Thread: The Real Under the Radar Target Operation Fast & Furious

This could go all the way to the top

July 15, 2011

The Real 'Under the Radar' Target of Operation Fast and Furious

By Russ Vaughn
54 comments

In previous articles here at American Thinker dealing with the ATF gun smuggling scandal there has been mention made of the suspicions of many Americans (as evidenced by comments from AT readers) that Operation Fast and Furious was a politically motivated action put in place by the Obama Justice Department to manufacture a false scenario that would justify stricter gun control in this country. Most of those pieces carried an editorial caution citing the lack of specific evidence. Clarice Feldman's recent article had this to say on the issue:

Some commentators believe the real purpose of the operation was to provide "evidence" that U.S. arms were behind the gang violence in Mexico to provide a basis for further restrictions on U.S. arms sales, pointing to comments by Hillary Clinton and the New York Times editors on the need for further restrictions to limit the weaponry of the Mexican drug cartels. While the supposition is far from unreasonable, stronger evidence supporting such claims is to date missing.

Ms. Feldman is both a former federal prosecutor and a frequent contributor here at American Thinker where she has repeatedly demonstrated a sharp eye for political hijinks. She is correct in implying that stronger evidence is needed before such charges can be given more credence. But it is also fair to point out that this suspicion of a larger Administration goal than apprehending big fish gun smugglers in Mexico is afoot. We may now have the stronger evidence http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavli ... un_control Ms. Feldman and the AT editors cited need for.

Townhall.com has posted an email from "Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations," to a William D. Newell in July last year, which states:

Bill-can you see if these guns were all purchased from same Ffl and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales.

Ffl is federal firearms licensee.

When this business of American firearms in Mexico first became news two years ago, I was immediately skeptical of the numbers proclaimed by the mainstream media: 90% of the cartels' guns were coming from the U.S. The liberal media had a heyday http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html with a story where America was against the villain, even though common sense told me there were far easier ways to get guns into Mexico than smuggling them across its most heavily guarded border. With thousands of miles of coastline and a porous southern border with Central and South America, and hundreds of major arms dealers worldwide eager to ply the lethal products trade*, why choose the high-risk route? Fox News alone of the media shared my disbelief. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04 ... xico-come/ And even though the liberal media and liberal Democrat politicians immediately used the story as further evidence of American perfidy and blame, it simply didn't stand up to common sense analysis, unless...

Unless of course the Obama Administration was deliberately allowing, even encouraging, the cross-border transshipment of firearms, which we now know was indeed the case. While the media and the gun control lobby were screaming that lax gun laws were to blame, it was in fact our own federal government facilitating the smuggling operations, supposedly in an attempt to ensnare the Mexican cartels. How that was to be accomplished has still not been explained. Once those guns crossed into Mexico, the U.S. lost jurisdiction over their use and the Mexican government's inability to disarm the cartels or even track captured weaponry is glaringly obvious. What then was the true objective of the Obama Administration?

As many of the comments for previous articles here at AT indicate, there are many of us who believe this may well have been part of the "under the radar" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05 ... oups-warn/ approach that Obama told gun control zealots that he was employing to effect stricter gun control laws in America. Those of you inclined to be skeptical should bear in mind that Obama and his closest advisors hail from Chicago, where all firearms must be registered with the police. Some suburban governments there actually ban handgun possession, but are under fire by the U.S. Supreme Court which has declared the tough restrictions unconstitutional. As conservatives know, this is just a bump on the road for true believers in gun control; those suburbs are busily seeking ways to circumvent the Court's ruling.

Skeptics should remind themselves that the agency running this scam is the ATF, a branch of Eric Holder's Justice Department; we have seen previously how little respect for the rule of law the nation's chief lawyer has. Just as Holder's Justice Department has overruled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Christian_Adams its own legal staff in other prosecutions, ATF leadership likewise ignored, http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/15/four- ... d-furious/ in fact retaliated against, criticisms from its field agents.

Why would ATF leaders pursue a dangerous policy that has already caused the death of one agent and resulted in the deaths of unknown numbers of Mexicans, all cut down by US/ATF-supplied weaponry? If the cartels are beyond the legal reach of American authorities for the most part and the Mexican government is incapable of following through on any supposed entrapment program, then what was the true purpose of this otherwise senseless secret program? Read this excerpted quote, http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2011/05/25 ... the-radar/ from a CBS affiliate no less, then consider again the above points:

On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial "large magazines." Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, "to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda," she said.

"I just want you to know that we are working on it," Brady recalled the president telling them. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar." [Emphasis added.]

For those of you still doubting my premise, consider the fact that the Obama administration used an administrative Justice Department order earlier this week to tighten the rules of purchase on the same type weapons they were allowing to go into Mexico uninhibited. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/July/11-dag-900.html That order specifically cites the same states where DoJ had previously conducted Operation Fast and Furious. It also points to "illegal gun trafficking into Mexico and along the Southwest Border," as justification.

No connection you say?

These are criminal breaches of trust with the people by the Obama Justice Department and perhaps Obama himself. That the Obama administration not only allowed but appears to have facilitated illegal firearms exports resulting in multiple deaths on both sides of the border, in furtherance of a domestic agenda of stricter gun control laws, is criminally prosecutable and politically lethal. Richard Nixon was forced to resign for a far less grievous offense; no one died by Nixon's hand, but two American agents are dead by the hand of whoever initiated this misguided program. If Republicans take control of the Senate in the 2012 elections, Barack Obama could be facing impeachment and conviction should the current House investigation into this scandal ultimately lead into the Oval Office and there find the smoking gun.

Contact your congressman and encourage him to support the House investigation, which Eric Holder is doing his very best to obstruct. The Chait email now makes Holder's obstruction understandable. Holder should be cited for contempt at the very least and according to the New York Times, "He's Impeachable, You Know." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/opinion/03bowman.html

*For a recent and definitive discussion of the true sources of drug cartel weaponry see this from Stratfor. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/ ... rcent-myth

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/ ... rious.html

One real problem being this "false scenario" used real guns,with real bullets,that got real people killed. Obama... the gift that keeps givin!!!

There may be many more "issues" with hillary...

The Bones of Fast and Furious: Hillary Clinton Deep In It?

by Maggie •
June 25, 2012•

What if Hillary Clinton and a couple of deputies in the State Department, The National Security Council, Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the White House, and maybe Senators Durbin and Feinstein were all complicit in Fast and Furious? What if Hillary led the strategic planning? What if the administration wanted to restrict our Second Amendment rights and both she and Barack Obama told us that 90% of the weapons used in crimes in Mexico came from the United States – after Durbin and Feinstein had already set the mood for 90%? What if that statistic was more like 17% – and at least nowhere near 90% or 80% or 70%, they knew it, but they continued the lie? What if Fast and Furious was devised to walk sufficient weapons into Mexico to meet their 90% goal? What if that is the framework, the whole being of Fast and Furious?


Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars is the force behind peeling back the layers of Fast and Furious, of government tyranny and the Second Amendment. You’ll have to spend some time at Sipsey Street and look though his massive Fast and Furious archives there and make your own determination about the worth of his information, but if true, the bones of the story are below:

The Examiner, October 7, 2011:

As previously reported, the meme parroted by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton concerning the number of American guns used by criminals in Mexico was patently false, and they knew it was false. This is precisely why the Obama Administration concocted the scheme in the first place. If the facts do not prove that 90% of the guns come from the States, then make sure those numbers can be proved correct by walking the guns straight across the southern border directly into the hands of criminals.

Thus, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the ATF, the FBI, ICE, and a host of other federal agencies went to work to send thousands of guns across the border, deliberately placing them in the hands of the cartels…

One month after Hillary’s trip to Mexico, Barack Obama visited with Mexican President Calderon, where he stated once again,

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”

This was a blatant, barefaced lie.

The much discussed (this past week) press conference of March 24, 2009 happens. Fast and Furious is publicly announced. The issue was important to the President…directed by the President….

March 25, 2009, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff asked Holder why he is backing off of an assault weapons ban. The belief is that Holder held off until Fast and Furious could get the guns inside Mexico before hammering gun sellers.

After fierce resistance from the gun lobby and its allies in Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder has dialed back talk about reimposing a federal assault weapons ban to help curb the spiraling violence in Mexico.

Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars – October 7, 2011:

It is now the morning of 26 March 2009. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Mexico City. In an interview recorded the day before with Lara Logan, Clinton says,

“We have to recognize and accept that the demand for drugs from the United States drives them north, and the guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America.”…

The next month, President Barack Obama is in Mexico City and at a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, repeats the same meme:

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”

He also says ‘I have not backed off’ on a new assault weapons ban…

Isikoff, Clinton and Obama were simply parroting a meme begun by notoriously anti-firearm Senators Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein during a 17 March congressional hearing.

Durbin said: “According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America.”

Feinstein added: “It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that.”

The “90 percent” allegation was dutifully reported as fact by a whole host of news organizations including the Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC and the Chicago Tribune.

Sipsey Street Irregulars, in the article linked and quoted above, reports that Fox News refuted the 90% stat and “put it closer to 17%.” The 17% was refuted of course and bounced back and forth between 80% and 70%. Details here.

Sipsey Street Irregulars – October 10, 2011 (read the details of Hillary’s State Department enablers here):

…What was the importance of insisting that it was 90 percent, 80 percent, or finally 70 percent? Would such statistics make any difference to the law enforcement tactics necessary to curtail them? No…

Recall what the whistleblower ATF agents told us right after this scandal broke in the wake of the death of Brian Terry: “ATF source confirms ‘walking’ guns to Mexico to ‘pad’ statistics.”

In other words, to accomplish the goal of an assault weapon ban, or other assaults on the Second Amendment that the administration lusted for, American guns, in huge quantities had to be found inside Mexico…so we walked them there.

Indeed, our sources say, Hillary was obsessed with defending the 90 percent meme. There was a pervasive sense at the highest levels of the White House, State, Justice and in DHS that the Mexican agony could provide domestic opportunities for Rahm Emanuel’s dictum: “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” the sources say.

At the strategic level, this meant that there were increasing demands for “better statistics.” In other words, if the 90 percent meme was not provable it must be because enough statistics of the “right” sort were not being gathered. Again, the comparison with Vietnam War body counts was striking, say the sources. The demand this time though, as noted above in Part 2, was for statistics indicating defeat, not victory.

Discussions at the White House and within the State Department and DOJ regarding gunwalking were referred to as “strategy meetings on Mexico and the problem of drug and gun trafficking.” James Steinberg from State often represented Hillary at meetings, a fact that she attested to, saying ”

…”Steinberg had been a “fixture” at a meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.”

The Examiner (see the first link above):

That statement is key. Hillary herself stayed out of all meetings dealing with strategy…Hillary’s absence would give the impression that she had no connection to the scheme while making sure that her views were represented by Steinberg and Shapiro, both of whom were fully complicit with the details that developed concerning how to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico…

Padding the numbers of weapons that were making their way into Mexico had to be done to justify (in their sick and deviant public service minds) a heavier thumb on gun control. “Walking” the guns had to be done.

Americans, both Republicans and Democrats alike, don’t like politicians messing with the Second Amendment, but these Progressives thought they had a chance to engineer a scenario that would render us impotent. Instead, they killed Border Agent Brian Terry and maybe ICE Agent Jaime Zapata, 200-300 Mexican nationals with more deaths expected.

A Twitter story: Rep. Darrell Issa had a television interview with Jake Tapper who was sitting in for George Stephanopoulous. Issa told Tapper that emails within the ATF discussed using Fast and Furious for an assault weapons ban. Tapper intimated that wasn’t enough to prove stricter gun laws were the purpose of Fast and Furious. Issa said (paraphrasing) we don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg.

I tweeted the following to Tapper:
Maggie Thornton ‏@maggiesnotebook
@JakeTapper Read the docs re: #FastandFurious and 2nd Amendment. Issa: Emails “we can use this” to thwart assault weapons ban
Tapper answered:
Jake Tapper ‏@jaketapper

@maggiesnotebook thats not the same thing as it being the purpose of the operation

I answered back:
Maggie Thornton ‏@maggiesnotebook

@maggiesnotebook@JakeTapper But…we might know which came first, the chicken or the egg, if the docs were released.

THEN I saw this tweet from former Congressman Tom Tancredo and the article above evolved from there:

Tom Tancredo ‏@ttancredo
Breaking: new evidence shows Hillary a mastermind behind Gunwalker

The information Mike at Sipsey Street Irregulars (#justablogger) has uncovered, if accurate, clearly shows that the only goal was to get guns into Mexico, blame American gun sellers and restrict your Second Amendment Rights and mine. Why isn’t Issa hauling Clinton and her deputies from State in front of his Oversight Committee? It’s mindblowing.

http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2012/...on-deep-in-it/

Hillary Clinton In Mexico



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQmbqoxu5E