Republicans going after Holder for Bush's "Gun Walking" policy - hilarious!

[Oldstyle]

Building on Bush's Project Gunrunner sounds like a continuation of Bush's Project Gunrunner. It says absolutely nothing about starting the already existing Bush Fast and Furious operation under Bush's Project Gunrunner.
Try again.

No one is denying that there was a program called gunrunner while bush was president. I have shown news releases for the DOJ hinting to the start up of a new program. I guess fast and furious can be said it came from operation gun runner. In those news releases it shows the new program start around the same time fast and furious is supposed to have started as it has been pointed out.

There is no such hinting of a NEW program, only hiring more people to CONTINUE what was already in effect under Bush's Project Gunrunner, you are just dreaming. And Bush started the Fast and Furious operation under his Project Gunrunner in February 2008.

Here is what your link actually says;

ATF received $10 million through the Recovery Act to continue to build an infrastructure to further the accomplishments of Project Gunrunner. As part of the $10 million, ATF is hiring 25 new special agents, six industry operations investigators, three intelligence research specialists and three investigative analysts. The funding will establish three permanent field offices, dedicated to firearms trafficking investigations, in McAllen, Texas; El Centro, Calif.; and Las Cruces, N.M.; and a satellite office in Roswell, N.M.

Amazing that W. was starting programs at ATF after he left office, Ed! He's REALLY a remarkable man.

 

[Oldstyle]

I'd like to see Ed show me the date where Fast & Furious started under Bush. He's repeatedly made that charge now and it's patently false. This whole "Oh, this is just a continuation of a Bush program!" is nothing more than an excuse by the the Holder DOJ folks to try and pass the buck on the program that THEY came up with and that blew up in THEIR faces.

 

[edthecynic]

grow a pair yet, Sparky? Ready to accept my challenge???

Post something from the ATF website that shows Bush's Fast and Furious was not part of Bush's Project Gunrunner or even that it was started in 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama GOP propaganda site that admits that Fast and Furious and a number of other operations UNDER Bush's Project Gunrunner began in February 2008.

You've got diddly.

Hate to point out the inconvenient truth, Ed but Operation Fast & Furious didn't start until 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama, anti_holder GOP propaganda site that admits it started in February 2008 under Bush's Project Gunrunner. Argue with them, they certainly wouldn't try to help Obama and hurt Bush.

 

[Annie]

no balls, huh. Figures.

grow a pair yet, Sparky? Ready to accept my challenge???

Post something from the ATF website that shows Bush's Fast and Furious was not part of Bush's Project Gunrunner or even that it was started in 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama GOP propaganda site that admits that Fast and Furious and a number of other operations UNDER Bush's Project Gunrunner began in February 2008.

You've got diddly.

Fast & Furious Was . . . Bush’s Fault - By Andrew C. McCarthy - The Corner - National Review Online

Fast & Furious Was . . . Bush’s Fault
By Andrew C. McCarthy
November 8, 2011 3:20 P.M.
Comments
67

Note that even the Democrats are no longer trying to swing this one, like Ed the Cynic?

I was only able to take in parts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s just-completed Senate testimony. But that was enough to see that “Bush did it” is going to be the Democrats’ excuse for the inexcusable “Fast & Furious” operation conducted by ATF on the Obama administration’s watch.

On the Obama administration’s watch. That is the biggest problem with the Democrats’ strategy. Fast & Furious did not begin until 2009, months after the end of the Bush administration. Given that, one might think that even today’s Democrats would be unable with a straight face to lay this disaster at the feet of Obama’s predecessor. But then one wouldn’t know today’s Democrats.Nope, no responsibility and all that matters is being the last 'heard.'

The key to their strategy is conflating two very different programs: Operation Fast & Furious and a Bush era ATF initiative known as “Operation Wide Receiver.” In the questions from Judiciary Committee Democrats (principally, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer — there may have been others but, again, I didn’t see the entire hearing), it emerged that Wide Receiver began in 2006, when Alberto Gonzales was the Bush administration attorney general. Senator Schumer took pains to describe Wide Receiver as involving the “tracing” of firearms that crossed into Mexico. As we shall see, Wide Receiver’s notion of tracing was night-and-day different from the tracing involved in the reckless gun-walking approach employed by Fast & Furious. Obviously, however, Democrats hope that if they get enough help from their friends in the media, the public will miss the distinction.

Schumer made much of the happenstance that a briefing, said to have included information on Wide Receiver, was prepared for Michael Mukasey in late 2007, after he succeeded Gonzales as AG. (This is an amusing contradiction in the Democrats’ strategy: If a memo addressed to Holder in the middle of Fast & Furious emerges, you’re supposed to understand that, as attorney general, he is way too busy to read every memo; but if a memo is found to have been addressed to Mukasey or Gonzales years before Fast & Furious began, you should see them as the architects of gun-walking!)

Schumer pointed out that AG Mukasey had met with his counterpart, the Mexican attorney general, after the briefing, and that he had expressed a commitment to stanch the flow of guns to destinations south of the border. Schumer took these unremarkable facts, added the gloss that Wide Receiver involved gun tracing, and wildly theorized that it was very likely the subject of gun-walking came up in the Mukasey briefing — even though both Schumer and Holder conceded that they did not really know what was discussed at the briefing or even who was present at it (details you might figure Holder would be up on if it actually showed that this whole Fast & Furious fiasco was a Bush creation).

It was left to Republican Senators Charles Grassley and John Cornyn to lay bare some crucial distinctions between to two ATF operations. Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. Unlike gun-walking, which seems (for good reason) to have been unheard of until Fast & Furious, controlled delivery is a very common law enforcement tactic. Basically, the agents know the bad guys have negotiated a deal to acquire some commodity that is either illegal itself (e.g., heroin, child porn) or illegal for them to have/use (e.g., guns, corporate secrets). The agents allow the transfer to happen under circumstances where they are in control — i.e., they are on the scene conducting surveillance of the transfer, and sometimes even participating undercover in the transfer. As soon as the transfer takes place, they can descend on the suspects, make arrests, and seize the commodity in question — all of which makes for powerful evidence of guilt.

Senator Schumer’s drawing of an equivalence between “tracing” in a controlled-delivery situation and “tracing” in Fast & Furious is laughable. In a controlled delivery firearms case, guns are traced in the sense that agents closely and physically follow them — they don’t just note the serial numbers or other identifying markers. The agents are thus able to trace the precise path of the guns from, say, American dealers to straw purchasers to Mexican buyers.

To the contrary, Fast & Furious involved uncontrolled deliveries — of thousands of weapons. It was an utterly heedless program in which the feds allowed these guns to be sold to straw purchasers — often leaning on reluctant gun dealers to make the sales. The straw purchasers were not followed by close physical surveillance; they were freely permitted to bulk transfer the guns to, among others, Mexican drug gangs and other violent criminals — with no agents on hand to swoop in, make arrests, and grab the firearms. The inevitable result of this was that the guns have been used (and will continue to be used) in many crimes, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent.

In sum, the Fast & Furious idea of “trace” is that, after violent crimes occur in Mexico, we can trace any guns the Mexican police are lucky enough to seize back to the sales to U.S. straw purchasers … who should never have been allowed to transfer them (or even buy them) in the first place. That is not law enforcement; that is abetting a criminal rampage.

As Sen. Cornyn pointed out, there is another major distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious. The former was actually a coordinated effort between American and Mexican authorities. Law enforcement agents in both countries kept each other apprised about suspected transactions and tried to work together to apprehend law-breakers. To the contrary, Fast & Furious was a unilateral, half-baked scheme cooked up by an agency of the Obama Justice Department — an agency that was coordinating with the Justice Department on the operation and that turned to Main Justice in order to get wiretapping authority.

By the time Cornyn was done drawing this stark contrast between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious, Holder was reduced to conceding, “I’m not trying to equate the two.” That is big of him given that the two cannot be equated. But the attorney general seemed fine with the effort to equate them — to make them one and the same — when it was Schumer asking the questions. Expect the effort to continue. “Bush did it” may be a tired defense, and in this instance a preposterous one, but it’s the one the Democratic base loves to hear.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Building on Bush's Project Gunrunner sounds like a continuation of Bush's Project Gunrunner. It says absolutely nothing about starting the already existing Bush Fast and Furious operation under Bush's Project Gunrunner.
Try again.

No one is denying that there was a program called gunrunner while bush was president. I have shown news releases for the DOJ hinting to the start up of a new program. I guess fast and furious can be said it came from operation gun runner. In those news releases it shows the new program start around the same time fast and furious is supposed to have started as it has been pointed out.

There is no such hinting of a NEW program, only hiring more people to CONTINUE what was already in effect under Bush's Project Gunrunner, you are just dreaming. And Bush started the Fast and Furious operation under his Project Gunrunner in February 2008.

Here is what your link actually says;

ATF received $10 million through the Recovery Act to continue to build an infrastructure to further the accomplishments of Project Gunrunner. As part of the $10 million, ATF is hiring 25 new special agents, six industry operations investigators, three intelligence research specialists and three investigative analysts. The funding will establish three permanent field offices, dedicated to firearms trafficking investigations, in McAllen, Texas; El Centro, Calif.; and Las Cruces, N.M.; and a satellite office in Roswell, N.M.

ed the liar is being stupid again.

 

[edthecynic]

I'd like to see Ed show me the date where Fast & Furious started under Bush. He's repeatedly made that charge now and it's patently false. This whole "Oh, this is just a continuation of a Bush program!" is nothing more than an excuse by the the Holder DOJ folks to try and pass the buck on the program that THEY came up with and that blew up in THEIR faces.

Been there done that many times already.

One more time:

Project Gunrunner

What Is Project Gunrunner?
Project Gunrunner, the ATF claims, was an attempt by ATF to stem what they call an “iron river of guns” that is flowing from gun stores in the United States across the border into Mexico.

According to the ATF’s website, “ATF implemented Project Gunrunner in 2006 as a comprehensive strategy to reduce firearms and explosives related violent crime associated with Mexican criminal organizations operating in the U.S. and Mexico by preventing these organizations from unlawfully acquiring and trafficking firearms and explosives.”

The website also states, “Project Gunrunner’s objective is to deny Mexican drug cartels the tools of the trade, which they employ to murder rival drug traffickers, civilians, as well as political, military, and law enforcement figures in order to strengthen their grip on the lucrative drug and firearms routes into and out of the United States.”

However, since February 2008 under Project Gunrunner, operations “Fast and Furious,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “Wide Receiver,” and others (lampooned under the label “Operation Gunwalker”) have resulted in the opposite, as ATF was permitting and facilitating “straw purchase” firearm sales to gun traffickers. A straw purchase is when a buyer uses an intermediary (the “straw man”) to purchase firearms from a dealer, with the intent of hiding the identity of the real buyer. In essence, ATF allowed the guns to “walk” and be transported to Mexico.

 

[Oldstyle]

Post something from the ATF website that shows Bush's Fast and Furious was not part of Bush's Project Gunrunner or even that it was started in 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama GOP propaganda site that admits that Fast and Furious and a number of other operations UNDER Bush's Project Gunrunner began in February 2008.

You've got diddly.

Hate to point out the inconvenient truth, Ed but Operation Fast & Furious didn't start until 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama, anti_holder GOP propaganda site that admits it started in February 2008 under Bush's Project Gunrunner. Argue with them, they certainly wouldn't try to help Obama and hurt Bush.

Actually, what you posted listed a number of programs that evolved out of Operation Gunrunner. What you DIDN'T post was when Operation Fast & Furious began, Ed. The reason that you DIDN'T was that you...like the ATF would like people to think that this was just a part of the same operations that the Bush DOJ was running at ATF when in fact it was totally different. Fast & Furious did not begin in 2008 like you keep trying to claim...it started in 2009 under the Holder DOJ.

 

[Oldstyle]

I'd like to see Ed show me the date where Fast & Furious started under Bush. He's repeatedly made that charge now and it's patently false. This whole "Oh, this is just a continuation of a Bush program!" is nothing more than an excuse by the the Holder DOJ folks to try and pass the buck on the program that THEY came up with and that blew up in THEIR faces.

Been there done that many times already.

One more time:

Project Gunrunner

What Is Project Gunrunner?
Project Gunrunner, the ATF claims, was an attempt by ATF to stem what they call an “iron river of guns” that is flowing from gun stores in the United States across the border into Mexico.

According to the ATF’s website, “ATF implemented Project Gunrunner in 2006 as a comprehensive strategy to reduce firearms and explosives related violent crime associated with Mexican criminal organizations operating in the U.S. and Mexico by preventing these organizations from unlawfully acquiring and trafficking firearms and explosives.”

The website also states, “Project Gunrunner’s objective is to deny Mexican drug cartels the tools of the trade, which they employ to murder rival drug traffickers, civilians, as well as political, military, and law enforcement figures in order to strengthen their grip on the lucrative drug and firearms routes into and out of the United States.”

However, since February 2008 under Project Gunrunner, operations “Fast and Furious,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “Wide Receiver,” and others (lampooned under the label “Operation Gunwalker”) have resulted in the opposite, as ATF was permitting and facilitating “straw purchase” firearm sales to gun traffickers. A straw purchase is when a buyer uses an intermediary (the “straw man”) to purchase firearms from a dealer, with the intent of hiding the identity of the real buyer. In essence, ATF allowed the guns to “walk” and be transported to Mexico.

I love how they've moved Operation Fast & Furious up to the front of that lineup of ATF operations even though it was the LAST. Now "why" would the Holder ATF want people to think that Operation Fast & Furious started back in Feb. of 2008...when in fact it didn't start until over a year later? You don't think anyone with half a brain is going to fall for this happy horseshit, do you, Ed? Really?

 

[Annie]

I'd like to see Ed show me the date where Fast & Furious started under Bush. He's repeatedly made that charge now and it's patently false. This whole "Oh, this is just a continuation of a Bush program!" is nothing more than an excuse by the the Holder DOJ folks to try and pass the buck on the program that THEY came up with and that blew up in THEIR faces.

Been there done that many times already.

One more time:

Project Gunrunner

What Is Project Gunrunner?
Project Gunrunner, the ATF claims, was an attempt by ATF to stem what they call an “iron river of guns” that is flowing from gun stores in the United States across the border into Mexico.

According to the ATF’s website, “ATF implemented Project Gunrunner in 2006 as a comprehensive strategy to reduce firearms and explosives related violent crime associated with Mexican criminal organizations operating in the U.S. and Mexico by preventing these organizations from unlawfully acquiring and trafficking firearms and explosives.”

The website also states, “Project Gunrunner’s objective is to deny Mexican drug cartels the tools of the trade, which they employ to murder rival drug traffickers, civilians, as well as political, military, and law enforcement figures in order to strengthen their grip on the lucrative drug and firearms routes into and out of the United States.”

However, since February 2008 under Project Gunrunner, operations “Fast and Furious,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “Wide Receiver,” and others (lampooned under the label “Operation Gunwalker”) have resulted in the opposite, as ATF was permitting and facilitating “straw purchase” firearm sales to gun traffickers. A straw purchase is when a buyer uses an intermediary (the “straw man”) to purchase firearms from a dealer, with the intent of hiding the identity of the real buyer. In essence, ATF allowed the guns to “walk” and be transported to Mexico.

Totally ignoring responses, but that is what partisans do.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Hate to point out the inconvenient truth, Ed but Operation Fast & Furious didn't start until 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama, anti_holder GOP propaganda site that admits it started in February 2008 under Bush's Project Gunrunner. Argue with them, they certainly wouldn't try to help Obama and hurt Bush.

Actually, what you posted listed a number of programs that evolved out of Operation Gunrunner. What you DIDN'T post was when Operation Fast & Furious began, Ed. The reason that you DIDN'T was that you...like the ATF would like people to think that this was just a part of the same operations that the Bush DOJ was running at ATF when in fact it was totally different. Fast & Furious did not begin in 2008 like you keep trying to claim...it started in 2009 under the Holder DOJ.

Look at those memos I posted talking about new programs starting up

 

[Annie]

Hate to point out the inconvenient truth, Ed but Operation Fast & Furious didn't start until 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama, anti_holder GOP propaganda site that admits it started in February 2008 under Bush's Project Gunrunner. Argue with them, they certainly wouldn't try to help Obama and hurt Bush.

Actually, what you posted listed a number of programs that evolved out of Operation Gunrunner. What you DIDN'T post was when Operation Fast & Furious began, Ed. The reason that you DIDN'T was that you...like the ATF would like people to think that this was just a part of the same operations that the Bush DOJ was running at ATF when in fact it was totally different. Fast & Furious did not begin in 2008 like you keep trying to claim...it started in 2009 under the Holder DOJ.

Well I did, on several threads.

 

[Oldstyle]

What I find most amusing is that Ed keeps reposting an article written by someone in early 2011 as the facts about Operation Fast & Furious were slowly being uncovered. It was written when Holder and the rest of the folks at DOJ were still maintaining that they knew nothing about Fast & Furious until several weeks before the Terry shooting. It wasn't until months later that we learned that was in fact a total lie. Why don't you use something a little more "current", Ed...something that contains a better factual account of what happened with Fast & Furious?

 

[edthecynic]

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama, anti_holder GOP propaganda site that admits it started in February 2008 under Bush's Project Gunrunner. Argue with them, they certainly wouldn't try to help Obama and hurt Bush.

Actually, what you posted listed a number of programs that evolved out of Operation Gunrunner. What you DIDN'T post was when Operation Fast & Furious began, Ed. The reason that you DIDN'T was that you...like the ATF would like people to think that this was just a part of the same operations that the Bush DOJ was running at ATF when in fact it was totally different. Fast & Furious did not begin in 2008 like you keep trying to claim...it started in 2009 under the Holder DOJ.

Look at those memos I posted talking about new programs starting up

They said absolutely nothing about NEW programs. YOU made that crap up from your fantasies. They said they were CONTINUING programs under Bush's Project Gunrunner.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Here is the beginning of fast and furious



September 2009 – Jan. 8, 2010: A Jan. 8, 2010 briefing paper from the ATF Phoenix Field Division Group VII says: “This investigation has currently identified more than 20 individual connected straw purchasers.” It further says: “To date (September 2009 – present) this group has purchased in excess of 650 firearms (mainly AK-47 variants) for which they have paid cash totaling more than $350,000.”

October 2009: The ATF’s Phoenix Field Division establishes a gun trafficking group called Group VII. Group VII initially began using the strategy of “gunwalking,” or allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns, according to a report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case,” the report says. It goes on to say: “Group VII initially began using the new gunwalking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed ‘Operation Fast and Furious.’”

Gun-Running Timeline: How DOJ

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Actually, what you posted listed a number of programs that evolved out of Operation Gunrunner. What you DIDN'T post was when Operation Fast & Furious began, Ed. The reason that you DIDN'T was that you...like the ATF would like people to think that this was just a part of the same operations that the Bush DOJ was running at ATF when in fact it was totally different. Fast & Furious did not begin in 2008 like you keep trying to claim...it started in 2009 under the Holder DOJ.

Look at those memos I posted talking about new programs starting up

They said absolutely nothing about NEW programs. YOU made that crap up from your fantasies. They said they were CONTINUING programs under Bush's Project Gunrunner.

wrong sparky

 

[CrusaderFrank]

As the Fast and Furious investigation enters its 10th month, the blame game grows more intense.
“In this investigation, best of my knowledge, we didn’t let guns walk,” said Phoenix Chief Bill Newell.
Newell testified he did nothing wrong, the former ATF director said he never read his memos. Holder claims he didn’t know about the operations’ “questionable tactics.”

Justice Official Regrets Not Speaking Up About Federal Anti-Gunrunning Operation | Fox News

In recent months, Breuer acknowledged he knew of a gunwalking operation called "Wide Receiver" begun under the Bush Administration. Breuer said he never informed Holder that gunwalking had been allowed, even after the controversy over Fast and Furious surfaced.

The idea in Fast and Furious and other gunwalking operations conducted secretly by government agents in recent years was to try to see where the guns ended up, and catch the "big fish" of a Mexican drug cartel. According to law enforcement sources, Mexican officials were not in on the plan, and no arrests of top cartel members ever happened.

More gunwalker questions for Attorney General Holder - CBS News Investigates - CBS News

Republicans SCREAM that Obama and the Democrats keep blaming Bush. They don't admit that Bush's policies keep coming back to bite this country in the ass again and again.

Obama Fluffer oft he Week!!

You didn't get a single thing right except the guys name is Holder

 

[edthecynic]

Look at those memos I posted talking about new programs starting up

They said absolutely nothing about NEW programs. YOU made that crap up from your fantasies. They said they were CONTINUING programs under Bush's Project Gunrunner.

wrong sparky

Only a CON$ervative would try to claim CONTINUE means NEW.
Again from your own link:

ATF received $10 million through the Recovery Act to continue to build an infrastructure to further the accomplishments of Project Gunrunner.

 

[edthecynic]

grow a pair yet, Sparky? Ready to accept my challenge???

Post something from the ATF website that shows Bush's Fast and Furious was not part of Bush's Project Gunrunner or even that it was started in 2009.

I already posted a link to an anti-Obama GOP propaganda site that admits that Fast and Furious and a number of other operations UNDER Bush's Project Gunrunner began in February 2008.

You've got diddly.

Fast & Furious Was . . . Bush’s Fault - By Andrew C. McCarthy - The Corner - National Review Online

Fast & Furious Was . . . Bush’s Fault
By Andrew C. McCarthy
November 8, 2011 3:20 P.M.
Comments
67

Note that even the Democrats are no longer trying to swing this one, like Ed the Cynic?

I was only able to take in parts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s just-completed Senate testimony. But that was enough to see that “Bush did it” is going to be the Democrats’ excuse for the inexcusable “Fast & Furious” operation conducted by ATF on the Obama administration’s watch.

On the Obama administration’s watch. That is the biggest problem with the Democrats’ strategy. Fast & Furious did not begin until 2009, months after the end of the Bush administration. Given that, one might think that even today’s Democrats would be unable with a straight face to lay this disaster at the feet of Obama’s predecessor. But then one wouldn’t know today’s Democrats.Nope, no responsibility and all that matters is being the last 'heard.'

The key to their strategy is conflating two very different programs: Operation Fast & Furious and a Bush era ATF initiative known as “Operation Wide Receiver.” In the questions from Judiciary Committee Democrats (principally, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer — there may have been others but, again, I didn’t see the entire hearing), it emerged that Wide Receiver began in 2006, when Alberto Gonzales was the Bush administration attorney general. Senator Schumer took pains to describe Wide Receiver as involving the “tracing” of firearms that crossed into Mexico. As we shall see, Wide Receiver’s notion of tracing was night-and-day different from the tracing involved in the reckless gun-walking approach employed by Fast & Furious. Obviously, however, Democrats hope that if they get enough help from their friends in the media, the public will miss the distinction.

Schumer made much of the happenstance that a briefing, said to have included information on Wide Receiver, was prepared for Michael Mukasey in late 2007, after he succeeded Gonzales as AG. (This is an amusing contradiction in the Democrats’ strategy: If a memo addressed to Holder in the middle of Fast & Furious emerges, you’re supposed to understand that, as attorney general, he is way too busy to read every memo; but if a memo is found to have been addressed to Mukasey or Gonzales years before Fast & Furious began, you should see them as the architects of gun-walking!)

Schumer pointed out that AG Mukasey had met with his counterpart, the Mexican attorney general, after the briefing, and that he had expressed a commitment to stanch the flow of guns to destinations south of the border. Schumer took these unremarkable facts, added the gloss that Wide Receiver involved gun tracing, and wildly theorized that it was very likely the subject of gun-walking came up in the Mukasey briefing — even though both Schumer and Holder conceded that they did not really know what was discussed at the briefing or even who was present at it (details you might figure Holder would be up on if it actually showed that this whole Fast & Furious fiasco was a Bush creation).

It was left to Republican Senators Charles Grassley and John Cornyn to lay bare some crucial distinctions between to two ATF operations. Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. Unlike gun-walking, which seems (for good reason) to have been unheard of until Fast & Furious, controlled delivery is a very common law enforcement tactic. Basically, the agents know the bad guys have negotiated a deal to acquire some commodity that is either illegal itself (e.g., heroin, child porn) or illegal for them to have/use (e.g., guns, corporate secrets). The agents allow the transfer to happen under circumstances where they are in control — i.e., they are on the scene conducting surveillance of the transfer, and sometimes even participating undercover in the transfer. As soon as the transfer takes place, they can descend on the suspects, make arrests, and seize the commodity in question — all of which makes for powerful evidence of guilt.

Senator Schumer’s drawing of an equivalence between “tracing” in a controlled-delivery situation and “tracing” in Fast & Furious is laughable. In a controlled delivery firearms case, guns are traced in the sense that agents closely and physically follow them — they don’t just note the serial numbers or other identifying markers. The agents are thus able to trace the precise path of the guns from, say, American dealers to straw purchasers to Mexican buyers.

To the contrary, Fast & Furious involved uncontrolled deliveries — of thousands of weapons. It was an utterly heedless program in which the feds allowed these guns to be sold to straw purchasers — often leaning on reluctant gun dealers to make the sales. The straw purchasers were not followed by close physical surveillance; they were freely permitted to bulk transfer the guns to, among others, Mexican drug gangs and other violent criminals — with no agents on hand to swoop in, make arrests, and grab the firearms. The inevitable result of this was that the guns have been used (and will continue to be used) in many crimes, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent.

In sum, the Fast & Furious idea of “trace” is that, after violent crimes occur in Mexico, we can trace any guns the Mexican police are lucky enough to seize back to the sales to U.S. straw purchasers … who should never have been allowed to transfer them (or even buy them) in the first place. That is not law enforcement; that is abetting a criminal rampage.

As Sen. Cornyn pointed out, there is another major distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious. The former was actually a coordinated effort between American and Mexican authorities. Law enforcement agents in both countries kept each other apprised about suspected transactions and tried to work together to apprehend law-breakers. To the contrary, Fast & Furious was a unilateral, half-baked scheme cooked up by an agency of the Obama Justice Department — an agency that was coordinating with the Justice Department on the operation and that turned to Main Justice in order to get wiretapping authority.

By the time Cornyn was done drawing this stark contrast between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious, Holder was reduced to conceding, “I’m not trying to equate the two.” That is big of him given that the two cannot be equated. But the attorney general seemed fine with the effort to equate them — to make them one and the same — when it was Schumer asking the questions. Expect the effort to continue. “Bush did it” may be a tired defense, and in this instance a preposterous one, but it’s the one the Democratic base loves to hear.

Oh come on now, Andrew C. McCarthy is a DittoTard. You should know by now I'm not going to swallow any bullshit from your MessiahRushie! Geezzz. The DittoTard even admits he didn't bother to follow the WHOLE testimony. You are really desperate!!!

I was only able to take in parts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s just-completed Senate testimony.

 

[HUGGY]

They said absolutely nothing about NEW programs. YOU made that crap up from your fantasies. They said they were CONTINUING programs under Bush's Project Gunrunner.

wrong sparky

Only a CON$ervative would try to claim CONTINUE means NEW.
Again from your own link:

ATF received $10 million through the Recovery Act to continue to build an infrastructure to further the accomplishments of Project Gunrunner.

In a con's dictionary the word "definition" means "suggestion".

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Obama administration lackeys: Obama fucked up again, what do we do?


Blame BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

The idiots that support us will believe anything.