What Did Obama Know about Fast and Furious, and When did He know it?
Timothy Birdnow
Received this from CCRKBA (Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a fifth amendment group.
www.ccrkba.org
The latest developments of the failed ATF "Fast and Furious" and "Project Gunrunner" Plan is that U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) says: "We believe he [Holder] was aware of it much earlier than he said in his testimony and questioning before the Judiciary Committee. Are we confident that Eric Holder knew it much earlier? Did he know it earlier than he testified? Absolutely."
In a shocking interview last Thursday, Issa produced a potential "political bombshell" when he stated: "The president knew about it before Eric Holder, according to Eric Holder."
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that Barack Obama did not know about or authorize the operation. "As the president has already said, he did not know about or authorize this operation," said Carney, "but the Department of Justice has said repeatedly that fighting criminal activity along the southwest border including the illegal trafficking of guns to Mexico has been and is a priority of this department."
In back-stepping a little, Issa says he does not think the president personally knew about the operation. "I take the president completely at his word there; that this isn't something that would ordinarily rise directly to the president. Was it briefed to people in the White House? I'm sure it was. Did he know about it personally? Probably not. Now that he said it should be looked into, the clock has been ticking a long time and nothing has happened as far as their releasing any findings."
The Justice Department's Inspector General is investigating the matter in relationship to getting to the bottom of "Project Gunrunner" and "Operation Fast and Furious." We want answers to see how big of a cover-up there really was.
Some have likened this to the Watergate scandal of years ago.
The initial fallout from this cover-up is that Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms (ATF), is expected to step down in the wake of the "Fast and Furious" gun-running scheme in which weapons were sold to Mexico's drug cartels.
Melson, who has been acting director since April 2009, is likely to resign within the next couple of days, says CNN. Attorney General Eric Holder met with Andrew Traver, head of the ATF field office in Chicago on Tuesday, about replacing Melson, CNN reported.
The original "sting" strategy was that it would allow the ATF to trace the undercover weapons sold by them and to then discover who was selling them further. But the plan horrendously back-fired when the ATF admittedly lost track of two-thirds of the guns. It has been discovered and verified that the weapons have been used in at least 150 shootings!
As reported by Second Amendment Foundation on numerous occasions, the scandal began to break wide open last December when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona and two weapons discovered at the scene were found to have been part of Project Gunrunner.
After months of administration stonewalling, finally Mr. Obama has "sort of" acknowledged that the plan was flawed. "There MAY be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that's the case then we'll find out and we'll hold somebody accountable," he said in March. Obama still claims that he had no prior knowledge of the operation.
Last week, Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley called for an independent investigation into the operation and called for heads to roll.
Apparently, Kenneth Melson's head will "roll." Some have called him the "scapegoat" for Eric Holder.
During Issa's important Congressional hearings last week, John Casa, an agent at the ATF's Phoenix Field office called the program "a colossal failure of leadership." He said every time there was a shooting in Arizona, including the one that killed six and seriously injured Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, agents worried that guns from the operations could have been involved. "This happened time and time again," he testified.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said in a national interview that he believes the Justice Department is covering up information relevant to a congressional investigation of an operation in which the department knowingly allowed intermediaries of Mexican drug cartels to purchase guns at licensed firearms dealers in the United States and then get away without being arrested or the guns being retrieved.
Issa pointed to two things he says indicates a Justice Department cover up. First, he cites a letter that Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, head of the Justice Department's office of legislative affairs, sent to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 4, 2011. Issa characterizes that letter as a "lie."
Secondly, Issa says the Justice Department made excessive and unjustifiable omissions in documents it provided to his committee.
The entire "grandiose" operation began in 2009 and ended in early 2011 with ONLY the indictment of 20 individuals on relatively minor charges for illegal gun purchases!
Agent Terry's murder prompted ATF agents--who had warned their superiors of the risk of the Fast and Furious operation--to come forward as whistleblowers.
Representative Darrell Issa made it very clear he thought it is a cover-up when he pointed to a Department of Justice to Sen. Grassley and the excess redaction of documents. He proclaimed: "There are two kinds of cover ups. There is one in which you lie to people in order to mislead them. That letter represents that type of cover-up. There's also the one in which you delay and deny in an attempt to simply not have the facts come out. Clearly they've done that with Sen. Grassley, first, and then with our committee, because some of the things that they redacted, we have the un-redacted versions from whistleblowers. We believe they did excess redacting, which again is denying us that which would be reasonable to deliver us. We're hoping that that's changed. We hope that what was said yesterday (last Wednesday), there is in fact a change in the administration's view in order to not be embarrassed."
Received this from CCRKBA (Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a fifth amendment group.
www.ccrkba.org
The latest developments of the failed ATF "Fast and Furious" and "Project Gunrunner" Plan is that U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) says: "We believe he [Holder] was aware of it much earlier than he said in his testimony and questioning before the Judiciary Committee. Are we confident that Eric Holder knew it much earlier? Did he know it earlier than he testified? Absolutely."
In a shocking interview last Thursday, Issa produced a potential "political bombshell" when he stated: "The president knew about it before Eric Holder, according to Eric Holder."
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that Barack Obama did not know about or authorize the operation. "As the president has already said, he did not know about or authorize this operation," said Carney, "but the Department of Justice has said repeatedly that fighting criminal activity along the southwest border including the illegal trafficking of guns to Mexico has been and is a priority of this department."
In back-stepping a little, Issa says he does not think the president personally knew about the operation. "I take the president completely at his word there; that this isn't something that would ordinarily rise directly to the president. Was it briefed to people in the White House? I'm sure it was. Did he know about it personally? Probably not. Now that he said it should be looked into, the clock has been ticking a long time and nothing has happened as far as their releasing any findings."
The Justice Department's Inspector General is investigating the matter in relationship to getting to the bottom of "Project Gunrunner" and "Operation Fast and Furious." We want answers to see how big of a cover-up there really was.
Some have likened this to the Watergate scandal of years ago.
The initial fallout from this cover-up is that Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms (ATF), is expected to step down in the wake of the "Fast and Furious" gun-running scheme in which weapons were sold to Mexico's drug cartels.
Melson, who has been acting director since April 2009, is likely to resign within the next couple of days, says CNN. Attorney General Eric Holder met with Andrew Traver, head of the ATF field office in Chicago on Tuesday, about replacing Melson, CNN reported.
The original "sting" strategy was that it would allow the ATF to trace the undercover weapons sold by them and to then discover who was selling them further. But the plan horrendously back-fired when the ATF admittedly lost track of two-thirds of the guns. It has been discovered and verified that the weapons have been used in at least 150 shootings!
As reported by Second Amendment Foundation on numerous occasions, the scandal began to break wide open last December when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona and two weapons discovered at the scene were found to have been part of Project Gunrunner.
After months of administration stonewalling, finally Mr. Obama has "sort of" acknowledged that the plan was flawed. "There MAY be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that's the case then we'll find out and we'll hold somebody accountable," he said in March. Obama still claims that he had no prior knowledge of the operation.
Last week, Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley called for an independent investigation into the operation and called for heads to roll.
Apparently, Kenneth Melson's head will "roll." Some have called him the "scapegoat" for Eric Holder.
During Issa's important Congressional hearings last week, John Casa, an agent at the ATF's Phoenix Field office called the program "a colossal failure of leadership." He said every time there was a shooting in Arizona, including the one that killed six and seriously injured Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, agents worried that guns from the operations could have been involved. "This happened time and time again," he testified.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said in a national interview that he believes the Justice Department is covering up information relevant to a congressional investigation of an operation in which the department knowingly allowed intermediaries of Mexican drug cartels to purchase guns at licensed firearms dealers in the United States and then get away without being arrested or the guns being retrieved.
Issa pointed to two things he says indicates a Justice Department cover up. First, he cites a letter that Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, head of the Justice Department's office of legislative affairs, sent to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 4, 2011. Issa characterizes that letter as a "lie."
Secondly, Issa says the Justice Department made excessive and unjustifiable omissions in documents it provided to his committee.
The entire "grandiose" operation began in 2009 and ended in early 2011 with ONLY the indictment of 20 individuals on relatively minor charges for illegal gun purchases!
Agent Terry's murder prompted ATF agents--who had warned their superiors of the risk of the Fast and Furious operation--to come forward as whistleblowers.
Representative Darrell Issa made it very clear he thought it is a cover-up when he pointed to a Department of Justice to Sen. Grassley and the excess redaction of documents. He proclaimed: "There are two kinds of cover ups. There is one in which you lie to people in order to mislead them. That letter represents that type of cover-up. There's also the one in which you delay and deny in an attempt to simply not have the facts come out. Clearly they've done that with Sen. Grassley, first, and then with our committee, because some of the things that they redacted, we have the un-redacted versions from whistleblowers. We believe they did excess redacting, which again is denying us that which would be reasonable to deliver us. We're hoping that that's changed. We hope that what was said yesterday (last Wednesday), there is in fact a change in the administration's view in order to not be embarrassed."
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 4:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home