?Obama Justice Department Obstructing 'Fast and Furious' Gun Probe, ATF Director Says

'Fast & furious' gets hotter for holder

Last Updated: 10:20 PM, July 6, 2011
Posted: 10:20 PM, July 6, 2011

Michael A. Walsh


Don't look now, but the real action in Washington this week isn't the parti san wrangling over the debt ceiling but something -- literally -- even more incendiary: Operation Fast and Furious, which seems about to explode right in the face of Attorney General Eric Holder -- and maybe other administration officials, too.

Also known as Project Gunrunner, the Arizona-based operation was supposed to be a sting, under which the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is part of the Justice Department, allowed "straw purchasers" to transfer weapons from gun shops in Arizona to Mexican drug cartels to trace and halt crossborder arms-trafficking.

That's the official version, anyway -- but it's crumbling, fast.
The ATF's acting director, Kenneth Melson, has been singing like a canary to congressional investigators as he pushes back against administration pressure for him to resign and take the fall for something that, at the very least, had to include the US Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and possibly the Homeland Security Department.

In a letter to Holder released yesterday, Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley accused the Justice Department of blocking their investigation into the burgeoning scandal (which has resulted in the deaths of at least two American agents and countless Mexican civilians), muzzling the ATF and involving other federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, in funding the crackpot scheme.

"The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities," they wrote.

"It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify."

That's the key to this mess -- and the reason that Operation Fast and Furious might turn out to be the biggest Washington scandal since Iran-Contra.

As Issa and Grassley note in their letter, had the other agencies shared information -- theoretically the goal of the post-9/11 revamp of the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies -- "then ATF might have known that gun trafficking 'higher-ups' had already been identified."

So if the identities of the Mexican criminals were known to the feds, what was the point of Project Gunrunner -- and why is Holder so desperately trying to stonewall by withholding hundreds of documents from Congress?

Law-abiding gun owners and dealers think they already know. With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here -- they don't -- many suspect that "Fast and Furious" was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun control by executive fiat.

"I just want you to know that we're working on it," Obama was quoted as saying to gun-control advocate Sarah Brady in March. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

Unfortunately for the administration, this one's out in the open now.

Melson testified behind closed doors on July 4, but the country needs to hear him speak -- loudly and publicly. "Let me be clear," Issa wrote to Melson in April, "we are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice."

Exactly. Because this one's not just a domestic issue. A Mexican senator, Rene Arce Islas, told Fox News that he believes whoever is responsible for the monumental, lethal cock-up should be tried not only in America but in Mexico, too.

That's not going to happen, of course. Even if any prominent American officials are implicated, there is zero chance they'd have to face Mexican justice.

But Issa's charge that Holder & Co. are obstructing a congressional investigation is serious. Not even the Justice Department is above the law.
The best way to disinfect the putrid mess that is Operation Fast and Furious is to expose it to sunlight. Let's hear what the attorney general and others have to say in open hearings.

Because somebody's got some "splainin' " to do -- fast, before the American people get furious.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fast_furious_gets_hotter_for_holder_wDCoBUrOxYF8r1GobKS89M#ixzz1ROWN5Fez

Justice Department Obstructing 'Fast and Furious' Gun Probe, ATF Director Says


By William Lajeunesse
Published July 06, 2011




The Justice Department is obstructing the congressional investigation of a U.S. law enforcement operation intended to crack down on major weapons traffickers on the Southwest border, according to the embattled leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Ken Melson, the acting director of the ATF, lobbed the accusation when he sneaked in for an interview with congressional investigators on July 4, two days ahead of his scheduled interview with the inspector general about the operation known as "Fast and Furious," Fox News has learned.



FILE: Soldiers stand guard near seized weapons during a news conference at the Defense Headquarters in Mexico City.


"If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand," Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder. "That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation."
The Justice Department is reportedly looking to oust Melson, who has been acting ATF director since April 2009, as the agency deals with its biggest scandal in nearly two decades. Andrew Traver, who was tapped in November by President Obama to become the permanent ATF director, could be named as acting director until the Senate acts on his nomination, sources have said.
In a separate development, congressional sources have learned that not only was U.S. taxpayer money being used to buy guns that were later sent to Mexico, but the main target of the investigation was actually a FBI informant and former drug dealer who had been deported years ago.

"Fast and Furious" has been at the center of an investigation by Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. The operation began in the fall of 2009 as an effort to trace and stop the trafficking of illegal guns on the Southwest border, but instead allowed thousands of guns to get into the hands of Mexican cartel members.

The two say they learned about the program after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010. At the crime scene were two guns linked to the "Fast and Furious" operation.
At an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing last month, three federal firearms investigators testified that they wanted to "intervene and interdict" loads of guns, but were repeatedly ordered to step aside to allow suspected smugglers to carry the weapons over the border.

Issa and Grassley have urged Holder to cooperate and turn over subpoenaed records that would reveal the scope of the government coverup.
The alleged coverup involves three law enforcement agencies: the ATF, FBI and the DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration.

According to sources, unbeknown to the ATF, the target of their operation was a FBI confidential informant, a fact that only became known to them in April of this year after an 18-month investigation that cost millions of dollars of tax dollars.

"They were going after someone they could never have," a source in Washington told Fox News. "The Mr. Big they wanted was using government money to buy guns that went to the cartels. The FBI knew it and didn't tell them."

The confidential informant is a former high-level drug dealer who had been deported by the DEA. The FBI, however, recruited him as a counter-terrorism informant, providing information on potential dirty bombs or Al Qaeda suspects moving through the border region.

The FBI informant was picked up on a DEA wiretap, and forwarded to the ATF.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/06/justice-department-obstructing-fast-and-furious-gun-probe-atf-director-says/#ixzz1ROSx3ELc

interesting post!

thanks this could be a big deal. just waiting for it to blow up all over the place lol

U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms


Jun. 7 2011 - 2:04 pm | 885,241 views | 2 recommendations | 135 comments

By LARRY BELL


Image by Getty Images via @daylife



It may not come as surprising news to many of you that the United Nations doesn’t approve of our Second Amendment. Not one bit. And they very much hope to do something about it with help from some powerful American friends. Under the guise of a proposed global “Small Arms Treaty” premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates” you can be quite certain that an even more insidious threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.

What, exactly, does the intended agreement entail?

While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our Senate, it will almost certainly force the U.S. to:

1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.
2. Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).
3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).
4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.
5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.

Have no doubt that this plan is very real, with strong Obama administration support. In January 2010 the U.S. joined 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty Resolution that will establish a 2012 conference to draft a blueprint for enactment. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for Senate ratification.

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton has cautioned gun owners to take this initiative seriously, stating that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”


Although professing to support the Second Amendment during her presidential election bid, Hillary Clinton is not generally known as a gun rights enthusiast. She has been a long-time activist for federal firearms licensing and registration, and a vigorous opponent of state Right-to-Carry laws. As a New York senator she ranked among the National Rifle Association’s worst “F”-rated gun banners who voted to support the sort of gunpoint disarmament that marked New Orleans’ rogue police actions against law-abiding gun owners in the anarchistic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

President Obama’s record on citizen gun rights doesn’t reflect much advocacy either. Consider for example his appointment of anti-gun rights former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels as an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N., and his choice of Andrew Traver who has worked to terminate civilian ownership of so-called “assault rifles” (another prejudicially meaningless gun term) to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Then, in a move unprecedented in American history, the Obama administration quietly banned the re-importation and sale of 850,000 collectable antique U.S.-manufactured M1 Garand and Carbine rifles that were left in South Korea following the Korean War. Developed in the 1930s, the venerable M1 Garand carried the U.S. through World War II, seeing action in every major battle.

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars. He also served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago during a period between 1998-2001when it contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations.

If someone breaks into your home when you are there, which would you prefer to have close at hand: 1) a telephone to call 911, or 2) a loaded gun of respectable caliber? That’s a pretty easy question for me to answer. I am a long-time NRA member, concealed firearms license holder and a regular weekly recreational pistol shooter. And while I don’t ordinarily care to target anything that has a mother, will reluctantly make an exception should an urgent provocation arise. I also happen to enjoy the company of friends who hunt, as well as those, like myself, who share an abiding interest in American history and the firearms that influenced it


There are many like me, and fewer of them would be alive today were it not for exercise of their gun rights. In factlaw-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 million times during 1993 (about 6,850 times per day), and actually shot and killed 2 1/2 times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). Those civilian self-defense shootings resulted in less than 1/5th as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).

Just how effectively have gun bans worked to make citizens safer in other countries? Take the number of home break-ins while residents are present as an indication. In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, nearly half of all burglaries occur when residents are present. But in the U.S. where many households are armed, only about 13% happen when someone is home.

Recognizing clear statistical benefit evidence, 41 states now allow competent, law-abiding adults to carry permitted or permit-exempt concealed handguns. As a result, crime rates in those states have typically fallen at least 10% in the year following enactment.

So the majority in our Senate is smart enough to realize that the U.N.’s gun-grab agenda is unconstitutional, politically suicidal for those who support it, and down-right idiotic—right? Let’s hope so, but not entirely count on it. While a few loyal Obama Democrats are truly “pro-gun”, many are loathe to vote against treaties that carry the president’s international prestige, causing him embarrassment.

Also, don’t forget that Senate confirmation of anti-gun Obama nominee Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many within the few who voted against her did so only because of massive grassroots pressure from constituents who take their Constitutional protections very seriously.

Now, more than ever, it’s imperative to stick by our guns in demanding that all Constitutional rights be preserved. If not, we will surely lose both

What is really wrong with more stringent gun laws? I go buy a rifle if I need to hunt. I go buy a pistol if I need to defend myself. Do people really need an AK for that purpose? And yes, they need to restrict who buys a gun. Many people out there with access to firearms are not nearly intelligent enough to do so. Also regarding registry, I had to do just that when I bought my firearms. I put my name and address on a piece of paper. Then my part was done. It was such a hassle. Nobody has tried to take my guns away just yet. There is a reason there are 15 000 murders in the US every year, and only 600 (many commited by international gangs using illegal weapons smuggled in from the US) in Canada, and it isn't only to do with population. Gunning somebody down in self defense should not be the acceptable first resort, unless your life is in danger. Anyways, I see all these maybe's and possibly's and many more unsubstantiated statements in that last article. I doubt this will get passed. The UN will blow smoke and talk about it, then they will do nothing, or if they do the US will refuse, then maybe at the most the UN will impose some economic sanctions. Look at how well that stopped the Iranians and Koreans from building nuclear reactors and stockpiling uranium.

Where did they get this from anyways? I don't see any sources.

Steve French said:

What is really wrong with more stringent gun laws? I go buy a rifle if I need to hunt. I go buy a pistol if I need to defend myself. Do people really need an AK for that purpose? And yes, they need to restrict who buys a gun.

Click to expand...

Well, that hunting rifle fires a more powerful cartridge, and the pistol is more concealable. The only thing that the "AK" excels at is looking scary. Technically, the "AK" you're talking about isn't really an "AK" because it lacks the ability to fire full auto. "That's been banned since 1934. If you really wanted a genuine AK-47, you could get one. Just be prepared to pay a $200 transfer tax, shell out $6000+, and make sure it wasn't manufactured after 1986.

Steve French said:

Many people out there with access to firearms are not nearly intelligent enough to do so. Also regarding registry, I had to do just that when I bought my firearms. I put my name and address on a piece of paper. Then my part was done. It was such a hassle. Nobody has tried to take my guns away just yet.

Click to expand...

Yeah, because making marijuana illegal has prevented all the morons of the world from ever obtaining it. And I like how you added that they haven't taken them away just yet. So far, there are several cases where prior registration lists have been turned into present day hunt lists for firearms owners. The first was in New York City in 1991, another was in California stemming from a 1989 "Assault Weapon" (I've never found anyone who could accurately define what an "Assault Weapon" was to me) type law.

Steve French said:

There is a reason there are 15 000 murders in the US every year, and only 600 (many commited by international gangs using illegal weapons smuggled in from the US) in Canada, and it isn't only to do with population. Gunning somebody down in self defense should not be the acceptable first resort, unless your life is in danger.

Click to expand...

The fact of the matter is that as Americans, we also kill people more often with knives, clubs,and even our bare hands compared to the rest of the developed world. This anger management issue is one that needs to be addressed. And more gun control won't leave as much as a scratch in that problem.

Steve French said:

Anyways, I see all these maybe's and possibly's and many more unsubstantiated statements in that last article. I doubt this will get passed. The UN will blow smoke and talk about it, then they will do nothing, or if they do the US will refuse, then maybe at the most the UN will impose some economic sanctions. Look at how well that stopped the Iranians and Koreans from building nuclear reactors and stockpiling uranium.

Click to expand...

This is the same UN who's aid workers extort sexual favors from little girls for food in starving nations. This is the same UN that let Libya chair a human rights committee, and North Korea head up disarmament think tank. I really don't think I want those people deciding on what I can and can not use to protect myself.

Steve French said:

Where did they get this from anyways? I don't see any sources.

Click to expand...

Here's one. Read to your hearts content. Prepare to be enraged, humbled, and maybe have your mind changed.
http://gunfacts.info

There are reasons why I support both the 2nd ammendment and marijuana legalization. They both were enacted by people in positions of power not for the greater societal good, but as just another way to exert control over the populace at large. They both have extensively used lies, half truths, and spin to sway legislators into enacting them. Lastly though is the fact that I believe that human behavior cannot be controlled by limiting access to inanimate objects, and that attempting to do so is an exercise in futility.

I look at this whole thing and think:
"Obama, you knifed us pot smokers in the back, now you're trying it on the gun owners too? Are you doing this to get thrown out on your ass on purpose next year?

criminals will always still get guns if they make them illigal or not. they want to take away american citizens guns so all we have to rely on it the shitty government for protection


i came to america to be a free person. i smoke marijuana because I am a free american, illigal or not I will excercise my freedom

an I will exercise my freedom to own guns and even AK's all day every day and bust a cap in any unamerican antifreedom government nazi that tries to take them

“I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead hands.”

Charlton Heston (1923-200

what do you guys think will happen when the government runs our nation into the ground. when there is not enough food to go around and when there is not enough money to propperly support & fund the police forces?

what will u say then when you are being attacked and robbed for the food in your childrens mouths, when you dont have a gun to stop them because you gave away you freedom to own them


if I am a law abiding citizen, why shouldnt I have an AK???


its a sad state of affairs when a man would volunteer his freedoms and that of his family and countrymen to be taken for a vague and false garanttee of security from a corrupt government.


the day for revolution will always arrive. it is only a matter of how soon the government will's it


The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson



Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin,

[youtube]O0B_UZNtEk4[/youtube]

I SMELL REVOLUTION SOON!
Fuck man, im honestly thinking about starting something and making an attempt to overthrow the government...

i love my ak and my ak loves me

I don't think it would be too smart of the government to try rounding up our guns when they're already on thin ice.

Nice Ol Bud said:

I SMELL REVOLUTION SOON!
Fuck man, im honestly thinking about starting something and making an attempt to overthrow the government...

Click to expand...

you are now on several watch lists.

lol you guys are the mainstream too



the silly aging hippies are in charge now, they are going to be rolling in thier graves when gen xers take over lol


gerneration of:

187 on a motherfuckin cop
cop killa
sawed off shotgun hand on the pump

and many more


aging hippies gonna ruin this place and we will end up haveing to fix it. there will be blood and misery,


we need to get rid of republicans and democrats a scurge on this nation.


but if I can only pick between al frankin and charlton heston. im pickin heston lol




obama sucks donkey dick. i bet right now at his direction Echelon (signals intelligence) is already documenting what we are typing above in a huge data base.


all the comments on news articals that make you login with you facbook account are all being monitored and recorded. Google & Facbook have ties to the US government.






Echelon (signals intelligence)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUSCANNZUKUS or Five Eyes).[1][2] It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.[3]

ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hunts of terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence.[citation needed]

The system has been reported in a number of public sources.[4] Its capabilities' and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001,[5] and by author James Bamford in his books on the National Security Agency of the United States.[3]

In its report, the European Parliament stated that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.[5]

Bamford describes the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.

Like I said b4,they create a scheme, in order to further take away our rights,and control us.. http://www.infowars.com/los-zetas-kingpin-we-bought-guns-directly-from-u-s-government/ wake up people... Did you read about another new scheme,to further justify feelin you,your granny,wife,& kids up.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012249/TSA-scanners-catch-implant-bomber-admit-officials.html?ito=feeds-newsxml I'm sure they'll be bringing out a new more TOXIC body scanner for this fake threat...