The URL to Roll Call’s story is jammed thanks to a link from Matt Drudge. So here is the article, in its entirety. It sounds very damning and raises this scandal to a whole new level. The wiretap excerpts suggest that thte death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry now seems less a glitch in the Fast & Furious scheme than a feature.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa(R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.
The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.
In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.
The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.
Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.
While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.
In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.
“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.
The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.
It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.
In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.
The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.
“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.
Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.
Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.
A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.
Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.
A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.
“Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents,” a Democratic committee staffer said. “His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why.”
This is stunning and adds a whole new facet that I’m not sure anyone had considered. However, Issa won’t release the wire taps because they lose their probitive value when the DOJ knows what he’s going to hit them with. This has happened with previous evidence in FF.
DOJ under Holder has become lawless.
The entire administration is lawless.
“ATF is a bureau of judgment calls. Drug enforcement agents can confiscate cocaine and arrest anyone in possession of it. But ATF agents must distinguish constitutionally protected legal guns from illegal ones, with the NRA and other Second Amendment activists watching for missteps.”
“On June 20 … Issa’s committee … voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly failing to turn over certain subpoenaed documents, which the Justice Department contended could not be released because they related to ongoing criminal investigations.”
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
“Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.”
My question was there a difference between operation wide receiver, which yielded few results it seems, and fast and furious? If so, what? If not, not sure why they went forward with it. not sure why holder would say he knew nothing about the program until after it concluded.
Directly involved.
Which means they are implicated in a potentially illegal activity that could lead to them being prosecuted and, at the very least, removed from their jobs.
Charles Manson blamed everyone else too.
Cinesnatch-
Yes, there are two very critical differences in the Bush & Obama operations.
1 – The TRACKING of the guns stopped under Obama/Holder.
2 – Three American law enforcement agents and over 300 Mexican civilians were killed by those guns.
Nd30, How is the work illegal? please excuse the naïveté, I am not challenging you here.
Bruce, my understanding of the tracking is that they need to get judicial approval in order to confiscate the weapons. Also, a great percentage of arms ceased to be tracked during ORW
From Wikipedia:
“[said gun seller] would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation … The majority of the guns were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.”
which perplexes me as to whose bright idea was F&F. And what was different about its tactics that made it worth doing.
Like watching a magician Cinesnatch, you are looking at the wrong hand. F&F is real simple when you understand the motivation. Obama/Holder/ who knows who wanted stronger gun control. Knowing that if a whole bunch of guns were put in the hands of really bad people and used in killings and other mayhem and the naive American people were informed daily by a biased media that WE were the cause of all the mayhem, it would be real easy to “sell” that naive American public that we HAD to have stricter gun control.
When you really think it through, it was /is a brilliantly evil plan. But, but, when an ATF whistle blower brought the activity to the light of day, you now have a full blown Nixonian cover up.
All that I said above is out in the public if you look hard enough. The Oman magician has been practicing his craft for a very long time!!!
While I’m all for trying to hold people accountable, and I certainly don’t think Holder et al has been forthright with all the info, I would be shocked if anything actually meaningful happens to him.
He did get slapped for being in contempt of Congress….
OK. Considering past history, that’s pretty meaningless.
Cinesnatch isn’t here to learn. Really: It doesn’t take much to google a simple phrase like ‘differences between “fast and furious” and “wide receiver”‘. For the convenience of others, here’s a result near the top of that search: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-5-biggest-differences-between-operation-fast-and-furious-and-operation-wide-receiver/
7th difference: Left-liberal racism and partisanship. Lefties mostly don’t care about Fast and Furious because (1) it’s mostly Mexican deaths, (2) it all happened under Obama.
ILC >> Thank you for jumping into the fray and sharing that information. Very informative.
It is indeed.
All the major mainstream News websites HuffPost, MSNBC, etc… are reporting that Jay Carney at the White House says that the WH and DOJ will flat-out refuse to prosecute…or even pursue…AG Holder because Pres. Obama has invoked “Privilege”.
You are correct, ILC. Snatch-Game is not here to learn. He is here doing what he always does: passive-aggressively defending the dishonest, incompetent, and/or indefensible actions taken by the lawless Administration he supported in 2008 and will vote for again without a blink of hesitation in November.
And he always uses the same dishonest, insincere, and painfully OBVIOUS approach. Shortly after a post goes up detailing the Obama Administration’s latest scandal or breach of the Constitution, Snatchy pops up and posts a comment(s) pretending that he’s just now learning about the controversy and is trying to get up to speed. However, those “so, what is this all about?” comments always manage to throw in the exact same talking points being recited by the despicable, lying pieces of sh*t in the White House. FOR EXAMPLE:
“My question was there a difference between operation wide receiver, which yielded few results it seems, and fast and furious? If so, what? If not, not sure why they went forward with it.”
AND:
“Nd30, How is the work illegal? please excuse the naïveté, I am not challenging you here. Bruce, my understanding of the tracking is that they need to get judicial approval in order to confiscate the weapons. Also, a great percentage of arms ceased to be tracked during ORW”
Yeah. Then, Cineskank is typically (1) informed by one or more commenters what the legitimate, credible facts are related to the issue (ILC at comment #12, in this case) and (2) told that the White House talking points he just happened to throw out there are, as usual, a giant, steaming load of fu*king horseshit.
Then, Snatchy posts a thank you so gracious and complementary that it can only be read as bitchy and deeply insincere:
“ILC >> Thank you for jumping into the fray and sharing that information. Very informative.”
‘Informative’ is the word Snatchy uses when his Jay Carney talking points have been quickly and efficiently debunked and dispensed with, as they ALWAYS are on this blog. However, make no mistake, Cineskank learned NOTHING from these exchanges and likely didn’t even read what ILC posted. He will continue to participate in discussions concerning Fast and Furious here, and I’m sure on other blogs and websites, doubling down on the same dishonest talking points he’s been provided with by the Obama Administration. He knows the scandal is horrific and indefensible for honest people of character so his best bet to do his part for his Obamessiah is to create confusion about the facts and muddy the waters as best he can so that it can just be written off more credibly as a racist witchhunt.
It’s pathetic that Cineskank actually thinks people on this blog are being taken in by his stale, dopey “excuse the naivete/I’m not challenging you” act. However, it’s also very irritating because now that he’s been called out, he’ll use it as an opportunity to proceed to the next step in his TIRED schtick: whining and indignantly complaining about the lack of civility he’s subjected to on this blog. And I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that NOBODY is interested in enduring that song and dance for the 57th time.
So how about it, Cinesnatchy? Can we please just skip it this time? It’s so boring and so insincere and you really just end up embarrassing yourself because you KNOW what’s going to happen. ND30 will have to step in and reduce you to a smoldering crater as he always does. So, please, don’t make us go through all that again. For once, could you just slink your lying a*s out of here instead of inevitably forcing ND30 to throw you out? Thanks.
Vince @ #6:
Let’s let it all hang out, OK? Let’s have a total and complete investigation of Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious with no holds barred. Let’s put a special prosecutor on the trail. Let him start with the present and work backward until the trail runs totally cold or he is at the inception point of the whole convoluted mess.
If we find the Elizah Cummings tried to cover for Holder and that Obama pulled the executive privilege trick to cover for Holder, then we will take them all down. After we clean out the Fast and Furious rat’s nest, we will move on to Wide Receiver and clean house there.
Vince, please look around the net and take a long look at how full of holes and lies the Fortune article is said to be. Once you have examined those articles, come back and explain why to choose to place so much trust in the Fortune article.
It is one thing to spew talking points on a partisan basis and quite another to engage in open minded debate.
AZ Mo put it very well….
Difference #8: Wide Receiver didn’t involve a massive cover-up with retaliation (against whistleblowers), deception and stonewalling reaching up the chain: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/30/e-mails-reveal-retaliation-cover-up-at-atf-doj-following-fast-furious-exposure/
I suppose I’m missing the point but it appears to me that in both operations, OWR and F&F, guns were illegally transferred. If straw purchases are illegal and if it’s illegal for a felon to possess a firearm then the transfers were illegal. We also know that Mexican law prohibits smuggling of weapons into Mexico yet our people facilitated and watched the criminal act.
Do we have another case where existing gun control laws are adequate when enforced and pointless otherwise?
It’s one thing for law enforcement to observe an illegal transfer and intervene; it’s another thing entirely to facilitate the transfer from a law-abiding seller (the gun stores calling BATF and being told to go ahead).
Then there’s the incompetence and ??? where agents were told not to interdict the movement of a weapon over the border.
If we really want to stop the flow of drugs and weapons over the border then we need to lock it down. But of course that would interfere with the efforts by business and political elites to elect a new people.
Helio >> I’m torn. I did some reading as you advised.
If I were to be completely honest (if that is even possible without getting razzed by some on here, but it sounds like you’re willing to humor me, which I appreciate, by the way; but some are going to focus on this part of my post and ignore the rest–or maybe not–so I just have to take my lumps and have a sense-of-humor about it, right?), it sounds all very conspiracy theory to me: evil, heartless communists Obama/Holder secretly plotting to create mayhem in order to push their agenda of taking all the guns away the people “cling” to. That just seems WAY to clever in the same manner I USED to believe (and I know some on here are going to love to jump on this and take me to town) 9/11 was an inside job. Yes, I believed it. I wanted to believe it, because everything came together just too conveniently at the time. And, I was naive, as were many, who wanted to believe Cheney/Rove were that HEARTLESS and SMART. Who could have pulled that off? Or even had the foresight? I had to keep my beliefs about how 9/11 was [redacted for the sake of staying on topic; but if someone is going to jump on this, that someone isn’t going to hold back regardless] in check.
Now, most on here are much smarter than myself, but I can’t help but think the same thing about this Fast & Furious.
But, I do have doubts. OWR was not successful. So, it begs the question as to how F&F went forward. I would like to know now what was being pushed as different about the operation that justified it going forward. Or, else it’s the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result). But, government bureaucracy sometimes is the poster child for craziness.
I would also like to know the numbers: the real, raw numbers, as far as how many weapons were interdicted and how many walked in each operation. Personally, I don’t have a problem with OWR. It sounds like an experiment that failed. And if F&F yielded the same results.
It’s a tragedy that F&F also resulted in deaths. Was not OWR and F&F part of the War on Drugs? Or am I mistaken? If it isn’t, it certainly sounds like it can grouped into the same family.
Full disclosure: I’m all for the second amendment. I hate guns, but everyone who is of age and can pass a legitimate background check should have the right to protect themselves with a gun or rifle. And, I hate guns.
The thing I’m most interested in hearing people’s response to:
OWR came about because of U.S. gun-shop owners selling machinery on the black market correct? Is there really any way for the government to stop it without stepping on someone’s toes?
If there was a Republican in the White House, the liberal blogosphere would be all over this like flies on turd. That seems VERY clear.
Why do I feel as if nothing will happen? I’m not exaggerating when I say that if Obama were found to be a serial killer, or enacted another holocaust, the MSM and most of America would simply turn the other cheek. Is it a fear of being labeled a racist, or are we that apathetic at this point?