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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left and President Donald Trump (AP File Photo)
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The Fast and Furious gun-running operation, which the ATF began shortly after Obama’s first term started, allowed about 2000 illegally purchased firearms to move over the border into Mexico. There, many of the guns were used by drug cartels to murder civilians, each other, and U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

The ATF painted Fast and Furious as a botched sting operation designed to track the guns to the cartels. They sold the story that F&F didn’t work due to inadequate surveillance and technological failures.

Fast and Furious was botched, alright, but its real purpose was more likely to allow guns to go south, then use the murder and mayhem resulting from the alleged “iron river” of firearms flowing into Mexico as an excuse to push for more gun control here in the US of A.

Fast and Furious guns (AP Photo/Matt York)

When the whole ill-conceived tower of incompetence and stupidity came tumbling down and spilled into the public view, Attorney General Eric Holder stonewalled the subsequent congressional investigation, lied about F&F to Congress and refused to comply with a subpoena of related documents.

President Obama asserted executive privilege in order to keep it all secret, but Holder became the first Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress, and on a bi-partisan vote, at that.

Why dredge all of this up now? Well, because Fast and Furious has never really gone away. Congress sued the administration over its executive privilege claim. In 2018, with the Obama bunch out of office, the Trump DOJ released some Fast and Furious documents which revealed that F&F led to at least 69 murders. And the Congressional suit wasn’t finally settled until last May.

Now the current Mexican president wants some answers, too. On Friday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held a press conference and said he wants to know if US officials notified then-president Felipe Calderon of Fast and Furious either before or during the operation. In effect, what did he know and when did he know it.

Cartel violence has risen to new levels and Lopez Obrador is blaming his predecessor for the increased body count because of Calderon’s tactic of using the Mexican military to challenge the cartels.

As Bloomberg reports . . .

Lopez Obrador on Friday said he will ask the U.S. government if it had alerted Mexican officials that agents were carrying out the undercover operation where U.S. agents lost track of guns they had allowed to enter the Latin American nation with the goal of tracking Mexico’s brutal drug gangs.

“What seems serious to me is that a violation of our sovereignty was carried out, a secret operation, and that Mexicans were killed with these weapons,” Lopez Obrador said during his morning press conference in Mexico City. “There is still time for the U.S. to apologize.”

Would Trump apologize to Mexico? There may be good reasons to do just that.

First, Mexico has worked with the Trump administration to cut down on illegal immigration. They’ve patrolled their northern border to reduce the number of people trying to enter the US. They’ve also stopped migrants from crossing Mexico’s southern border on their way to the US.

Second, any apology would highlight the Obama administration’s culpability in the inept and illegal operation, not to mention the deaths that resulted. And Trump has been more than happy to punch at his predecessor recently.

Documents were just released that led to the DOJ dropping all charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The release highlighted the fact that former FBI Director James Comey, former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and President Obama himself were directly involved with the investigation into the Trump campaign, the Russiagate narrative and the subsequent Mueller investigation.

Trump has never been one to miss an opportunity to take a swing at someone who’s done him wrong, and a Fast and Furious Obama-directed apology would be made to order.

And finally, Trump has a good electoral reason to bring new attention to Fast and Furious. The Democrats’ presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, held the number two chair in the Obama administration and if Trump can connect his likely November opponent in any way to the gun-running scandal, that would be a political plus.

As Reuters notes . . .

Critics of Lopez Obrador contend that he has done Trump a favor by raising questions about Garcia Luna as the U.S president prepares to fight a November election against Joe Biden, who was vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Obama.

Fernando Belaunzaran, co-leader of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, on Twitter called it a “badly-disguised” stunt by Lopez Obrador to curry favor with Trump ahead of a joint meeting the Mexican president has proposed.

Whatever. The fact remains that no one in the Obama administration or the ATF has paid any price for Fast and Furious (unless you count reassigning the ATF’s then-interim head, Ken Melson, to another job within the Justice Department). Fast and Furious — and the piles of dead bodies that resulted — remains a shockingly inept and corrupt chapter in the Obama administration’s “scandal-free” record.

 

 

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154 COMMENTS

  1. Obama era? Was Obama president in 2005?

    “Project Gunrunner is a project of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico, in an attempt to deprive the Mexican drug cartels of weapons.[1]
    The primary tactic of Project Gunrunner is interdiction of straw purchasers and unlicensed dealers to prevent legal guns from entering the black market; between 2005 and 2008, 650 such cases involving 1,400 offenders and 12,000 firearms were referred for prosecution.[2] However, other tactics (“gunwalking” and “controlled delivery”) have led to controversy.
    In early 2011, the project became controversial when it was revealed that Operation Wide Receiver (2006–2007) and Operation Fast and Furious (2009–2010) had allowed guns to “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.”

    “The ATF began Project Gunrunner as a pilot project in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 and expanded it as a national initiative in 2006. Project Gunrunner is also part of the Department of Justice’s broader Southwest Border Initiative, which seeks to reduce cross-border drug and firearms trafficking and the high level of violence associated with these activities on both sides of the border.”

    So the conservatives are at it again, rewriting history to fit their narrative.

    Meanwhile, President Barack Hussein Obama was busy expanding your right to carry a firearm on hundreds of thousands of acres of federal control lands.

      • Correct, both administrations did it. The absurdity is in trying to use one as a means of ignoring the other. Both were criminally negligent. It isn’t a liberal versus conservative thing, it a bureaucracy (ATF) getting away with deadly arrogance and incompetence because they can always count upon the liberal-conservative gun fight to leave them out of any retribution for their failures.

        The ATF did this, twice. Second time was much worse, but innocents got killed both times. It is the fault of both Bush and Obama failing to take action, failing to destroy some careers instead of seeing them promoted or honorably retired

      • Yes, somehow an establishment rino does something and we can forget that a rabid leftist did it too. Sorry the world doesn’t work that way San Fran sicko boy. Establishment rinos can be just as evil as rabid leftists.
        Fyi- we miss you on the files 49er. Eric was it?

    • Not sure where you are copying that from, but Project Gunrunner was very different from Fast and Furious. Linking this is the defensive tactic of those defending the Obama Administration and the F&F program which resulted in dozens, if not hundreds, of murders.

      F&F was never designed (from the beginning) to track guns. It was designed to put those guns into the hands of the narco-terrorists, then identify those guns used to commit murders, then use that as the justification for increasing restrictions on gun owners in the U.S. This isn’t even debatable since the people involved with F&F have documents that there was no plan and no effort to track F&F guns.

        • And it’s true. Miner is purposefully sowing disinformation, Fast & Furious itself was solely under Obama’s administrative reign. Inception date of Oct. 29, 2009 to Dec. 14, 2010 ending at the beginning of the investigation of Brian Terry’s death by one of the F&F trafficked guns.

          The umbrella under which the operation was conducted was that of what was the original Project Gunrunner, true, but F&F was a subsidiary spawned within it after Obama took office. You should be aware of the compartmentalization policies which prevents one hand from knowing what the other is doing. We don’t know for sure how far that extended up the flag pole, those documents are still tied up in court because of Obama’s invocation of executive privilege.

          It’s fair to assume they lead right up to Obama’s shadow though, considering the precursor action on his part with protecting the documentation.

        • Actually, there is zero evidence to indicate that Obama knew anything about the program, which had been ongoing since 2005.

          “The first known ATF “gunwalking” operation to Mexican drug cartels, named Operation Wide Receiver, began in early 2006 and ran into late 2007. Licensed dealer Mike Detty of Mad Dawg Global informed the ATF of a suspicious gun purchase that took place in February 2006 in Tucson, Arizona. In March, he was hired as a confidential informant working with the ATF’s Tucson office, part of their Phoenix, Arizona field division.[33]

          With the use of surveillance equipment, ATF agents monitored additional sales by Detty to straw purchasers. With assurance from ATF “that Mexican officials would be conducting surveillance or interdictions when guns got to the other side of the border”,[13] Detty would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation.[32] These included AR-15s, semi-automatic AK-pattern rifles, and Colt .38s. The majority of the guns were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.[6][33][34][35]

          As the later DOJ OIG Report documented, under Wide Receiver coordination of ATF Tucson with the ATF Mexico City Office (MCO) and with Mexican law enforcement had been haphazard. Discussions of getting tracking devices from Raytheon were not followed up. ATF field agents and the cooperating gun dealer had been told by ATF supervisors that the guns were being interdicted before they could reach Mexico, but only 64 of the 474 guns had actually been seized. The kingpin sought by walking the guns, Israel Egurrola-Leon, turned out to be the target of a larger drug case Operation Iron River run by OCDETF. After Operation Wide Receiver was ended, several attorneys at the Phoenix USAO who reviewed the Wide Receiver cases for prosecution found the cases had been so poorly managed that they were reluctant to bring any of them to trial.[1]

          At the time, under the Bush administration Department of Justice (DOJ), no arrests or indictments were made. After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers. Indictments began in 2010, over three years after Wide Receiver concluded.”

          Somehow I’ve missed the call by Republicans and conservatives to vilify George Bush for sending hundreds of guns to Mexico through known straw purchasers and failing to prosecute a single case.

          At least Obama’s DOJ started prosecutions once Bush was out of office, and actually filed indictments but the cases from bush’s administration were so poor they got no traction.

        • Zero evidence because of executive privilege binding the documents from public or court view. You can try and bury it behind a wall of drivel however you like. Doesn’t change the facts that you lied intentionally misrepresenting through omission the facts in your original post. Busted. Own it.

        • “Zero evidence because of executive privilege binding the documents from public or court view.”

          Guilty because of executive privilege?

          Interesting viewpoint, I’m sure you’re consistent and also hold President Trump guilty of conspiring with the Russians because he also used executive privilege to hide documents and block testimony of witnesses.

          And the Bush administration did indeed provide weapons through strawman purchasers to the gangs and cartels in Mexico, almost 500 guns that are documented.

          And not one arrest or indictment, yet you don’t hold bush responsible, why?

          Let’s see, one president is Republican and white and there’s no indictment or calls for his incarceration.

          The other president is Democrat and black, and everyone shouts ‘lock him up!’

        • Always with the race thing. Yeah, it’s because he’s black. That’s it. And Hillary, because she’s a woman. Right.

        • Miner is a troll, plain and simple. He is paid by either Bloomberg or Soros. Take your pick..

        • Ofc, the race card. Coupled with the logical fallacies known as whataboutism, the intentional deception, avoidance of the topic at hand, the lie that you’re not propping up a broken wing. You have earned a permanent ignore, troll.

          Particularly offensive is the racism, it’s only the racist mind that gravitates to that as the default answer. You should run for office, you’d fit right in with that sort of scum.

    • Wow, Miner. You were somehow able to not only by first to comment, but have the time available to write such a long one, before anyone else?

      Or was this cut-and-pasted from page 72 of your pre-written blabs you have prepared in advance?

      • “Or was this cut-and-pasted“

        Guys, the facts of history don’t change.
        What was historically accurate last month is still historically accurate today.

        I realize many conservatives have a distorted view of history, and are all too willing to adjust it as they go along in order to fit their particular narrative of the day.

        But that’s not my style, I rely on verifiable facts and evidence to form my opinion, not alternative facts that feel ‘truthy’.

        • Miner,

          You get points for the creative attempt at evasion, but the fact remains you didn’t answer the question. Much like an anti-gun politician.

          Oh well…time for lunch.

        • Hazy, obviously the text from Wikipedia was cut and pasted, do you think I would sit here and retype it and claim it as my own?

          And all you’re trying for is a form of ad hominem attack, you can’t find fault with the content so you suggest that it was cut and pasted, as if that somehow detracts from the credibility of the information.

          If you find fault with a particular data points that I have posted, please be specific with your objection and provide a source to support your assertion.

          Otherwise, you’re just spouting more empty speech.

        • Well, that was a second decent attempt of diversion on your part, but this time I’m not awarding any points.

          My original comment above regarded how you quickly posted a lengthy remark before anyone else, making you the first one for this page. I made no reference whatsoever to the validity of your content. Yet you are choosing to spotlight your assumption and place blame on me in front of the entire class. Doesn’t work that way, bub.

          It’s past 1am in Moscow right now. Are you pulling an all-nighter?

        • Historically TRUTHFUL would be a much better measuring stick. Especially since so much of todays “history” is factually and truthfully DEFICIENT. LIES are the order of the day… in schools and in the public square.

        • The only ones that are “distorting history”are people like YOU, “liberal progressive”, (communist) “school teachers”, college “professors” and your CORRUPT DEMOCOMMUNIST “friends” that are infesting the government. Take your soros money, buy some new crayons, a coloring book and some cocoa, go play in your basement “safe space” and scream at the moon, like the rest of your indoctrinated , brainwashed, “snowflakes”..The more you rant and rave, the faster PRESIDENT TRUMP gets reelected, as people finally wise up to propaganda peddlers like YOU.

    • The difference was the GWB Administration took people into custody before the guns went across the border.

      • Total bs, bushes administration failed to arrest or indict anyone, see my post above.

        It wasn’t until Obama came into office that any indictments were filed, but unfortunately the cases from the Bush administration were poor they were unable to be successfully prosecuted.

        • between 2005 and 2008, 650 such cases involving 1,400 offenders and 12,000 firearms were referred for prosecution.
          Cut and pasted. Your words.

    • Come on, Miner, you know better. The project under Bush’s administration was real, had a purpose. Every firearm was tracked and accounted for, and recovered. Under slimeball Osama and felon Holder, the *only* weapon recovered was the one which killed Brian Terry, the only purpose was justifying more gun control by lying and then lying again and finally lying about their lying, while continuing their racist government.

      • Where do you guys get this stuff, hilarious!

        Bush’s DOJ did not arrest anybody, not one.

        “At the time, under the Bush administration Department of Justice (DOJ), no arrests or indictments were made. After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers. Indictments began in 2010, over three years after Wide Receiver concluded.”

        You gentlemen just assert all this stuff like it’s fact but never have a citation or quote to support your claims.

        You really should check out Wikipedia, it has footnotes with every reference available for your confirmation.

        Or you can continue to get your ‘facts’ from Alex Jones or some crazy old man you-tuber in his basement with a confederate flag on the wall.

        • Miner,

          Wikipedia.
          Neither the university nor the college I taught at permitted Wikipedia as a source.
          Also, a fried of mine tells me the high school at which he teaches does not permit Wikipedia as a source.
          There are plenty of reasons for that.
          Not going to argue the point here.

        • Yes it does, and no one need quote that which is found there. Wiki is ubiquitous and not generally accepted as a valid source. However, you like to take excerpts of the originals to suit your particular flavor of slander, while omitting the important details you don’t like. That’s disingenuous. There is the wiki page:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

          “2009–2011: Operation Fast and Furious

          On October 26, 2009, a teleconference was held at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. to discuss U.S. strategy for combating Mexican drug cartels. Participating in the meeting were Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden [b](Obama Appointee)[/b], Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer [b](Defended Clinton)[/b], acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson [b](Holder Appointee)[/b], Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michele Leonhart [b](G.W. Bush originally, Obama re-appointee)[/b], Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Robert Mueller [b](G.W. Bush Appointee)[/b] and the top federal prosecutors in the Southwestern border states. They decided on a strategy to identify and eliminate entire arms trafficking networks rather than low-level buyers.[3][40][41] Those at the meeting apparently did not suggest using the “gunwalking” tactic, but Phoenix ATF supervisors would soon use it in an attempt to achieve the desired goals.[42]

          The strategy of targeting high-level individuals, which was already ATF policy, would be implemented by Bill Newell, special agent in charge of ATF’s Phoenix field division. In order to accomplish it, the office decided to monitor suspicious firearms purchases which federal prosecutor Emory Hurley claimed lacked sufficient evidence for prosecution, as laid out in a January 2010 briefing paper. This was said to be allowed under ATF regulations and given legal backing by U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis K. Burke [b](Obama Appointee)[/b]. It was additionally approved and funded by a Justice Department task force.[3] However, long-standing DOJ and ATF policy has required suspected illegal arms shipments to be intercepted.[4][5]
          FN Five-sevens were among the weapons allowed to walk.[43]

          The operation began on October 31, 2009, when a local gun store reported to the Phoenix ATF that four individuals had purchased multiple AK-47 style rifles.[44] In November 2009, the Phoenix office’s Group VII, which would be the lead investigative group in Fast and Furious, began to follow a prolific gun trafficker. He had bought 34 firearms in 24 days, and he and his associates bought 212 more in the next month. The case soon grew to over two dozen straw purchasers, the most prolific of which would ultimately buy more than 600 weapons.[3][5][45] The effort would come to be called Operation Fast and Furious for the successful film franchise, because some of the suspects under investigation operated out of an auto repair store and street raced.[3]

          Under the previous Operation Wide Receiver, there had been a formal ATF contract with the cooperating gun dealer and efforts were made to involve the ATF Mexico City Office (MCO) and Mexican law enforcement. Under Operation Fast and Furious, at Newell’s insistence the cooperating gun dealers did not have contracts with ATF, and MCO and Mexican police were left in the dark.[1]

          According to internal ATF documents, the operation was initially run in conjunction with the Phoenix DEA Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).[46] On January 26, 2010, ATF formally applied to the Justice Department in Washington for funding through the OCDETF program. When it won approval and received additional funding, Operation Fast and Furious was reorganized as a Strike Force that included agents from the ATF, FBI, DEA, and the ICE component of the Department of Homeland Security, which would be run through the U.S. Attorney’s office rather than the ATF. This new Strike Force designation allowed the operation to take advantage of sophisticated surveillance techniques such as federal wiretaps, which would require court orders and interaction from Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C. since federal law requires certain individuals to review evidence and certify the necessity of such techniques.[47]

          The dealers involved became concerned as months went by and the same individuals they reported to ATF as suspected straw purchasers returned and repeatedly bought identical weapons. As they later told the DOJ OIG, their previous experience was that after they reported a suspected straw to ATF, they did not see the straw again unless subpoenaed to testify against the straw at trial.[1] One cooperating dealer expressed his concerns in a series of emails in April and June 2010 to GS David Voth, who assured the dealer that ATF was monitoring the suspects using a variety of techniques that he could not discuss in detail.[24]

          The tactic of letting guns walk, rather than interdicting them and arresting the buyers, led to controversy within the ATF.[5][48] As the case continued, several members of Group VII, including John Dodson and Olindo Casa, became increasingly upset at the tactic of allowing guns to walk. Their standard Project Gunrunner training was to follow the straw purchasers to the hand-off to the cartel buyers, then arrest both parties and seize the guns. But according to Dodson, they watched guns being bought illegally and stashed on a daily basis, while their supervisors, including David Voth and Hope MacAllister, prevented the agents from intervening.[3]

          However, other accounts of the operation insist that ATF agents were prevented from intervening not by ATF officials, but rather by federal prosecutor Emory Hurley, who stated agents did not have sufficient evidence to arrest suspected straw-buyers.[11] According to some reports, many agents insisted they were prevented from making arrests because prosecutors were unwilling to engage in what could become a potentially contentious political battle over Second Amendment rights during an election year, particularly given the difficult nature of prosecuting straw buyers, and the weak penalties associated with it, even if successful.[11] Instead, prosecutor Hurley instructed ATF agents not to make arrests, but rather continue collecting evidence in order to build a stronger case. One tactic proposed for doing so was a wiretap of suspected straw-buyers, in an attempt to link the suspects to criminal activities taking place on the Mexican side of the border.[11] Between March 20 and July 30, 2010, nine wiretaps were sought and approved by Justice Department officials, resulting in a significant delay in concluding the case.[1]:247,274

          One of the central targeted individuals was Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta.[47] By December 2009, Celis-Acosta was being investigated by the ATF, which had placed a secret pole camera outside his Phoenix home to track his movements. Around this time, apparently by chance, ATF agents discovered Celis-Acosta was also a potential criminal target of the DEA, which was operating a wire room to monitor live wiretaps in order to track him. On April 2, 2010, Celis-Acosta was arrested on possession of cocaine and found in possession of a weapon purchased by Uriel Patino, who had already purchased at least 434 guns from cooperating gun dealers in the Phoenix area. By this time, about a dozen ATF agents regularly surveilled Celis-Acosta as he recruited 20 friends and family to buy guns for him and regularly traveled to Texas to obtain funds from cartel associates to purchase firearms. On May 29, 2010, Celis-Acosta was detained in Lukeville, Arizona with 74 rounds of ammunition and 9 cell phones. He was then released by the chief ATF investigator on Fast and Furious, Hope MacAllister, after he promised to cooperate with her to find two specific Sinaloa cartel associates. After the redetention and arrest of Celis-Acosta in February 2011, the ATF learned that the associates they were after were FBI/DEA paid informants, and one of them was Celis-Acosta’s financier. Since they were informants, they were unindictable under Operation Fast and Furious.[47][49][50][51][52]

          Later, the DOJ inspector General concluded: “We did not find persuasive evidence that agents sought to seize firearms or make arrests during the investigative stage of the case and were rebuffed by the prosecutor. …We found that the lack of seizures and arrests was primarily attributable to the pursuit of a strategic goal shared by both the [Phoenix] ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office—to eliminate a trafficking organization—and the belief that confronting subjects and seizing firearms could compromise that goal.”[1]
          Weapons bought by Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino, seized by Border Patrol and Tucson ATF agents on the Tohono O’odham Reservation from a vehicle headed toward the Mexican border, February 20, 2010.[1]

          By June 2010, suspects had purchased 1,608 firearms at a cost of over US$1 million at Phoenix-area gun shops. At that time, the ATF was also aware of 179 of those weapons being found at crime scenes in Mexico, and 130 in the United States.[8] As guns traced to Fast and Furious began turning up at violent crime scenes in Mexico, ATF agents stationed there also voiced opposition.[3]

          On the evening of December 14, 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and others were patrolling Peck Canyon, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, 11 miles (18 km) from the Mexican border. The group came across five suspected illegal immigrants. When they fired non-lethal beanbag guns, the suspects responded with their own weapons, leading to a firefight. Terry was shot and killed; four of the suspects were arrested and two AK-pattern rifles were found nearby.[3] The Attorney General’s office was immediately notified of the shooting incident by email.[53] The rifles were traced within hours of the shooting to a Phoenix store involved in the Fast and Furious operation, but the bullet that killed Terry was too badly damaged to be conclusively linked to either gun.[3] Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler and Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson were informed about the guns, but they didn’t believe the information was sufficiently important to alert the Attorney General about it or to make any further inquiry regarding the development.[1]:297

          After hearing of the incident, Dodson contacted ATF headquarters, ATF’s chief counsel, the ATF ethics section and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, none of whom immediately responded. He and other agents then contacted Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa (R–IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who would become a major figure in the investigation of “gunwalking”. At the same time, information began leaking to various bloggers and Web sites.[3]

          On January 25, 2011, Burke announced the first details of the case to become officially public, marking the end of Operation Fast and Furious. At a news conference in Phoenix, he reported a 53-count indictment of 20 suspects for buying hundreds of guns intended for illegal export between September 2009 and December 2010. Newell, who was at the conference, called Fast and Furious a “phenomenal case,” while denying that guns had been deliberately allowed to walk into Mexico.[3][13]

          Altogether, about 2,000 firearms were bought by straw purchasers during Fast and Furious.[1]:203[3] These included AK-47 variants, Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles, .38 caliber revolvers, and FN Five-sevens.[43] As of October 20, 2011, 389 had been recovered in the US and 276 had been recovered in Mexico. The rest remained on the streets, unaccounted for.[15] As of February 2012, the total number of recovered firearms was 710.[1]:203 Most of the guns went to the Sinaloa Cartel, while others made their way to El Teo and La Familia.[2][34]

          Although most weapons were purchased by suspects under investigation by the program, there have been reports of at least one instance of ATF agents being directly involved in the transfer of weapons. On April 13, 2010, ATF Agent John Dodson, with assistance from Agents Casa and Alt, directed a cooperating straw purchaser to give three guns to Isaiah Fernandez, a suspected gun trafficker, and had taped the conversations without prosecutor approval.[11]

          After being instructed by his superiors to obtain approval from prosecutors (albeit retroactively), Dodson’s proposal was later rejected by his immediate superior David Voth, although he later received permission from Voth’s supervisor after submitting a written proposal for the program. On June 1, 2010, Dodson used $2,500 of ATF funds to purchase six AK Draco pistols from local gun dealers, which he then gave to Mr. Fernandez, who reimbursed him for the expense of the guns, plus $700 for his assistance.[11] Two days later, Agent Dodson went on a scheduled vacation without interdicting the weapons. As a result, the weapons were never recovered, no arrests were ever made, and the case was closed without charges being filed.[11]

          According to the DOJ OIG report, Agent Dodson, as the undercover posing as a straw buyer, was not expected to surveil the weapons after hand-off to Fernandez. Other ATF agents followed the weapons to a storage facility; then surveillance was terminated without interdiction.[1] The Fernandez case was dropped from Fast and Furious after it was determined that Fernandez was not connected to Mexican cartels and had ceased buying guns for resale.[1][54]”

          ***********************************************************************************

          Footnotes in bold are mine. You should know, and probably are aware, Wiki can be edited by anyone, and therefore is an unreliable source you insist on quoting.

          As for your trying to blame shift, patently dishonest. Frankly, you’re speaking to someone who is non-partisan, and dislikes the entire Bush family. This article, & comment thread isn’t, and never has been, about them as you’ve not so eloquently attempted to repaint it. As far as I’m concerned, you’re trying to prop up one of the two broken wings attached to the same bird. Fool’s folly, that.

        • 9 x 39, thanks for the reply!

          But I got to tell you, it looks like you cut and pasted that entire text, for shame!

          First there’s nothing in that text that places the blame on President Obama. Actually, it’s a pretty good record of the cowboy ATF agents and federal prosecutors that Obama inherited in 2009.

          And no, I’m not trying to prop up a broken wing.

          I’m just looking for an even standard of judgment for both administration’s, neither of which was perfect.

          Why do people ignore the 450 weapons, including A.R. 15‘s and AK-47 pattern rifles, that bushes administration ‘lost’ south of the border?

        • Of course I copied & pasted it, cited the source too, to prevent you from cherry picking out of context as you’ve been doing the entire time. Now everyone can read for themselves what you’ve been intentionally omitting.

          Whole page? Multi-level reading comprehension fail. That’s about 1/3 of the page, iirc. I think you take Comrade Molotov’s suggestion a little too seriously. Tu quoque yet again. Pathetic.

        • Still deflecting?
          Executive privilege doesn’t excuse him. Nor does it excuse his many acts of treason. Can’t hide behind national security anymore either.
          Almost time to swing Barry. Hope he enjoys the necktie we bought him.

    • Sorry dude, but the Democrats are the ones who rewrite everything. They have been caught making false accusations, guilty of libel and slander, guilty of putting people up to giving fake testimony and so on.

      There is a difference between a slight misrepresentation, sugar coating or playing something down and the outright lies and acts of corruption perpetrated by the liberal left.

    • Nice try, pal. But epic fail.
      Project Gunrunner was started and ended under Bush in 2005 when only a dozen rifles equipped with hidden GPS trackers were allowed into the hands of Mexican narco-trafficers. Most of those devices malfuntioned and the operation was imediately shut down and scrapped after two (yes, only 2) of the weapons were lost.

      Fast and Furious started under Obama as a completely new operation in 2008. Hundreds of guns were allowed to be purchased from US dealers by Mexican gang straw buyers then “walked” across the border. ATF agents threatened those American dealers in order to force them to to allow the sales to buyers they identified as suspect. The ATF went as far as threatening with cancelling their FFL licenses and shutting down their business if they didn’t complied. Not a single gun trafficked to Mexico was equipped with a GPS tracking device; GPS tracking wasn’t even in the plan of ATF and Eric Holder DOJ’s plan, the guns and the traffickers were not monitored and were supposed to be lost.

      The real objective of the Fast and Furious operation was to allow those guns go into Mexico, let the drug cartels use them to kill people, retrieve those guns at the murders and massacre scenes, identify them as sourced from US dealers, create an outrage in the obedient Demshevik media, and use the entire artificially created crisis to pass more anti-gun laws in the US.

      But the plan was revealed by ATF whitleblower and undercover agent John Dodson. For his courage he was fired from the ATF and his name was leaked to the drug and gun smuggling cartel he was investigated. His life and his family lives were threatened and house was burned down.

      • “The first known ATF “gunwalking” operation to Mexican drug cartels, named Operation Wide Receiver, began in early 2006 and ran into late 2007. Licensed dealer Mike Detty of Mad Dawg Global informed the ATF of a suspicious gun purchase that took place in February 2006 in Tucson, Arizona. In March, he was hired as a confidential informant working with the ATF’s Tucson office, part of their Phoenix, Arizona field division.[33]

        With the use of surveillance equipment, ATF agents monitored additional sales by Detty to straw purchasers. With assurance from ATF “that Mexican officials would be conducting surveillance or interdictions when guns got to the other side of the border”,[13] Detty would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation.[32] These included AR-15s, semi-automatic AK-pattern rifles, and Colt .38s. The majority of the guns were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.[6][33][34][35]”

        • You’ve been hiding in the mines too long. You say there is “nothing” WRONG with what Obama DID?? How about this? “” Under the previous Operation Wide Receiver, there had been a formal ATF contract with the cooperating gun dealer and efforts were made to involve the ATF Mexico City Office (MCO) and Mexican law enforcement. Under Operation Fast and Furious, at Newell’s insistence the cooperating gun dealers did not have contracts with ATF, and MCO and Mexican police were left in the dark.[1]”” ……. Obama FAILED to communicate with our neighbors, Bush DID let them KNOW and included them in the effort. Obama obviously had an ulterior motive in leaving Mexico in the dark…. As President HE is responsible AND culpable for HIS FAILURES AND HIS ILLEGAL ACTIONS. Mexico should issue a WARRANT for his ARREST.

        • Miner it is very entertaining watch you stumble all over yourself making excuses for the obama administration. You say the dumbest things. You must be paid, $$$, very well by the gun grabbers.
          (smile)

    • I believe it’s cartel.
      Singular.

      Not like there was some allocation plan and triplicate paperwork, eligibility standards, etc.

      But Shorty’s in US hands now, so why quibble.

    • Then please explain why the Obama administration sought to cover it up instead of simply blaming it on his predecessor and letting the facts fall where they may? Obama certainly had no problem blaming Bush for everything else; this would have been an easy win for him.

      No. Wait. I’ll explain it for you. Obama and Hillary sought to stonewall the investigation because the ill-conceived operation suited their anti-gun agenda, so long as it wasn’t exposed, and they didn’t want to have to admit the administration had kept it going once they were in too deep to plead they were unaware of it.

    • Urr possibly the most retarded person on the net..it started with ur moma obama no go back to ur coloring books trolltard…

    • Once again, a Leftist Ponce trying to confuse and obfuscate the situation.

      Shitbama SURELY knew what was going on along with his butt-buddy Holder.

      He was able to hide the documentation under ‘executive privilege’.

      Let’s see if Judicial Watch is able to obtain them.

    • So Obama gets a pass because a Bush did it too? If bush jumped off a cliff? Funny how much you liberals love Bush all of the sudden.

      And obama didn’t expand anything. Your opinion on that is highly misconstrued. Some of us have been paying attention longer then 4-5 years.

    • Fast and Furious began on October 31, 2009. Lets see, who was President then and who was the Attorney General?

    • The ill-fated scheme known as “Fast and Furious took place 2009-2011 – yes when Obama was president and Holder was AG

    • One Problem with you assessment: The article was on and the Mexican’s President wants answers to “Fast & Furious” which was conducted during Obama’s first term! Democrats trying to smoke screen history!

    • Lordy. Try to imagine the reaction to Trump allowing that he is “considering” an extradition request for Obama and Holder. Not enough popcorn in the WORLD!!

      • I might just die of sheer ecstasy, if that, and the extradition went through. Well, maybe if Hitlery were convicted for destruction of evidence, and the illegal transporting/keeping/destruction of top secret documents. And the Benghazi incident, can’t forget the biometric spy scandal, the embarrassing diplomatic leaks under her tenure…

        Gawd, I could continue on all day. Gotta meeting I have to go to.

  2. Demand that apology directly from Obama & Holder. They’re the ones largely responsible for F&F & the subsequent coverup. We the People had nothing to do with it, but we are sorry they did it to you and yours.

  3. Media reaction at the end of the Obama era:

    ‘The View’s Joy Behar said, “President Obama, for eight years, was completely scandal-free.” NBC’s Tom Brokaw said, “He’s been scandal free, frankly, in the White House. We haven’t had that what for a while.” ‘

    Life sure is easy if you’re a democrat, and especially if you’re an Obama.

    • If wasn’t for lies, they would have nothing to say! In the present, the listener need be aware……….

  4. Maybe trump should build the wall. Like he promised.

    They gotta go back. Somebody’s doing the raping.

      • Bro- I voted for trump too. I wanted to MAGA. But the truth is Trump betrayed us. 400 mi of replacement fence is 0 miles of wall. Also- he c u c k e d on the real things, like ending birthright citizenship.

        • Don’t forget mcain too. He really went against Trump until he died. He had a lot of influence.

        • Jayson,

          I do not understand why fixing a porous barrier does not count toward success. Yes, we want new wall in new places, but we want the existing walls to be put into working condition. Also, do not forget the privately funded “Build the Wall” project. They would not be succeeding without strong support from the Trump administration.

        • You also seem to be under the mistaken impression that Trump was elected dictator. The PotUS cannot unilaterally end birthright citizenship much as we would all like him to. As for the wall… Did you see what they replaced and what they replaced it WITH?

        • Birthright citizenship. Since you brought it up, what is the basis? Is that in the Constitution, or could an act of Congress fix it?

        • Larry, it’s outlined in the 14th amendment. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 should also be repealed. Giving preference to extended family over what you offer this country in terms of skill, and proving that you won’t be a burden is a sick joke. You made it to the USA. Congratulations. We don’t have to now take in your bonehead relative just because you’re here. In my opinion, it should only be minor children that get an automatic pass to come with immigrants. Other family members are welcome to apply on their own.

        • You don’t know what you’re talking about. What was there was a 6 foot sheet metal panel that we would watch drug runners jump over like it wasn’t there.

          Now there’s a 30 foot wall; when we’re done it will have lights, cameras, and ground vibration detection. The Border Patrol tell us the difference is unbelievable.

          But keep pushing your ignorant narrative, for whatever reason.

    • I am literally working on the wall right now. Writing this as I sit in my pickup eating lunch 3 feet from the wall, which is 30 feet tall.

  5. Dan, are you implying that without the Fast and Furious guns those 69 people would not have been murdered? Even the Judicial Watch article you linked to was careful to only say that they were linked to the murders rather than responsible for them.

    • No. The Cartels have no trouble getting plenty of guns that “fall off of” Mexican military trucks. But shipping 2000 guns to them with US government help doesn’t make the ATF any less complicit.

      • I am not trying to break your balls, I am just uneasy about any of us going on record positing that the availability of firearms is responsible for murder. Your “led to at least 69 murders.” seems at least dangerously close to doing that. I do agree that selling properly functioning arms knowingly to drug cartels was a really bad idea though. It does smack of “aiding and abetting” them in their mayhem.

        • What stunk was the reason for it. To eventually tighten up gun controls in the U.S.. Obama and Biden both want to take our guns away from us now and then!

        • Vic:
          “I am just uneasy about any of us going on record positing that the availability of firearms is responsible for murder.”

          Good point! I wish I had thought of that.

      • Help me to understand why we’re so upset about fast and furious sending 2000 guns, but there is zero outcry over bush’s wide receiver shipping 450 guns?

        Why no calls for Bush and his AG to be incarcerated?

        I would call that a double standard.

        • When held to the same standard one was a bad idea that was corrected as best as was possible. The other was an unmitigated disaster by design. Now go twist your information into something that the intellectually lazy might mistake for a valid point.

        • Bush was working WITH MEXICO…. Obama was only working for Obama and to heck with everyone else. It’s all in your Wiki file…. you should READ IT! Seee…. “Under the previous Operation Wide Receiver, there had been a formal ATF contract with the cooperating gun dealer and efforts were made to involve the ATF Mexico City Office (MCO) and Mexican law enforcement. Under Operation Fast and Furious, at Newell’s insistence the cooperating gun dealers did not have contracts with ATF, and MCO and Mexican police were left in the dark.[1]”” Obama was secretive and blindsided our neighbors to the South. They really SHOULD issue a WARRANT for his arrest….. and the Holder Clown as well.

  6. Why would anyone claim to be a dem with Obummer trying to destroy America & the Clintons trying to cheat & destroy America . One impeached & the other one the absolutely worst pres in my lifetime, both pieces of 💩 needs to be in prison, but as usual they have their swamp people covering for them… & don’t forget E. Holder, S. Rice, Killery, & a few others that also need to go to jail. Forever….

  7. Odumbo & Holdmybeer aside WHEN is Meh he co going to apologize for flooding America with millions of Mexican’s??? Fairly certain there’s a bunch in my neighborhood. Speaking NO English is a clue. Obama is untouchable. This is going nowhere…

  8. When will Mexico apologize for all the illegal activity that they’ve foisted upon us? Asking for a friend.

    • Absofuckinglutly…If there was ever a legitimate reason to invade and destroy a nation. Mexico is a textbook example. Based solely on the illicit drug trade dumping their poison on the citizenry of Out nation. Adding to that the fact that for the most part the government,police and military have been financially complicit with the cartels in these chemical attacks for decades. Now add to that the use of Illegal Aliens for the transportation of those chemical weapons as well as the drain they effect upon the nations infrastructure (social services, schools, hospitals, prisons). Our nation has become the largest welfare purveyor Mexico has. All funded by the U.S. taxpayer. We have slowly over time been allowing Mexico to conquer Our nation. Without firing a shot. Keep Your Powder Dry.

      • Darkman:
        If our “good citizens” DIDN’T BUY THE STUFF, the problem would go away. And that is what is REALLY maddening.

      • Good question, bet it’s way more than the number of guns going south. Probably more than the number of gun deaths in the US each year.. I think if caught bringing fentanyl into the U.S. it should be a capitol crime.

  9. Fast and Furious was all Holder. If anyone should be explaining it should be him. Mexico shouldn’t need demanding or asking any questions of us in any fashion whatsoever for any reason. So in that regards Mexico can go sit on it. As if their crime doesn’t enter the US daily…SMDH

    • The focus is Fast and Furious. Mexico has the right to answers and an apology. I also want answers about Fast ans Furious and I want those responsible to held accountable. Going completely off target and in another direction that claims “Mexico should not ask questions of the US in any fashion whatsoever for any reason” only provides cover for obama/holder et al. Save your rant for another day.

    • No way Holdup did that without instructions from Osama. I vote we hand both to Mexico with our blessing to torture the truth out of them for as long as it takes, only requiring the promise that they’ll never come back.

    • So who’s responsible for operation wide receiver that began in 2005 and shipped 450 A.R. 15’s and AK-47 pattern rifles through strawman purchases into Mexico?

      Was that President Obama and Eric holder as well? If not, who should be indicted?

      • 49er we know g bush was an asshole just like you now shut the fuck up. We are all tired of your repeated blabbering.

  10. Solution seems pretty simple. Trump should call Obama out on TV and ask him to apologize to Mexico. The screams of the left will be heard on the moon.

  11. Can’t wait for the MSM to refer to the Mexico Pres as “white Hispanic” as they chastise him for his Obama wrong think.

    • While it would imprudent to set that kind of precedent, I do love the idea of extraditing Holder, in irons, to some local jurisdiction where the judge, sheriff, or equivalent is known for playing “fast and furious” with due process and/or is under intense pressure to rein in the cartel war at any cost.

      • Might not be a good idea to get that foreign extradition started, there are war crimes warrants out for both George Bush and Dick Cheney.

        • hell we can ship way more than that out. you think hatred is partisan and rayciss? clean house.

    • nope, more like a Mexican equivalent of a cross between Bernie and Biden, there’s this one website that functions as a “gaffe counter” of his gaffes, he allegedly once wanted Spain to apologize for “abuses of the Conquest” of Mexico.
      Not the smartest tool in the shed

  12. Dear Mexico:

    I am personally very sorry 2000 guns were illegally sent to you under the Obama administration. In order to show my sincerity, please round up all guns and ammo available In your country and send them to me. When you have a semi trailer worth, please contact me to receive them at the border.

    I will personally sort through and grade these weapons retaining only a few hundred modest examples for my collection. The rest will be sold with the proceeds going to fund the border wall so we can prevent these guns and others from making their way back.

    Thank you for your help in #KAG 2020.

  13. The timing of this request by Mexico may indicate a bigger plan. Trump and Barr, with assits from Judicial Watch, General Mike Flynn’s attorney, Richard Grennell, and others, are closing in on the Obama team that spied upon and tried to sabotage Trump. This administration’s release of some F&F docs seems intended to open another front against the Obama deep state. This is a coordinated, planned assault and AMLO, the Mexican President is glad to assist.

    But, darsh-gonnit, I am getting tired of waiting. When are the frogs going to march? When are the indictments going to fly? Giddy- yup!!! We want the show, we want the show!!!

    • That’s a very interesting take. Who would have thought that Trump would have been able to get an assist from Mexico regarding illegal immigration, but he got that as well. I think the scandals from the “scandal free” Obama administration are stacking up too much for even the dishonest press to be able to bury. It’s very telling when the press does nothing but run op-eds and attacks the messenger rather doing some real investigative reporting on an issue. Case in point: Michael Flynn.

  14. Two wrongs do not make a Right. Nor is it proper to ignore one wrong because another is larger or more appealing politically.

    Loads of admissions of guilt, royal screw-ups and resulting deaths are on the heads of the administrations who ran “Wide Receiver” as well as “Fast & Furious”. The both did wrong, they both fed arms to gangsters. They both got good people killed.

  15. Apologize to Mexico? OK, but the real apology should go to the American people who had to endure 8 years of Obama’s racist ineptitude.

    • Nice attempt to whitewash obama sleaze…Typical for a sleazy democRat who by all past accounts hates police. President GW Bush had zip, NADA, nothing to do with Fast and Furious. That sleazy “program” belongs lock, stock and barrel to b.h. obama et al…Includes your sorry behind..

      • You are wrong. The program began under Bush. It failed horribly and was repeated on a larger scale under Obama.

        That’s not politics, that’s history.

        • Err, correction. F&F was not a Bush legacy, but Obama’s alone. The inception date for Fast & Furious was, as posted above Oct. 29, 2009. Just shy of 11 months after Obama’s swearing in on Jan. 02, of the same year.

    • True, and it goes back to the ATF under Bush. I know folks here get all ODS about Fast & Furious, but the bloody disaster began with Wide Receiver, which ended horribly and then the ATF pushed to vastly expand it. Which then happened during the Obama years and ended even more horrifically.

      The ATF is protected by all this right-left wing fighting. They make a criminal mess of things, but can count upon the conservative and liberals to leave them out of it and draw all attention to those two capms.Tphus the ATF never changes, never sees any real punishment or reform.

      And innocent people continue to die.

  16. Yeah, good luck with that! We couldnt get anything outta the criminals in suits, what makes you think you can do any better?

  17. Mexico want’s answers,Americans deserve answers for the lawless Obowelmovement administrations F&F and jail time for the guilty, up to and to include the former pResident..

  18. If I were the President I would hold a press conference and release every last detail with names of DOJ and other Obama admin officials, dates, and the name of every person who died as a result of this. I would make them own this and have to defend it somehow.

    • Do not ignore the ATF middle to senior management. Even after it failed horribly under Bush, they continued to push it under Obama. The root of this trouble is not owned by either party, it is deep with the culture of the ATF bureaucracy. Rooting it out will take a President with guts and focus and the willingness to use the full force of his executive office to crush that ingrained culture and remove those maintaining it from government employment.

      • The war on drugs hasn’t really done much to stop drug sales from Mexico. All that man power and money and now it’s cheaper then it was ten years ago. Ironic at best

  19. Join the club Pepe’. We want answers too. Like why the fuck Obama and everyone involved isn’t in prison at this very moment?

  20. A great many Americans are similarly inclined,they have quite similar questions that have gone without answers for far to long. Perhaps Mexico will get lucky.

  21. I’d even recommend Trent Gowdy be brought back to head up the investigation as an independent council at the request of a foreign government. He’s more than qualified.

  22. Don’t forget the vendors who tried to block the suspicious sales and were ORDERED by F-Troop to let the sales proceed. The same vendors were then charged by the BATF for the sales to the cartels.

  23. Perhaps the French government will now also be asking for an explanation. As to why the Obama administration supplied select fire weapons to the Paris Muslim terrorists???

    • I bet that will come after he apologizes to Syrian rebels for saying he had their back. Or maybe to the Syrian refugees since the Defense Department effectively armed multiple sides that were shooting at each other which only added to the carnage and prolonged the humanitarian crisis.

  24. This mexican “president” that wants an “apology”……………

    How much $$$$$$$$$$$ did he take to leave the cartels alone? $200 mil??

    And he just discovered this???

    Spare me

  25. ICE agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered by a Mexican criminal wielding a Fast & Furious-sourced weapon. He should be remembered for his sacrifice alongside BP agent Brian Terry.

  26. Regardless of when the program began it was culminated by Eric Holder with the approval of Obama. It is one of several scandals that he says he didn’t have in his administration. Obama is well experienced in apologizing. Perhaps he should come forward and apologize for this as well.

  27. Suggestion — on top of an apology from President Trump for the scandalous obama administration’s actions involving Mexico — why not hand over obama and holder to the Mexican government and let them prosecute both for the deaths of the 69 Mexicans.

  28. Obama’s administration was a cartel in itself!! He used the IRS, the DOJ, the PRESS and now he’s the 1st ex President to go on record and talk shit about the sitting President. He’s a dishonest, disgraceful piece of shit who used his power to go after his rivals and those who opposed him. I wish I could call him a sorry motherf###er to his face!! I’d really be surprised to see any of these criminals face any consiquinses after AG Barr is finished with the investigation. The press already is spinning the Flynn case as if Barr is breaking the law by upholding it. This country’s left and the press has no contience at all. The movie “The Purge” doesn’t seem so far fetched as of right now!!!

  29. TRUMP don’t need Mexico like he didn’t Russia to win he’s going to be your President for 8 years or more so get over it snowflakes

  30. Obowelmovement, Holder and most if not all of that abortion of a fake presidency should be tried for treason hung and fed through a wood chipper!
    Carry every day!!!% the dems are still out there.

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