Constitution
Fast and furious unraveling
Operation Fast and Furious is unraveling, and the DOJ cannot block the investigation. And: ATF was running guns back in 2010—into Honduras.
Melson blows Fast and Furious
Kenneth Melson is acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. About two weeks ago, Melson said that he would not resign. He also said that he was ready to talk to Congress, as soon as they could hear him.
Reluctantly, the Department of Justice (DOJ) scheduled an interview between Melson and members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They wanted this interview to take place on their terms, with DOJ and ATF lawyers present. But then Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the Oversight Committee, told Melson that he could appear on his own, with his own lawyer. This he did, on July 4.
Issa and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, chided Attorney General Eric Holder for not telling Melson his rights. They reminded him sharply that the law does not allow any Executive Branch employee to stop another employee from talking to Congress. In fact, they warned Holder that
obstructing or impeding a Congressional inquiry is also a criminal violation under 18 U.S.C. § 1505.
That Melson followed through on talking to Congress, and suggested that Holder and/or other DOJ officers tried to shut him up, was revealing enough. But what Melson actually told the Oversight Committee about Operation Fast and Furious was worse.
Sick to his stomach
Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director and intended sacrificial lamb for Operation Fast and Furious, and now a confirmed whistleblower. Photo: BATFE.
Melson started to look into Operation Fast and Furious when the public cried out for answers to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. What he found sickened him. As other witnesses had already said, the guns that killed Agent Terry were among thousands that ATF let career criminals buy from US gun sellers and carry into Mexico. But Melson also confirmed something else that Issa and Grassley heard from others. US taxpayers’ money bought some of those guns.
How did that happen? Simple: some of the gun buyers and runners were paid informants of the FBI and other DOJ agencies. The letter from Issa and Grassley to Holder makes it all clear. See also William Lajeunesse’ account at Fox News Channel.
The Honduras connection
But even Lajeunesse does not have half the story. David Codrea at Examiner.com, and his colleague Mike Vanderboegh, broke the other half. The Special Agent-in-charge of ATF’s Tampa, FL office was running guns into Honduras using the same techniques as Operation Fast and Furious. The clues go back to September 21, 2010, nearly nine months ago. Kurt Hoffman, also at Examiner.com, reported two and a half months ago that Mexican drug cartels were getting their guns from south of Mexico, not north. Now we know that those guns were coming from the United States government.
What does it mean?
Codrea’s lengthy archive has now expanded to four parts. Mark Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars reminds us that ATF ran guns into Honduras for two reasons, neither of which are flattering:
- ATF really was running a national operation to flood Mexico with guns.
- Drug cartels were operating in Honduras, and ATF knew it.
In short, ATF was moving “throw-down weapons” into Mexico. They did this to justify the United Nations Convention on Small Arms.
William Lajeunesse asked how high the Fast and Furious scandal might reach. Your editor has three ideas:
- Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton,
- UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and
- President Barack H. Obama.
In case that sounds too fantastic to believe, remember Josef Goebbels. He once said that if you tell a lie loudly and often enough, people will believe it. They will not want to believe that you or anyone else could fool them for so long or on something so obvious.
More specifically, anyone who doubts this theory must ask himself this: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, on June 27, promised to “get back” to a reporter with “the exact date” that Obama knew about Operation Fast and Furious. In other words, to paraphrase a memorable question about another President,
What did the President know, and when did he know it?
Today Carney refused to answer the question. Why? Why, indeed.
Featured image: the Constitution of the United States. Photo: National Archives
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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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Nothing new. The M.O. of the socialist/democrat/Nazi party has been to lie, lie, and lie. When the new Nazis aren’t lying, they’re exaggerating a crisis. For Mr. Obama, that’s the norm.
What does this have to do with Obama?
it has every thing to do with obama,hilery clinton they were sitting us up so they could make a deal with the u n
to take our guns away so we can,t defend our selves,then
would not be able to stop a socilist take over
It’s not a conspiracy. Just a miserable and embarrassing attempt at a sting.
Camille,
“It’s not a conspiracy. Just a miserable and embarrassing attempt at a sting.” Who were they trying to sting? Why would they buy weapons with American taxpayer dollars from our stimulus bill and sell them to criminals? ATF agents have never, EVER allowed weapons to walk. EVER! Even if they had a weapon that they had made into a dud they would follow that weapon, never letting it out of their sight, until they got it back. Obama was the director of The Joyce Foundation for 8 years and under him they gave over a billion dollars in grants to groups that were antigun. As soon as he got into office he, Hillary, Holder and others began telling a lie that 80% of all weapons that the cartel were using in Mexico came from the US. The DEA, ATF and ICE refuted this statistic and proved that it is 18% and of that 18% only 6% came from gun stores. Many of the US weapons recovered were weapons the US sold to the Mexican military. Soldiers from the Mexican army were encouraged to leave the military, bring their weapons and sell them to the cartel. Obama and Hillary had to get the number of US weapons up to justify the gun laws they want to shove down our throats. Even Rahm Emmanuel and Ron Klain (Biden’s chief of staff) were to run a four phase program on gun control with the end result being all weapons banned in the southwestern states! In 2012 the UN will have their treaty finished for arms control and they want to try to control the US guns too. However, no treaty signed can trump our Constitution. These people are Marxist and if you don’t believe it, watch this video by Lt. General Boykin (Green Beret) If you dare. link to youtube.com
They were trying to trace who was getting the smuggled weapons and who was smuggling them.
Apparently, though, the GPS tracking device they used ran out of batteries. That’s what makes it embarrassing.
It can all be attributed to gross incompetence, which is not an accusation the ATF is unfamiliar with.
As for the Joyce Foundation, Obama was on the board, he was not sole director. A minor difference, to be sure; I’m just clarifying.
The Joyce Foundation gave about 12 million dollars to gun control causes, not over a billion. It’s still a lot of money, of course. Certainly more than you and I have.
Sorry Hun but who ever or where ever you were told that they put gps trackers in the weapons is a [censored] FLAT OUT LIE ask the people involved the gunstore owners and the batfe agents and if you keep spouting the lie’s then you are just as big a scum BAG AS THE PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT OF THIS program do you want to know how they plan[n]ed to track the weapons. When they showed up at MURDER scene’s do you know WHY THEY STOPPED THE PROGRAM ???? Agent Brian A. Terry was gunned down and 2 of the weapons found at the crime scene were FAST AND FURIOUS WEAPONS AND THEY still have not released the information if the gun’s are the murder weapon’s and do you know why because if they are they people how OK’ed THE sale in the BATFE are accomplice’s before the fact and can be charged with MURDER
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