“The U.S. Department of Justice released thousands of subpoenaed documents about the controversial ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ gun trafficking investigation to a congressional committee on Friday,” Reuters reports. “The operation was a failed effort between 2009 and 2011 to stop gun smuggling across the United States’ southwestern border by the department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and federal prosecutors in Arizona.” So much for reporting. The “gun smuggling to stop gun smuggling” justification was revealed as nothing more than a cover story the moment ATF Agent Dobson testified that he’d been ordered to stop following a known gun smuggler smuggling guns. To let the guns walk (hence the scandal’s “Gunwalker” nickname). The question is . . .
Will the documents reveal Fast & Furious’ raison d’être, long rumored to be a government plot to “plant” guns at Mexican crime scenes to motivate Congress to pass a U.S. assault weapons ban? Or supply the then-friendly Sinaloa Cartel with firearms? Or both.
Equally, will the new intel expose the ATF, DOJ, DHS, ICE and (maybe the CIA and DEA) coverup when the black bag job was exposed, following the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry [above] at the hands of ATF-enabled drug thugs? Reuters description of the docs does not lead one to believe that the truth about F&F is forthcoming.
A federal judge ordered the department to release the documents to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The records released on Friday were about the department’s internal deliberations on congressional and media inquiries about the investigation, the Justice Department said.
The documents are critical to the committee’s efforts to “understand and shine light on what was happening inside DOJ during the time of this irresponsible operation,” committee chairman and Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, said in a statement.
As of Friday afternoon, the committee staff had just begun looking through the documents and could not release additional details about them, a spokeswoman said.
The committee sued the department for the documents in August 2012, but the judge’s order in January required the department to release a smaller set of documents than those originally requested by the committee.
The committee appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday for the remaining documents it had requested.
Despite the caveats and obvious ongoing obfuscation, the doc dump could include explosive information about Fast and Furious — including White House involvement in the cover-up. Question: what did then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton know about this illegal international operation and when did she know it? Watch this space.
barry and Holder. Running with the Din Du Nuffin defense.
Milo told me about you.
Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?
That could have been a winner on the caption contest.
First of all, this document dump is all after the fat stuff, not docs regarding communications while the program was in operation, so what Hillary knew, if anything, after the fact, is entirely irrelevant. Further, unless this program was discussed in cabinet meetings while it was going on (unlikely, since it could be handled one level down from department heads), the probability that Clinton knew about it is slim, plus there is no evidence to date of any State Department involvement (which involvement would have created a firestorm if State had known but not told Mexican authorities). The CIA and the DEA are different stories (but what the CIA knew and what it wrote down are two different things entirely).
The state dept. almost certainly knew, because the primary purpose of f&f was to supply the sinloa cartel and destablize the border. It had nothing to do with catching criminals.
That would assume, contrary to the government’s many pronouncements that it objects to the river of guns flowing from the US, that it really is in league with the cartels but can’t find a way to ship them enough guns through regular government channels. Though I have little doubt that the Mexican government is corrupt to the core, much of that may have to do with the fact that Mexico has become a place where the cartels make offers no one can refuse…
I don’t understand the state departments interest n destabilizing the boarder?
Destabilized border->illegal immigration->cheap labor supply & future votes
Thanks for clearing that up Huma
What’s that smell? The smell of something rotting? The smell of corruption?
Department
OF
Just us.
Burn
All
The
Families
Center of
Illegal
Activities
Gun running, smuggling, lying, perjury and mass murder. It’s not just Mexican Drug Cartels and Islamic Terrorists that are committing acts of terror and murder against the American people.
Does this mean we can finally throw Obama and Eric Holder in prison?
Lordy I hopes so.
And hopefully Hillary will be joining them! That would make my year to see those three cuffed up and thrown in jail.
It says the whole deal was the idea of some advisor named Pablo Escobar, his underground name “El Chapo.”
What? Escobar was a Columbian drug lord who died in the early 90’s. El Chapo is the head of Sinaloa drug cartel, and he is very much alive (and also very much a separate person from Escobar).
BO and his pet Holder accomplished exactly what they wanted to . . they provided guns to criminals who used them to kill at least one Border Patrol officer, and probably more.
I was reading this article to understand what people think happened here as there is a lot of talk about it. But is the idea that Obama hates America and wants to kill us? Because that makes me think this is all nuts instead of a potential real issue all along
I still don’t think I understand what this long negative view on Ff is supposed to even be about
Nothing will happen. This is insignificant.
I don’t like it but it doesn’t change it.
Does anyone still believe this government is for the people?
I sure do. Some people are more special than other people.
I am afraid it never was.
Likely, the documents were carefully selected before release. Nothing will implicate any high level appointee.
Nothing to see here. Move along now.
What will be really interesting will be to see what investigation was performed by the DOJ after the proverbial feces hit the fan, and what the results were. Generally, such an investigation, formal or informal, would be mandatory. I suspect though that what we will see is either a heavily redacted report (least likely) or no report at all, which looks REALLY BAD but at least continues the coverup. It is “possible” that all reports were made orally to avoid this very nightmare scenario of getting caught with their pants down and their dicks in a wringer. In this context, it must be remembered that the only person punished for F&F was the whistleblower. The division chief was allowed to retire with full benefits, and the second in command was reassigned to a nonjob in D.C.
POTUS and AGUS will never be held accountable or face the consequences of their actions.
As for Hillary I wonder if anything will ever slow her down. It does not seem to matter what she does her party is not going to ask her pull out of the race. It is as if she can do no wrong. I knew a man in the Army who lost his whole career for losing control of a secure laptop with some communications equipment. He worked in military intelligence and had his own helicopter and flight crew to transport him around Iraq. Anyway, he lost control of his laptop for 2 hours because he left it in an assault pack on the helicopter. The crew chief secured it and made sure it was returned promptly. The major ended up being relieved for cause, sent home, and was a first lieutenant by the time it was all said and done.
That is pretty sobering to think about when you compare it to the ammount of deliberate, criminal, and unconstitutional actions of this cabinet and administration.
“Will the documents reveal Fast & Furious’ raison d’être, long rumored to be a government plot to “plant” guns at Mexican crime scenes to motivate Congress to pass a U.S. assault weapons ban?”
Wait, really? Come on, now. This is the kind of stupidity the government does all the time without any need for such grand domestic-political conspiracy theories.
First, if the Obama Regime releases anything on a Friday, it is to reduce the impact by releasing it when the brunt of newsrooms across America have gone home for the weekend. There has to be something revealing in the documents. Second, if you were a government worker who followed these unlawful orders, wouldn’t you want that to go public now so that Obama can pardon you before he leaves office? The reason Cruz and Trump are the front runners is because they are the type of people who would prosecute corruption in government, so you would think these government employees would be falling over themselves to step forward and tell the truth.
Holder threw away his Respect, Honor and Integrity covering his Butt Buddies A$$. New head of DOJ is not much better! Incompetence loves it’s self and breeds incompetence, birds of a feather Etc: sure is a sad day for the Protected ones if this is the best example of current Leadership! Democrat party ought to be outlawed for being the Seditious, Treasonous, Anti-American Ideas, The Rhino Party is not Better with their charades! saying how accountable they are, then they wonder why America is Pissed at all Politicians, you watch Hillery the Bitch will get a presidential Pardon from Obama so she avoids Prosecution and can run for President!
Well, the relentless, blatant, sustained manipulation by the current administration has finally gotten people to notice a bit. A friend of mine has been saying for a while now: “What bugs me is that they’re not trying to hide it any more. It’s worse than that, even. It’s in your face and ‘What are you gonna do about it?'”
“Friday Night Document Dump” is part of the culture, now. Everybody knows what they are up to, manipulating the media cycle.
It’s been building, year over year, administration over administration for decades. Maybe we’re finally getting a reset.
I’m sure this was covered at the time, but just supplemental reading to go with their whitewashed document release:
“Documents: ATF used ‘Fast and Furious’ to make the case for gun regulations” – CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/
Awesome!
Nothing less than a Plot by the Democratic party hacks too destroy the Constitution, led Led by Obama who has done more too disrupt the Values of the United States than any other person in History!