” Voting on strictly partisan lines, a House committee recommended Wednesday that Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder be cited for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to the botched Fast and Furious (F&F) weapons sting operation,” cnn.com reports. “The committee measure now goes to the full House for consideration, expected next week, of what would be an unprecedented action — Congress holding a sitting attorney general in contempt.” Holder’s reaction to the vote was inevitable, obfuscatory and predictable: “The action that the committee took yesterday was unwarranted, unnecessary and unprecedented,” the AG pronounced. Yes, well, no . . .

By invoking Executive Privilege to deny the Committee the documents they’d subpoenaed,  the White House confirmed its direct involvement in the Fast and Furious scandal, wherein the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (amongst others) facilitated the illegal sale of over 2000 firearms to known criminals. And then let them “walk.”

The POTUS’ peeps may have had operational knowledge of the ATF’s “Guns for Goons” program. Or they may have been directly involved in a coverup to hide the fact that U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down by Mexican drug thugs wielding ATF-enabled weapons. Either way, they’re up to their eyeballs in something Fast and Furious related.

No surprise there. The U.S. AG’s office lied to Congress when they claimed that Operation Fast and Furious didn’t “walk” guns across our Southern border (“retracted” later). The U.S. AG lied when he told Congress he’d learned of the ATF’s [ostensibly] anti-gun smuggling gun smuggling op through the media coverage of Agent Terry’s death. And stonewalled the Committee. But good.

Holder and the Obama administration are now, officially, up against the wall. They will have to answer this charge. They will have to provide the requested documents or face a full House vote on Contempt of Congress. That said, Representative Issa is making conciliatory noises towards the AG, knowing that any such vote must be based on the fact that he exhausted any possible solution.

Issa said after the hearing that he believes a settlement to avoid an unprecedented contempt vote in the House is “in the best interest of the Justice Department, Congress and those most directly affected by Operation Fast and Furious.”

Truth be told, there can be no settlement. The documents that Issa’s homies seek would establish the fact that the Obama Administration, possibly the President himself, knew about Operation Fast and Furious before Agent Terry and Agent Zapata were slaughtered  by cartel members using ATF-enabled firearms.

They would also reveal the extent of the post-mortem coverup, including the Head of the Department of Homeland Security (who flew down to the Terry murder scene the day after the Fast and Furious connection was revealed). Again, potentially involving the President of the United States.

The Obama Administration’s supporters are in full spin mode. They have two arguments: Issa is on a witch hunt. And second, Bush did it too.

First, Issa IS on a witch hunt. What else would you call a President of the United States who violates federal and international law to pursue a policy that puts U.S. law enforcement officials and hundreds of innocent Mexicans in harm’s way? A President willing to sacrifice innocent life to empower an anti-Second Amendment federal agency run seriously amok. Well, you may have other names, but you know what I mean.

Secondly, I could argue that Bush’s Operation Wide Receiver was a substantively different (if almost equally bone-headed) program, but the plain truth is that two wrongs don’t make a right. And we’re talking here about the White House’s refusal to provide documents to the U.S. Congress when so ordered. Not what’s IN the documents.

That will come later. Those papers will open a can of worms: revealing the full extent of the Obama Administration’s collusion with Mexican drug cartels. It’s a scandal of epic proportions. When it comes to the U.S. “War on Drugs”—the corruption, misery and loss of liberty it has engendered—here’s hoping the truth about Operation Fast and Furious will set us free.

 

 

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

32 COMMENTS

  1. Wasserman-Shultz is a good mascot for the democrats. She’ll do more to elect Republicans than campaign cash will.

  2. I keep hearing this referred to in the news as a “botched” sting operation, yet no know seems to mention how it was supposed to have worked if everything had gone right.

    • Exactly. The media that have mentioned it in the last year and a half keep referring to “the botched Fast and Furious (F&F) weapons sting operation” (see above excerpt). It was not botched. It did exactly what the Obama administration wanted it to do. It delivered guns to one Mexican drug cartel, providing: a. the administration a “reason” to further infringe on 2nd Amendment rights and b. aid to the cartel that both the US and Calderon are hoping would win in the cartel war going on in Mexico.
      If all the facts are uncovered it might cost Obama his presidency and Calderon some jail time. He can’t run again so his successor might bend to public pressure if he is involved and prosecute him.
      Hey, a lot is on the line for these politicians, what do a few hundred lives and the rule of law mean.

      • Excuss me !! These weapons are being used, were being used to tack BADGUYS…. A few happened to be used in incedents that involved the deaths of citizens and agents. It is a dirty game being played by the Cartels and a violent counter-measure being played mostly by the USA. Someone is bound to get hurt on ‘our’ side. How would you like it if the government came for you after the gun you sold to someone you never saw was used to kill someone? Would you put up with that? And to note, the marked guns are still in play and are being used to track and hunt down the cartels. So giving up documents would be counter productive. Be smarter than the Repubs in congress who are playind politics and DO NOT have your rights(2A included) at heart.

        • These weapons are being used, were being used to tack [sic] BADGUYS

          I assume that was supposed to be “track,” in which case, source? It has already been shown they made no effort to track the weapons, to the point of ordering the agents following the buyers to stand down and cease pursuit.

          How would you like it if the government came for you after the gun you sold to someone you never saw was used to kill someone?

          If I sold that gun to someone who I knew to be an illegal purchaser, as the ATF made the border stores do, the government would be well within their rights to lock my criminal ass up.

          the marked guns are still in play and are being used to track and hunt down the cartels.

          And again, source? Aside from (sometimes) tracing them after they are found at a crime scene (you know, like the one where the guns our government sold them were used to murder a federal agent), they are doing nothing to track and/or find those weapons.

          So giving up documents would be counter productive.

          How so? You think if the documents are published, the cartels are going to look at the list of serial numbers and then check them against their inventory to make sure they don’t have any “illegal guns?”

          Be smarter than the Repubs in congress who are playind [sic] politics

          When the investigation only encompassed the ATF agents and supervisors in the SW regional area, the investigation was not “playing politics.” Just because the thread of responsibility rose higher and higher through the ranks ’til it hit Eric Holder, who happens to be a Democrat, the investigation did not magically become “playing politics.” It’s still just an investigation.

          Please take your mal-formed opinions and shoddy grammar back to Facebook.

        • Isn’t it kinda hard to use the guns to track the bad guys when the guns are, y’know, lost? Did I miss the part about putting GPS trackers in the guns before the BATFE(ASRBF) let them walk off to parts unknown?

  3. Going forward, I would be interested in some possible “what now” scenarios.

    What if Holder supplies some, but not all the documents that are requested, or all of them with large portions blacked out or redacted?

    What if he supplies no more documents?

    What if the contempt citation goes to a full House vote and Holder is found in contempt?

    What if Boehner refuses to take it to a full vote?

    Is there any way to force the release of the documents?

    My prediction is that the administration will try to get Boehner to agree not to take it to a full vote if they supply a few more redacted documents in a faux attempt to cooperate with Issa and the committee and he will cave in. The Dems have already started working on him by describing any further action by him as unprecedented, harsh and damaging to his reputation. Then it will die a quiet death.

    We can only hope that in this day of multiplicity of electronic documents and emails that some whistleblower will step forward with irrefutable evidence that forces release of all the data. Could that happen?

    • Whistleblowers have already salted the stew with documents and that in itself is controversial since DoJ claims it was illegal to do so. Some of the brave souls are in fear of arrest or worse.

  4. Here’s another one: Would a newly elected Republican President pardon an impeached Obama who was now facing criminal charges?

    And now the most unlikely of all scenarios. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Obama and Holder were eventually found guilty of treason and negligent homicide? I’m also working on a new video game where you throw snowballs at flying pigs in hell.

  6. A witch hunt implies looking for enemies or scapegoats that aren’t there because witches are, you know, fictional. F&F, on the other hand, appears to be very real abuses of power which had very real consequences. So, no, I don’t think Issa is on a witch hunt at all. As for what to call what he’s doing, let’s see… A campaign for truth? A quest for justice? Whatever you want, just not a witch hunt.

    Also, post mortem.

  7. I love how she kept saying “they provided 7600 documents”. Uh, they asked for more than that. What a moron. It doesn’t matter if they gave up million documents. They didn’t provide what was asked!

    • I have the unfortunate pleasure of living in this democrat tools district. I have been to her office and met with her staff on several issues. The degree of outright ignorance and arrogance of her staff was astounding. The outright lies they told me were incredible and echo what this idiot says every time she’s in front of a camera. They would not provide me with an opportunity to meet with the congresswoman, which is probably a good outcome as I would be likely to clock her if I ever came face to face with her (ugh, face to face, that’s a revolting thought!)

  8. i don’t know how it works, but i woulda had all the documents destroyed nine months ago! what makes you think that they still exist?

    • We know they exist, because if they had been destroyed the White House would just do a data dump of what’s left and tell the committee th-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks. Instead, Holder is facing a contempt charge.

      Refusing to hand over documents = contempt. No teeth there. Nobody’s gone to jail for contempt of Congress since 1934. Destroying documents under supeona = impeachment. Big teeth there and a huge difference.

  9. It’s time to officially rename this thread. I propose we call it The Eric Holder Forced Retirement Watch.

  10. I am old enough have lived through Iran–Contra in 1980 this where this going. Files in this matter gone end up in sherding machine disapear black out point so useless well not matter if Issa get them. What clear Eric holder can not do his Job at Doj has said he think of quiting becuase it been to hard of job for him. Down side replace Eric Holder Obama get replace him with any one he want well presdent.

  11. Ralph might want to chime in on this but…..
    First off if I remember correctly at no time has the Mexican government had any policy to tell the US what guns were used in what crimes if ever, or hand over a list of serial numbers of guns that were seized and destroyed. Even if the head of the cartel on video shot and killed someone and showed the serial number of a gun that was sold in the F&F program, what makes anyone think that the US has any jurisdiction to go in and arrest one of them. Most of the arrests we see are little guys in the game.

    Next, given that it doesn’t appear that the Holder will hand over anything, if the contempt charge goes through then what? Jail for Holder?
    Obama now used his power to try and stop all this. It sounds like, based on news accounts, that congress will cite that he illegally used his power. To prove us wrong they would need to go line by line through all 100,000+ documents and the defense would need to prove that in fact it was used properly. In that sense they get to see what was there, that they felt we couldn’t see so it is a win anyways.

    Also there was a news report this morning that much of the administration is now using gmail, as apposed to the official white house email system. This is also illegal unless they were simply talking non work related stuff. If it was used for work then that is another major issue!

    I am just so disappointed by all this, disillusioned, and disgusted.

  12. this was nothing more than a stupid ploy to cause deaths in mexico with US guns to build public support for gun laws. It sickens me how little reguard for mexican life this administration has . No guns were”traaced” becaus we can’t know about the ilicit transfers it goes through once it crosses the border.
    When they find one at a crime scene, theres no record of how it got there from the border. Who knows how many mexicans died in crimes where these guns were not recovered.

  14. So Bush did it? And that makes it ok? Nevermind that the Bush operation worked with the Mexican government, actually used tracking devices, and recovered many if not most of the weapons involved. So that campaign slogan “Change” meant we’re going to do what Bush was doing, only much worse. Now that’s CHANGE!

    If you weren’t suspicious that the big O had his grimy hands in Fast & Furious before, you should at least be a little suspicious now.

    • Obama’s saying, “Bush did it” amounts to an admission of guilt. If Bush did it, in Obama’s universe, it must have been evil, since they’ve blamed him for every woe since the Fall of Man.

  15. Why didn’t they just burn the really bad docs? Because Obama knows Issa’s received some of the docs under the table from several whistleblowers, but he doesn’t know WHICH docs. So, if he destroys an incriminating doc that turns up already in Issa’s hands, he’s busted bigtime.

    I’m now guessing that the ultimate goal wasn’t to “track weapons”, nor was it to give Obama an excuse for pushing gun control. (Not that he would have passed the chance by if it came, but that was gravy, not the main purpose.)

    I’m guessing it’s all somehow immigration-related. I can’t quite figure out if he meant to cause havoc across northern Mexico, thus driving many more refugees/immigrants/Dem voters our way, or if he was trying to arm one of the less brutal gangs so that they would have a better chance of keeping out La Mara Salvatrucha with their reputed ties to Al Qaida, or if he sees an advantage in stirring up the whole Mexican pot and getting Calderon overthrown by some Mexican revolutionary type who would be willing to work with Obama by sending hordes of Mexicans across the border in sufficient numbers to keep Dems in office forever, in exchange for, oh, say, giving Texas or Arizona to Mexico.

    Thing is, Obama’s a scarily brilliant guy, a guy who quite quickly latched on to the main Chicago organization and was already excelling at the “favors for power and cash” game that they do so well there. My Chicago buds tell me they all remain amazed that he skated while Rezko and Blags and company went down, and no one has dared try to implicate him at all – THAT’s power by Chicago terms. So, I’m thinking that the most common theories about what he was doing with F&F are too simplistic – he makes plans that are far bigger than any of those theories.

    People still don’t get just how dangerous Obama is.

  16. Under Bush, they put ‘bugs’ in the guns, so the Mexican authorities working with us could TRACK the guns, and maybe catch some of the higher-ups in the cartel. It didn’t work. The batteries in the ‘bugs’ went dead and many weapons disappeared until they were confiscated by Mexican Police, often at crime scenes. That experience of guns disappearing led to the cancellation of the program during the Bush Administration.

    Then we have the Obama Administration. They thought the Bush failure was a great idea — it just needed to be improved a little. First of all, forget about TRACKING the guns to any big wheels in the cartels. Since we are not TRACKING guns, no need to tell anyone in the Mexican Government about our little scheme. Besides, they might not like the idea that we expose innocent Mexicans to being shot when the cartels turn the streets into battlegrounds.

    We escort the gun-runners to the border, to make sure those guns get safely into Mexico. Then, we just sit back and wait for those guns to get into the hands of the Mexican Police, after they are used to murder a few people — no worry, just a few Mexicans will die, and Mexicans don’t matter. Then we can TRACE the guns back to the American gun stores, where we ordered the owners to make obvious “straw sales”. There you have it, undeniable “proof” that “90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the USA, because of our lax gun laws”.

    F&F was no “SNAFU”, no “fustercluck”, and no “botched sting operation”. It was a calculated plan to advance the anti-2 A. agenda of the Obama Administration.

    • LongPurple-
      You sir, succinctly have condensed this fiasco to its basic elements. You throw in the early politics of the 90% meme from Napolatano, Hclinton, Holder and Obama’s “gun control-under the radar” comment and you have the complicit players that put it together. The MSM running interference and cover for this gives it all it needs to dismantle our 2A rights. I’m old enough to have trusted and lost trust for both sides of dem/repubs. I’m a constitutional conservative now and vote accordingly. I’ll be voting in November, trust that, and stocking up on ammo and supplies when the shtf.

    • The U.S. government funnels around 2,000 guns to a Mexican cartel without the Mexican government’s knowledge; conservatively, 300 Mexicans are dead as a result; 2 U.S. federal agents are dead; the whole thing is timed to justify gun control north of the border, a border our federal government can’t or won’t protect.

      It’s doubtful Brian Terry, Jaime Zapata, or all the unnamed Mexicans were bored in the last minutes of their lives. Sounds like someone wants to change the subject.

Comments are closed.