Lethal fiasco - A Justice Dept. 'Fast & Furious' coverup?

NYPost ^ | 7/29/11 | Mike Walsh

[Track9]

Operation Fast and Furious -- the Obama administration's lethal gun-running fiasco -- keeps getting uglier and uglier.

In a series of hearings, Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley have been systematically dismantling the administration's preposterous claim that no one in the Justice Department -- which oversees the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- knew anything about the so-called gun-tracking operation.

In Fast and Furious, ATF officials encouraged "straw buyers" in Arizona -- including two convicted felons who should have been stopped by the FBI -- to purchase more than 2,000 heavy-duty firearms, including AK-47 variants and .50-caliber sniper rifles, and then resell them to the Mexican drug cartels, allegedly to trace and stop crossborder arms trafficking.

Oops! The feds displayed these weapons in January while announcing gun-running indictments thanks to "Fast and Furious" -- but the program flooded Mexico with illegal US arms.

At least two dead American agents later, the scheme looks set to blow up in Attorney General Eric Holder's face -- and now's there's evidence that it might reach all the way to the White House.

On Tuesday, the ATF agent in charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, told Issa's House committee that he discussed the operation with the national-security director for North America, Kevin O'Reilly, an old friend, in the form of a "you didn't get this from me" e-mail in September 2010. (The White House insists the e-mail had nothing to do with Fast and Furious, but instead concerned the larger, legitimate Project Gunrunner gun-tracking program.)

We already knew that the debacle also involved the FBI and the DEA (both part of DoJ), but Newell also revealed that even more agencies were part of the program, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Homeland Security) and the IRS.

[Chode]

the IRS???

[Track9]

Thanks for the info. Good stuff.

[OneWingedShark]

>Take for example my wife, she is rock ribbed conservative and loathes Obama but she just does not get the seriousness and enormity of this

Explain it to her this way: Fast and Furious is/was a legitimate act of war.
Now, if the ATF is a incompetent agency committing Acts of War, and nothing comes to pass, then what guarantee do we have that they (or some other government agency) will not take us to war?
And if the ATF *was* authorized, then we have a bonafied conspiracy against Constitutional rights/protections, as ONLY the Congress can [legitimately] start (declare) a war.

[TigersEye]

You are very welcome.

[Munz]

Very glad to see this in the post.
It means that the other MSM won’t be able to ignore it for much longer.

After zero gets as much mileage out of the debt ceiling crisis as he can, he is going to have this staring at him.

Course, he will say he doesn’t have time for “political nonsense” per usual.

But it isn’t going away so easy this time.

[MikeSteelBe]

Do you think that the NBP, CBC, Jackson, Sharpton, and the rest of the racist negro nazi party will ever let their “people” Obama and holder get punished for this?

The klan with a tan is running America.

It’s up to we the people to stop this chocolate reich from doing to America what the third reich did to Germany.

[TXnMA]

It just struck me that the "horizontal divider" in the article's pic

is a "Ma Deuce" (M2) ".50 BMG" -- (full auto) Browning Heavy Machine Gun.

That is no "..50-caliber sniper rifle"!

That beast certainly didn't come through any "civilian gun shop" that I have ever encountered. Almost 100% certainly , it was stolen from some military unit -- or "donated" by ATF...

That M2 appears to be "NIB" ("New -- In Box"). The one on my son's "track" dated back at least to WWII...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please don't tell me the BATFE is supplying brand new full auto .50 BMGs to drug cartels!

[Upstate NY Guy]

Thanks for the post. This is great. I’ve been away all day and am just catching up. The NY Post has a lot of readers. Very good they are reporting this.

[MurrietaMadman]

**Please don’t tell me the BATFE is supplying brand new full auto .50 BMGs to drug cartels! **

OK.

Would you believe... the State Dept?

http://www.elpasotimes.com/communities/ci_18465182

[Cowboy Bob]

Wasn't Supreme Court Justice Kagan the Solicitor General under Obama when “Fast & Furious” was planned and implemented? Would she have been involved in any decisions, since she was part of Obama’s “inner circle?”

[Track9]

Excellent point.. and good to remembering.

[TXnMA]

Thanks! It just gets deeper and deeper... From your article:

"From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas."

"Under the Direct Commercial Sales program, the U.S. State Department regulates and licenses businesses to sell weapons and defense services and training for export. Last year, according to U.S. statistics, the program was used to provide Mexico $416.5 million worth of weapons and equipment, including military-grade weaponry."

"The program is different from the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, which operates on a government-to-government basis."

If the news is from the Øbozo regime -- it ain't going to be good...

:-(

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Track9.

[TaMoDee]

I just read the article and that also was my reaction.
The writer must have actual first hand experience or did some research. Love the Ma-Duce, must have bought that in that little gunshop outside of Phx.

[Kackikat]

U S Constitution

Article 3 - The Judicial Branch
Section 3 - Treason

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”