ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

[HackerF15E]

Like I stated, incredibly short sighted and no memory of recent events whatsoever. As someone who's followed this entire fiacso very closely since the story broke, the anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that this was a politically motivated, or at the very least a politically expedient operation is overwhelming.

My comment had to do with the specific comments in this specific article, not about the entire operation.

It may very well turn out that there was some big plan and conspiracy behind how the operation was handled -- I'm not denying that (although there's no direct evidence of that yet).

What I was saying was that email which was the basis of that article in December isn't an indicator of some larger plan, especially one which includes more sweeping firearms regulation than what that article speaks of (requiring reporting of multiple purchases by a single individual).

 

[Glocktogo]

My comment had to do with the specific comments in this specific article, not about the entire operation.

It may very well turn out that there was some big plan and conspiracy behind how the operation was handled -- I'm not denying that (although there's no direct evidence of that yet).

What I was saying was that email which was the basis of that article in December isn't an indicator of some larger plan, especially one which includes more sweeping firearms regulation than what that article speaks of (requiring reporting of multiple purchases by a single individual).

Your comment referenced the article, but not specific comments within (at least from my reading). The emails and the article reference using F&F statistics to support Demand letter #3, which is exactly what they did for the southwest region. In the early days of the Obama administration, they were inundating the media with weekly refrains of border violence being aided by lax US gun laws and straw purchasers. They made it seem as if gun mules were carrying armloads out of stores unopposed. As it turns out, the dealers wanted to turn them away empty handed and the ATF strongarmed them into selling anyway, which they then used as fodder for their campaign for more laws and regulations. That smells of a concerted effort on the part of the administration.

Here's another tidbit that smells pretty rank.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2012/06/sipsey-street-exclusive-strategic_17.html

It’s a long article and deserves to be read in its entirety, but I’ll post the most relevant parts:

As early as October 2009, officials in both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration objected through their respective chains of command about weapons smuggling and related confidential informant operations in the Republic of Mexico on the part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including what the world has come to know as Operation Fast and Furious, according to previously reliable sources familiar with the intelligence operations of the United States.

Because of the refusal of the ATF and FBI at lower levels to allow "deconfliction" with the CIA and DEA, these complaints, according to the sources, were eventually forwarded to the National Security Council of the White House, including Kevin O'Reilly, a State Department employee seconded to the NSC, O'Reilly's boss Dan Restrepo, then Director of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the NSC and Denis McDonough, then NSC's head of Strategic Communication and since then promoted to the Deputy Director of the National Security Council. McDonough, described in one biographical sketch as a "tough guy" and "Obama’s single most influential foreign policy adviser," is also a personal friend and "basketball buddy" of the President of the United States.

The result, said one source, "The word came back from NSC, 'butt out.'"

McDonough is a name not previously mentioned in regard to the Fast and Furious investigation, although it has been established that by March, 2009, Phoenix ATF Special Agent in Charge William Newell was exchanging emails with O'Reilly and that Dan Restrepo was in turn being briefed on those communications by O'Reilly. Yet other sources have recently reported to this writer that O'Reilly, who was suddenly transferred to a State Department job in Iraq when the White House discovered that the Issa committee wanted to talk to him about his contacts with Newell, owes his continued Fast and Furious anonymity to McDonough.
Said the source, "NSC Deputy Director, Denis McDonough is the guy protecting Kevin O'Reilly," adding "DEA knows what O'Reilly did."
According to the latest reports from my sources, O'Reilly remains essentially out of reach of Issa's investigators in Iraq. One source joked that this was an example of "Strategic NON-Communication."

<snip>

These latest reports linking McDonough with Kevin O'Reilly and the "deconfliction" decision subsequent to the complaints by the DEA and CIA about gunwalking into Mexico place responsibility for the Fast and Furious scandal directly where many observers had suspected all along -- at the threshold of the door to the Oval Office.

Who is McDonough? He's the guy sitting between Hillary and the AF General (at the table) during the Bin-Laden raid in Abbottabad.

You can't look at one report or one email to see the pattern emerge. It requires an in-depth analysis of the totality to paint an accurate picture. That picture has all the hallmarks of a politically motivated op. One that wasn't revealed by the players who were furthering the anti-gun agenda of the administration. They were ratted out by one of their unwilling accomplices.

The ensuing obfuscation is glaring. Watching Holder and company delay, defer, deny, mislead and parse details to the sub-molecular level is telling. They want Congress and the nation to be confused. They do not want clarity and they're doing nothing in furtherance of the truth. Again, hallmarks of a political op. The truth is there, but you can't see it from the surface. You have to dig to see it.

 

[MLR]

We have to admit that Fast and Furious did prove that guns were being sold to Mexican gangs and shipped across the border to Mexico. The fact that it was the ATF that enabled the transactions is besides the point. No laws were broken because laws only apply to ordinary citizens.

Michael

 

[reddog1]

wow... so.... Alex Jones was right?

 

[Shadowrider]

We have to admit that Fast and Furious did prove that guns were being sold to Mexican gangs and shipped across the border to Mexico. The fact that it was the ATF that enabled the transactions is besides the point. No laws were broken because laws only apply to ordinary citizens.

Michael

Say whut? I'm pretty sure that the DOJ pressuring the ATF into pressuring lowly gun dealers into knowingly breaking the law IS breaking a law somewhere. And doing it with full knowledge that these guns were crossing the border into a sovereign nation and hiding it from them is going to be breaking more law(s). And then we have a dead DEA agent and a dead Border Patrol agent with these guns present at the scene. Yep....It's impeachable at the very least and "incarcerable" IMO.

But I get your sarcasm. Just look at what the WH is doing to Arizona. The arrogance is astounding!

 

[Glocktogo]

The smoking gun is about to catch on fire:

http://www.examiner.com/article/sea...ontain-highly-embarrassing-facts?CID=obinsite

When U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in December of 2010 while investigating illegal gun and drug smuggling that turned out to be part of the Obama Administration scandal known as Fast and Furious, all records concerning the murder were sealed by the courts.

But in a bombshell revelation made by author and reporter Katie Pavlich on C-SPAN2's Book TV series Sunday evening, Pavlich told National Journal reporter Major Garrett that all of the evidence suggests that the reason the records are sealed is to prevent the public from finding out highly embarrassing information about the Obama Administration.

That information is that Agent Terry was more than likely murdered by paid FBI informants working with Mexican drug cartels and that the gun they used to kill him was a Fast and Furious weapon the Obama Administration had deliberately placed in their hands.

Pavlich's new book titled, "Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up," contains information gleaned from extensive research during which dozens of interviews were conducted with ATF whistleblowers and other sources inside the government who possess insider knowledge of the Fast and Furious scandal.

Very little information has been provided to the press or to the public concerning evidence retrieved at the crime scene, except for the fact that at least two guns were recovered. But government whistleblowers working for the ATF, ICE, and the FBI have reported that a third gun was recovered at the scene but was never sent to the forensics lab for analysis. That gun somehow mysteriously disappeared.

The agents who saw the gun and who are familiar with the Fast and Furious operation are adamant that it was part of the illegal scheme to send U.S. guns to Mexican drug cartels.

A secretly taped conversation between an ATF agent and a gun dealer, which was submitted into evidence and broadcast on CBS News, shows that there was a third gun despite vehement denials early on by administration officials.

Thus, overwhelming factual evidence already has been established that the third gun was present at the scene and removed, thus preventing it from being analyzed by forensics, and that the Mexican criminals that ATF agents had in their sights for gun and drug trafficking turned out to be paid FBI informants.

The information provided by Pavlich in her book confirms the claims made previously by ATF informants, which were relayed by this reporter and others over the past 18 months. Further, Pavlich is convinced that the reason the evidence from Brain Terry's murder is tightly sealed from public view is that the Obama Administration does not want the public to know that its Fast and Furious operation led directly to Agent Terry's death.

Part of the motivation for Barack Obama's assertion of executive privilege in withholding subpoenaed documents from the Issa Committee in Congress may be intended further to prevent the disclosure of the embarrassing facts surrounding Agent Terry's death, which of itself suggests much more extensive White House involvement in the scheme than previously disclosed.

But reporter Mike Vanderboegh, who first broke the Fast and Furious story in December of 2010, suggested Sunday that at least two other reasons account for Obama's declaration of executive privilege.

The first reason is that the White House wishes to protect its primary source of information about the scandal, former National Security Council member Kevin O'Reilly who was briefed regularly about the operation by the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division of the ATF, Bill Newell. O'Reilly has been prevented thus far from providing testimony to Congress by deploying him to Iraq on a special mission out of the State Department by his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Executive privilege will prevent O'Reilly from testifying in the future, even if he is brought home from Iraq.

The second reason for Obama's assertion of executive privilege is a factor that so far very few have discussed. As an operation involving drug smuggling and gun trafficking, Fast and Furious was part of the internal Justice Department division known to insiders as "Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force" (OCDETF). The division is so important within the Justice Department that all of its operations must be overseen and approved directly by the Attorney General, with overall oversight provided by the President of the United States.

Andrew McCarthy of National Review provides an in depth report on the manner in which OCDETF operates, the relevant point being that the administration's claim that the Fast and Furious scandal was a botched sting operation of local field agents out of the Phoenix office is completely ludicrous when viewed within the context of the OCDETF.

These operations are invariably conducted by what is known as "main Justice" in Washington at the highest levels of government.

Thus, there is no way in which Fast and Furious could have been conceived, planned, and implemented without the expressed knowledge and approval of the Attorney General in consultation with the President of the United States.

And that explains Obama's assertion of executive privilege.

 

[SMS]

How much of that has been verified or at least speculated about by other sources?

Sure sounds juicy but I know nothing about the credibility of Pavlich or Martin.....

 

[Hobbes]

Maybe someone can help me out here.

I heard the HoR contempt vote is set for sometime Thursday.
The SCOTUS healthcare ruling will be released Thursday morning.

Won't the contempt vote be completely overshadowed by the SCOTUS ruling?
The Boehner and Cantor plan is ???

 

[RugersGR8]

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/guns-117493-mexico-states.html
Ann Coulter: Guns for drug cartels biggest scandal in US history
June 30, 2012 11:33:42 PM
....."No one has explained what putting 2,500 untraceable guns in the hands of Mexican drug dealers was supposed to accomplish.

But you know what that might have accomplished? It would make the Democrats' lie retroactively true - allowing them to push for the same gun restrictions they were planning when they first concocted it.".....