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| Post Number: 41
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Grinning_Dragon 
rideo draconigena
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,8:53 am |
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Eric Holder Feigns Ignorance of Operation ‘Fast and Furious’ Now, But He Bragged of Overseeing Its Implementation in 2009
News about Operation “Fast and Furious” is now ubiquitous. Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson’s Fourth of July testimony to Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa blew the cover off what appears to be one of the biggest political cover-ups in the last 50 years.
In the middle of it is Attorney General Eric Holder, who now feigns a blissful ignorance about the whole mess: having nothing to say about its beginnings as Operation “Gunrunner” or its latest incarnation as “Fast and Furious.”
For those who might not know, Operation “Gunrunner” was the plan to sell guns to “straw purchasers” with suspected ties to the Mexican cartel. Apparently, ATF was then banking on those purchasers to walk the guns across the border into Mexico. Operation “Fast and Furious” was the plan to follow those guns until they were in cartel hands and then make apprehensions. (For the record, I concur with those who believe this was all an attempt to flood the border with weapons in order to create a degree of chaos sufficient to convince us of the supposed-need for more gun control in America.)
Anyway, the problem with Holder’s feigned ignorance is that he gave a speech in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 2, 2009, in which he boasted about Operation “Gunrunner” and told Mexican authorities of everything he was doing to insure its success.
Holder told the audience:
QUOTE Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.
But once the whole thing got crazy, and “Fast and Furious” left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead, Holder and others in the Justice Department went from boasting about such projects to pressuring people like Acting ATF Director Melson to keep their mouths shut.
Melson is on record saying that “Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress.” Moreover, when he saw the storm clouds rising and attempted to reassign “every major official involved” in Operation “Fast and Furious,” Melson said “Justice Department officials directed him and other ATF officials to not communicate to Congress the reasoning behind the reassignments.”
Folks, I’m not great at math, but I’ve got simple math mastered. And figuring out what’s going on here doesn’t seem much harder than 2 +2.
Just think about it: Holder was as proud as he could be over Operation “Gunrunner” until the fiasco fell apart and over a thousand guns flooded into Mexico unaccounted for. (It seems we find them now when they’re recovered from crime scenes, along with the body of the victims killed by those using the weapons.)
One of Representative Issa’s staffers is on record saying: “[The Operation] ‘Gunrunner’ investigation points much higher than [the] ATF director.”
Does that mean it points toward Holder or Holder’s office?
Does 3 + 3 equal 6?
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 42
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,8:56 am |
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Breaking story: Grassley & Issa catch Eric Holder with his cover-up underwear down around his ankles.
From a letter by Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa to Eric Holder released this morning:
QUOTE We have recently learned that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has afforded potential witnesses for the Committee's investigation into Operation Fast and Furious access to a shared drive on its computer system replete with pertinent investigative documents, including ATF e-mails. Although our staff has been advised the Department has since terminated access to this document cache, we write to seek additional information relating to this egregious decision. We also ask that you promptly self-report this matter to the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
As we understand it, the shared drive contains the documents that have been produced to the Committees through the course of our investigation, those made available for in camera review and possibly documents that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not yet provided to the Committee. These witnesses had not previously seen many of these documents.
Allowing witnesses access to such documents could taint their testimony by allowing them to tailor their responses to what they think the Committees already know. Additionally, witnesses who gain access to documents they have not previously seen could alter their recollection of events. This practice harms not only our investigation, but also the independent investigation that you instructed the Inspector General to conduct.
One witness who had access to these documents informed us of this questionable practice:
Q: What other documents have you gone through other than your emails?
A. A couple of the things that have been produced. They put a link on our computer, some kind of drive that I can click on and read things that have been produced. So I do that every once in a while, but not normally.
Q: And what is the purpose of that, to your knowledge?
A. Just to refresh my recollection about what is out there, you know.
Q: So you have a link on your computer so that you know what we have been provided by Justice?
A. Yes. There is a link in our computer for Gunrunner, Fast and Furious produced to Congress, and there is updates every once in a while of those documents that are being produced.
hmmmmmmmmm - interesting.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 43
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,9:14 am |
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Issa, Grassley ask for communications between 12 DoJ officials
The Congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious continued to grow Tuesday as Congressman Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder for records and communications involving a dozen current and former Justice Department officials.
In a letter to Holder, obtained earlier today by this column, Issa and Grassley asked for “all records relating to communications between and among” the 12 named individuals. That lineup includes:
QUOTE Former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden
Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler
Deputy Attorney General James Cole
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein
Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney
Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod
Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel
Brad Smith, office of the Deputy Attorney General
Kevin Carwile, section chief, Capital Case Unit
Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section
The records sought by Issa and Grassley include e-mails, memoranda, briefing papers and handwritten notes. They also want records related to communications referring to a large firearms trafficking case within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
As my colleague David Codrea notes here, Issa and Grassley put it to Holder bluntly that they have learned that "senior officials at the Department of Justice...including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program."
With this new request, it now appears that the Fast and Furious investigation tracks to the highest levels of the Justice Department. This request follows on the heels of an earlier letter Issa and Grassley sent to Holder — discussed by this column — that alleges the Justice Department made certain sensitive documents available to potential witnesses that might be called before Issa’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, thus tainting their testimony.
All of this comes in the wake of a secret July 4 appearance by Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson before Congressional investigators probing the Fast and Furious controversy.
In a related matter, Issa threw down a gauntlet on Fox News Tuesday afternoon, reacting further to Monday’s announced change in gun sale reporting requirements in four Southwest border states. Issa told Fox News that “We have no expectation that this White House will be respectful of the Second Amendment.”
There is a widespread belief that the Obama administration was using Fast and Furious as a tool to gin up the number of U.S.-origin firearms recovered at Mexican crime scenes in order to reinforce administration calls for restoration of the ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
This is going to make Watergate look like a schoolyard tiff. Nobody died in Watergate. President Obama and Eric Holder are complicit in the deaths of at least 2 federal agents and who knows how many Mexican and American citizens. The sooner they start impeachment proceedings the better off our country will be.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 44
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,9:19 am |
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Bilirakis questions Holder, Melson on Tampa gunwalking allegations
WASHINGTON, DC: Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) wrote a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth Melson expressing “deep concern about reports that [ATF and DOJ] have participated in multiple acts of ‘gun walking,’ purposely allowing firearms to pass from straw purchaser into the possession of criminals and other dangerous third party organizations.”
“These reports,” Bilirakis writes, “raise troubling questions about the motives, intentions, and competency of the ATF and DOJ.”
“In recent days,” he notes, “it has come to light that the ATF and DOJ may have participated in the act of ‘gun walking’ beyond the acts conducted within the scope of “Operation Fast and Furious’…and that similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF’s Tampa Field Division.”
Referencing his membership on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Bilirakis asked for answers to the following questions, including whether ATF Tampa and DOJ “allowed weapons to be trafficked to Honduras.”
Click here to read the letter
A point of clarification by Mike Vanderboegh, one of the two online journalists who broke the Tampa/Honduras gunwalking story, involves the appearance that Operation Castaway was necessarily the cover used for the trafficking. In an update filed today, Vanderboegh notes:
QUOTE You will note the question mark in the header of the first story after "Part of Operation Castaway?"
Here is the exact wording:
"Whether the allegations of our source refer to the on-going Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O'Brien has allowed the 'walking' of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field Division's Operation Fast and Furious. That Operation Castaway involved arms smuggling to Honduras is also certain."
This is careful language for a reason. We asked the question because although other sources suggested it might be related to Operation Castaway we could not confirm it. We went with what our central source (who was closest to the source of the story than anyone else) said, which was that although he was certain of gunwalking to Honduras he was not certain it was a part of the Castaway operation.
Our second story, my analysis piece on "Why Honduras?" and my letter to Melson included nothing about Castaway.
Elsewhere on the Internet and in the mainstream media, others made the connection to Castaway, which may have been related to a combination of this language in the DOJ press release on Castaway, "Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation…
Sources have reconfirmed to these correspondents that regardless of any Castaway connection that may or may not be established, they stand by the gunwalking allegations.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 45
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Liberal
Group: Moderator
Posts: 11451
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,9:24 am |
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Seriously, when was the last time that one of your conspiracy theories panned out?
Lastest Right wing proof.
QUOTE
Eric Holder Feigns Ignorance of Operation ‘Fast and Furious’ Now, But He Bragged of Overseeing Its Implementation in 2009
News about Operation “Fast and Furious” is now ubiquitous. Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson’s Fourth of July testimony to Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa blew the cover off what appears to be one of the biggest political cover-ups in the last 50 years.
Holder's speech where he references the Bush era program Project Gunrunner, and makes no reference to "Fast and Furious" program like the reichwing nutjobs claim.
QUOTE Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail. [Holder speech, 4/2/2009, via Justice.gov] http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090402.html
His speech referenced supplementing the Bush era program Project Gunrunner, it says nothing about the Fast and Furious program, or "Overseeing Its Implementation" like the title of the article claims.
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The people are masters of both Congress and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it!
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| Post Number: 46
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,9:55 am |
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gun runner = Op Fast and Furious.
All roads point to the DOJ, and Holder is the one in charge now. Hes the one that is responsible for this whole mess.
He knew about this, bragged about it, then all of a sudden when the SHTF, he gets amnesia. The next one on the list is Op Castaway.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 47
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| Post Number: 48
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ThirdParty
Group: Members
Posts: 63
Joined: Feb. 2011
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,4:47 pm |
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You are right Lib, their is a distinction. Wiki describes it this way, as "Project" Gunrunner, and "Operation" Fast and Furious (under Project Gunrunner)
ATF Project Gunrunner has a stated official objective to stop the sale and export of guns from the United States into Mexico in order to deny Mexican drug cartels the firearms considered "tools of the trade".[16] However, since September 2009 under Project Gunrunner, operation "Fast and Furious", did the opposite by ATF permitting, encouraging and facilitating 'straw purchase' firearm sales to traffickers, and allowing the guns to 'walk' and be transported to Mexico. This has resulted in the death of US border agent Brian Terry and considerable controversy.[17][18][19]
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If guns kill people, then logic tells us that spoons made Oprah fat.
"Life is not holding a good hand, life is playing a poor hand well." Danish Proverb
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| Post Number: 49
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| Post Number: 50
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MADDOG
Group: Moderator
Posts: 7821
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Jul. 13 2011,7:07 pm |
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7 signs that you're living in denial.
“It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.” - Bill Watterson, Creator of Calvin and Hobbes.
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Actually my wife is especially happy when my google check arrives each month. Thanks to douchbags like you, I get paid just for getting you worked up. -Liberal
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