Free Republic

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- One of my favorite quotes from early in our history came from Patrick Henry of Virginia: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” His commentary on government and its’ liberty-crushing power still rings true today. And the fact that British colonial rulers conducted much of their affairs in secret, behind closed doors, out of the public view, provides an eerie parallel to many government agencies operating inside our country today. The fact is, it’s the responsibility of gun owners and grassroots activists...

The cover-up of Fast and Furious is unraveling at breakneck speed. As a result of the ongoing investigation by Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the LA Times and Townhall.com are both reporting Mexico has been kept in the dark about the deadly fallout of the botched operation. While information about the mounting carnage trickles out, a black cloud has descended over the White House, the DOJ and American-Mexican relations. From Townhall.com: "I would be remiss if I didn't mention, as the Attorney General in Mexico is so concerned, she's made the point that at least 200...

In a conference call this morning with Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, reporters were told the Attorney General in Mexico has confirmed at least 200 murders south of the border happened as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. Eleven crimes in the United States have been linked to Operation Fast and Furious up to this point. Issa said he expects as the investigation in the operation continues, more crimes connected to Fast and Furious will come to light and be exposed. This is not surprising, considering out of 2500 weapons the Obama Justice Department allowed to...

WASHINGTON - "Watch your back," the gun dealer warns the ATF Agent in an audio recording obtained by CBS News. The secretly recorded conversations are between the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation, Andre Howard, and lead case ATF agent Hope MacAllister. Howard owns Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. Secret recordings raise new questions in AFT 'Gunwalker' case As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" onto the streets without interdiction into the hands of suspected traffickers for...

Lopez, of Coon Rapids, and two married couples he knows were attacked by a gang of 10 men ages 16 to early 20s, shortly after the group of friends left the Aqua nightclub in the city's Warehouse District early Sept. 2. The brazen assault took place not more than 30 feet from the 1st Police Precinct station on Fourth Street between Hennepin Avenue and First Avenue North. Now, if I were going to get assaulted, I would think that being next to a police station would be the best place to be. Help is next door, right? Not that morning,...

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has revealed a recent document submitted by the Department of Justice to congressional investigators. The document shows that guns linked to Operation Fast and Furious are responsible for at least three more murders in addition to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry: Weapons linked to ATF’s controversial “Fast and Furious” operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide. According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the...

Weapons linked to ATF's controversial "Fast and Furious" operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide. According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the disclosed incidents may be only a partial list of violent crimes linked to Fast and Furious weapons because "ATF has not conducted a comprehensive independent investigation." When added to the guns found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in the U.S., the newly-revealed murders in...

Fox News is reporting that a third gun apparently found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was linked to Operation Fast and Furious, but its existence may have been deliberately concealed by the FBI to protect the identity of an informant “who works inside a major Mexican cartel.” That informant, according to the report by Fox reporter William Lajuenesse, “provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.” This tends to support statements made by Kenneth Melson, former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to congressional investigators in a...

A third gun linked to "Operation Fast and Furious" was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government's now infamous gun interdiction scandal. Sources say emails support their contention that the FBI concealed evidence to protect a confidential informant. Sources close to the Terry case say the FBI informant works inside a major Mexican cartel and provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry. Unlike the two AK-style assault...

I just got off the blower with Brent R. Weil [above] 0f Kightlinger and Gray, LLP. The Evansville, Indiana lawyer represents the [as yet unnamed] gun store that sold firearms to ATF-enabled straw purchasers. “The ATF told my client to let the sales go through,” Mr. Weil told TTAG. “He later told me that the guns went to Chicago gangs.” In one case, a straw purchaser failed to pass the FBI’s NICS [National Instant Check System] background check . . . The dealer called an ATF agent in the parking lot; the agent told the dealer to let the sale...

<p>CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A man with an AK-47 assault rifle shot an entire group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at a Nevada IHOP on Tuesday, killing two of them and another person in a hail of gunfire.</p>

“These guns went to ruthless criminals,” Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico said in testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday regarding the scandal-plagued Operation Fast and Furious. “It’s alleged that over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that in context, upon information and belief, the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has approximately 2,500 rangers. That means that as a result of this investigation, the Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regiment. Out of these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That is approximately the number of...

The Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying to Congress on Tuesday about whether ATF knowingly allowed weapons, including assault rifles, to be “walked” into Mexico, the chairman of a House committee investigating the program said in an interview Monday. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, said at least two scheduled witnesses expected to be asked about a controversial weapons investigation known as “Fast and Furious”received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony. Mr. Issa's committee is set to hear testimony from six current...

ATF Acting Director Ken Melson's testimony shows just how far the DOJ has gone to impede the investigation and to protect political appointees.Attorney General Eric Holder continues to duck responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed more than 2,500 weapons, including thousands of AK-47 variants and .50 caliber sniper rifles, across the Mexican border and into the hands of the cartels. The weapons were used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and an estimated 150 Mexican nationals. In May of this year, Holder was called to testify in front of Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Committee on Oversight...

Operation Fast and Furious (F&F) – a program run by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that allowed thousands of lethal weapons to cross the Mexican border – was apparently no secret among high-level political authorities at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Among those in the know? Newly-confirmed Deputy Attorney General James Cole. Information is now seeping out about the political whiplash that secured a confirmation vote for Cole in exchange for the DOJ’s release of documents to Congress. In a supremely ironic twist, the documents ransomed by Cole’s confirmation strongly suggest that Cole himself was...

Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including: * Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer, * Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF * William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF * Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA * Robert Mueller, Director FBI Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task...

When the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report -- “The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents -- it infuriated law enforcement officers and American citizens across the country. One police commander in New Jersey told Law Enforcement Examiner, "We need to get to the bottom of this renegade operation fast. I am furious that our government actually contributed to the killing of two American law enforcement officers -- one in the U.S., the other in Mexico." The at times shocking report includes testimony from four Bureau of...

Gunwalker: Holder’s resignation is almost inevitable And the only way that doesn’t happen is if he is fool-enough to stay in office, Obama is fool-enough not to fire him, and Congress has no choice but to remove him from office. Consider: On the 4th of July, a national holiday, acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives gave testimony to House and Senate investigators on Operation “Fast and Furious,” aka “Gunwalker.” Without telling his bosses. And bringing his own lawyer, not the Bureau’s and not the Department of Justice’s. To quote Allahpundit — Dude! This morning, House...

The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected a bid by the Obama administration to spare the life of a Mexican national set for execution for the 1994 rape-murder of a San Antonio teenager.

Newly released documents show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed for the release of Marxist radical and domestic terrorist Marilyn Buck from federal prison because officials believed she learned her lesson and had “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.” These new documents, obtained by investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid’s America’s Survival organization, shed more light on why Holder’s officials decided to release Buck, a convicted radical left-wing domestic terrorist. “Incredibly, Buck’s attorney, Soffiyah Elijah, cited Buck’s ‘Master of Fine Arts in Poetics,’ completed behind bars, as evidence that she deserved parole. It’s a fraud and a racket,”...