ATF Death Watch 93: Holder Lied, People Died

“New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress,” m.cbsnews.com reports. “On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, ‘I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.’ Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.” [Click here to watch the CBS story.] Holder now claims he “misunderstood” the “when did you first know about F&F” question . . .

Well he would say that, wouldn’t he? Lying to a Congressional committee is called perjury, an offense for which Holder may be impeached and, yes, prosecuted. His career is toast and his peeps are in full damage control mode. In the last few hours, they’ve offered three excuses for his demonstrably false testimony.

According to the CBS report, Holder’s reps say their boss thought Representative Issa was asking if knew about “details” of the operation, not the operation’s existence. Over at foxnews.com: the Holderites claimed the U.S. Attorney General doesn’t read all the memos updating ongoing ops. And then there’s this:

In response to the documents released today, the Justice Department said Holder’s response referred to when he first learned of the “troubling tactics” of the program. A Justice spokesperson also says that the “gun walking” referred to in the October 2010 email exchange is about another case initiated before Operation Fast and Furious.

That would be ATF Operation Wide Receiver, which let some 400 guns walk between 2006 to 2008. Allegedly.

Anyway, the U.S. Attorney General lied about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious, wherein the ATF helped put weapons into the hands of drug thugs who killed a U.S. Border Patrol Agent and an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent. And each other. And Mexican civilians. All with ATF-enabled guns.

On the face of it, the Attorney General’s perjury was a simple attempt to avoid responsibility for the ATF’s gunwalking strategy (if you want to call it that). Beyond that, Holder’s “I know nothink!” reply to Issa’s inquiry relieved the U.S. Attorney General of the need to answer more specific questions about Operation Fast and Furious. Such as why the ATF let guns walk across the border and into the hands of narco-terrorists.

The MSM is still on-board with the whole “botched sting” explanation; Bob Schieffer’s intro talks about Fast and Furious going “badly wrong.” The Wall Street Journal observes that “the aim was to prosecute top traffickers.” But it can’t be emphasized enough: the ATF’s “plan” to let guns walk was never going to lead to arrests.

How could it? It couldn’t. There was no attempt to “follow the guns” into Mexico, nor could there be given A) America has no jurisdiction within Mexico and B) nobody told the Mexicans. Allegedly.

As we’ve said before, Fast and Furious (and Operation Wide Receiver, Operation Castaway, and grenadewalker) armed the U.S. and Mexican government-backed Sinaloa drug cartel against Los Zetas. According to previous testimony, the ATF’s F&F was aided and abetted by the IRS, FBI, DEA, DOJ, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and various White House security folk.

Someone should ask Mr. Holder about this statement [via narcosphere.narconews.com] by the captured Sinaloa jefe who claims the U.S. Federal government turned a blind eye to his cartel’s billion dollar (per month) drug smuggling business

Mr. Zambada Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests [from the US government] will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation ‘Fast & Furious’ were provided under the agreement entered into between the United States government and [Sinaloa organization lawyer] Mr. Loya Castro on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.

If that’s true, if the document sees the light of day, the Gunwalker scandal will blow up big. “Obama administration in bed with ruthless Mexican drug cartel.” Iran Contra that. The resulting scandal could well bring down the Obama administration.

Or not. The President could dodge the ATF-shaped bullet by laying his cards on the table. “We did what we had to do to support the popularly elected government of Mexico. Operation Fast and Furious, while dangerous, was part of that effort. An effort that’s succeeding (as if).”

Or not X2. The Administration could try to suppress the truth about their pro-Sinaloa Mexican strategy without coming clean, throwing a “national security” blanket over everything, from Fast and Furious to the fact that the CIA’s still targeting Zetas over Sinaloas.

In any event, a Fast and Furious Special Prosecutor is now inevitable. Holder’s perjury completely discredits the administration’s internal investigation (through the Office of Inspector General) and flags the fact that the DOJ has more skeletons than A Nightmare Before Christmas. Clearly, Holder’s homies have something to hide, and it’s more than Holder hide.

No matter how this plays out, play out it will. And TTAG will be here to tell the truth about the ATF-enabled guns.