Posted on 09/07/2011 7:00:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday sought to distance himself and other senior Justice Department officials from a botched operation to track guns smuggled to Mexican drug cartels, saying they were not involved.
The Obama administration has been under scrutiny after revelations that as many as 2,000 guns were sold to suspected gun traffickers, not properly tracked and ended up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico.
The operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious", was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona. Congressional Republicans have questioned who approved it and whether senior Justice Department officials were involved.
"The notion that somehow or other that this thing reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that, at this point, I don't think is supported by the facts," Holder told reporters.
The botched operation already has claimed the jobs of Ken Melson, acting director of the ATF, .. and the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, who resigned abruptly last week.
ATF officials and federal prosecutors had hoped the operation would help them follow the guns to cartel leaders. But ATF agents did not witness many of the purchases or track many of the guns after the initial purchaser resold them.
Holder questioned whether the congressional probe, ... was politically motivated.
He admitted it was a "flawed enforcement effort," but said, "my hope would be that Congress will conduct an investigation that is factually based and not marred with politics."
...
Two guns from the operation were found at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot dead in a shootout with illegal immigrants last December.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He admitted it was a “flawed enforcement effort,”
NSS!
In other words, all the evidence has successfully been run through his shredders, several times, and the fall-guys have been decided.
......rooters “helping” the masses understand a “mistake”
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Did not track MANY of the guns..?! There was, what? ONE case of them putting a GPS thingie on one gun, and it went dark that very night?
This hubris is breath-taking.
The FACTS of the case?
Barry can be his cell mate. I'm sure they get along together quite well.
Brave sir Robin turned his tail and fled.
Whether or not Holder and his inner circle were involved in the original plan to funnel the illegal weapons to criminals (and it will probably take a special prosecutor to dig into that to get the truth), Holder and company have certainly been involved up to their ears in the subsequent obstruction and cover-up.
This criminal seeks to “distance himself”,does he? How about 25 yards and a running start, traitor?
Sting? In a sting you have good guys that catch the bad guys and the bad guys don’t keep the bait.
They lied, and people DIED.
If he didn’t do anything wrong, then why????
What a lying POS! Obama ordered it and funded it, Holder implemented it and of course bragged about it to Calderon in Cuernavaca. They BOTH knew what was going to happen.
To deny knowledge of it is simply a bald-faced lie.
Holder is a serial liar.
He’s in it up to his scalp. He can’t add any buffer to protect himself from the inevitable. Get him on the stand. Corrupt jerk.
Nah. Send them both back to Illinois. Marion to be exact.
Lessee... There was the Black Panther’s thugs voting fiasco. Then there was gunrunner. Now there is the Gibson Guitar thing. I’m sure I’ve missed three or four outrages. What happened to three strikes and you’re out?
Personally I prefer they reside in Joliet. Or is Joliet lower security than Marion? Maybe I’m just remembering the Lincoln Park Pirates song.
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