“As you know,” President Obama told a press conference today, “my attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun-running to pass through into Mexico.” So Department of Justice Chief Eric Holder would have ordered ATF-enabled gun running that didn’t past through into Mexico?” No matter how you parse it, the President of the United States responded to a question about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious with weasel words. The chickens that armed Mexican drug thugs with American firearms—one of which drug thugs shouldered to murder U.S. Border Patrol Brian Terry—are coming home to roost. Clearly, All the President’s Men have prepared President Obama’s defense for a scandal that threatens to eclipse Watergate, with similar results . . .
It’s only a matter of time before President Obama says “Yes, I knew of the ATF program, but I didn’t know that smuggled guns were allowed into Mexico.”
Which is complete and utter horse-shit.
As an ATF agent told Representative Darrell Issa at Congressional hearings on Gunwalker, the Bureau was over the moon about the fact that agency-enabled guns were showing-up at Mexican crime scenes. That’s how the ATF measured their success. There is no way they’d brief the Prez on the program’s progress without sharing the stats. No. Way.
First things first . . .
The President’s comments reveal the White House’s short term Gunwalker strategy: throw ATF Acting Chief Melson and Attorney General Holder under the bus, allow Department of Homeland Security jefe Janet Napolitano to exit gracefully, draw a line under the scandal and call it good.
As Brad would say, nope. If there wasn’t a paper trail between Melson’s mess and his boss (Attorney General Holder) and his boss’s boss (President Obama), Melson would have already taken one for the team. But there is so he can’t.
Melson will appear at Representative Issa’s Gunwalker hearings in July. He will profess the ATF’s good intentions, fail to recall, refuse to surrender key documents (again, still) and then take the fifth. All hell will break loose.
Lest we forget, this is a criminal investigation. Not only did Agent Terry eat ATF-enabled lead, but Gunwalker’s gunrunning violated an international treaty. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is some serious shit. No wonder Obama dodged the bullet at his press conference . . .
The investigation is still pending. I’m not going to comment on a current investigation. I’ve made very clear my views that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we’ve got to find out how that happened.
As soon as the investigation is completed, I think appropriate actions will be taken.
Notice the passive construction and verbal tick: “I think [emphasis added] appropriate actions will be taken.” Not “I will take appropriate actions.” Call me an over-analytical nit-picking pedant, but Obama couldn’t promise some Gunwalker clock-cleaning ’cause it’s his timepiece that’s lousy with lethal lint (or something like that).
In any case, this is President Obama’s “I did not have sex with that woman.” If it’s revealed that the president did know about the ATF’s Gunwalker crime gun recovery stats, he will claim ignorance. “I do not recall that part of the briefing.”
And then he’ll repeat his assertion that the greater good—stopping Mexican cartel carnage—is the real issue. Just as he shrugged off questions about violating the U.S. Constitution to unleash helicopter gunships on Libyan troops.
Meanwhile, is there anyone who believes that the Department of Justice submitted all-black documents to Rep. Issa’s investigators to protect the rights of suspected shooter Osorio-Arellanes, the career criminal currently rotting in a Texas prison, or his three alleged cohorts, mysteriously released and deported by the feds immediately after Terry’s murder?
Is there anyone who believes that the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted all-black documents to Rep. Issa’s investigators to protect the rights of the ATF, DOJ, DHS, DEA and State Department officials who knew about Uncle Sam’s anti-gun running gun running operations?
Of course not. The DOJ is stone-walling for one reason and one reason only: the Obama administration knew about and approved this operation at the highest levels. Including the President of the United States.
I repeat, Barak Obama is up to his eyeballs in Gunwalker. For it was he who stood side-by-side with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and blamed U.S. gun stores for the cartel-related violence bedeviling our number two crude oil supplier. Knowing full well what his people were doing about it.
You could say that Gunwalker was the ATF doing the “‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” routine. No doubt that’ll be the president’s story, at some point. But it’s not true. What did he know and when did he know it? He knew about the recovered guns sometime between his press conference with Calderon and today’s weasel word fest.
Truth be told, President Obama has shown his willingness to sidestep legal niceties when the ends justify the means (e.g. Bin Laden’s assassination, Libya, Guantanamo). In some ways, Gunwalker was a marriage made in heaven, a union between a rogue agency with delusions of grandeur and inadequate oversight and an American president who considers himself above the law.
Sound familiar? And that, friends, is just the obvious part of this scandal. As I’ve said before, U.S. complicity with Mexican drug cartels and corruption on both sides of the border is the cake underneath the icing. No matter. Obama lied and Agent Terry died. There’s more than enough here to bring down the President.
Barack Obama. The Liar and Chief.
You know, we’ve seen this all before. The circling of the wagons. The stonewalling. The denials. The obfuscations. And of all people, you’d think that a Leftie like Obama would have a long enough memory of the Nixon White House to avoid making EXACTLY THE SAME MISTAKES. (Politicians. They NEVER learn.)
But you’d think Obama would be wise enough to enlist the help and advice of one of his ‘inner circle,’ a cabinet member who was literally right there, in the Congressional subcommittee hearings. Someone who could tell him what’s coming next, and what to do to avoid the career-limiting moves. That someone is Hillary, who was a senior congressional aide in the Watergate hearings.
Perhaps Hillary sees the blood in the water and is more than a little willing to “forget” how to throw those life rings to her sinking shipmates. Yep. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see her bolt and a “grasstro-turf-roots” movement to “DRAFT HILLARY” spring to life, like so much crabgrass.
Yeah, I don’t think Hillary likes Obama too much. And on a different topic, we certainly know Hillary’s voters don’t like Obama at all. See you at the voting booth!
“Perhaps Hillary sees the blood in the water…” Let the games begin!
Maybe you were right about Obama being thrown under the bus. This will be very interesting to watch.
“[Holder said that] he certainly would not have ordered gun-running to pass through into Mexico.”
“[W]ould not have ordered gun-running” are weasel words. I’m a (retired) lawyer and I know ’em when I smell ’em. So maybe he didn’t “order” Fast and Furious but he approved it. Or maybe he didn’t approve the program but he knew about it. Or maybe the whole sentence is qualified by the weasel-phrase “gun-running.” Remember when Nixon famously said “when the President does it, it’s not illegal”? I mean, it’s not gun-running if the ATF does it, right? If the ATF does it, it’s a sting operation. Jeez, can these politicians get any more slimy?
Let’s see what Melson says when he testifies. I’m expecting more weasel words from the king of the fisher cats.
And as a lawyer you know all that is 100 percent speculation.
Not trying to be cynical here, but in the past 30 years, presidents have survived numerous scandals that should have brought down their administration:
selling missiles to Iran to fund “freedom fighters” in Nicaragua . . .
pardoning Casper Weinberger pre-trial so no further Iran-Contra information would come out
lying under oath about sexual relations
ignoring the War Crimes Act, the Geneva Convention, the Torture Convention
bombing Libya without any congressional approval
and this is just picking one per administration . . .
I have no idea how involved Obama and Holder are in this mess, but unless they killed the Agent Terry themselves, I doubt that this will sink Obama.
Thanks for the Henry II reference, by the way.
It’s April 2013 at 4:30 PM.
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RF hears a knocking at his front door. Grabs his trusty 1911 and looks through the spy-hole. “Men in Black” he thinks to himself, “Fracking-A”. RF opens the door slowly waiting for the two agents to draw down on him.
“Are you Robert Farango?” they ask. “That’s Farago, not Farango” he answers with a mighty breath. “Mr. Farago to you gentlemen. And let me see those badges again!”. They sheepishly pull out their tarnished badges and hand them over.
“Hmmmm…” says RF. “Department of Agriculture?, WTF you boys want with me?” he snorts.
“Sorry to bother you sir” they say in unison. “We had a report of unusual amounts of bullsh^t on your blog related to our sister agency the ATF, and they asked us to investigate as the only government agency not indicted by the Gunwalker Special Prosecutor.”
——————————————-
I’m just saying…
Just because I’m not paranoid doesn’t mean I don’t think someone may be out to get me. And never mind the government. It’s the cartels that’ve got me worried.
Let me get this straight, this program began in 2006, teh guns were “run” in 2009, and this is the Obama administration’s fault? HUH?
Yes, they’ve stonewalled, but their reply that they don’t want to mess up an active investigation/prosecution makes sense to me, and to anyone able to ignore their personal bias. If they release too much info it could scare witnesses who will flee. Granted, they might have something to hide, maybe htey did know about it and now they don’t want the info to come out because it’s a black eye for America. Either way, an objective and rational person CANNOT ignore the fact that this program materialized and was carried out under BUSH & Co. FACT!
I’m no liberal, but I refuse to allow my personal ideologies cloud my logic and ignore facts. I’m ashamed of many of those I call my friends who cannot do the same, it’s embarrassing and invalidates our positions.
I don’t care what refute or talking point someone might want to try, you’re wrong unless you have validated facts.
Where are you seeing the 2006 reference?
But, assuming it’s accurate let’s use your timeline:
“Let me get this straight, this program began in 2006, teh guns were “run” in 2009”
Three years before the guns were smuggled? That can only mean one of two things. Either O’s administration A)took a wrongheaded but harmless program and changed its objective to facilitate the gunwalking or B) they had plenty of time to see what was going to happen and then did nothing to stop it. Given the amount of stonewalling and fingerpointing going on, and the fact that this is about the only thing O hasn’t tried to blame Bush for I’m thinking it’s option A.
So yeah, a rational person can easily blame the Obama administration for this.
You outdid yourself with that script RF! Bravo. I’m not kidding. I used to love reading Royko growing up and this reminded me of him. Illinois politicians at their best. Gotta Luv It!!
what does everyone here think the motive behind fast and furious was?
RF’s pathological hatred of BATFE.
Oh, you meant at the Justice Department? None at all is my guess. Nothing more than it seemed a good idea at the time.
It’s no more pathalogical than your hatred and fear of gun owners, and it’s a damn sight more rational.
don’t hijack my thread DELETED. now you have guaranteed no one will answer my question.
No worries Gabba, I’ll answer you.
Personally I think the motive was to create incidents that would allow the administration to say “Look! All these guns used in homicides were purchased from licensed dealers here in America”. They would then use those incidents to push for more absurd gun control laws.
The way they’ve hauled the Brady Campaign up on stage today does nothing to change that opinion.
so you truly believe that the obama administration planned on homicides occurring? and they were planning on then reporting that they happened? That sounds a lot like “9/11 was an inside job”.
I’m anxiously awaiting the Cummings/Schumer show scheduled for today. With the likely cast of characters to be called to give “testimony”, the show should provide truly marvelous entertainment. How much do you want to bet that the WaPo & NYT give this particular “very important hearing” full coverage?
Fasten your seatbelts, we’re in for a bumpy summer and fall.
Here’s the most important question: Why has ATF not had a director in the past five (5) years, and whom is the blame? Do you think deep pockets NRA has influenced those whom have kept that most important position vacant? Patriots my arse!
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