Obama's Watergate

[Norm]

The Justice Department is obstructing the congressional investigation of a U.S. law enforcement operation supposedly intended to crack down on major weapons traffickers on the Southwest border, according to the embattled leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Department of Justice is trying to squash this, because, in the end, it will all lead back to Obama.

This entire scheme was set up for the purpose of enacting new and stricter gun control laws and set the stage for trying to ban the ownership of fireamrs by law abiding American citizens.

Obama is still trying to backdoor legislation through the UN that would place the American gun owers at the mercy of international law. Hilary Clinton has also been a HUGE part of this.

If this entire scheme blows up and goes public, the Lord and Master is in deep crap!

Justice Department Obstructing 'Fast and Furious' Gun Probe, ATF Director Says - FoxNews.com

After opening, be sure to watch the video, as well.

[LATB]

If this was a Republican administration the MSM would beat this drum so loud it would break glass.

this Obama POS racist ass hole has got to go.

[78SA]

Originally Posted by LarsAtTheBeach

If this was a Republican administration the MSM would beat this drum so loud it would break glass.

this Obama POS racist ass hole has got to go back to Nigeria where he was born.

Fixed.

[jhammons01]

And Fast and Furious just continues to drag on as long as the Justice dept. continues to stonewall

Yes if this was a Pub administration, the MSM would be all over it 24/7

[AC54ME]

[quote] In a blockbuster development in the Operation Fast & Furious gun-running scandal, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson secretly testified before House and Senate investigators on July 4 with his own personal lawyer present, former United States Attorney Richard Cullen, without the knowledge of the ATF or the Department of Justice.

This morning, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley released a copy of a letter they sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on July 5 about Melson’s testimony. Melson’s revelations raise even more serious issues not only about the operation itself, but about apparent attempts by the Justice Department to mislead Congress on the details of the operation.

Contrary to the Justice Department’s denials, according to Melson, ATF agents specifically witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without taking any further action. Melson claimed that it was not until the public disclosure of the operation that he personally reviewed the “hundreds of documents” related to the case. He said he became “sick to his stomach” when he learned the full story. Even more shocking is that some of the “gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants” by agencies such as the FBI and the DEA.

Melson provided detailed information and documents to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department. But that information was not given to Congress by then-Acting Deputy Attorney General James Cole. In fact, “Melson was not allowed to communicate to Congress” and “Justice Department officials directed [ATF’s senior leadership] not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.” According to the letter Issa and Grassley sent to Holder, it was “two days after [Melson] told [Cole] about serious issues involving lack of information sharing” that the Wall Street Journal suddenly reported that Melson was about to be ousted by the Obama administration.

In fact, Melson told the Justice Department’s acting inspector general about the possible role of the DEA and the FBI in April and specifically informed Acting Deputy Attorney General Cole on June 16. Yet Cole was not confirmed as the deputy attorney general until June 28 — and only after Senator Grassley agreed to lift his objection to Cole because Justice agreed to allow oversight into Operation Fast & Furious. But it seems obvious that at the time Grassley made this agreement with the Justice Department, neither Cole nor anyone else at Justice had told Grassley about the vital information it was withholding, particularly the possible involvement of the FBI and the DEA.

The details of Operation Fast & Furious just keep getting worse from the standpoint of prosecutorial ineptitude and incompetence. But with Melson’s testimony, it is also appears that the Justice Department and specifically Deputy Attorney General James Cole have been obstructing Congress and engaging in a cover-up to prevent Congress and the public from finding out just how much the leadership of the Justice Department was involved in this expanding scandal.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-the-atf%E2%80%99s-kenneth-melson-blows-the-whistle-on-the-justice-department/?singlepage=true

To be continued.

[AC54ME]

Wednesday, July 6th at 2:30PM EDT

7 Comments
The sound that you’re hearing is the muttered “Uh-oh” of a plethora of staffers at the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives. Of particular interest is the letter that Oversight Chair Darrell Issa and Judiciary Ranking Member (for now) Chuck Grassley sent to Attorney General (for now) Eric Holder regarding Melson’s testimony… but we’ll get that in a moment.

For those coming in late: Issa and Grassley are investigating the horrifically botched Fast & Furious program that Justice/BATFE had put together, starting in late 2009. F&F was this ingenious method by which the federal government ended up knowingly and deliberately permitted illegally-resold firearms to be supplied to Mexican narco-terrorists; said narco-terrorists then proceeded to use those guns to shoot various hostages, Mexican civilians and police officers, at least one US Border Agent… as you can imagine, the Mexican government is not exactly pleased about any of this, which is why elements within said government are currently muttering about extradition treaties. This is where Kenneth Melson comes in: he is the Acting Director of BATFE, and was apparently picked to be the duly-assigned sacrificial lamb in this particular drama.

Only, it turns out that Melson doesn’t actually believe in any of that dulce et decorum est pro Duce mori stuff; so he grabbed a lawyer and started talking to Issa & Grassley – on July 4th, no less. So now, let’s talk about that letter. To summarize it:

•Melson voluntarily decided to come in himself, and not wait until a scheduled meeting next week (that, not incidentally, would have had Justice/BATFE zampolits lawyers attending). Which was Melson’s right (DoJ policy to the contrary), so shut up and sit down*.
•Melson was shocked and nauseated to discover – after the fact – that the perfectly straightforward sting operation that he was overseeing had been perverted into a policy where guns were allowed to be handed off to Mexican narco-terrorists. As soon as he discovered this, he and the rest of BATFE’s leadership of course had everyone managing F&F operations reassigned.
•Melson and the rest of BATFE’s leadership of course wanted to give full disclosure to Congress over this entire sorry affair. Alas, “he said Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.”
•Let’s give that sentence its own bullet point. “[H]e said Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and
took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.”
•By the way, Issa & Grassley are talking to other, no-they’re-not-saying-who sources who are backing up Melson’s testimony. That includes intimations that BATFE was not informed of certain operations being done by the DEA & the FBI concurrently. Operations where “some of the gun trafficking “higher-ups” that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants” (italics theirs).
•Which begs the question, Did taxpayer money pay for the gun that killed US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry?
•Why, hello, Deputy Attorney General James Cole! Melson mentioned you by name! Says that you knew all about this, back you were just the acting Deputy Attorney General! Aren’t you glad that Grassley stopped opposing your nomination?
•Needless to say, there’s a paper trail for all of this. More importantly, Issa & Grassley knows that there’s a paper trail for all of this.
•Also needless to say, Ken Melson is now considered to be a whistle-blower, which means that the Department of Justice would be well advised to think twice before administering the usual internal punishments given out to bureaucratic snitches.
•Your move, Attorney General Holder.
To say that this would be a worrisome letter to Holder is to understate matters severely. The most important nugget of information – aside from the fact that Ken Melson talked, and the administration doesn’t quite know what he talked about, and at what precise level of detail – is that the bit about BATFE letting guns get sold to DEA/FBI paid informants (which is new information, as far as I know). If that is true, and if BATFE didn’t know this because Justice kept them out of the loop, then there’s going to be a lot of people in Justice who may want to talk to Congress without their zampolits around.

Operation Gunrunner was funded by the 2009 Stimulus Package
7/7/2011 | Domandred

Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 1:06:47 PM by Domandred

Something about Project Gunrunner (gunwalker, fast and furious) has been bugging me but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

This morning when I woke up I remember seeing Project Gunrunner in a bill that was discussed here. The original thread about it was a rumor thread that HR45 had been rolled into the stimulus package.

In that thread I scanned the text of H.R.1 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for gun, firearm, etc and came up with a hit.

I posted in the thread: "Only time “gun” or “firearm” appears is in the part that give $10,000,000 to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. That was H.R. 495, asking for 15,000,000 for Gunrunner".

H.R. 495 that I mentioned never made it out of committee, but it looks as it was to specifically fund Gunrunner.

Instead portions of it were rolled into the stimulus package a month later. That text found in H.R.1 is:

For an additional amount for ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

Notice that's $40,000,000 for Southern border enforcement, $10,000,000 of which specifically for Project Gunrunner. What does $10 million pay for here? It didn't hire any new agents that I am aware of.

What this tells me is that several congressmen also had knowledge of what Gunrunner was going to entail. This isn't just the ATF and DOJ. This is all levels and areas of government. Even members of the House and Senate knew what Project Gunrunner was.

White House Mum on When Obama Learned of DOJ's Gun-Running Scheme
Thursday, July 07, 2011
By Fred Lucas


White House Press Secretary Jay Carney . (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

(CNSNews.com) – White House Spokesman Jay Carney has failed to follow-up on a statement he made at the June 27 White House briefing that he would get back to a reporter with the exact date that President Barack Obama first became aware of “Operation Fast and Furious,” a botched sting operation in which U.S. officials knowingly allowed smugglers to buy guns at licensed U.S. firearms dealers.

“I’ll have to get back to you," Carney said at the briefing. "I don’t have an exact date for you.”

The operation was halted shortly after two of the guns from the operation were found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December 2010. It was an operation ran primarily through the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The Justice Department in Washington, D.C., the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Arizona, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration were also involved, according to findings by congressional investigators.

On June 27, CNSNews.com asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, “Could you tell me what is the exact date that the president learned about the Justice Department ATF operation to allow guns to flow into Mexico?”

Carney apparently had trouble understanding the question, saying, “I mean, I think I’ve answered this question a bunch about -- about what he learned?”

CNSNews.com said, “What is the exact date that he learned about it?”

Carney apparently still did not understand. “The exact thing that he learned?”



President Barack Obama. (AP Photo)

CNSNews.com again clarified, “Exact date -- date.”

Carney finally responded, “I’ll have to get back to you. I don’t have an exact date for you.”

The White House has since not responded to questions about an exact date or approximate date when Obama learned about the operation.

The next day, June 28, CNSNews.com sent a follow-up e-mail to Carney. Then on July 6, CNSNews.com e-mailed Carney and the White House press office, and called the White House press office to ask for the exact date the president became aware of “Operation Fast and Furious.” In lieu of a precise date, CNSNews.com said an approximate date of a month and year would be helpful.

Neither Carney nor another White House spokesperson replied.

Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck........

[AC54ME]

More:

Justice Department snipes back at Issa, Grassley
Published: 12:58 AM 07/07/2011 | Updated: 10:03 AM 07/07/2011
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller
Bio | Archive | Email Matthew Boyle Follow Matthew Boyle

Attorney General Eric Holder’s deputies hit back at allegations of investigation stonewalling made by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, late Wednesday.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich accused Issa and Grassley of ginning up controversy and claims their allegations of the Department of Justices ’s transparency failure aren’t true.

Weich’s July 6 letter was an official DOJ response to Grassley’s and Issa’s July 5 letter to Holder detailing the key findings from a secret transcribed interview with acting ATF director Ken Melson on July 4.

“We are puzzled by your criticism of the Department for its efforts to facilitate the Committee’s access to documents and witnesses,” Weich wrote. “Indeed, those concerns seem flatly inconsistent with statements that Chairman Issa has made on this subject in the recent past.”

Weich goes on to cite a comment from Issa at a June 15 hearing, when he said the DOJ had a “breakthrough” when it came to producing documents and other information.

“Yet, just a few weeks later and notwithstanding the Department’s continuing production of documents, that ‘breakthrough’ has been re-characterized as an effort to prevent the Committee from receiving the information it requested,” Weich wrote.

A key takeaway from Melson’s secret July 4 testimony is that the acting ATF director told investigators about the existence of a number of new documents and many more pieces of information he said the administration is withholding. Also, the top Congressional Republicans said Melson told their investigative team that senior Justice Department officials in the Obama administration were attempting to prevent him from testifying or helping Congress find the facts about Operation Fast and Furious.

Another key takeaway from the secret testimony were that Melson acknowledged to investigators that agents had witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without following the guns afterwards. Straw purchasers are people who could technically legally buy guns in the U.S. but their intent was to turn around and sell them to drug cartels in Mexico.


Read more: Justice Department | ATF Meeting | Darrell Issa | Chuck Grassley | The Daily Caller

[jhammons01]

Nice post, keep em coming


This is gripping now that Melson decided NOT to be the sacrificial lamb or to fall on his sword for the Mesiah

Amazing that it was funded through TARP....

[AC54ME]

Originally Posted by jhammons01

Nice post, keep em coming


This is gripping now that Melson decided NOT to be the sacrificial lamb or to fall on his sword for the Mesiah

Amazing that it was funded through TARP....

It is amazing, well, maybe not, that the MSM has not published this little tidbit.

Proof positive that they are in the bag for the present POS POTUS.

The next meetings (Senate) are scheduled for next week - ASSUMING the DOJ allows access by Congress to non- redacted documents. Remember the ones they were provided were basically 'blacked- out' redactions.

As to Melson - on a lawyers forum I participate in the consensus is he did exactly what was necessary - basically since if he used the DOJ, or ATF lawyers he could be mandated NOT to answer certain questions as they might be considered "confidential", or in the 'name of National Security' and thus not made available to us, the citizens.

If the truth is to be found in this matter it is going to require Congress setting up and funding a Special Prosecutor.

I will not hold my breath.

[RetiredSFC 97]

this goes all the way to the top and includes the entire democratic party.

Hillary has tried to get guns banned since she into the public spotlight.

In order to get their one world order they must get the USA to get rid of it's guns.

[jhammons01]

So a created "international" incident that involves the evil guns from the US is the target here.....

whodathunkit from this administration....

The sad thing about it is, Jail sentences should be handed out to all those involved....but who will take those reigns??

[AC54ME]

Originally Posted by jhammons01

So a created "international" incident that involves the evil guns from the US is the target here.....

whodathunkit from this administration....

The sad thing about it is, Jail sentences should be handed out to all those involved....but who will take those reigns??

Look to this:

WASHINGTON -- Half a year after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), the Obama administration is set to release a series of reforms to the current gun law, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Thursday.

The reforms, which are being crafted by the Department of Justice, come after a series of meetings with relevant stakeholders in the Second Amendment debate. But in a nod to the difficulties of getting legislation through a Republican-run House of Representatives, only executive orders or administrative actions -- and not an actual bill -- are expected to be handed to Congress.

Administration officials were coy on the specifics, from the reforms the Department of Justice would recommend or when it would actually make those recommendations.

"The president directed the Attorney General to form working groups with key stakeholders to identify common sense measures that would improve American safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights," Carney said at Thursday's briefing. "That process is well underway at the Department of Justice with stakeholders on all sides working through these complex issues and we expect to have more specific announcements in the near future."

Just how near? Carney would only say "not far in the future." Another administration official said weeks would be an appropriate measurement.

When the recommendations do come, it will represent the most comprehensive move on the gun control front from this administration to date. The president has largely punted on the issue since entering the White House, save issuing carefully worded reactions to Supreme Court rulings on local gun laws or bans.



The Giffords shooting had, seemingly, upped the pressure to implement reforms. Obama himself used the occasion to pen an op-ed for the Arizona Daily Star advocating for stronger state-to-state coordination with respect to gun data, expedited background checks and greater enforcement of the laws already on the books. The Department of Justice meetings commenced not too long later and have continued over the course of several months, according to an administration official. They are now finished.

The end result, one source close to the discussions said, was a package of reforms "not huge in scope." They are largely expected to mirror the topics covered in the president's op-ed. Gun control advocates have pushed for more, including legislation that would limit the size of magazines -- such as the 32-round clip that Giffords' shooter used -- or a bill that would force private sellers to conduct background checks at gun shows -- which was pushed in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting.

Still, executive actions offer something that legislation doesn't: guaranteed results. And as one gun control advocate told the Huffington Post, there are ways to "use these administrative changes to obtain similar results."

Obama To Unveil Gun Control Reforms In Near Future

[RetiredSFC 97]

Dennis,

They have to move on this "fast and furious" before Fast and Furious does start to gain traction. I believe that's why it's being unveiled now.

[AC54ME]

Originally Posted by RetiredSFC 97

Dennis,

They have to move on this "fast and furious" before Fast and Furious does start to gain traction. I believe that's why it's being unveiled now.

Yep.

Obama and his minions are well aware their reign of idiocy is about to come to an abrupt stop and the need to do as much additional damage as possible is the new mantra.

[jhammons01]

^^I agree with that.

It's like when my 9 month old saw me coming, he would crawl faster hoping to reach the electrical socket and plunge a knife into it.....

[Joecooool]

The funny thing is some of you people actually think Obama has enough time in the day to hear about and approve every single operation every one of his agencies is involved in.

[Joecooool]

Originally Posted by TxAg

That's the best excuse you can come up with?

The truth isn't an excuse.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by TxAg

So your previous post an opinion or an assertion of fact that Obama had/has zero knowledge of this operation?

What did Nobam know and when did he know it????

[jhammons01]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

The funny thing is some of you people actually think Obama has enough time in the day to hear about and approve every single operation every one of his agencies is involved in.

Ignoring the childish baiting of this question.......

...If this was funded in the TARP program, don't you think as POTUS you should know what is in the Bill before you sign it??

Anyone who says "no" is stupid
Anyone who says "yes" is stupid for supporting this Crook in the whitehouse

[Will]

Guys.

Watch the personal attacks/name calling.

Thanks!