Published on Jun 22, 2012 by Pajamasmedia
President Obama personally inserted himself into the Fast & Furious gun walking scandal after he extended executive privilege over certain DOJ documentation. Was the Fast & Furious a botched scandal, or a deliberate effort to undermine the Second Amendment? Find out as Bill Whittle explores the ideological motives behind the Fast & Furious scandal.
Tags: Operation Fast & Furious
Posted in Barack Obama, Corruption, Eric Holder, Mexico, Second Amendment | 33 Comments »
This is hot of the press, so all of the details are not in. It appears that the congressional investigation of Operation Fast & Furious scandal has progressed to the next level. The Daily Beast is reporting that Kenneth Melson, Acting Director of the ATF, will testify before Congress next month as to his knowledge of Fast & Furious operations. The congressional committee has also been given access to documents previously withheld by DOJ.
The head of the embattled federal agency that combats gun trafficking has agreed to talk with Senate investigators, a potentially important breakthrough as Congress tries to determine whether higher-ups in the Obama administration knew about a controversial sting that let assault weapons flow across the border into Mexico’s drug wars.
The testimony—expected next month from Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—was brokered as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa’s Charles Grassley. Grassley and his fellow Republicans were given full access to ATF documents, Melson, and other key witnesses; and in return, Grassley agreed to release three Obama administration nominees he had been blocking, according to correspondence obtained by NEWSWEEK and THE DAILY BEAST.Grassley had been fighting to get full access for months. He finally got it with a letter Leahy wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting access for both his staff and Grassley’s investigators to the evidence and witnesses in the gun-sting investigation. In return, Grassley agreed to let proceed the nominations of Jim Cole to be deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco to be assistant attorney general for national security, and Virginia Seitz to be head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the letter shows.
HAT TIP DORIEN GREY
Tags: Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Operation Fast & Furious
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Elections 2012, Free Speech, government, Headlines, Second Amendment, Weapons | 26 Comments »
On June 21 Rep. Darrell Issa sent a letter to ATF Deputy Director William Hoover warning that the ATF should not retaliate against whistle blower agents who spilled the beans on the criminal enterprise known as Operation Fast and Furious. 2 days later, on June 23, veteran agent Vince Cefalu was sent a termination letter informing him tthat he was to turn in his gun and badge. Pending appeal he has been placed on administrative leave. Agent Cefalu was one of the first whistleblowers in the Fast and Furious scandal as he reported the details of the operation to Fox News last December.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is being accused of retaliating against an agent who helped publicize the agency’s role in allowing thousands of guns to cross the U.S. border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
The agent, Vince Cefalu, who has spoken out about the ATF’s so-called “Project Gunrunner” scandal, says he was served with termination papers just last week, and he calls the move politically motivated.
“Aside from Jay Dobyns, I don’t know of anyone that’s been more vocal about ATF mismanagement than me,” said Cefalu, a senior special agent based in Dublin, Calif. “That’s why this is happening.” Dobyns, an ATF special agent basedin Tucson, has appeared several times on Fox News to discuss the scandal.
Cefalu first told FoxNews.com about the ATF’s embattled anti-gun smuggling operation in December, before the first reports on the story appeared in February. “Simply put, we knowingly let hundreds of guns and dozens of identified bad guys go across the border,” Cefalu said at the time.
Since then, Cefalu’s claims have been vindicated, as a number of agents with first-hand knowledge of the case came forward. The scandal over Project Gunrunner led to congressional hearings, a presidential reprimand – Obama called the operation “a serious mistake” – and speculation that ATF chief Ken Melson will resign.
Yet last week, Cefalu, who has worked for the agency for 24 years, was forced to turn in his gun and badge. He can appeal but will be on “paid administrative leave” during the process.
Cefalu’s dismissal follows a string of allegations that the ATF retaliates against whistleblowers. When the Project Gunrunner scandal broke, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote the ATF that an agent who had been giving his staff members information about the scandal had been “allegedly accused… of misconduct” by the agent’s boss for talking with Grassley’s staffers.
And two days before Cefalu was served with termination papers, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to the ATF warning officials not to retaliate against whistleblowers.
Tags: Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Operation Fast & Furious
Posted in Barack Obama, Crime, Democratic Party, government, Headlines, Mexico, Second Amendment, Weapons | 12 Comments »
Interesting update to the Operation Fast & Furious debacle. Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson is being pressured to resign by higher ups in the DOJ. He was to be the designated fall guy and was supposed to take the hit for the team. Apparently, Melson doesn’t see it that way and is refusing to go quietly saying that he doesn’t want to resign. Melson says that he is eager to testify before Congress but hasn’t gotten DOJ approval to do that. Gee I wonder why? Obviously the trail of culpability leads higher up the chain of command. It seems to me that if Melson was the creator and chief administrator of this monstrosity, he would fall on his sword and be done with it. There’s a lot more to come on this story.
Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials’ involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.
Melson does not want to be “the fall guy” for the program, under which ATF agents allowed straw purchasers to acquire more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers, the sources said. The idea was to track the guns to drug cartel leaders. But that goal proved elusive, and the guns turned up at shootings in Mexico, as well as at the slaying in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.
“He is saying he won’t go,” said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. “He has told them, ‘I’m not going to be the fall guy on this.’ “
Added a second source, who also requested anonymity: “He’s resisting. He does not want to go.”
Melson has an open invitation to appear on Capitol Hill. So far, he has not been given Justice Department approval to appear before Congress.
Read the whole thing here: ATF Director resists pressure to step down.
Tags: Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Operation Fast & Furious
Posted in Barack Obama, Crime, government, Headlines, immigration, Second Amendment | 13 Comments »
The Diary of Daedalus
