Thread: Don't make Melson only scapegoat

Don't make Melson a Fast and Furious scapegoat
TAGS: 2012 ElectionalcoholATFAttorney General Eric HolderHouse Oversight and Government Reform CommitteeMexican Drug CartelsPoliticsRep. Darrell IssaTobacco. Firearms and ExplosivesU.S. Border PatrolU.S. Department of Justice
By: Examiner Editorial | 06/19/11 8:05 PM
.Credible media reports have it that Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will get his walking papers this week as a result of his approval of Operation Fast and Furious, aka "Gunwalker." That's the program in which ATF purposely allowed as many as 2,000 lethal weapons, including assault rifles such as the infamous AK-47, to be sold to representatives of Mexican drug cartels. The idea was that ATF would be able to link the weapons to specific individuals and prosecute them after the firearms were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S. Melson and other senior ATF officials enthusiastically backed Gunwalker, which originated in the agency's Phoenix office.

The ludicrous logic behind Gunwalker was exposed in December when a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in a confrontation with drug cartel thugs about 18 miles inside the U.S. border with Mexico in the Arizona desert. Two Gunwalker assault rifles were recovered from the scene in which Agent Brian Terry, an ex-Marine with a wife and children, died in the shootout. At least 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and an unknown number of cartel figures and civilians have also been killed with Gunwalker weapons. What ATF officials thought would become a key tool in bringing down the Mexican cartels instead, and predictably, became a U.S. government-sanctioned gun-running operation that bought enough high-powered weapons to equip hundreds of remorseless killers operating on both sides of the border.

That Melson should be removed is obvious, as should other senior ATF officials in Washington and in the field. But Gunwalker could not have gone as far as it did without the approval of senior Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, which is why The Washington Examiner last week called for Holder's resignation. Holder should have stopped the program as soon as he found out about it if he was aware of it. And if he didn't know such an outrage was being perpetrated on his watch, he clearly isn't up to the job of managing the Justice Department.

It would be a miscarriage of justice, however, if Melson is made a lone scapegoat in this sordid affair, while others of equal or greater culpability are allowed to remain on the job without being held accountable. Holder has asked the Justice Department inspector general to investigate the program, but that is hardly an independent review and could easily be used to stall the congressional oversight investigation already under way by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. There is no legitimate reason for Issa to back off or slow down in demanding that all of the officials responsible for Gunwalker appear before Congress to explain their actions.



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Issa: 'Fast and Furious' was not just a rogue operation
TAGS: 2012 ElectionATFAttorney General Eric Holderfast and furiousHouse Oversight and Government Reform CommitteePoliticsPresident ObamaRep. Darrell Issa
By: Mark Tapscott | Editorial Page Editor Follow Him @mtapscott | 06/14/11 9:24 PM
."Fast and Furious" is the name of the incredible program within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that purposely allowed thousands of sophisticated weapons from the U.S. to fall into the hands of members of Mexican drug cartels.

A few more hearings by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, however, and that phrase could describe the velocity with which the last shreds of the Obama administration's credibility on a variety of law enforcement and immigration issues goes down the tubes.

"This was not a program that made mistakes, this program was a mistake," is how committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, describes Fast and Furious. Issa has spent the last several months digging into the program's origins and consequences, and his conclusions are beginning to point to an amazing lack of competence at the highest levels of the federal government, specifically not excluding Attorney General Eric Holder nor the president who appointed him to that position.

To put it bluntly, the paper trail created by the program renders ridiculous Holder's claims not to have authorized Fast and Furious. He might not have "authorized" it, but evidence turned by the Issa committee makes it clear that he and a bunch of other senior Obama administration knew about it.

Issa explains why that is the case, and much more about Fast and Furious in this interview with Fox News' Martha McCollum:
VIDEO AT LINK

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