Now the fall out is coming....
More U.S. agencies implicated in Mexico gun-trafficking probe
The head of the ATF says the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration never told him they had informant relationships with Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by Operation Fast and Furious.
The embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration....
...In two days of meetings with congressional investigators over the weekend, Melson said the FBI and DEA kept the ATF "in the dark" about their relationships with the cartel informants. If ATF agents had known of the relationships, the agency might have ended the investigation much earlier, he said.
As a result of Melson's statements, "our investigation has clearly expanded," a source close to the congressional investigation said Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing. "We know now it was not something limited to just a small group of ATF agents in Arizona."
"This whole misguided operation might have been cut short if not for catastrophic failures to share key information," Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. in a letter Tuesday.
...Issa and Grassley said Melson "was candid in admitting mistakes that his agency made."
They said he told them he reviewed hundreds of documents about Fast and Furious, and became "sick to his stomach when he obtained those documents and learned the full story."
Melson said ATF agents had witnessed the transfer of weapons from straw purchasers to others "without following the guns any further," contradicting statements by the Justice Department.
OK, Melson is trying to throw himself on the mercy of the Congress by being truthful...somewhat. Man, he must be desperate. Hell pal, you have discovered you don't have friends in the Holder Just-Us Department. Or is Melson just trying to take everyone down with him...hopefully we know soon.
...Issa and Grassley were clearly upset by the revelation.
"The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities," they said in their letter to Holder. "According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers."
Terry was killed when a gun battle erupted in December along a smuggling route in Arizona near the border with Mexico.
Melson's attorney, Richard Cullen, a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general in Virginia, declined to elaborate in an interview Wednesday except to say that the letter accurately reflects Melson's comments to the investigators.
Cullen said Melson volunteered to speak with the committee because "he was anxious to get the facts out about the program." He added that no one "in the leadership" at the Justice Department has told Melson to resign...
We need hearing and again the questions to be put out in front of the Fox News cameras (God knows CNN, MSNBC, etc won't cover something that shows how incompetent the Obama regime is.
1. What did the Attorney General know and when did he know it?I know these hearing will have to wait till after the budget battle but this has to be investigated....and God knows Obama can't be trusted to tell the time truthfully.
2. What did the Secretary of State know and when did she know it?
3. What did the President know and when did he know it?
4. What did the Mexican government know and when did it know it?
UPDATE: Good to know this was made and paid for in America:
I really did think it was too bad to check, despite posts about it at PJM, Wasel Zippers, and Free Republic. But I checked. You’ll find complete PDF and text versions of the final stimulus bill right here. Scroll down to page 16 (of 407!) in the PDF version and behold:
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.
And to think, you guys say the stimulus didn’t produce anything. It produced guns for Mexican drug cartels, didn’t it? Says Ben Domenech, in a stroke of perfect black humor: “Shovel ready.”
Actually, as Ed reminds me via e-mail, this is old news. The boss emeritus was all over the stimulus angle to Gunrunner back in March. But since only recently has this story really begun to bubble, replete with growing big-media interest, stuff we already knew is becoming stuff we forgot and then remembered and became horrified at all over again. Rather than have me bore you here, then, take five minutes and read Michelle’s post. The One was asked about Operation Fast and Furious at the time — which is under the umbrella of Gunrunner — and insisted that neither he nor Holder authorized it. In that case, I’m really looking forward to finding out which member(s) of Congress decided to earmark $10 million for Gunrunner and what they thought would be done with the money. Someone in the executive branch must have requested the funding for the ATF. Who?
See what happens when Congress doesn’t read the bills?
See what happens when the American people swallow political Kool Aid?
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