Eric Holder: I didn’t know about ‘Fast & Furious'

[bemildred]

Source: Politico

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he and “the upper levels of the Justice Department” were not aware of the botched “Fast and Furious” gun program that targeted Mexican drug cartels but ended up supplying them with firearms.

The gun scandal has prompted a congressional investigation led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and a separate investigation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General.

“The notion that somehow or other this reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that, at this point, I don’t think is supported by the facts,” Holder said for the first time at a press conference on Wednesday. “We’ll certainly see, I think, at the end of exactly who was involved, exactly who made the decisions.”

A spokesman for Issa responded that Holder’s comments was baseless “whining,” according to Fox News.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62972.html

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. Pass that buck.

If the same thing was said by the previous administration, there'd be 50 threads a day on this topic.

[usaprogress]

2. You are soooooooo right! He absolutely knew about it and should be fired.

If he really didn't know about it (facts say otherwise) he should be fired also! Just sayin! Eddie

[harmonicon]

7. Agreed.

Unlike the last few attorneys general, he's qualified for the job, but he's just shit at it.

[No Elephants]

24. Why do you say Gonzo was not qualified? He distinguished himself academically.

Not at Harvard Law necessarily, but he was graduated from there, and that ain't nothing. He distinguished himself undergraduate, though, at both Rice and the Air Force Academy. And, like Holder, he held a bunch of political positions.

I see no academic distinctions in Holder's bio after fourth grade.

[harmonicon]

28. Just thinking of the jobs the two had before.

Gonzo was just one of the many Texas bushbots that came along for the ride. His main qualification didn't have to do with work he'd done, but that he was trusted by the inner circle. Ashcroft of course had zero qualifications apart from keeping the country safe from marble tittles and calico kitties.

[No Elephants]

34. I didn't think Holder's jobs were more impressive than Gonzo's, though

[MADem]

3. ISSA's crew has the BALLS to say that ANYONE was WHINING?

I seem to remember Issa sobbing like a child, inconsolably, after he spent a million bucks fucking over Grey Davis with a gubernatorial recall, foolishly hoping that HE could step in and run/win/save the day....only to have AHHHHNULD de ASSHOLE--a 'bikini-waxed former Mr. Universe'-- announce on Leno's show that he was jumping in.

Issa may as well have flushed that million bucks he spent down the crapper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VW0v7wwfkQ

The boo-hooing is at the end of this piece.

[usaprogress]

4. Your question has nothing to do

with the subject of the OP. Holder is an embarrassment to this administration and should be replaced! Eddie

[AlbertCat]

5. Holder is an embarrassment to this administration and should be replaced!

Obama has surrounded himself with the biggest bunch of crooks and losers since the Dubya Administration.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

25. If Holder were an embarrassment to this administration, he would have been replaced.

The fact that he hasn't been replaced is a very strong indication that "this administration" thinks Holder is doing just fine.

[gratuitous]

8. Any reason why the AG didn't know what was going on?

See Eric, that's why investigations are a really good idea. It separates out the guilty and conniving from the innocent and the ignorant. You'd know that if you had investigated any of the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the previous administration. As it is, by sweeping it all under the rug, you sort of get put on the hot seat with the actual wrongdoers.

Stop me if I'm going too fast for you, Eric.

[pecwae]

9. ++

[Scuba]

10. +1

[Doctor_J]

23. Chasing pot smokers and liberal activists is taking up his entire budget

doesn't have the time or money for war crimes or gun-running or other such minutiae

[Cool Logic]

11. Mr. Holder, Sir, who is running the Justice Department...?

[Kingofalldems]

37. Wrong again

[underpants]

12. It started in 2005

in case anyone didn't know that

[devilgrrl]

13. And where the F*** was Holder in 2005??????

:sarcasm:

[underpants]

16. YEAH!

Why wasn't he all time travelin' n stuff to stop this?!??!?!?

[MADem]

18. Damn right!!! nt

[No Elephants]

27. Dunno, but he's been Obama's AG since January of 2009.

[X_Digger]

14. Actually, that was the larger project, "Project Gunrunner"..

This is a sub-project, "Project Fast and Furious".

Seems to have been the brainchild of the head of the Phoenix BATFE office, but approved and signed off at higher levels at the ATF, and at least some level at the DOJ (Attorneys at the DOJ signed off on warrants for video surveillance inside cooperating gun stores.)

Melson, then head of the BATFE (who has now been transferred to DOJ), had a video feed set up on his PC to watch the video surveillance.

[underpants]

15. Same same

I get our point and it is a good one but the whole thing started under Bush and that reaks of federally supported gun running.

[X_Digger]

17. I haven't seen any evidence that sales that would otherwise have been prevented..

were allowed to proceed before Project F&F.

Not a lot of information is available about Project Gunrunner, mostly press releases about how many arrests / seizures have been made.

If the same strategy had been implemented before, I would have expected some whistle blowers to have stepped up then- or at least now, when it's out in the open.

So far, the only indication is that F&F is the first use of this strategy.

[underpants]

20. Project Gunrunner was the precursor and overall program underwhich F&F started

Project Gunrunner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gunrunner

The BATF began Project Gunrunner as a pilot project in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 and expanded it as a national initiative in 2006. Project Gunrunner is also part of the Department’s broader Southwest Border Initiative, which seeks to reduce cross-border drug and firearms trafficking and the high level of violence associated with these activities on both sides of the border.<2>

ControversyATF Project Gunrunner has a stated official objective to stop the sale and export of guns from the United States into Mexico in order to deny Mexican drug cartels the firearms considered "tools of the trade".<18> However, since September 2009 under Project Gunrunner, operation "Fast and Furious", did the opposite by ATF permitting, encouraging and facilitating 'straw purchase' firearm sales to traffickers, and allowing the guns to 'walk' and be transported to Mexico. This has resulted in the death of US border agent Brian Terry and considerable controversy.<19><20><21[br />

[X_Digger]

21. Right.. F&F.

Are you intentionally trying to conflate the two? Or are you misunderstanding the difference in tactics used?

[No Elephants]

26. And continued from January 2009 through 2011. And your point is?

[underpants]

31. My point is that every news story says "in 2009" and "in 2010"

the complete story is that it was a Bush plan (probably to run guns for the gunmakers) AND that Obama/Holder should have stopped it.

But we can't know the whole story on anything.

Frankly the story seems (SEEMS) to have been created by Bush/Cheney moles who didn't have a single problem with it until years later. They were probably left there just for this.

It is odd that the right has been unable to get any real traction on this story. When the violence on the border really flared up it was tailor made for their usual media wheelhouse but the fact that all the guns come from the US seemed to stop them in their tracks. They usually don't let facts stop them from anything.

[X_Digger]

32. "It was a Bush plan" -- what leads you to believe that?

And why would gun makers want their products implicated in gun violence in Mexico?

Frankly the story seems (SEEMS) to have been created by Bush/Cheney moles who didn't have a single problem with it until years later. They were probably left there just for this.

This seems a rather, umm.. paranoid position to take, no offense intended.

[underpants]

33. No offense taken

what the hell do they care how their product is used? It's nice air freshener for crying out loud.

Never underestimate those crooks - I have no doubt that the government is littered with their operatives. In fact I was told by someone in my house (the Obama campaign) from a Pew Research operation that everyone they knew in the government stopped issuing any reports in September 2008. Why? because ever single office had a political operative in for no other reason than to spin ever document. These were lowest level operatives (see Heritage Foundation hiring for Iraq) who were making a name for themselves. Every document was tainted or not even released by the stooge over in the corner office.

[No Elephants]

35. All we really know is that this started during the Bush years and continued through the Obama years.

[defendandprotect]

19. kr

[No Elephants]

22. We'llo get to the bottom of this, and then do nothing.

We don't want to ignore it before we know exactly what we're dealing with.

Fire the damn Bushies.

[bemildred]

29. New crime tied to 'Fast & Furious'

By TIM MAK | 9/9/11 6:12 AM EDT

In the second crime in the U.S. linked to “Fast and Furious,” two Arizona undercover police officers were allegedly assaulted last year by men who had guns tied to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ botched program, according to a report Friday.

The incident occurred in the Phoenix suburbs, when the two officers attempted to stop two men in a stolen vehicle, according to a the L.A. Times said. The officers said that the suspects rammed their cars and tried to flee into the desert.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63068.html

[BlueIris]

30. This guy is going down.

And he'll be taking a lot of others with him. Can't say I'm sorry; they did this to themselves.

[slackmaster]

36. I suspect he's not being completely candid about what he knew and when he knew it

Somewhere between a minor lie of omission, and a giant crock of shit.

[aikoaiko]

38. Je said there are no facts or evidence that upperJustice admin knew, not that he didnt know.

Always the word parser he is.