountable. The process works when everyone is held accountable. The process does not work when information is withheld from Congressional committees and the committees cannot properly do their work.
 

Yesterday the Daily Caller reported on some recent testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Operation Fast and Furious hearings. It seems that Attorney General Holder has not been entirely forthcoming with his emails regarding Operation Fast and Furious.

The article reports the following testimony:

“Most of the 5,000 documents you turned over are emails,” Issa said to Holder. “Mr. Attorney General, I have a question for you. Not one of these emails, in fact, is yours. Aren’t you a prolific emailer?”

Holder responded that, “No,” he is not a “prolific emailer.”

Issa followed up: “Don’t you email?”

Holder responded in the affirmative. “Do you have a personal email account as well as an attorney general email account?” Issa pressed.

“I have an email account at the Justice Department, yes,” Holder equivocated.

If I remember correctly, the press went after former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for using her personal email account for business when she was governor. Somehow the major press is not noticiing that the Attorney General seems to have done the same thing.

The article further reports:

Holder continued to avoid the line of questioning, and said that he’s provided an “unprecedented” amount of documents to Congress. But, he still wouldn’t cite a legal reason why he’s refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas and requests.

“In making production determinations, we have followed what attorneys general in the past have always used — applicable standards, whether these are Republican or Democrat attorneys general,” Holder said. “The information we’ve provided you has been responsive, has been, I think, wholesome and also unprecedented.”

I think this is political-speak for I am not going to willingly give you the information you are looking for–you are going to have to come after it. I hope Committee Chairman Representative Darrell Issa will do just that.

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The Smoking Gun In Operation Fast And Furious

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The Corner at National Review Online posted a story yesterday about some recent information that has come to light about Operation Fast and Furious. It seems that a lot of the testimony given to Congress disagrees with the documents given to Congress. National Review commented on the latest example.

The following email shows from ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait in July 2010 to Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.” 

This email and other information was posted at CBS News yesterday.

The article at The Corner shows that Mark Chait attended a meeting about Operation Fast and Furious in January 2010 and was probably briefed on the Operation before that. So what is the point of all this?

The Corner reports:

According to an August 2011 press release from Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee, in testimony Chait “stated that [he] did not learn about the tactics used in [Fast and Furious] or about the specific concerns of the line agents until earlier this year.”

Mr. Chait’s memory (at least according to the information given) is off by a year.

The CBS News article concludes:

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating Fast and Furious, as well as the alleged use of the case to advance gun regulations. “There’s plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement. But, we’ve learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It’s pretty clear that the problem isn’t lack of burdensome reporting requirements.”

 On July 12, 2011, Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees ATF. They asked Holder whether officials in his agency discussed how “Fast and Furious could be used to justify additional regulatory authorities.” So far, they have not received a response. CBS News asked the Justice Department for comment and context on ATF emails about Fast and Furious and Demand Letter 3, but officials declined to speak with us.

 “In light of the evidence, the Justice Department’s refusal to answer questions about the role Operation Fast and Furious was supposed to play in advancing new firearms regulations is simply unacceptable,” Rep. Issa told CBS News.

Has anyone really thought through what limits on who can own guns would accomplish? Has it occurred to the government bureaucrats that even if guns were totally illegal criminals would still find a way to get them. That would leave criminals armed and innocent people unarmed. Do we really want to do that?

The guns that were sold in Operation Fast and Furious were sold because of the intervention of the ATF. The article at CBS News cites gun dealers who were uncomfortable with being asked to sell the guns, but were told by the ATF to continue to sell them. Frankly, I think the gun dealers were more conscientious than the government in attempting to protect American citizens.

 

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The Fast And Furious Document Dump

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Yesterday Michael A. Walsh posted an article at the New York Post about the White House’s Friday night 1,400-page document dump concerning Operation Fast and Furious.

Basically, the documents released contradict the Obama’s administration’s claim that Eric Holder and President Obama were totally unaware of what was going on with Operation Fast and Furious. This is an interesting claim considering that the administration has recently sealed all records relating to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed using a gun that was traced back to Operation Fast and Furious.

The evidence is growing that the charges made by Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa about Operation Fast and Furious are, in fact, true. The Obama administration did allow about 2,000 high-powered weapons to be sold to Mexican drug cartel agents and then taken across the border and into the Mexican drug wars. There has been speculation that this was done so that a case could be made to place tighter gun laws on Americans. At this time I would like to mention that the problem with gun laws is that only law-abiding citizens pay attention to them. Generally, all that gun laws accomplish is to disarm an innocent public while arming criminals. Eventually this leads to more gun crimes–not less.

The article concludes:

It’s time for the months of lies to end — but don’t hold your breath. The administration recently sealed the court records relating to agent Terry’s murder and — a year later — the one man arrested hasn’t been tried.

So far, three presidential candidates, a couple of senators and more than 50 congressmen have called for Holder to resign. If he can’t answer the one question that matters — why — that number ought to include his boss.

Keep in mind that had the Democrat Party maintained control of the House of Representatives, we would not be hearing about Operation Fast and Furious. It would have been buried. We need to elect Congressmen in 2012 who will put the good of the country above the good of their individual party.

 

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The Dog Ate My Homework

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In the Friday night document dump by the Obama administration this week, you will find all sorts of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Late last night, Big Government reported on the document dump. The letters are supposed to show how the Department of Justice accidentally gave Senator Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee inaccurate information on Operation Fast and Furious.

The article reports:

In a letter last February to Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had not sanctioned the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser and that the agency makes every effort to intercept weapons that have been purchased illegally. In Operation Fast and Furious, both statements turned out to be incorrect.

 

The Justice Department letter was responding to Grassley’s statements that the Senate Judiciary Committee had received allegations the ATF had sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers. Grassley also said there were allegations that two of the assault weapons had been used in a shootout that killed customs agent Brian Terry.

When asked about the weapon used to kill Brian Terry, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke stated in an email that the weapon was purchased in a Phoenix gun shop before Operation Fast and Furious began. That was later shown to be false.

Please follow the link to Big Government to read the entire article. Also keep in mind that had Operation Fast and Furious not been uncovered and made public, the Obama administration would have used ‘the amount of American guns used in crimes in Mexico’ as an excuse to take away the rights of law-abiding gun owners. It wasn’t the gun owners who broke the law in Operation Fast and Furious–it was the federal government.

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If These Records Ever Get Unsealed They Will Be Dumped On Either A Friday Night Or Christmas Eve

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Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard Blog reported today:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

This story has been a nightmare for the administration since the story first broke. On October 4, 2011, Big Government reported on a CBS reporter who had been yelled at by the Department of Justice for reporting on Operation Fast and Furious. These documents need to be made public and the entire story told.

 

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A New Level Of Chutzpah

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The level of chutzpah in the Obama administration never ceases to amaze me. The latest example is Eric Holder’s recent testimony before the House of Representatives. Hot Air posted a story on the testimony yesterday, complete with a Townhall.com video of the actual testimony.

The article at Hot Air reports:

That means he (Eric Holder) not only called for tighter gun control regulations — he also accused the House of Representatives of keeping law enforcement in the dark “when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles and shotguns in Southwest border gun shops.”

There are no words…

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I Really Don’t Understand Who Knew What About Fast And Furious–Or When They Knew It!

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On Thursday, Real Clear Politics posted two transcripts–one of Eric Holder testifying before Congress in May saying he had first heard of Operation Fast and Furious “for the first time over the last few weeks” and another of the President in March saying “Eric Holder has — the attorney general has been very clear that he knew nothing about this. We had assigned an I.G., inspector general, to investigate it.”

I have no idea what the truth is here. My conclusion is that we need an independent investigator to find out why the U. S. Government was engaged in gun running to Mexico. Who knew, what they knew, and when they knew are all questions that need to be answered.

Please follow the link above to Real Clear Politics to read the entire interviews. The whole situation seems to get more confusing every day.

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More Bad News From Operation Fast And Furious

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22 – El Paso, Texas

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On Saturday the Los Angeles Times reported that 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

The article reports that three months into the Fast and Furious program, El Paso, Texas, began to emerge as a hub for the weapons traffic.

The article reports:

On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.

The article further reports:

Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.

Notice that in both cases, the weapons were discovered by alert police officers–whatever tracing the government claims to have put on these guns was non-existent. The Los Angeles Times also posted a chronology of events regarding Fast and Furious through October 8. It is amazing to realize the scope of this program.

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One Reason You May Not Be Hearing The Entire Truth In The Mainstream Media

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Yesterday Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported that CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, who has been covering the Operation Fast and Furious scandal for CBS News was screamed at by the White House and Justice Department for reporting on the story. Ms. Attkisson was interviewed on the Laura Ingraham show, the transcript of the interview is posted in the Weekly Standard article.

The article reports:

Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me. [Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?] Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House.”

Finally, Attkisson notes that the White House is claiming that a thorough investigation of the scandal is unwarranted:

[The White House and Justice Department] 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.

This may explain why CBS is the only news outlet that has actually asked questions about Operation Fast and Furious. I think it is particularly interesting that the reporter was accused of being biased because she has pursued the story. Wouldn’t she have been biased if she had chosen to ignore the story?



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The Friday Night Document Dump

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Darrell Issa

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Traditionally, the White House (regardless of which party the President represents) uses Friday night as the time to release information that they hope no one will pay attention to. This weeks document dump had to do with Operation Fast and Furious.

CBS News reports:

The documents show extensive communications between then-ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office Bill Newell – who led Fast and Furious – and then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. Emails indicate the two also spoke on the phone. Such detailed, direct communications between a local ATF manager in Phoenix and a White House national security staffer has raised interest among Congressional investigators looking into Fast and Furious. Newell has said he and O’Reilly are long time friends.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reports:

However, the chief counsel to President Barack Obama, Kathryn Ruemmler, indicated that the White House was withholding an unspecified number of internal e-mails exchanged among three National Security Staff aides.

“These internal NSS emails are not included in the enclosed documents because the [Executive Office of the President] has significant confidentiality interests in its internal communications,” Ruemmler wrote in a letter to House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). The letter, posted here, was obtained Friday by POLITICO.

The latest batch of 102 pages of records partially duplicated information previously sent to Congress and didn’t appear to include any smoking guns showing that White House officials were aware that the operation involved allowing hundreds or thousands of guns to flow essentially unimpeded from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

Mr. Morrissey further reminds us that:

This is rather amusing.  Three years ago, a Democratic House sued to get Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify over the termination of US Attorneys, who are political appointments that serve at the pleasure of the President, and rejected the notion that executive privilege applied to such executive-branch personnel decisions.  Now we have an ATF operation that armed drug cartels and resulted in hundreds of murders from guns supplied by the US government, including the murder of a Border Patrol agent here in the US — and Democrats think that should be covered by executive privilege. 

I hope the Congressional Oversight Committee has the tenacity to get to the bottom of Operation Fast and Furious and remove those people who were responsible for the operation from their government positions.


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Speaking Of Incredible Coincidences…

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Katie Pavlich at Townhall.com is reporting that the Department of Justice wants to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The move would involve the firing of 450 ATF agents. Some of the duties of the ATF would be transferred to other government agencies; for example, the enforcement of explosives and gun laws would possibly be transferred to the FBI and the DEA.

The article points out that the idea of eliminating the ATF comes just as the investigation of Fast and Furious is uncovering embarrassing links to some of the major players in the Obama administration.

The article points out:

Up to this point, the Department of Justice has denied all allegations or involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, yet journalists and the House Oversight Committee have proved allegation after allegation to be true. For example, during a Congressional  hearing in July, former ATF Special Agent in Charge William Newell, who has since been promoted to a position within the Justice Department, denied that his agency was trafficking guns to Mexico, despite overwhelming evidence and testimony from other ATF agents proving otherwise.

Ms. Pavlich concludes:

Last week, ATF offered 400 agents buy outs to avoid budget cuts and is expecting 250-275 agents to take the offer through Voluntary Early Retirement. These buyouts come at a convenient time for the Justice Department, which can eliminate ATF, then say it’s because of budget cuts, when really, it’s to cover their tracks.

As much as I love the idea of actually getting rid of a government agency, I don’t think this is the time to talk about getting rid of the ATF. It may be the time to look at what the agency did in Operation Fast and Furious, but it isn’t a good idea to eliminate an agency in the middle of a Congressional investigation.

 

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An Update On Fast And Furious

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article yesterday with some new details on Operation Fast and Furious. The New York Post has reported that the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) ordered one of its agents to buy weapons with taxpayer money and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.

The article reports:

Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy four Draco pistols for cash and even got a letter from his supervisor, David Voth, authorizing a federally licensed gun dealer to sell him the guns without bothering about the necessary paperwork. …

This is no way to run a country. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Fast and Furious guns turned up in El Paso, Texas in January 2010.

The article at Hot Air speculates on why the Fast and Furious was allowed to continue after it became obvious that the operation was out of control. There are two possible reasons:

1.  The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners. The operation was manufacturing “evidence” for the president’s false claim that we’re to blame for the appalling levels of Mexican drug-war violence.

Or:

2. A second notion is that the CIA was behind the whole thing, which accounts for all the desperate wagon-circling. Under this theory, the Agency feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.

The article at Hot Air suggests that it may be a combination of the two. At any rate, it would be nice to see someone in the government held accountable for this horrible operation.

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The Death Toll Related To Operation Fast And Furious Grows

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CBS News reported yesterday that three more murders have been linked to guns bought as part of Operation Fast and Furious. The article posts portions of a letter from the Justice Department listing weapons that have been found at various crime scenes in Mexico. It is an unfortunate chapter in the history of America that we were involved in gunrunning operations to Mexico.

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A Federal Program Gone Horribly Wrong

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Last Thursday the Los Angeles Times reported that a second violent crime has been linked to the Fast and Furious gun program.  Two Arizona undercover police officers attempted to stop two men in a stolen vehicle approximately five months after the Fast and Furious program began. The men in the stolen vehicle rammed their cars, threatened them with guns, and fled into the desert. The driver and passenger were caught. The driver was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, driving the stolen vehicle and illegal possession of the weapons. The passenger, a citizen of Mexico, was charged with possession of narcotics and the stolen vehicle.

A Beretta pistol and AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle were found in the stolen Ford truck, the police said.

The article reports:

The weapons found in the vehicle were the 9-millimeter Beretta, hidden under the front console, and the AK-47 in the back seat. Authorities in Arizona said they were told both weapons were illegally purchased under the Fast and Furious program that began in November 2009. Also in the truck were four boxes of ammunition for the AK-47, a box of 23 9-mm bullets for the Beretta, and four cases of Bud Light beer.

The article reports that about 2,000 weapons were allowed to be illegally purchased in the Phoenix area, and the vast majority were lost track of by ATF agents. The Fast and Furious program is a disgrace to this country, and those responsible for it need to be relieved of their authority.

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