The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (42 page)
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Authors: David Limbaugh
BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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As La Jeunesse recounted, the following people whose hands were all over the operation have appeared to benefit as a result, but in any event have not been punished:
* ATF Chief Ken Melson is working as an adviser in the Office of Legal Affairs.
* Acting Deputy Director Billy Hoover is the special agent in charge of the D.C. office.
* Deputy Director for Field Operations William McMahon is the second in command at the ATF’s Office of Internal Affairs.
* Special Agent in Charge of Phoenix Bill Newell was promoted to the Office of Management in Washington.
* Phoenix Deputy Chief George Gillette was promoted to Washington as ATF’s liaison to the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
* Group Supervisor David Voth has now been elevated to be chief of the ATF Tobacco Division, supervising more employees than he did in Phoenix.
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According to Special Agent Jay Dobyns, “These guys are protected. They’re insulated. They’re all part of a club.” The only people who were punished, said Dobyns, are those who exposed the operation and told the truth about it. La Jeunesse’s sources say these whistleblowers can’t be fired but “are in a kind of purgatory. On the other hand, they can be transferred but face the problems of relocating on their own.”
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As such, Field Agent John Dodson, whose whistleblowing helped to ensure the Terry family would learn the truth about the operation, was “isolated, marginalized and referred to as a ‘nut job,’ ‘wing-nut’ and ‘disgruntled.’” ATF command said that “contact with Dodson was detrimental to any ATF career.” Dobson, who had sole custody of his two teenagers and was behind on his house mortgage, transferred to South Carolina after being prohibited from working in Phoenix.
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Other whistleblowers met a similar fate. Agent Larry Alt was transferred to Florida, Agent Peter Forcelli, noted above, was demoted to a desk job, Agent James Casa was transferred to Florida, Agent Carolos Canino was moved to Tucson, Agent Jose Wall was moved to Phoenix, and Agent Darren Gil has retired.
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This was predictable, given Holder’s response when Issa asked him in February 2012 whether he would ever hold anyone accountable for the operation “because you haven’t done any so far, as far as we can tell.” Holder replied that he was prepared to hold people accountable right now—
the whistleblowers, those who revealed contents of Fast and Furious wiretap applications that showed the operation’s transgressions
.
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“ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN A COVER-UP”the whistleblowers, those who revealed contents of Fast and Furious wiretap applications that showed the operation’s transgressions
.
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When Holder continued to stonewall subpoenas and other information requests, Darrell Issa sent a letter threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress and alleging the DOJ had “misrepresented facts and misled Congress.” The DOJ’s ignoring of the subpoenas, wrote Issa, “lead[s] us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up. If the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress.”
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In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Holder claimed that Justice employees were working “tirelessly to identify, locate and provide relevant information” to Congress, “all while preserving the integrity of the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions.” Holder insisted that the documents show DOJ personnel were relying on information they’d received from supervisors in Arizona, though some of the information later turned out to be “inaccurate.”
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But in the Senate, Grassley wasn’t satisfied, noting that Justice had yet to explain why it was withholding 74,000 pages it had given to the DOJ inspector general but not to Congress. Grassley remarked that he couldn’t take anything from Justice at face value, since Holder initially denied gunwalking had ever occurred before later admitting it had, and since Lanny Breuer was less than honest about the topic. “He [Breuer] stood mute as this administration fought tooth and nail to keep any of this information from coming out for a year,” said Grassley. “It will take a lot more than a knee-jerk defense from their political allies in Congress to restore public trust in the leadership of the Justice Department.”
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Luckily for Holder, he had help from his Democratic colleagues. Continuing their counteroffensive, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee began running interference for him in anticipation of his testimony at a House Oversight Committee hearing on February 2, 2012. Just a few days before the hearing, Congressman Cummings filed a 95-page report claiming top DOJ officials did not authorize Fast and Furious. Though copious evidence indicated otherwise, Cummings’ report blamed “rogue” officials in the ATF Phoenix Field Division. The essential point was that this was purely a local operation, completely outside the knowledge of anyone important in the ATF or DOJ.
The main problem with this argument was that wiretaps for Fast and Furious were, according to CBS News, authorized by the second-in-command at Justice, Lanny Breuer.
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Because wiretap applications must be scrupulously detailed and reviewed, it is highly unlikely Breuer would be ignorant of the specifics of the operation, including the gunwalking tactics.
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Because wiretap applications must be scrupulously detailed and reviewed, it is highly unlikely Breuer would be ignorant of the specifics of the operation, including the gunwalking tactics.
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With this in mind, during a congressional hearing, Congressman Gowdy asked Holder to acknowledge that wiretap applications in general are voluminous, long, and factual predicates. Holder agreed they were, but when asked about wiretap applications for Fast and Furious, he said he couldn’t discuss them, and later admitted he hadn’t even read them—an astounding admission considering the gravity of the investigation. When Gowdy could not get Holder to admit Breuer had reviewed the wiretap applications, he challanged Holder to deny that some other DOJ official would have had to review them. Holder dodged the question.
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Gowdy expressed incredulity that Holder would deny Breuer had knowledge of Fast and Furious when Breuer had admitted it in emails. Holder said he was relying only on what Breuer had testified to—which is hard to believe. Nevertheless, if true, it’s inexcusable that Holder didn’t bother to ask Breuer directly about such a fundamental issue. In any case, Holder has access to the documents and was obligated especially after all these months, to know what’s in them.
CONNECTING THE DOTSThe act of putting thousands of weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels with no attempt to track them is so inconceivable that many have wondered what exactly Fast and Furious was designed to accomplish. There is widespread speculation that the Obama administration hoped that if enough Fast and Furious guns surfaced in Mexico, it would help pressure Congress to enact more stringent gun control laws. The administration denies this allegation, and the Democratic report on the operation said “no evidence” had surfaced to support the charge.
Yet an email from Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait related, “Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday.” In another email, Chait wrote, “Bill—can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales.”
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Thus, at a minimum, we can voice a reasonable suspicion that Fast and Furious was conceived, at least in part, as a gun control vehicle.
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Thus, at a minimum, we can voice a reasonable suspicion that Fast and Furious was conceived, at least in part, as a gun control vehicle.
Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper seemed incredulous that the government designed a program ostensibly to trace gun purchases to Mexican cartels and make arrests when the ATF agents had no way of knowing where the guns would end up—and that Mexican agents, who would be the ones to make the arrests, weren’t even told about the operation at all. “So,” said Cooper, “a program meant to stop gun smuggling actually put weapons into criminals’ hands in Mexico.”
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John Hayward, writing in
Human Events
in June 2011, raised the intriguing possibility that the
Washington Post
had run a piece in December 2011 that inadvertently disclosed indications that Fast and Furious was in fact meant to help build the case for tighter gun control laws. In the story, the
Post
reported on U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” It gave “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” Hayward explained that the purpose of the story was to criticize a 2003 law that shields the government’s gun tracking database from the public, and also to suggest that many guns sold by these dealers were traveling across the border and being used in Mexican crimes. This law, according to the
Post
, was passed due to pressure from the dastardly gun lobby.
Human Events
in June 2011, raised the intriguing possibility that the
Washington Post
had run a piece in December 2011 that inadvertently disclosed indications that Fast and Furious was in fact meant to help build the case for tighter gun control laws. In the story, the
Post
reported on U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” It gave “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” Hayward explained that the purpose of the story was to criticize a 2003 law that shields the government’s gun tracking database from the public, and also to suggest that many guns sold by these dealers were traveling across the border and being used in Mexican crimes. This law, according to the
Post
, was passed due to pressure from the dastardly gun lobby.
Interestingly, Hayward points out, the
Post
probably got its data from an ATF leaker, since this very law would have prevented the paper from obtaining the information legally. Hayward also pointed out that two of the gun dealers the
Post
highlighted had been recruited by the ATF in Operation Fast and Furious. The ATF reportedly instructed these shops to “keep selling” guns to drug cartel front men.
Post
probably got its data from an ATF leaker, since this very law would have prevented the paper from obtaining the information legally. Hayward also pointed out that two of the gun dealers the
Post
highlighted had been recruited by the ATF in Operation Fast and Furious. The ATF reportedly instructed these shops to “keep selling” guns to drug cartel front men.
Hayward’s theory is that the ATF was feeding information to the press about American guns going into Mexico to build the administration’s case for tighter gun laws. Meanwhile, it was manipulating those very gun sales the
Post
was reporting on—and one of those guns ended up being used in the murder of Brian Terry the day after the
Post
story appeared. Hayward concluded:
Post
was reporting on—and one of those guns ended up being used in the murder of Brian Terry the day after the
Post
story appeared. Hayward concluded:
Connect the dots: a story that almost certainly required information leaked by the ATF, in a paper noted for its friendliness to the Administration, was used to build the case that lax American gun control laws are contributing to Mexican gun crimes, when the ATF was secretly running a program that deliberately pushed American guns into the hands of Mexican cartels, without any serious plan to track them, until they were used in the commission of crimes. Now, take an educated guess what the true purpose of Operation Fast & Furious was.
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Undoubtedly, Obama and his liberal cabal are ardent opponents of gun rights. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have long been proponents of the misnamed assault weapons ban. As with so many other issues where he can’t muster popular or legislative support, Obama attempts to implement his policies through executive or administrative maneuvers. For example, the administration planned to implement new gun control regulations disguised as “gun safety measures.” The measures, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, would be designed to prevent “another Tucson.”
While the White House, as of this writing, has not yet implemented these rules, it did issue regulations applicable to gun shops close to the U.S.-Mexican border, probably hoping to deflect attention from Fast and Furious. The Justice Department invoked a “new reporting measure—tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles (semi-automatics greater than .22 caliber with the ability to accept a detachable magazine) to the same person within a five-day period.” The “targeted information requests” applied to Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
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“A SERIOUS LACK OF INQUISITIVENESS”61
The day before the February 2, 2012 hearing of the House Oversight Committee, committee staff for Chairman Darell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley issued a report detailing Main Justice’s involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. According to the report, DOJ headquarters had been passing blame for the operation on to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona and the ATF, despite the fact that both were under the DOJ’s domain. Main Justice, said the report, “had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged.”
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The report discussed emails which showed that Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson had informed Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer that they wanted to take a “different approach” to seizing guns going to Mexico and that Breuer said it was a “terrific idea.” But Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote Issa denying the claim that Breuer wanted the Phoenix division to be involved in gunwalking. The report concluded that the DOJ was “managing the congressional investigation in order to protect the political appointees at the department.”
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During his testimony at the February hearing, Holder sarcastically alluded to the fact that he’d been summoned before Congress on Fast and Furious six times. Chairman Issa reminded him that not all those appearances were directly related to Fast and Furious, and that the investigation would have gone more quickly if he had been more cooperative. Before the hearing, the House Oversight Committee released a graphic called “Fortress Holder” to illustrate Holder’s stonewalling. The image shows, among other things, that over the past year, congressional investigators and the American people had been denied access to 92 percent of the documents related to Fast and Furious, 68 percent of subpoenaed document categories related to the operation, and forty-eight accounts from DOJ officials involved in the operation.
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