don't forget the shameless demonstrated at the very top of the admin's totem pole when OBL was killed - rather than wait a few weeks so the teams could follow the intel captured in the raid, the admin couldn't wait to announced the Immaculated One had killed Osama, virtually by himself

in case there's any who haven't seen the vid
http://www.youtube.c...&hl=en_US&rel=0

Attention: FFLs who wonder why their complaints are not investigated:

Madea has been thinking about her recent conversation with the AD for OPRSO. Now you remember Madea was told by the AD that an investigation of Newell and Needles was not going to be pursued. The reason given by the AD was that the person providing the information was now retired from ATF. He was a private citizen now. The AD explained this had “always been the policy”. Madea has been sitting here shaking her head trying to figure that out. Apparently all that shaking loosened something in her brain. She realized if I.A. won’t investigate a charge after the agent making the allegation retires or resigns, doesn’t that apply to other private citizens who complain, like FFLs? Now if there’s an exception for the FFLs, Tom explain why it doesn’t apply to an agent who has left employment.

that had sent a memo around to the local PD and Sheriff's office, indicating not to bring them cases for prosecution involving ATF - or somthing along those lines. This was after the charges against Carter Country were dropped (they'd been charged with making straw purchaser sales), after their attorney showed the local prosecutor that Carter Country had only made those sales at or on ATF's instruction.

if you've got a link to that memo or a link to the original posting, i'd appreciate - i've read posts till my eyes started burning.

thanks in advance

reminds me of the basic difference a german citizern pointed out to me between the logic of german and US laws. "your american law, if it is not prohibited by law, then it is allowed.... here in germany, if it is not in the law that it is okay to do, then it is prohibited. And if it is allowed, then it must be taxed, because it must be fun".

fwiw

guys - don't waste any effort with this guy - he's a plant. I suspected that when he and i got into it over waco, and the webmaster moved the thread - i didn't see his statement about the sheriff of waco actually approving and endorsing atf's actions there. This is not to re-argue that thread - but his stmt, when i found the thread later, after the move, was so blatantly false, i actually went out and bought another copy of the orig "waco:rules of engagement" to review the interview with the sheriff again - either this clown was lying or we're talking about different sheriffs of a different Waco. That alone told me all i needed to know about this guy.

what vince said "Check this out Truthteller,
If I gleaned from your posting that there is ANY justification to what occurred in Phoenix, you are either a moron, a current go along to get along manager, or have absolutely NO knowledge of the tools in our arsenal...."

think about his web handle - i know it's intuition on my part, and nothing that would survive in court as empirical evidence, but just his name alone smells fishy "AtfTruthteller" ?? I mean, folks either use their real name, or grab one innocuous and anonymous, be it "Zorro", "Covert one", daffy duck, whovever. That name is too focus'd & purposeful for my liking. And while it's my intuition alone, i've made a living for too many years on my intuition.

This guy's only here to water down your assertions for the readership at congress or so someone at mgmt can say, with a somewhat straight face, - see, there are agents out there that don't agree with the whistleblowers.

if he's not a mgmt plant, he must be one of those folks that practice giving aspirin tablets a headache at night.

Looks like Mr Holder didn't appreciate a press conference turning to questions on F&F...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/T5I5Z0deBsM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

and if El Rushbo is right about the timing of the press conference, then it makes it doubly satisfying to see Mr Holder end his press conference early

http://www.theblaze....-furious-issue/

Limbaugh: Holder Using Terror Plot Presser to ‘Sidestep’ Fast & Furious Issue

Rush Limbaugh has a theory on Tuesday’s press conference announcing the U.S. foiled a massive terror plot on U.S. soil: it’s a distraction to get the media attention off Attorney General Eric Holder and his Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal.

“What a great way to sidestep the fact that he’s being delivered a subpoena for Fast and Furious,” Rush said, a reference to a report that GOP Rep. Issa is calling for more information from Holder regarding what he knew (and when) about the DOJ’s failed gunwalking program, and could send subpoenas this week.

“So here comes Holder. What nice timing; give him something to distract everybody away from Fast and Furious. That’s exactly what this is. … What great timing. … No question in my mind what Holder’s press conference is about.”

DailyRushbo has the audio. So was Rush right? Well, Holder did end the press conference immediately after a fielding one question a reporter sneaked in about Fast and Furious.

"Vince, respectfully, you might as well be shouting into a hurricane" says The Original Ralph.



Vince, hurricane notwithstanding, please keep on shouting!!!

Ralph, don't get discouraged buddy, today really is a new day and more people are listening now than ever before. They can only win when we all give up. Besides, Vince needs to spew at the powers that be, it gives the rest of us a break and he gets his exercise.

whoops - didn't mean the post as a discouragement to vince - more of a commentary on the state of integrity dominant inside the washington beltway. It will take vince's shouting and congress hearing it, so they'll use that procedural "taser" they have in their tool box.

Mr. Holder,

We have spent our lives taking responsibility and enforcing the law. I for one am extremely ashamed that you refuse to do so. YOU ARE THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. Now (notwithstanding the political grandstanding by both sides that may be occurring)(and please stop playing the American people for idiots, they are NOT and they do care and they do pay attention), you personally have cost us our credibility. Stop throwing your subordinates under the bus. Stand up like SO MANY ATF Agents have done and act like a leader. Our credibility is all we have to go with the Badge and gun. Remove, DON'T re-assign the ATF leadership. Tell the truth. UN-redact the documents. That's defense attorney conduct. WE WEAR THE WHITE HATS, WE DON'T HIDE BEHIND LEGAL WRANGLING. You don't have to LIKE Chairman Issa and Sen. Grassley, but you DO have to respect and comply with them. REMEMBER WHY WE HAVE A SEPARATION OF POWERS? If not, its in the CONSTITUTION.

Vince, respectfully, you might as well be shouting into a hurricane. You're talking to a crowd that operates under the mantra "the ends justifies the means". Combine that with the Rahm Emmanuel dictum that "a crisis too good to be allowed to go to waste" and you get the next logical step of creating crises for the opportunities they'll offer. Honor and dignity are not defined by the same standards that you and most folks define them by. "Honor" belongs, in their mind, to the last man standing, and if they aren't the last man standing, then the dishonor is in having lost, not in the conduct that led them into the battle. I think i saw it best expressed by one pundit as this is the crowd that worships at the Church of It's Okay When We Do It.

You and the other agents that blew the cover on this have a lot to be proud of, but the reality is, these are sad times we're living in.

I don't doubt for a second there was none of the above you didn't already know, i think i just needed to rant.

below taken from Sipsy Street Irregulars
http://sipseystreeti...run-holder.html


Looks like Issa just threw the gauntlet down on Holder and gave him a little "b--ch slapping". Below is the letter that notifies Holder that his defenses have been overrun. From Becca Watkins at the Issa Committee I just received this transcript of a letter by Congressman Issa responding to Holder's whiny jeremiad of last Friday.

The language in this letter, for DC, is "unprecedented," according to one DC source I just read it to over the phone. It announces that the battle for Holder Ridge is over, no matter what desperate forced optimism the White House may yet cling to.

Another source, one with whom I made a $50 bet that Holder would be out of office by Christmas, now admits that he may not last until Thanksgiving. "Feldmarschall Holder ist kaput!" he laughed. He is not disconsolate about the prospect of losing the fifty bucks.

==================================================================

Issa to Holder: “You Own Fast and Furious”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa today sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder responding to his letter of October 7. The text of Chairman Issa’s letter to Attorney General Holder is below:

Dear Attorney General Holder:

From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.

Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.

To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.

Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.

Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.

The Mexican Cartels

A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.” You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”

Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.

Your September 7, 2011 Statement

On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don't think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we'll see that's not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.

Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.

For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.

This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the known drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation.

Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:

I had pulled out all Patino's -- and ROIs is, I'm sorry, report of investigation -- and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.

At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.

Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he alerted you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.

In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and Furious and a specific Mexican cartel – the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.

You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. Holder Letter, supra note 1. As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.

The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department – you.

Your May 3, 2011 Statement

On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.

In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.

The February 4, 2011 Letter

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.

As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.

These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.

Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.

Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.

Sincerely,

Darrell Issa
Chairman

The below is part of an article that appeared in the Bloomberg Business Week on 10/06/2011.

"At the ATF briefing, Jones confirmed the outlines of a separate ATF operation that took place during the Bush administration and used the same controversial gun-walking tactic that Operation Fast and Furious employed.

Jones said Operation Wide Receiver began in 2006, lasted about a year and that the Justice Department under the Obama administration decided to prosecute eight or nine people in the case."

so now we have two reports on the same operation but the question still remains - did they intentionally allow guns to "walk" - the report i posted indicated guns did walk, but unintentionally because of botched efforts (whether mis-installed RFID devices) or because the suspects figured out or were aware of the aerial surveillance and it's limitations and how to exploit those limitations. In the case of F&F, it appears, from the testimony Forticelli, Dodson et al gave at congress, they were ordered not to intercept, maintain surveillance or even follow the guns. IIRC, Forticelli, on his own initiative, even maintained surveillance on his own for six days in the desert, and when he saw the exchange or pickup of the guns from the straw purchaser taking place, was not only refused backup or assistance to arrest the perpetrators, but ordered to stand down & come in. ?????

I have to assume those same whistleblowers would have reacted (and acted) then as they did now with F&F, had Wide Receiver willingly allowed guns to "walk".

whether i'm republican, democrat, libertarian or polish shouldn't have any bearing. Credence to another motive to let guns walk is becoming more and more apparent - to generate statistics to support further gun control. No matter what side of the gun control issue someone is on, when an administration is using concealed, "under the radar" means of promoting an agenda, we all should be concerned. If their goal is so "right" and "just", then why use concealed means to support or promote it?. What will an administration try next to dupe the public into supporting, if this is tolerated? And in this case, human lives (both civilian and LE) were viewed as "collateral damage", or eggs necessarily broken to make an omelet.

read today's article over on Sipsy Street http://sipseystreeti...ginning_07.html - iirc, it was on the old Perry Mason TV series that i first heard the phrase "Means, Motivation & Opportunity" as 3 core elements of guilt - those 3 elements don't insure guilt, but it sure indicates who to look at. On the motivation element, we have strong evidence on this admin's position on gun control. Means and Opportunity were already built in.

Hopefully, someone on this forum, with first hand knowledge of Wide Receiver, will chime in

PS added: looks like some light has been shed on the Wide Receiver operation from Sheryl Attkisson

http://www.examiner...._alerts_article

Ralph I am not here to get in a pissing contest with you but as a professional investigator I am asking you can others verify your version. If they can great. If not than that is another matter. But one way or another since this investigation is now in the public view it needs to be fully investigated by congress if for no other reason than to keep the good name of the investigators. If things where as you said than the investigators involved should welcome congressional oversight. Transparency has to be the order of the day for ATF given its current condition. A skeptical reader of your posting could have taken it that you are trying to protect the Bush administration or yourself. I do not condone Fast and Furious nor do I condone 450 guns making it to Mexico.

first, I am not defending that report - i posted it as clinically as i could - one, as a response (key word there is "a", as in a singular response that has been reported on a web news site), as a courtesy to the OP, and 2ndly, to see what forum members here that MIGHT HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN IT had to say about

i'll accept your assertion that you're not here to get into a pissing contest, but push back from the keyboard far enough to see that your original post and subsequent posts are hard to interpret in any other way.

Frankly, i really would like to know whether that operation allowed guns to walk, even by "botched" efforts. But one thing is clear, from, iirc it was either Pete Forticelli or Dodson, that testified they couldn't get the AUSA to prosecute any low level straw purchasers. That part is what i really view with alarm - i'm not an investigator, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you roll the lower level fish over to get the higher fish - and you roll em with the pressure of hard time in a federal hotel. I don't see details like that in the report re the bush era operation.

The purpose of this website is to clean up ATF at all levels.

i'll repeat with no unnecessary verbage

again, DO YOU HAVE ANY INFO THAT THE REPORT IS NOT FACTUAL OR ARE YOU JUST LOOKING FOR A REASON TO BE SNARKY

if you can't answer that or won't answer that, will be sufficiently revealing


even on the most basic level, what i asked initially, what difference could anyone's political leaning have on the issue? Just your assertion on my political orientation is disturbing enough

If you feel so strongly about your version of the investigation than you should contact the congressional investigators and demand they take a statement from you.

where did you read how strongly i feel - or that i asserted that is MY VERSION

you throw a snarky question at me and then offer me your advice?

let's reverse it - are you telling me that you don't feel strongly about what this admininstration, thru ATF & DOJ or managed by DOJ has done in the way of F&F?

that's a heckuva position to take considering the purpose or reason this website was formed and exists

the OP asked a question, i came across one report that addressed and posted it

again, DO YOU HAVE ANY INFO THAT THE REPORT IS NOT FACTUAL OR ARE YOU JUST LOOKING FOR A REASON TO BE SNARKY

if you can't answer that or won't answer that, will be sufficiently revealing


even on the most basic level, what i asked initially, what difference could anyone's political leaning have on the issue? Just your assertion on my political orientation is disturbing enough

Let me guess. You are a Republican?

well, in fact, i sure as hell ain't liberal, but don't know if i'd consider myself a republican. But i'm not sure what bearing that might have - if the story is factual, that's what i would assume is pertinent. If it's not, then there are the folks on this forum here that should be able to refute it.

is it factual?? or is there another agenda you'd rather pursue?

Here's a story on Pajamas Media addressing this:

http://pajamasmedia....did-it-too-lie/

Gunwalker: Gunning Down the ‘Bush Did It, Too’ Lie

The Bush Justice Department ran a sting operation intended to interdict weapons. Guns were never allowed to walk.

When Associated Press reporter Pete Yost uncritically repeated claims by anonymous Department of Justice officials that the Bush-era Operation Wide Receiver was “the same tactic” used by the Obama Justice Department in Operation Fast and Furious and other operations, I called him out, knowing the claim was incorrect.

A later article by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News found a dealer who participated in Wide Receiver, and acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones (himself possibly implicated in Gunwalker) agreed that gun-walking had occurred while President Bush was in office. Yet something felt wrong, but I couldn’t recall the information I had previously heard to rebut the claim.

Luckily a reader had a better memory than I, and led me to the June 15 article by Jim Shepherd in The Outdoor Wire. Shepherd’s piece reveals just how different the botched sting of Wide Receiver was from the intentionally criminal Fast and Furious:

• In Operation Wide Receiver, Tucson agents allowed the sales of more than 500 firearms to known straw purchasers. Like Gunrunner/Fast and Furious, the operation apparently backfired.
• Some firearms in Wide Receiver were equipped with RFID tracking devices. In Wide Receiver, it seems the illegal purchasers seemed more than slightly knowledgeable of the ATF and how to take their aerial and electronic tracking procedures down.
• Knowing the time aloft numbers for virtually all planes used in government surveillance, the buyers had a simple method of getting their purchases across the border undetected. They simply drove four-hour loops around the area.
• As surveillance planes were forced to return to base for refueling, the smugglers simply turned and sprinted their cargo across the border.
• The RFID tags also turned out to be problematic.
• Rather than making large enough holes for the tags to be laid out inside weapons, agents force-fit them into the rifles.
• That cramming caused the antennae to be folded, reducing the effective range of the tags. And an already short battery life (36-48 hours maximum) meant that should purchasers allow the firearms to sit, the tracking devices eliminated themselves.
• Thar’s quite a bit of difference between the two operations.
• Wide Receiver sought to track and interdict guns being smuggled south using a combination of RFID-tracking devices embedded in the shipments and overheard surveillance aircraft. Wide Receiver failed because of the limitations of the technology used, compounded by the ineptness of its installation and the unexpected resourcefulness of the cartel’s gun smugglers.
• As a result of the mistakes made in Wide Receiver, guns were lost: approximately 450 made it into Mexico. As a result, the botched operation launched in 2006 — and in this instance, actually botched — was shut down in 2007.
• Compare the mistakes of Wide Receiver to the operations launched under Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, which had the advantages of learning from the postmortem failures of Wide Receiver two years before.
• Fast and Furious used neither tracking devices nor aircraft, ran interference for smugglers with local law enforcement on multiple occasions, and federal agents were not allowed to interdict weapons.
• Wide Receiver shut down within a year after 450 weapons went missing in a botched law enforcement operation. Fast and Furious purposefully ran at least 2,020 weapons to the Sinaloa cartel without any intention of arresting the straw purchasers and smugglers. Other operations in other states — CBS News’ Attkisson cites allegations of “at least 10 cities in five states” — allow the possibility that (if the other operations were as prolific as Fast and Furious) Holder’s Department of Justice may have intentionally sent more than 12,000 guns into criminal hands in the U.S and Mexico, enough to arm three U.S. Army brigades.
• Law enforcement operations sometimes go horribly wrong, and every indication is that Operation Wide Receiver executed by the ATF during the Bush administration while Alberto Gonzales was the attorney general was a “keystone cops” operation of the first magnitude. It was a horrible failure.

But Fast and Furious was no accident. Nor was it within spitting distance of being a law enforcement operation. Fast and Furious and the alleged gunwalking operations based in Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, Indiana, Tampa, and elsewhere were specifically designed to assure that straw purchasers and cartel weapons smugglers would be under the de facto protection of the Obama adminstration, with no attempts at interdiction and with interference on behalf of the criminals being traced to the ATF, FBI, and DOJ.

Let us hear no more false comparisons: Wide Receiver was botched law enforcement, while the gun-walking programs of the Obama administration were intentionally criminal — and arguably terrorist — acts, arming violent narco-terrorists waging war on a U.S. ally.

Looks like they heard you:

House Republicans Request Special Counsel to Probe Holder on 'Fast and Furious'
October 04, 2011 | FoxNews.com | AP

EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was sending a letter to President Obama on Tuesday arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself, and requesting the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.

The question is whether Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious until about April 2011.

"I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks," Holder testified.

However, a newly discovered memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."

Other documents also indicate that Holder began receiving weekly briefings on the program from the National Drug Intelligence Center "beginning, at the latest, on July 5, 2010," Smith wrote.

"These updates mentioned, not only the name of the operation, but also specific details about guns being trafficked to Mexico," Smith wrote in the letter to Obama.

"Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel. I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible," Smith wrote.

In response, a Justice Department official said Tuesday that the attorney general "has consistently said he became aware of the questionable tactics in early 2011 when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and then promptly asked the (inspector general) to investigate the matter."

The official added that in March 2011, Holder testified to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee of that development.

"The weekly reports (100 + pages) are provided to the office of the AG and DAG each week from approximately 24 offices and components. These are routine reports that provide general overviews and status updates on issues, policies, cases and investigations from offices and components across the country. None of these reports referenced the controversial tactics of that allowed guns to cross the border," the official said.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., "of all people, should be familiar with the difference between knowing about an investigation and being aware of questionable tactics employed in that investigation since documents provided to his committee show he was given a briefing that included the fast and furious operation in 2010 – a year before the controversy emerged," the official continued.

Issa told Fox News on Tuesday morning that Holder saying he didn't understand the question rather than he didn't know of the program is not a successful defense to perjury.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, adde that months before Holder testified -- on Jan. 31 -- he came to Grassley's office, where Grassley gave him a letter detailing the investigation of Fast and Furious.

"If he read my letter, he knew on January 31," Grassley told Fox News. "He probably actually knew about it way back in the middle of last year or earlier.

Grassley said since he's not a lawyer he's not going to make a judgment on whether Holder committed perjury.

"But I can tell you this. They're doing everything they can, in a fast and furious way, to cover up all the evidence or stonewalling us. But here's the issue, if he didn't perjure himself and didn't know about it, the best way that they can help us, Congressman Issa and me, is to just issue all the documents that we ask for and those documents will prove one way or the other right or wrong."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.c.../#ixzz1ZplVCnfg

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And, it looks like the White House and DOJ aren't in laughing moods over this:

http://www.theblaze....st-and-furious/

CBS Reporter: White House ‘Screamed’ & ‘Cussed’ at Me for Coverage of ‘Fast and Furious’
October 4, 2011 by Jonathon M. Seidl Jonathon M. Seidl
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CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson has been doggedly covering the ATF and DOJ scandal surrounding the gunwalking “Fast and Furious” case. And now she’s coming out with some juicy details about her attempts to get information from the DOJ and the White House regarding the case.

On Laura Ingraham’s radio show Tuesday, Attkisson said she was “screamed” and “cussed” at by the White House while trying to get information last Friday, and that a DOJ spokesperson “yelled” at her while she was trying to get clarification on the case. And she named names.

Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?

Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me.

Ingraham: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?

Attkisson: Eric Schultz Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House.

Why such the reaction from the spokespeople?

“They will tell you that I’m the only reporter–as they told me–that is not reasonable,” she told Ingraham. “They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.”

You can listen to her tell the story below:

This all comes House Republican are calling for a special investigation of Attorney General Eric Holder over his handling of the scandal and after it was revealed this week that Holder was sent briefings on the program as early as June 2010. That contradicts his statement under oath in May 2011 that he first heard about the operation “over the last few weeks.” Holder’s camp has tried to explain the contradiction by saying he was referring to the details of the case and not the case itself.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) addressed the issue on Fox today and said he personally handed a letter to Holder on the issue in January of this year, which would also seem to contradict Holder’s defense:

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