Operation Fast and Furious

[clover]

Back to Fast and Furious:

"Not one witness, not one document, not one e-mail, and still some continue to suggest that you (Eric Holder) did personally authorize gunwalking and the tactics in Operation Fast and Furious."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/02/holder-says-no-one-punished-yet-during-testimony-on-controversial-fast-and/?test=latestnews#ixzz1lPmR8hms

The News agencies make their living by reporting "news".  Amazingly Fox is the only news agency that thinks this failed political circus is news.  We all know if Holder is not indicted the Fox News folks will claim it was a left wing conspiracy and a cover up.  The one thing we know is that "what is perceived is real" is the primary premise for a "belief" system.  Facts are inconsequential

[ragman]

Is CNN now a branch of Fox News?     Yes, firings and charges will come right after the election.  Maybe. 

'Fast and Furious' consequences coming, Holder says
   
FacebookTwitterDiggdeliciousredditMySpaceStumbleUponLinkedInFebruary 02, 2012|By the CNN Wire Staff
 
Firings and charges against Justice Department officials who oversaw the agency's flawed gun-running operation are likely to come in the next six months, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.
Holder was speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the controversial sting operation called Operation Fast and Furious.
Asked what steps he had taken since the controversy came to light 13 months ago, Holder said he is awaiting the conclusions of an internal investigation.
Regarding people found culpable in that inquiry, he said, "I can assure you those people will be removed from federal service."
 Any possible charges will not be filed until the department has the evidence to get a conviction, he said at the hearing.
The operation, designed to monitor the flow of weapons, allowed illegally purchased firearms to be taken from U.S. gun stores across the Mexican border to drug cartels.
However, hundreds of weapons were lost or unaccounted for, and a storm of outrage erupted when two of the missing weapons were found at a site where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.
Terry's family filed a $25 million wrongful death claim Wednesday against the federal government, charging that U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals.
"The murder of Agent Terry and other acts of violent crimes were the natural consequence of (the) decision to let dangerous weapons designed to kill human beings 'walk' into the hands of violent drug-trafficking gangs," the claim said.
Democrats and Republicans have been at odds over who knew what about the operation and when.
At the outset of the hearing, new information on the operation was scarce, and the back-and-forth between members of the two parties dominated.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, threatened to begin a contempt proceeding against Holder to force him to release more documents and pressed him for proof that such gun-running will not happen again.
Republicans are investigating how high up the operation was sanctioned, while Democrats defended Holder's testimony that he did not know about it.
The showdown comes after Issa and the Justice Department exchanged sharp letters in recent days.
The Justice Department sent a pointed letter to Issa late Wednesday, rejecting his demand on Tuesday that certain documents be turned over by next week.

[clover]

that article on CNN was not on the front page. as it was on Fox news, and was dated Feb 2nd.  It's not "news" on CNN...it's information.

Issa said an e-mail showed that "Breuer suggested allowing straw purchasers cross in Mexico so (Mexican authorities) can arrest, prosecute and convict."
"These new documents show that Breuer made this statement on February 4, 2011, the same day Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Congress denying that the department allowed guns to walk," Issa said.

I don't see HOLDER"S name anywhere in that statement do you?  This Bullshit is over.....The Obama administration didn't set Fast and Furious up to be the poster child for modifying 2nd amendment rights, as Grassley and Issa supposed.  this just turned out to be the continuation of another failed Bush program gone bad.  Keep dreaming Jim......but there's nothing here to see...besides the complete embarrassment of Issa............who has failed miserably.

[ragman]

Thank you Andrew.  Even from the grave you continue the battle.  But of course the AG didn't know anything about allowing guns to walk so a campaign against the 2nd Amendment could begin.  Probably just in time for an election issue?    He had no interest in more restrictive gun laws.    Maybe that hot line could be kids informing on their parents?  Oh they tried that with the help of some doctors.  

The Vetting - Holder 1995: We Must 'Brainwash' People on Guns

Breitbart.com has uncovered video from 1995 of then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder announcing a public campaign to "really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way."
 
Holder was addressing the Woman's National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to "change the hearts and minds of people in Washington, DC" about guns.
 
"What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes."
 
Holder added that he had asked advertising agencies in the nation's capital to assist by making anti-gun ads rather than commercials "that make me buy things that I don't really need." He had also approached local newspapers and television stations, he said, asking them to devote prime space and time, respectively, to his anti-gun campaign.
 
Local political leaders and celebrities, Holder said, including Mayor Marion Barry and Jesse Jackson, had been asked to help. In addition, he reported, he had asked the local school board to make the anti-gun message a part of "every day, every school, and every level."
 
Despite strict gun control efforts, Washington, DC was and remains one of the nation's most dangerous cities for gun violence, though crime has abated somewhat since the 1990s.
 
Holder went on to become Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, and currently serves as Attorney General in the Obama Administration.
 
The video of Holder's remarks was uncovered by Breitbart.com contributor Charles C. Johnson.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/18/Holder-Outlines-How-To-Change-Public-Opinion-On-Guns

PS Talk about Chickens coming home to roost.   

[ragman]

More and more is coming out about the ineptitude of the ATF and the AG.  Heads should roll.   Of course it also reflects the same for the administration.      Think about this.  They knew or thought he was going to a Birthday party where some of the top at the Drug Cartel would be.  Did they at least notify the Mexican authorities?  It doesn't seem so.  Did they have a confidential informant agreement or any written agreement for cooperation with the man they arrested?  No, they let him go on the spot.  What incompetence.  Do you get the feeling that maybe they where not interested in the Drug Cartel?  Maybe their only interest was manufacturing a 2nd Amendment issue.   

Feeling depressed, betrayed and anxious about the future of America?

306 Days, 22 Hours, 13 Minutes, 15 Seconds

until Inauguration Day 2013 and the end of our long national nightmare.  

Gun-tracking operation caught top suspect, then let him go
Federal agents stopped the main target of the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious in May 2010. After they questioned him, he disappeared back into Mexico, and the program went on to spiral out of control.

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
March 19, 2012
Reporting from Washington—
Seven months after federal agents began the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, they stumbled upon their main suspect in a remote Arizona outpost on the Mexican border, driving an old BMW with 74 rounds of ammunition and nine cellphones hidden inside.

Detained for questioning that day in May 2010, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta described to agents from theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosiveshis close association with a top Mexican drug cartel member, according to documents obtained this weekend by the Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after he pledged to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators.

Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico. He never called.

Had they arrested him red-handed trying to smuggle ammunition into Mexico, Fast and Furious might have ended quickly. Instead, the program dragged on for another eight months, spiraling out of control.

Celis-Acosta continued slipping back and forth across the border, authorities say, illegally purchasing more U.S. weapons and financing others. He was not arrested until February 2011, a month after Fast and Furious closed down.

The operation, run by the ATF's Phoenix field office, allowed illegal gun purchases in Arizona in hopes of tracking the weapons to Mexican drug cartel leaders. Instead, about 1,700 guns vanished, and scores turned up at crime scenes in Mexico. Two were found south of Tucson where U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot to death in December 2010.

Why ATF agents did not arrest Celis-Acosta immediately is not clear. He was their prime suspect and the subject of secret wiretaps approved by the Justice Department.

"Due to the fact that the criminal case is still ongoing in the courts, and the inspector general's office is still investigating, we cannot comment about this," ATF chief spokesman Drew Wade said.

Other law enforcement officials, speaking anonymously because of ongoing investigations, acknowledged it was a crucial blunder in a deeply flawed program. "I don't know why they didn't arrest him," one said. "They certainly could have."

But, another argued, agents may have viewed Celis-Acosta as a possible conduit to the cartels. "He was cooperating and talking a lot and giving up a lot," he said. "From an investigative standpoint, that's pretty good information you're getting. Maybe he can hook you into even bigger fish."

Fast and Furious, which is under investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), began Oct. 31, 2009. From the start, Celis-Acosta, 24, was the main target, according to internal ATF documents that have not been publicly released. An ATF flow chart listed him at the top of more than two dozen individuals involved in the gun-smuggling ring.

The documents state that Celis-Acosta led the smuggling ring and that he was paid from drug proceeds to illegally acquire firearms for cartels. He carried a permanent U.S. resident card, a Social Security number and an Arizona driver's license. He moved easily between homes in Mexico and Phoenix. Eventually arrested by U.S. marshals at a relative's home in El Paso, he pleaded not guilty to gun-smuggling charges as one of 19 Fast and Furious defendants. None of the 19 has gone to trial.

According to an ATF "Report of Investigation," prepared by MacAllister, authorized by her supervisor, David J. Voth, and reviewed by William D. Newell, then the ATF special agent in charge in Arizona, U.S. authorities stopped Celis-Acosta as he headed south through the border town of Lukeville, Ariz.

The document said an ammunition magazine containing 74 rounds was hidden in a spare tire, and the phones in the dash. In the trunk of the 2002 BMW 754i was a ledger referring to money given to "Killer" and a list of firearms.

Celis-Acosta first said he did not know the ammunition was inside. He said a friend's mother bought the BMW "with a credit card."

MacAllister was called to the scene, and Celis-Acosta began to open up. He admitted he knew "a lot about firearms." He conceded he was en route to a birthday party for "Chendi," a close associate who he said was a Mexican cartel member and "right-hand man" to Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel.

Celis-Acosta said Chendi moved 6,000 pounds of marijuana a week into the U.S., terrorized Mexican police, wore a $15,000 wristwatch and lived in a home with "a lot of gold" inside and a landing strip outside.

MacAllister checked with the Drug Enforcement Administration and learned Chendi — real name Claudio Jamie Badilla — was a "large-scale marijuana and multi-kilogram cocaine trafficker."

MacAllister asked Celis-Acosta whether he "would be willing to cooperate." When he said yes, they confiscated the ammunition and let him go.

[clover]

There is not one word in that article implicating the AG.

The right wing fairly tale conspiracy that the Prez and his appointees were using  Fast and Furious to go after the 2nd amendment is beyond ludicrous.   

[rykat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_BX6GB-b00

 

[ragman]

There is not one word in that article implicating the AG.

The right wing fairly tale conspiracy that the Prez and his appointees were using  Fast and Furious to go after the 2nd amendment is beyond ludicrous.   

Mike usually when an agency makes a screw up as bad as this it reflects on the person in charge?  Especially when it was a screwed up scheme as bad as this that had to have very very high level approval.     Especially when they are follow the in the attitude/policy or perceived attitude/policy of the administration toward the 2nd amendment.  Remember that inconvenient youtube of Eric the Great.   

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/18/Holder-Outlines-How-To-Change-Public-Opinion-On-Guns      Yes, let's make it like smoking so that gun owners have to go into hiding.      Let's really attack gun owners in a "constructive way".  Credible people some of our really left wing nuts could set up a hot line.       How about attacking crime Eric?  How about freeing people from poverty by a reasonable education instead of taking away vouchers in DC to appease the Education Unions?  How about ending the something for nothing mentality in the USA?  Is working for something really that bad?

[ragman]

The latest but certainly not the last of this sad tale.    When will AG Holder resign?  I guess not until we throw his boss out this November.   

The Third Gun

New book claims FBI cover up of third gun in murder of border patrol agent

BY: CJ Ciaramella - April 21, 2012 12:26 am


The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
 
A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up,
 
In response to an inquiry from the Free Beacon, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in an email that she “was told to direct your questions to the FBI, and also to provide you with a link to this story: http://mediamatters.org/research/201204190011”
 
The link was to a story at the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America supposedly refuting many of Pavlich’s claims. Media Matters is a partisan organization whose founder, David Brock, is also running a pro-Obama super PAC.
 
In Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hand of violent drug cartels, with the intent of tracking them to learn more about the cartels.
 
Two weapons connected to Fast and Furious were discovered at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down in the Southern Arizona desert in 2010 by five criminals armed with AK-47s.
 
However, Pavlich asserts there was a third gun. The book details three separate pieces of evidence that point to a third weapon being recovered and then covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.
 
Border Patrol agents, who have since been issued gag orders, were overheard at Terry’s funeral discussing the third gun.
 
“The idea that the border patrol agents were issued gag orders and not allowed to talk about this is very telling,” Pavlich said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
 
An email sent less than 12 hours after Terry’s death also mentioned the weapon.
 
Finally, an audio recording of a discussion between Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, and ATF agent Hope MacAllister also references a third gun.
 
The investigation of Fast and Furious revealed that at least six FBI informants were involved in the operation, as well as an unknown number of DEA informants. Pavlich claims in her book that a confidential source told her the FBI hid the third gun from evidence because it was linked to a confidential informant or the brother of the informant.
 
“The reason they’re covering up the third gun is because it could lead to the confidential informant,” Pavlich said. “They’re protecting him at the cost of justice to Brian Terry and his family. I am not an expert on what confidential informants are allowed to get away with, but I guarantee they’re not allowed to kill federal agents.”

[clover]

Posting an ultra right article disparaging the facts is not unusual here. 

If the loons Grassley and Issa had a shred of evidence on Holder he's already be gone.  They need to take some meds and quit watching Fox.

This will be their next conspiracy against the Obama administration.  If they can't find any evidence they'll just invent something.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/21/us/us-secret-service/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Grassley needs to retire before he f**ks something up

[rykat]

Oh really Mr Carney(as in carnival)?
Remember "buck stops here" oh wait that doesnt apply to this White House.
Bush got hammered every time a tick took a shit on the White House lawn your turn in the barrel Barry baby!
You own it!
The "scandels" are piling up-we might not need a shit economy.

[clover]

LOL!!  Abu Graib, Enron...give me a break....when bush was President it was "un-American" to criticize the President........get a grip.   

[ragman]

LOL!!  Abu Graib, Enron...give me a break....when bush was President it was "un-American" to criticize the President........get a grip.   

  Boy if it was un-American to criticize Bush some one forgot to write the memo. The lame stream news; the liberals; and posters like yourself have never missed a chance. Numbnuts has spent just about every day of his presidency criticizing Bush.   

What's the deal?  Now that it is all falling apart you want to play let's all get along?    I'm waiting for President Numbnuts to start talking about all his accomplishments of the last 3+ years.  When will that happen? 

Obama care; gas prices; unemployment; food stamps; preferences to unions; scandals; money to contributors to start solar/green companies who failed dismally and on and on and on.   

[clover]

You guys just crack me up.  2 wars, trillions in debt, high gas prices and high unemployment.....the Bush legacy.  In order to be a Republican someone has to suck half of your brains out so you can't remember history.  Oh yeah, and for some reason all the Congress had to race back to DC in September of 2008 to pass TARP, in the middle of an election.........TARP must have been something that Clinton left hanging out there because you can't blame a Republican President for a god damn thing.

These statistics are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2010/02/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-compares-job-losses-under-presidents-obama-and-bush.php?page=1&ref=fpblg

[clover]

Posting an ultra right article disparaging the facts is not unusual here. 

If the loons Grassley and Issa had a shred of evidence on Holder he's already be gone.  They need to take some meds and quit watching Fox.

This will be their next conspiracy against the Obama administration.  If they can't find any evidence they'll just invent something.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/21/us/us-secret-service/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Did I call it or did I call it.  The Iowa Idiot is on another fishing expedition...at the taxpayers expense.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57419707/grassley-white-house-scandal-probe-insufficient/?tag=stack