Operation Fast and Furious: What's Going On?

[hunter5]

In addition to Gaidin's comments to purposely design a program to fail could potentially reveal the corrupt agents as corrupt which would defeat the purpose of having the agents on payroll. The only way your hypothesis makes sense is if the Cartels have Eric Holder on their payroll which is really hard to do seeing as he has to be vetted and is under very high levels of over-site. The simpler and less complicated explanation is that who ever designed this program was incompetent and Holder just approved it with out really going over the details.

It does seem a somewhat overcomplicated way of getting hold of a few hundred assault rifles when you put it like that. It still stretches the limits of what one can attribute to stupidity instead of malice though.

Well malice is what the conservative talking heads have attributed to this program since it was first mentioned over a year ago. There isn't much on this issue that isn't from either conservative news-sites, blogs or radio talking heads so hard to get a clear objective look on it and the alleged DOJ stonewalling of the Congressional investigation isn't helping.

[SirNitram]

Turns out the NRA urged the contempt vote, under the guise of a conspiracy theory.

Link PDF on NRA's 'Institute for Legislative Action' site.

It brings up the stupid theory that Fast And Furious is somehow a scheme to take away the guns. Then it gets right to the point: The contempt vote is going to be considered in the NRA's advisement of who it endorses. Presenting that to the GOP members of the committee might just have influenced them.

It seems to describe it as a scheme to create a scenario where the government could force gun shops to report sales. Seeing how the stated purpose of the operation doesn't make any sense, and that forced sales reporting is what government tried to do afterwards. How is it a stupid theory?

Edited for clarity

Why would they bother with this overcomplicated plot to create a reason for gun reporting? If the guns simply vanish into Mexico, it's been a waste. Also, it's a dumb theory because it adds on an additional part which is in no way supported by reality.

[Gaidin]

To add, the reason they found out about the potential for the operation is because stores reported sales, last I checked.

[TimothyC]

Why would they bother with this overcomplicated plot to create a reason for gun reporting? If the guns simply vanish into Mexico, it's been a waste. Also, it's a dumb theory because it adds on an additional part which is in no way supported by reality.

The 'plot' seems to go as follows:

1. 1. ATF tells gun shop owners to allow the sale of guns to suspicious individuals.
   2. No attempts were made the track the guns after the point of sale.
   1. 2.a. The presumption is that the guns were going to go over the border to Mexico.
      2.b. This is in opposition to the program under the Bush Administration where there were attempts to track the guns.

It is my understanding that everyone agrees to the above.

1. 3. The Conservative narrative is that the cartels would use the guns in Mexico.
   4. The guns would then be recovered by Mexican authorities as having been used by the cartels, and they would be traced back to the US.
   5. The guns showing up in Mexico and being used by the cartels would be blamed on the 'free availability of guns in the US'.
   6. This blame would allow for easier action toward further gun control legislation.

That's the narrative. It's 6 steps.

Now the the kicker.

It doesn't matter.

The actual program is a side show. What the Committee is after are is the following pulled from the House website:

As you may recall, a May 3, 2012, Committee memo identified three categories of documents necessary for Congress to complete its investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. On May 18, House leaders and I narrowed this request to two categories: (1)information showing the involvement of senior officials during Operation Fast and Furious, and (2) documents from after February 4, 2011, related to the Department’s response to Congress and whistleblower allegations.

As you may or may not know, that memo from February 4, 2011 stated that the program did not involve the deliberate transfer of guns to the Mexican cartels. That statement was withdrawn ten months later on December 2.

The primary question for the committee is who knew what, and when did they know it. AG Holder has already been caught in lies about the program before (having stated he knew nothing about it to congress when he had mentioned it prior in speeches.

With President Obama having exerted executive privilege over those documents, the question some have now asked is how high does this go? If the program was approved by AG Holder, then he perjured himself before congress in a very clean cut way.

Edit: To be clear, the current contempt citations are for not providing requested documents If I understand correctly.

[Gaidin]

The 'plot' seems to go as follows:

1. 1. ATF tells gun shop owners to allow the sale of guns to suspicious individuals.
   2. No attempts were made the track the guns after the point of sale.
   1. 2.a. The presumption is that the guns were going to go over the border to Mexico.
      2.b. This is in opposition to the program under the Bush Administration where there were attempts to track the guns.

I think there's a few more things, if I can modify the list?

0. Some shop owners report suspicious purchases.
1. ATF tells gun shop owners to allow the sale of guns to suspicious individuals.
2. Guns were tailed up to a point and then orders were given to allow them to continue.
3. Quite a few field agents go .
4. Those running operation tell them to shut up.

Step 0 is pretty important as it paints a few of the ideas of the conspiracy theory in a starkly ironic light.

[hunter5]

Even worse no one informed Mexican authorities of this operation. Hell ATF didn't even tell their own agents working IN MEXICO this program was going on

[Stark]

Step 0 is pretty important as it paints a few of the ideas of the conspiracy theory in a starkly ironic light.

Depends if 'suspicious' = large volume purchases or 'suspicious' = hispanic-looking people buying guns.

It's pretty sad that you'd see such a program, when it can so easily be seen as the exact kind of backdoor registration that the gun nuts and NRA tell everyone the Democrats would try to sneak in. Operation Justify Resistance to Sensible Gun Laws = COMPLETE!

[Sea Skimmer]

Step 0 is pretty important as it paints a few of the ideas of the conspiracy theory in a starkly ironic light.

No actually it doesn't, because the entire problem predates this specific operations by many years, and as has been pointed out earlier operations had been carried out in a much more rational manner. Its not like the entire ATF and DOJ changed just because Obama took office. But certain top people did.

Depends if 'suspicious' = large volume purchases or 'suspicious' = hispanic-looking people buying guns.

It was all about high volumes. Just a handful of people, under ten individuals apparently, bought about two thousand assault rifles. In some cases they were buying several dozen at one time of the exact same model and asking when the store would have more.

[SirNitram]

Small update: Issa went on Fox News Sunday, and confirmed there was zero evidence of White House involvement in F&F. I doubt this will stop the madness, though.

[TimothyC]

Small update: Issa went on Fox News Sunday, and confirmed there was zero evidence of White House involvement in F&F. I doubt this will stop the madness, though.

There are two points that I would expect you to be able to wrap your head around:

1. Chairman Issa is looking for the evidence in the documentation and the fact that he hasn't found any yet doesn't mean that any exists - it doesn't mean that it does either.
2. If the White House had no involvement, then why did the president exert Executive Privilege?

[Simon_Jester]

Because he doesn't want his attorney general pinned down by Congressional suppressing fire?

It's ham-handed, but Obama is pretty ham-handed when it comes to asserting state secrets and executive privileges.

[SirNitram]

Small update: Issa went on Fox News Sunday, and confirmed there was zero evidence of White House involvement in F&F. I doubt this will stop the madness, though.

There are two points that I would expect you to be able to wrap your head around:

1. Chairman Issa is looking for the evidence in the documentation and the fact that he hasn't found any yet doesn't mean that any exists - it doesn't mean that it does either.
2. If the White House had no involvement, then why did the president exert Executive Privilege?

1. True. However, to assume something exists without evidence is simply foolish.
2. Probably because he has decided that it falls under the Deliberative Process; this use of it doesn't require any interaction with the President or his advisors.

I imagine he's also glad to have a chance to tell Issa, with his farcical witchhunts, to sit and spin. But that's editorizalizing. It's not like Obama's been using Executive Priveledge as much as Clinton; this is his first use.

[Terralthra]

[quote="Mother Jones: GOP Votes for Contempt as "Fast and Furious" Blows Up in Its Face"]
By Adam Weinstein| Thu Jun. 28, 2012 11:08 AM PDT

How are tons of US guns getting to Mexico? Ask conservatives.

The "Fast and Furious" imbroglio may have just gone sideways on House Republicans. Just prior to them leading a successful House vote for contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, a far-reaching investigation published by Fortune magazine poked major holes in the conservative storyline about the alleged gun operation. Claims that law enforcement engaged in a deadly plot to let Mexican outlaws smuggle US guns, the magazine reports, are based on allegations by a lone whistleblower who may in fact be the only person who did any illegal gun-smuggling. The real cause of violence and crime south of the border, it reports, is lax gun laws in Arizona and elsewhere pushed by Republicans and their friends at the National Rifle Association.

To review the allegations in brief: Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) supposedly recruited local sellers in Arizona to hawk guns to known smugglers, then monitored the flow of those guns to criminal gangs in Mexico in the hopes of catching "big fish," in a tactic known as "gunwalking" (as opposed to "gun-running"). Two of these ATF-monitored assault weapons ended up at the crime scene where Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol agent, was shot and killed in December 2010. An ATF agent with a crisis of conscience blew the whistle on the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious, and Republicans in Congress began asking questions.

Now, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House government oversight committee, suspects the White House of involvement in the affair, and has demanded the administration turn over scores of internal communications. The White House has acknowledged that mistakes were made and turned over more than 7,600 pages of documents related to the case. But Issa demanded another 100,000 pages of internal administration communications, and President Obama invoked executive privilege to keep the documents confidential. Issa responded by pursuing the contempt-of-Congress vote against Holder—the first ever against a sitting attorney general—on the notion that DOJ screwed up on Holder's watch.

According to Fortune, though, almost everything about the story that Republicans have been flogging is wrong. And the magazine makes the case that the GOP's allegations against Holder and the Obama administration aren't just inaccurate—rather, they distract from the possibility that GOP's politics are actually to blame for the deluge of three-quarters of a million American guns per year into Mexico. "Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal," the report states.

"Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false," Linda Wallace, an IRS agent who worked on the Fast and Furious team and calls herself a "gun-rights supporter," told Fortune. Could Fast and Furious be a new Climategate, the next fact-free conservative conspiracy that takes roost in America's collective unconscious?

The Fortune exposé, which reporter Katherine Eban says took her six months to assemble, is exhaustive and tough to summarize, but its highlights are these:

• Contrary to the narrative advanced by conservative bloggers and politicians, the federal government did not intentionally allow the sale of any guns to Mexican bandits.
• Seven ATF agents based in Phoenix were tasked with trying to stop the "river of iron"—2,000 American guns crossing into Mexico every day. (Those sales represent millions of dollars a week to gun manufacturers—who are major donors to the NRA's lobbying efforts.)
• Their job was hard, because there's no federal law against gun trafficking, there's no electronic database of gun purchases, and you can buy as many guns as you want in Arizona, and resell them to anyone, anytime—all thanks to the NRA and pro-gun lobbyists. "In Arizona," says Dave Voth, the ATF agent who ran the Phoenix operation, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."
• The agents watched dozens of people roll in and buy lots of guns from one of Phoenix's 853 licensed sellers, but they were powerless to stop them—thanks to lax gun laws, federal prosecutors said they couldn't arrest the buyers, even when they turned around and dumped the guns on other people (so-called "straw purchases"). The best the agents could do was try to slow down the purchases and watch where the guns went. (One prosecutor, Emory Hurley, was reportedly a gun enthusiast, and agents muttered that his love for the Second Amendment made him reluctant to go after straw purchasers.)
• This: "After examining one suspect's garbage, agents learned he was on food stamps yet had plunked down more than $300,000 for 476 firearms in six months. Voth asked if the ATF could arrest him for fraudulently accepting public assistance when he was spending such huge sums. Prosecutor Hurley said no. In another instance, a young jobless suspect paid more than $10,000 for a 50-caliber tripod-mounted sniper rifle. According to Voth, Hurley told the agents they lacked proof that he hadn't bought the gun for himself."
• ATF agents did not recruit anyone to buy weapons and pass them to criminals, with a single exception: John Dodson, the renegade agent who allegedly blew the whistle on the "Fast & Furious" operation. Against Voth's express instructions, Dodson—who according to Fortune's account was a seemingly insubordinate, slapdash former narcotics cop from Virginia that even his ex-partner describes as "an asshole"—"used $2,500 in ATF funds to purchase six AK Draco pistols from local gun dealers," then passed them on to a suspected gun trafficker, then...went on vacation. (Incidentally, this is what an AK Draco looks like:
  
  AK Draco Slickguns.com
  It's a modified, semiautomatic AK-47 carbine with the buttstock removed. Under the Clinton-era Brady Assault Weapons Ban, which was allowed to expire in 2004, this gun would have been illegal for sale in the US.)
• In January 2011, Dodson—again, the only ATF agent who had ever actually passed guns to a suspected trafficker, according to Fortune—told a very different story to staffers for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and CBS News. Selling himself as a "whistleblower," he alleged that his bosses had systematically sold guns to smugglers. He reportedly told ATF supervisors that his agency boss "had always 'treated him like shit' and that it 'felt good' to speak with someone outside ATF."

From there, the right-wing blogosphere—which tends to regard the ATF as a bunch of jackbooted thugs—took over, spinning Dodson into a heroic whistleblower and pretending that his very small transaction was part of a very large conspiracy by the Department of Justice. Issa and Grassley have since taken up the crusade on Capitol Hill and tied it to Obama. "We got a lie, we got a cover-up," Issa said last weekend on Meet the Press.

But Fortune's investigation puts the lie to that claim, and suggests the scandal is really about how gun-proponents have hogtied ATF agents and federal and state prosecutors in their efforts to halt fishy gun purchases. It's long been a problem: Back in 2007, I wrote about supposed diplomats from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo buying boxes of hand cannons from a notorious gun shop in New York City and disappearing with them. After that story was published, a New York-based ATF agent told me that the government was aware of multiple such purchases, but had no power to stop them.

Today, things appear to be no better. As Fortune reports, the ATF's Dave Voth gnashed his teeth looking for ways to stop sketchy gun buyers without running afoul of the Second Amendment crowd. Emailing a colleague about that unemployed guy with the .50-cal sniper rifle, he wrote: "We conducted a field interview and after calling the AUSA [assistant US attorney] he said we did not have sufficient PC [probable cause] to take the firearm so our suspect drove home with said firearm in his car...any ideas on how we could not let that firearm 'walk'?"

Plenty of questions remain. If the magazine's report is true, then why did Eric Holder and the White House ever issue any public mea culpas? Will Issa and the GOP completely dismiss the Fortune investigation? (If this response from Grassley is any indication, the answer to that question is yes.) And will the role of lax gun control in arms-smuggling give any Republicans pause? Wednesday night on CNN, Soledad O'Brien gave the third degree to Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.)—one of the White House's biggest critics on the Fast and the Furious. (See the video below.) She asked Mica why Republicans wanted reams of classified White House communications, but were deadset against a database for gun sales. Mica sputtered. Until they come up with an answer, Republicans' attempts to pin this debacle on the administration will likely sputter, too.[/quote]

Links preserved from the original article.

[Themightytom]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/politics/ ... index.html

"In the real world Americans are expected to comply with subpoenas. Is the attorney general any different? No he is not," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Florida. "The attorney general can stonewall all he wants. The attorney general can misremember all he wants. But whether he likes it or not, today responsibility will land on his desk."

Is that even true? I know we are required to comply with court orders, and we are expected to RESPOND to a subpoena, but as far as i know if there's a good reason for not complying, we don't actually have to, any legal eagles out there?

[Beowulf]

Rebuttle to the Forbes article linked above:

"A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust."

That's the subtitle of an "investigation" from Fortune Magazine today, or in other words, a full out distortion and dismissal of the facts in the Fact and Furious case. The article is long and I'm not going to take the time to debunk the entire thing, but just a few points.

First, the article gives a full defense of corrupt ATF Supervisor David Voth while smearing gun dealers as massive suppliers of drug cartels.

Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they're 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. "In Arizona," says Voth, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."

By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.

Fact: During Operation Fast and Furious, gun dealers repeatedly emailed Voth, asking whether guns they were selling under orders from ATF, were ending up in the wrong hands. Voth assured them they were not. More than two thousands guns trafficked into Mexico and hundreds of dead victims later, that turned out to be a lie. Gun dealers repeatedly raised concerns about ATF telling them to allow straw purchasers using false ID and loads of cash to buy weapons. In 2010, a gun dealer emailed Voth because a straw purchaser had placed a large order and the dealer wanted to know if he should order more stock. Once again, so he could comply with ATF's order to sell. Voth told him, go right ahead. Order the guns, sell to the bad guys.

---snip---

Links not preserved. Go read it on the original site. Funny to note that the media coverage from the liberal side is all about how we need more gun control, which is what the conservatives are saying was the designed for end result of walking the guns.

mightytom: subpoenas are expected to be complied with, under penalty for non compliance. That's what subpoena means: "Under penalty". You can delay responding, in order to fight the subpoena, but if the subpoena stands, you need to give what the subpoena asks for.

[Broken]

The Department of Justice has stated that they won't prosecute Holder for the contempt of congress charge; which is their normal procedure in these cases.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, the department said that it will not bring the congressional contempt citation against Holder to a federal grand jury and that it will take no other action to prosecute the attorney general. Dated Thursday, the letter was released Friday.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the decision is in line with long-standing Justice Department practice across administrations of both political parties.

“We will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege,” Cole wrote.

In its letter, the department relied in large part on a Justice Department legal opinion crafted during Republican Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

Besides that, isn't Representative Issa the one who stated he wanted to hold "seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks." before he even got into his committee chairmanship in order to hamstring the Obama administration. It is hard to take his findings seriously when he has such an obvious partisan axe to grind.

[Darth Holbytlan]

Fact: During Operation Fast and Furious, gun dealers repeatedly emailed Voth, asking whether guns they were selling under orders from ATF, were ending up in the wrong hands. Voth assured them they were not. More than two thousands guns trafficked into Mexico and hundreds of dead victims later, that turned out to be a lie. Gun dealers repeatedly raised concerns about ATF telling them to allow straw purchasers using false ID and loads of cash to buy weapons. In 2010, a gun dealer emailed Voth because a straw purchaser had placed a large order and the dealer wanted to know if he should order more stock. Once again, so he could comply with ATF's order to sell. Voth told him, go right ahead. Order the guns, sell to the bad guys.

Links not preserved. Go read it on the original site. Funny to note that the media coverage from the liberal side is all about how we need more gun control, which is what the conservatives are saying was the designed for end result of walking the guns.

The article at the link you provided doesn't match what you quoted at all. Could you double-check the link?

[Beowulf]

Whoops! URL C&P fail: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavli ... _miserably is the URL I meant to link to.