Wide Receiver Is Not Fast And Furious

President Barack Obama’s (D-USA) administration and Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is deliberately being confusing and obfuscating the truth over the two ATF programs named Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious. Sometimes they pretend they’re the same thing. Sometimes they tell us that when individuals mention one, they in fact mean the other. Sometimes they pretend that Wide Receiver never existed, and there’s only been one program, Fast and Furious, and that it’s been going on for years.

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

Wide Receiver was an ATF program run during the administration of President George W. Bush (R-USA). It was a gunwalking program, with the apparent goals claimed by Fast and Furious. However, there are some key points worth noting about Wide Receiver. The goal was apparently to “catch some big fish” in Mexican drug cartels who were using U.S. manufactured guns in their operations. This program was done with the consent and participation of the Mexican government. It involved a fairly small number of weapons, which were carefully tracked, often even with electronic tracking equipment.

Of course, what happened next will be surprising to no one. Despite the careful tracking, ATF lost some of the guns. When that happened, the program was shut down. You can certainly argue that this was inevitable from the beginning, and the entire program should have never been implemented. I might even agree with you.

Fast and Furious was an ATF program run during the administration of President Barack Obama (D-USA). The claimed goals were the same as Wide Receiver, but there were some significant differences. (And remember, Wide Receiver had already been shut down by this time, due to the inherent and somewhat obvious problems with the program) The differences included, but were not limited to the following. The Mexican government was not involved, and in fact was unaware of the program. The gunwalking was on a much larger scale, and the guns were not tracked (at least as far as we can tell) at all once they left the point of sale.

These differences are significant and are at the heart of the problems with Fast and Furious.

Now, you are probably asking yourself why would someone start a program that’s clearly an expansion of Wide Receiver and without Wide Receiver’s controls, after the failure of Wide Receiver? Or you might be asking yourself, how the people in charge expected it to succeed at the stated goals when the guns were not tracked at all?

Those are the two key questions regarding this program. And, of course, there others, such as, who was in charge of this program, and who approved it? And, if there was a cover-up afterwards, as now appears likely, who ordered the cover-up?

I’m sorry this post is not littered with links as is typical for my posts, but all of the information and much, much more is available in Katie Pavlich’s excellent book, “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up”.

I’m Thrilled That Obama Has Asserted Executive Privilege Over Fast & Furious Documents

Yes, you read that right. For the first time in two years, thinking about Fast & Furious is bringing a smile to my face, rather than raising my blood pressure.

I have said all along that this scandal is bigger than Watergate. And it has infuriated me to no end that it’s been continually brushed under the rug and ignored by the MSM. Attorney General Eric Holder’s stonewalling, lying, and obfuscation over the issue has been making me pull my hair out. As has the long slow slog by Congress to proceed with contempt charges against Mr. Holder.

So, why am I happy today?

President Barack Obama (D-USA) has officially involved himself in this mess now. By asserting executive privilege on the subpoenaed documents, he now owns it. Obama’s ace in the hole this entire time has been that the lapdog media is willing to cover for him. To say that they have not pursued this topic with any diligence is the understatement of the year. NBC Nightly News first mention ever of the scandal was on June 12, 2012! For those keeping score, that’s a mere 545 days after the murder of border patrol agent Brian Terry.

That’s pathetic. It’s beyond pathetic. Its disgusting.

But now, with contempt charges looming against the U.S. Attorney General, and with Obama’s assertion of executive privilege, it will be much harder for the MSM to ignore. We’ve been told for months now that Fast & Furious was a regional program, and that no one at the White House or the upper echelons of the Department of Justice really knew anything about it. That’s been obviously false for some time, but that hasn’t kept Holder from repeating it. But the assertion of executive privilege makes it more difficult for Holder now. If Holder’s been telling the truth, executive privilege wouldn’t be necessary, and in fact, wouldn’t even apply.

This is a big, big problem for Holder and Obama now. And while we still have a lapdog media, there are a few that still try to do their jobs. There are more still that may be biased, but also will smell blood in the water. Another of the many infuriating pieces of this whole story is how Holder and the DoJ have shut down access to the people with firsthand knowledge. You can do that merely by preventing them from appearing before Congressional inquiries, but only if there are no (or few) nosy reporters poking around.

There are going to be more nosy reporters poking around now. And, if there’s anything to find, they’re going to find it. Or they’re going to eventually convince one of these people to talk. And then a second will talk. And then a third. And every time one of these people talks, it’s going to be the lead story of the day. Don’t believe me? Go read “All the President’s Men”. That’s exactly how it went down.

As I keep saying, this is bigger than Watergate. I’m not the only person making that comparison, and after today’s assertion of executive privilege, even more will do so. When people think of executive privilege and scandals, they think of Nixon. That’s not a comparison Obama wants anyone to make.

Again, don’t believe me? Here’s what’s on Drudge right now.

President Obama today just made Fast & Furious a legitimate election issue. It may turn out to be the second biggest issue after the economy. I couldn’t be happier.

Fast & Furious Hits Home: Indiana

Apparently it’s not enough to arm Mexican drug cartels. We’re also arming gangs in Indiana. Doesn’t this administration make you feel safer?

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has acknowledged an Indiana dealer’s cooperation in conducting straw purchases at the direction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  Exclusive documents obtained by Gun Rights Examiner show the dealer cooperated with ATF by selling guns to straw purchasers, and that bureau management later asserted these guns were being traced to crimes.

I’ve said this before, but it bears mentioning again. Perhaps it’d be simpler at this point to ask people to raise their hands if they belong to a group that didn’t receive illegal guns from the government.

See the slideshow here of U.S. DoJ documents related to this story.

And Codrea (author of the linked article) asks the all important questions:

It’s also fair to ask if it seems credible that such similar operations would develop independently in the Southwest (“Project Gunwalker”) and the Midwest (“Project Gangwalker’?), without authorization from and oversight coordination by Main Justice.

Pretty sure the answer to that one has to be “no”.

Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars has advocated opening “a second front” to complement House Oversight Committee investigations, and this column has been a consistent advocate for appointment of a truly independent special investigator, as well as for individual state attorneys general determining if multiple felony violations of their state laws, committed jointly by two or more persons, have been perpetrated.  What seems clear is none of this will happen unless gun owners create such an uproar that their demands cannot be ignored—by timid political wind riders who don’t wish to get involved, by an arrogant, stonewalling administration, and by their protectors/abettors in the mainstream press.

I have a lot of problems with “special prosecutors”. I think they are impossible to restrain if/when they go beyond their mandate without making it look like you’re covering something up. I think that often they become desperate to prove something to justify their cost and go overboard. I think you saw that with both Ken Starr and Patrick Fitzgerald.

However, having said that, this clearly appears to be a case of serious misconduct by the Department of Justice, and anyone who honestly believes that in such a case that the DoJ can investigate itself should unsubscribe from this blog right now. You’re too dumb to be reading this.

Perhaps Congressional oversight will be sufficient. I do believe that Congressman Issa (R-CA-49) is doing his best, but their may be limits to his ability to get to the truth.

Fast & Furious Updates

This continues to trickle out, but the faucet has been opened a little wider. As I’ve said before, keep reading Moe Lane @ RedState. But I’ll keep providing summaries to his summaries.

Big news since my last update:

 

• Let’s start with this report from the House Oversight Committee, which helpfully informs us that BATFE officials active in Mexico were allegedly deliberately not told by their superiors – and the rest of the government – that there was a program in place to allow guns to be illegally resold to Mexican narco-terrorists and then lose trace of the guns. Once those officials found out about this on their own, they were allegedly told that the program had been completed several months before it actually was… only by which time both Mexican and American personnel were dead. To say that these officials are displeased that their own organization violated their training and made them unwitting dupes in an international incident is, to put it mildly, a vast understatement.
• Oh, and in case you were wondering: House Oversight Chair Darrell Issa (R) has indicated that the government is attempting to intimidate whistleblowers out of providing full details on this debacle.
• And - this is the revelation that threatens to really upset the applecart – Newell testifiedthat he shared information on F&F with National Security Director (North America) Kevin O’Reilly (in other words, somebody in the White House). The White House’s response was that… O’Reilly may have been told; but he wasn’t told-told, if you know what they mean.

And it seems like every single government agency has had their hands in this cookie jar. But, as Moe Lane points out above, the fact that we now know for certain that someone in the White House knew is the biggest news.

The more we learn about this the worse it sounds. And the more we learn, the more we learn how much there is to learn.

More and more we’re just waiting for someone in the press to ask the President that fateful question.

Fast & Furious Update

As promised, new links. Previous info can be found here.

I can’t repeat this often enough. Pay attention to this developing story. This is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is.

(with apologies to Douglas Adams)

This is going to be another mostly “just the facts, ma’am” type of post.

Moe Lane @ RedState is doing an excellent job of keeping up with events here and summarizing. As he says:

For those coming in late: [Congressman Darrell] Issa [(R-CA-49)] and [Senator Chuck] Grassley [(R-IA)] are investigating the horrifically botched Fast & Furious program that Justice/BATFE had put together, starting in late 2009. F&F was this ingenious method by which the federal government ended up knowingly and deliberately permitted illegally-resold firearms to be supplied to Mexican narco-terrorists; said narco-terrorists then proceeded to use those guns to shoot various hostages, Mexican civilians and police officers, at least one US Border Agent… as you can imagine, the Mexican government is not exactly pleased about any of this, which is why elements within said government are currently muttering about extradition treaties. This is where Kenneth Melson comes in: he is the Acting Director of BATFE, and was apparently picked to be the duly-assigned sacrificial lamb in this particular drama.

Soon to be outgoing directory Kenneth Melson apparently cut a deal with Issa and testified last week in private without the knowledge of the Department of Justice.

Really, read the whole thing from Moe Lane, but I want to highlight just one point in the letter that Issa sent to the DoJ regarding Melson’s testimony.

Melson and the rest of BATFE’s leadership of course wanted to give full disclosure to Congress over this entire sorry affair. Alas, “he said Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.”

Remember, the cover-up is always worse than the crime. The cover-up in Watergate brought down a President. I think President Barack Obama (D-USA) will survive this, mostly because the MSM won’t want to talk about it, but I just don’t see how Attorney General Holder is going to keep his job. He may end up in jail. A Mexican jail.

This is small now, but nobody was paying attention to Watergate early on either.

Operation Fast & Furious

I haven’t blogged about this, because most of my stuff is opinion blogging. I’m the editorial section. Not the front page. Right now the facts are coming out fast & furiously. Stay abreast. I’ll add links to this post as they become available.

You can start at Moe Lane, the Washington Examiner, & HotAir.

Oh. Since I do opinion blogging, I should give at least a quick opinion. This is bad. Really bad. Far worse than “Plamegate”. Worse than “Whitewatergate” and “Lewinskygate”. Worse than “Iran Contra”.  Maybe Watergate level bad. Possibly worse. Yes, I said that. It is very possibly a worse scandal than Watergate and may go up just as high. People have died over this. No one died in Watergate. One person is already being pressured to resign. Another person is being fired. They won’t be the last.

At some point, someone is going to ask the President, “What did you know about this, and when did you know it?” In case you haven’t figure it out already, that’s the question a politician fears most.

UPDATE: More on the investigation and need for a Special Prosecutor here.