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The Justice Department’s effort to contain the Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal is crumbling. Members of Congress are demanding full disclosure regarding the bizarre scheme to funnel guns to Mexican drug cartels, supposedly to help sniff out the higher-level bad guys. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. isn’t helping congressional investigators understand the rationale behind this breathtakingly dumb idea. The so-called Fast and Furious program fit right in with the White House contention that gun shops in the Southwest have been contributing to violence in Mexico. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), part of the Justice...

Border: A 2-year-old video shows a high Justice official saying "the president has directed us," including the attorney general, to speed up Project Gunrunner and the offshoot that got a border agent killed. This tape has no 18-minute gap, and while it does not feature the president himself, the March 24, 2009, video may rival the tape that turned a "third-rate burglary" into a presidential resignation. No one died at Watergate. Agent Brian Terry lost his life in the administration's obsessive pursuit of gun control. In addition to Agent Terry, Immigration Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was also killed in...

STATEMENT BY GOV. RICK PERRY ON NEW JUSTICE DEPARTMENT GUN RULES Published 07/13/2011 - 4:45 p.m. CST AUSTIN, TX - Gov. Rick Perry issued the following statement today regarding the new U.S. Department of Justice reporting requirements for multiple purchases of semiautomatic rifles within the four U.S. states bordering Mexico: "Singling out border states and targeting legal gun sales and sellers will have little or no impact on the Mexican cartels transporting drugs, guns and cash to and from major cities throughout the U.S. These cartels - which are responsible for more than 40,000 deaths since 2006, including Americans like...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The former mayor of the New Mexico border town of Columbus has pleaded guilty to federal gun smuggling charges. ........

In the wake of swelling outrage over the Obama administration’s fatally botched Fast and Furious straw gun purchase racket, the DOJ is punishing the very whistleblowers who protested the scheme in the first place. This is a head fake. Instead of exercising more control over lawless bureaucrats within its own agencies, the Obama administration is tightening its grip over law-abiding gun shops: As a backlash mounts over the government’s failed Fast and Furious gun-tracing operation, the Justice Department will begin requiring firearms dealers in California and other border states to alert officials anytime they sell more than two semiautomatic rifles...

Just received a pdf of this letter sent yesterday to John Morton, Director of ICE. It is apparent that at some point, the Obama administration is going to have to respond to questions about Tampa-Honduras gunwalking. I will post the pdf link when I have it. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/ July 12, 2011 The Honorable John Morton Director U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department of Homeland Security 500 12th Street, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20536 Dear Director Morton: We are concerned about recent reports that suggest similarities between “Operation Castaway,” a firearms trafficking investigation led by the Tampa Field Offices of the Bureau of...

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...

House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, ripped Attorney General Eric Holder again in another Monday letter. The top Republicans investigating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Operation Fast and Furious also blasted Holder for allegations that he allowed his Justice Department to skew potential witnesses by prepping them with access to background information.In this new letter, Issa and Grassley name 12 senior Justice Department political officials they believe may have been involved in the decision which allowed guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. They asked Holder...

First, the Arms Export Control Act, 22 USC §2778.. It authorizes the President to define defense articles and regulate their export. In so doing, he must consider the possibility that export could "support international terrorism, increase the possibility of outbreak or escalation of conflict..." Those defense articles may not be exported without a permit, issued by the Secretary of State ( Department of State guidelines here), "except that no license shall be required for exports or imports made by or for an agency of the United States Government (A) for official use by a department or agency of the United...

Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea 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...

David Codrea is reporting that 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 concerns over the allegations of release of guns to MS-13 from the Tampa ATF office. “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...

(CNN) -- Federal agents can't account for more than 1,400 guns after a widely criticized operation aimed at tracing the flow of weapons to Mexican drug gangs, sources with knowledge of the investigation tell CNN. Of 2,020 guns involved in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives probe dubbed "Operation Fast and Furious," 363 have been recovered in the United States and 227 have been recovered in Mexico. That leaves 1,430 guns unaccounted for, the sources said. The ATF operation was intended to build cases against Mexican drug cartels by allowing firearms to go from the United States into...

bob mccarty from biggovernment.com does a fine job in tying "gunrunner" directly to obama. check out the cool link. geez, at least breitbart finally gets it. drudge however...seems to be set on covering murdoch.

The new rules approved by the Obama administration require gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to report anyone who makes multiple semi-automatic gun purchases within a 5-day period.

Nearly forty years later, another “scandal,” exponentially larger than Watergate, has the potential to bring down the occupant of the oval office along with other high ranking officials. While no one was murdered as a result of Watergate, two law enforcement officers are dead because of the current “scandal” that is leading closer and closer to the highest levels of the Obama administration, including the Department of Justice and the U.S. State Department. Obama’s “war on guns” After taking office, Barack Hussein Obama began a coordinated effort with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to...

MORE TAMPA ALLEGATIONS Whether or not the Tampa-to-Honduras gunwalking was a part of, or spin-off of, Operation Castaway, I had a long exchange of information with two of our sources on the Tampa nexus of the Gunwalker Scandal and ATFSA's non-denial denial of Tampa gunwalking last night. They had both solid confirmation that it took place and more allegations of misdeeds on the part of Virginia O'Brien, Tampa Field Division SAC and the ATF Chief Counsel's Office in DC. "The Honduras story is solid," one source said. Not only that, but it seems the "walked" firearms, amounting to about 200...

The National Rifle Association plans to sue the Obama administration over its new gun-reporting requirement in four states bordering Mexico. On Monday, the Justice Department said it would require firearms dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to report multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles to the same person within a five-day period. The goal is to stop the illegal flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, said Deputy Attorney General James Cole. The new reporting requirement applies to semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and calibers greater than .22. Such weapons, Cole said, "are highly sought after by dangerous...

A few days ago, the Blaze reported on the low-key plans of the Obama administration to increase the penalties for certain gun law violations, and add steps to the background checks for legal gun ownership. Today the administration’s plans are beginning to come into effect. Through an Executive Order, the Obama administration is implementing new restrictions on the sale of certain weapons in border states, and increasing the penalties for violating certain firearms laws.

What looked at the outset like a tragically inept attempt to trace the firearms supply lines used by Mexican drug cartels has grown into something bigger. Congressmen who days ago were seeking the resignation of Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, now are setting their sights higher, demanding that he not become the fall guy for other agencies’ mistakes. Attorney General Eric Holder should get in front of this fast-­unfolding story and provide a full account of the failures — or worse — that occurred in various branches of the Justice Department. Melson’s...

Issa “This political maneuver seems designed to protect the careers of political appointees at the Justice Department and not public safety. It’s disconcerting that Justice Department officials who may have known about or tried to cover-up gunwalking in Operation Fast and Furious are continuing attempts to distract attention from clear wrongdoing. In Operation Fast and Furious, gun dealers didn’t need this regulation as they voluntarily provided ATF agents with information about suspected straw purchasers. In return for this voluntary cooperation, the Justice Department betrayed them by offering false assurances that they would closely monitor sales of weapons that dealers otherwise...