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Congress To Holder: Quit
Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign even as the country’s top lawyer dodged questions about his involvement in what many are calling a criminal scheme by the U.S. government to traffic weapons to Mexican drug gangs.
During his testimony, Holder ranted angrily about the alleged “unfairness” of him having to answer questions about why he used bogus documents to conceal the fact that weapons sold in the government gunrunning operation were used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
“Nobody’s been disciplined. Nobody’s been fired,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) told the embattled Holder. “It might be time for you to resign.”
Holder opened his remarks by acknowledging that “Fast and Furious”—the U.S. governmental operation to supply arms to Mexican narco- guerrillas, who are waging veritable war against the governments of Mexico and the United States—was a mistake. However, he claimed it was cooked up by people in his employ and was something he could not personally be held accountable for.
Evidence presented to the committee during five previous hearings shows that Holder lied to Congress about Fast and Furious, claiming it did not exist. Since then, he has changed his tune and also admitted that the Justice Department laundered money for Mexican drug gangs as well.
Was CIA behind Operation Fast and Furious?
New and troubling motive for Team Obama’s illegal gunrunning scheme
Why did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) let criminals buy firearms, smuggle them across the Mexican border and deliver them into the hands of vicious drug cartels? The ATF claims it launched its now-disgraced Operation Fast and Furious in 2009 to catch the “big fish.” Fast and Furious was designed to stem the “Iron River” flowing from American gun stores into the cartels’ arsenals. The bureau says it allowed gun smuggling so it could track the firearms and arrest the cartel members downstream. Not true.
During the course of Operation Fast and Furious, about 2,000 weapons moved from U.S. gun stores to Mexican drug cartels – exactly as intended.
In congressional testimony, William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, testified that the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Newell’s list left out the most important player: the CIA. According to a CIA insider, the agency had a strong hand in creating, orchestrating and exploiting Operation Fast and Furious.
The CIA’s motive is clear enough: The U.S.… Continue reading
U.S. Sale of Legal Firearms Destined for Cartels Overshadows Fast & Furious
(CBS News)
Selling weapons to Mexico – where cartel violence is out of control – is controversial because so many guns fall into the wrong hands due to incompetence and corruption. The Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons “missing.”
Yet the U.S. has approved the sale of more guns to Mexico in recent years than ever before through a program called “direct commercial sales.” It’s a program that some say is worse than the highly-criticized “Fast and Furious” gunrunning scandal, where U.S. agents allowed thousands of weapons to pass from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson discovered that the official tracking all those guns sold through “direct commercial sales” leaves something to be desired.
One weapon – an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle – tells the story. In 2006, this same kind of rifle – tracked by serial number – is legally sold by a U.S. manufacturer to the Mexican military.
Three years later – it’s found in a criminal stash in a region wracked by Mexican drug cartel violence.
That prompted a “sensitive” cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, dated June 4, 2009, in which the U.S. State Department asked Mexico “how the AR-15″ –… Continue reading
A Plot To Undermine The Right To Bear Arms
Scandal: Newly obtained documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives discussed using its covert operation Fast and Furious to argue for new rules about gun sales. We told you so.
As we observed in June, the way Fast and Furious — the government’s gun-running operation that resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — was conducted made no sense unless its intent was to facilitate violence with U.S. weapons in the interests of pursuing the administration’s gun-control agenda.
Now documents obtained by CBS News confirm that our first suspicions were correct.
As CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson reports, emails show ATF officials discussed using the deliberate transfer of weapons to Mexican drug cartels to justify a new gun regulation known as “Demand Letter 3.”
We say deliberate because congressional testimony by ATF agents demonstrates how the tracking of Fast and Furious weapons stopped at the border and that requests to interdict the weapons transfers and arrest the gun traffickers were denied by higher-ups.
Demand Letter 3 was so named because it was the third ATF attempt to have Southwest gun shops report all long-gun (rifle or shotgun) sales to the ATF — even those to law-abiding American citizens with all the proper registration and other forms.
On July 14, 2010, five months before Terry’s murder, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, the 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 sales. Thanks.”
On Jan. 24, as the ATF was preparing to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, another email showed Newell saw it as an opportunity “to address multiple sales on long guns issue.”
After the press conference, Chait emailed Newell that in “light of our request for Demand Letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of the case.”
Two earlier Demand Letters affected only a handful of dealers.
As it was funneling some 2,000 guns to Mexican criminals and drug lords, the Justice Department announced April 25 that it was requiring 8,500 gun stores in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico to report individual purchases of multiple rifles of greater than .22 caliber by law-abiding American citizens to the ATF because — get this — such guns are “frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest border.”
Eric Holder’s New Scandal: Money Laundering For Cartels
Scandal: The House committee probing government gun-running now sets it sights on possible money-laundering involving drug cartel funds run in the name of drug enforcement. Why should we believe DOJ this time?
It’s an old adage that when investigating criminal activity you should follow the money. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has announced an investigation into a money-laundering operation allegedly run by the Drug Enforcement Administration. We may need to follow the people following the money.
Just as Fast and Furious was allegedly intended to track and interdict gun-trafficking into Mexico, this operation, detailed in a New York Times article Sunday, is said to have as its purpose to follow how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.
But the question once again arises: Have the feds interrupted or aided the flow?
After a Friday document dump showing how deliberately deceptive the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder were regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the government’s gun-running operation that led to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, it’s hard to believe this latest scheme was well-run.
In a Monday letter to Holder, Issa noted that as in Fast and Furious “this same goal of dismantling Mexican drug cartels motivated the Drug Enforcement Administration in aiding and abetting these same cartels in laundering millions of dollars in cash.”
It may have produced equally tragic results. Continue reading
Documents: ATF used “Fast and Furious” to make the case for gun regulations
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.
In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3″. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.
On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed 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.”
