Thread: ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Er

Thank you Newmexican for posting the updated article, was very brief earlier.

Teamwork.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Thank you Newmexican for posting the updated article, was very brief earlier.

Teamwork.

So right you are!

OPERATION GUNRUNNER Information Collection Point
http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-233906-0-da ... rasc-.html

Reports: Documents show Holder was briefed on Fast and Furious in July 2010


By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller 6:49 PM 10/03/2011

New documents indicate Attorney General Eric Holder was informed of Operation Fast and Furious and its investigative tactics in mid-2010.

The new documents show that on November 1, 2010, Deputy Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, personally informed Holder about the operation in a briefing. The document was a memo Breuer wrote to Holder saying in which he included a brief description of Operation Fast and Furious.

Another document is a July 2010 memo from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center to Holder that details how “straw purchasersâ€

DOJ Memos Show Holder Was Briefed on Fast and Furious in July 2010


Lachlan Markay

October 3, 2011 at 8:36 pm

Justice Department memos obtained by CBS News show that Attorney General Eric Holder was aware of a controversial cross-border law enforcement operation in July 2010 – nearly a year earlier than he had previously acknowledged. Holder told congressional investigators in May that he had first heard of the operation only weeks before.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2011, Holder said that he had “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.â€

Documents Suggest Holder Knew About 'Fast and Furious' Earlier Than He Claimed

By William Lajeunesse

Published October 03, 2011

For the first time, documents appear to show Attorney General Eric Holder was made aware of the Operation Fast and Furious earlier than he claimed -- up to 9 nine months earlier.

The documents seem to contradict what Holder told a House Judiciary Committee on May 3, when he said he could not recall the exact date, but he'd "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

However, in a July 2010 memo, Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder straw buyers in the Operation Fast and Furious case "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."

Also, on October 18, 2010, one of Holder's chief deputies, Lanny Breuer, chief of the department's Criminal Division, told Holder in a memo that prosecutors were ready to issue indictments in Operation Fast and Furious.

Documents also show, contrary to earlier reports, the Justice Department was aware that ATF agents under the department's direction were involved in the controversial practice known as "gun walking" -- allowing illicit gun sales to proceed to track the traffickers to higher-ups. The department has said it did not allow guns to "walk."

When agents "let guns walk," they stop surveillance and allow criminals to transfer weapons to others. In this case, that meant allowing the guns to cross the border into Mexico. It is a highly controversial practice agents typically are taught not to do.

However, in an October 17, 2010 memo, Deputy Attorney General Jason Weinstein asks another attorney in the Criminal Division if Breuer should do a press conference when Fast and Furious is announced, but says, "It's a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked."

His associate, James Trusty writes back, "It's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX (Mexico), so I’m not sure how much grief we'll get for 'gun walking.'"

Until now, there's been an attempt to portray Operation Fast and Furious as a rogue operation by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office. But insiders claim these documents show the Department of Justice in Washington was intimately aware of the case almost from the beginning.

In response to the documents released today, the Justice Department said Holder’s response referred to when he first learned of the “troubling tacticsâ€

October 3, 2011

Holder lied to Congress about Fast and Furious
Thomas Lifson

Oops! Documents just unearthed show that the attorney general of the United States lied to Congress about when he first knew of the scandalous Operation Fast and Furious. Misstatements of fact by senior government officials under oath can be treated very severely. Remember Scooter Libby? He recalled the date of a meeting to the FBI differently than did others, and was convicted of a felony.

Doug Ross of Director Blue has an excellent summary, under the catchy title "Holder Lied, People Died." Unlike the case of Scooter Libby, over which the Left had fits, 2 federal agents and at least 200 Mexicans have been killed by guns obtained by drug gangs under the Fast and Furious program.

Unfortunately for Holder, CBS News' Sharyl Atkkisson has been doggedly pursuing the case and has unearthed documents that prove Holder lied under oath:

...internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious...

The documents came from the head of the National Drug Intelligence Center and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer... the new documents leave no doubt that high level Justice officials knew guns were being "walked."

Two Justice Department officials mulled it over in an email exchange Oct. 18, 2010. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions," says Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit James Trusty replies "I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, "Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there."

The Justice Department told CBS News that the officials in those emails were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General. And tonight they tell CBS News, Holder misunderstood that question from the committee - he did know about Fast and Furious - just not the details.

No doubt, Holder will claim he didn't read the memos in question. In other words, he will claim incompetence.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... rious.html

Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program

Memos from 2010 show some in senior positions were aware of tactics used in a surveillance operation in which firearms were allowed into Mexico in a failed effort to catch drug cartel leaders.

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

11:32 p.m. CDT, October 3, 2011

Reporting from Washington— Senior Justice Department officials were aware that ATF agents allowed firearms to be "walked" into Mexico, according to a series of emails last year in which they discussed two undercover operations on the Southwest border, including the failed Fast and Furious program.

In the emails that the department turned over to congressional investigators, Justice Department officials last October discussed both the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking surveillance operation in Phoenix and a separate investigation from 2006 and 2007 called Operation Wide Receiver. In Wide Receiver, which took place in Tucson, firearms also were acquired by illegal straw purchasers and lost in Mexico, the emails say.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives The term "gun walking" is central to the failure of Fast and Furious. Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them. But they lost track of more than 2,000 weapons, and the Mexican government says some of them have turned up at about 170 crime scenes there. Two were recovered at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent's slaying in Arizona in December.

Justice Department officials have said repeatedly that they knew nothing of Fast and Furious tactics until ATF whistle-blowers went public this year with allegations that guns were being illegally purchased with the ATF's knowledge.

Justice Department officials, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing investigations into Fast and Furious, said that although senior department officials knew that guns were "walked" in the Wide Receiver investigation, they were unaware that ATF agents were using similar tactics in Fast and Furious.

Jason Weinstein, deputy attorney general in the criminal division, brought up both cases in an October 2010 email, apparently concerned that they were going to overlap.

"Do you think we should try to have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and [the] Tucson case are unsealed?" he asked about his boss, Lanny A. Breuer, head of the criminal division. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but it is a significant set of prosecutions."

James Trusty, acting chief of the department's organized crime and gang section, responded, "I think so but the timing is tricky too."

He said the Tucson case would be ready for indictments before Fast and Furious, and that "it's not clear how much we're involved in the main F and F case."

Either way, he added that "it's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, 'Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there' "

Investigators working for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, view the emails as strong evidence that Justice Department officials knew about "gun walking" tactics in Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious ran from fall 2009 to January, culminating in charges against 20 people — none of them cartel leaders. It was unclear whether any indictments were issued in the Wide Receiver operation.

July 2010 memos, part of weekly reports, discussed an illegal straw purchaser in Fast and Furious who bought 1,500 weapons "that were then supplied to Mexican drug-trafficking cartels."

October and November memos said that "Phoenix-based 'Operation Fast and Furious' is ready for takedown" — several months before the investigation was officially closed.

Copies of all of the memos were heavily redacted.

Justice Department officials said Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. routinely received reports about myriad ongoing investigations around the country, and that the reports did not disclose that ATF agents were purposely "walking" the weapons. They said Issa received a similar Fast and Furious update last year.

But congressional investigators said the memos suggested Holder had hedged what he knew.

According to the emails, Holder was told generally about Fast and Furious in the memos in July, October and November 2010, well before he told congressional committees he had first learned of the program.

On March 10, Holder testified before a Senate subcommittee that he had just learned about the Fast and Furious gun-walking allegations and had asked for the inspector general's investigation. "We cannot have a situation where guns are allowed to walk," he said.

On May 3, he was asked by Issa when he first learned about Fast and Furious. "I'm not sure of the exact date," Holder testified. "But I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Justice Department officials said Holder was referring to the date when he first learned about the operational details of Fast and Furious, not the program itself.
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