Fast and Furious

In the fall of 2009, the department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), under direction of the U.S. Justice Department, began a gun-walking operation known as "Fast and Furious."  Here was the premise:  allow "straw purchasers" (someone who buys weapons for someone who cannot buy them themselves) to obtain automatic weapons, including .50 caliber sniper rifles, from a dealer in Arizona, cross the border into Mexico with those weapons (hence the "walking") and get them into the hands of Mexican drug cartels where they would then be arrested for possession of illegal weapons.  ATF had GPS tracking devices on the weapons and would track them until the cartels obtained them.  Here's where it all went south, no pun intended.  First of all, the batteries for the GPS devices died, so the weapons all but vanished.  Granted, they still had the serial numbers of the guns, but serial numbers don't emit a signal.  Next, neither ATF nor the Justice Department notified the Mexican authorities of what they were doing.  Oops.  But what really set this off was the murder of U.S. Customs Agent Brian Terry.
     A total of 2,020 weapons were purchased and walked into Mexico.  To date, over 1,400 of those weapons are still unaccounted for.  Over 500 have been linked to violent crime in Mexico.  At least 2 were found at the crime scene where Agent Terry was murdered.  A botched operation no doubt, but it gets worse.  When Attorney General Eric Holder was questioned about it on May 3 of this year by the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said that he had heard of Fast and Furious "a few weeks ago."  But a memo that later surfaced from November 2010, Assistant AG Lanny Breuer notified Holder of a sealed indictment against alleged gun traffickers in Arizona that would remain sealed "until another investigation, Phoenix-based 'Operation Fast and Furious', is ready for takedown."  And in a memo from July 2010 by Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) claimed Holder was notified that NDIC and a Phoenix drug enforcement task force would assist ATF with an investigation of a suspected gun trafficker being run under Fast and Furious.  Again, oops.  So not only will Holder not admit how long he's actually known about Fast and Furious, even when under oath, he accepts no responsibility for this operation nor will he apologize to the family of Brian Terry, only saying he "regrets" what happened to Terry.  Now the White House has sealed the documents about Agent Terry's death.  This is getting dangerously close to the textbook definition of a cover-up.  Democrats have tried to lessen the impact of Fast and Furious by pointing out that there was a similar operation run under the Bush administration, operation Wide Receiver.  While this is true, there are 2 key differences:  1) Under Wide Receiver, Mexican authorities were notified and involved and, 2) No federal agents lost their life under Wide Receiver.  So Democrats are going to justify Fast and Furious with "Bush did it too?"  Really? I'm not saying Wide Receiver was acceptable DOJ policy, but why can't Dems come down on one of their own for such an egregious error in judgement?  As heat has increased on Holder to resign in the wake of Fast and Furious, he is growing agitated.  He actually confronted a reporter from the Daily Caller, saying, "You guys need to - you need to stop this.  It's not an organic thing that's just happening.  You guys are behind it."  Why is it when liberals are caught in scandals, it's always some "right-wing conspiracy?"  What makes this even worse is someone in the White House knew about this.  According to Human Events, during recent Congressional testimony, former Phoenix area ATF special agent in charge William Newell claims he "discussed the operation with the national security director for North America, Kevin O'Reilly."  This proves a White House official knew about Fast and Furious.  President Obama claims he had no knowledge of Fast and Furious, yet $10 million was set aside for the operation as part of the 2009 stimulus package and he talked about "gun tracing" and "gun enforcement policies" at a joint press conference in Mexico City with President Felipe Calderon in April 2009.  So, obviously someone is lying.  The bigger question is who and about how much?  Obama continues to stand by Holder enacting no discipline upon him whatsoever.  I fear as more details unfold in this investigation, the fallout could be so immense it could make Watergate look like child's play.  Personally, I think this whole operation was botched on purpose to push an all-out assault on the 2nd Amendment.  I hope I'm wrong.  I really, really do.