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 ...
More importantly, a BATF paid for the GPS thingie out of his own pocket at a Radio Shack -- because there was no budget for actually tracking the weapons!
A singular fact which proves that the whole exercise had nothing to do with actually "tracking the weapons" but was set up to do something else altogether different.
Never let a crisis go to Waste...
So who was responsible? An intern?
Why send Holder to Levenworth? Mexico wants extradition of those involved in this fiasco; let Holder rot in a Mexican prison.
If he didn’t know then he shouldn’t be holding on to his job,no pun intended.
I’m sure Mr. Holder wants to “distance himself” - at least as far as the orbit of Jupiter - from this debacle ! His testimony to Mr. Issa’s Committee was like listening to Jack Lemon !
Tuesday, his - and his minions’- testimony alleging OFF was a “sting operation targeting drug cartel leadership” got knifed when Mr. D. Codrea of Gun Rights Examiner published allegations, thanks to BATF and FBI manipulation of the ICS System, enabled “prohibited persons” - with no known connections to Mexican cartels - to obtain firearms in Indiana ! A fact, if proven true, pretty well kills the OA meme of OFF being limited to a trans-border sting operation.
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/mainstream-media-ignores-indiana-gunwalker-story
>PS
Joliet is a state prison. Marion is a federal pen.
It certainly appears that they knew exactly what was going on.
So. THREE top officials IN THE WHITE HOUSE are directly involved and none of them are going to go pumping themselves up to little bammy about their clever little scheme?
That has got to be the three most iron-willed, well disciplined donks in the u.S.
And NO, I am not buying that load of crap "I didn't know" for one minute. If there is one thing a hard core donk loves to do it is self promotion to superiors while sniffing around for points and promotions.
The Government of Mexico must REALLY like Obama. They have said very little about this.
“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.”
Perhaps this is Holder’s meaning of “IS” moment.
Holder will end up resigning...this stuff just takes time.
There are murders of police and children across the USA
because of Holder and Obama and the ultracorrupt DOJ.
Holder has made the DOJ a joke for the rest of this
century.
DOJ - The Agency of murderers against the American Homeland.
distance maybe, but out of range, no way.
Well, hadn’t thought of that. But perhaps you’re right, Mexico should have first crack at him.
Then again, why can’t we have a crack at him too? He got our people killed too. Maybe we can put him on border detail. One day he’s on the US side, the next the Mexican side.
Holder is a moron if he thinks anyone will believe this program was adopted and put into action without some approval at a high level. Particularly since it affected Mexican law enforcement interests.
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