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Old June 25, 2012, 09:34 PM   #2376
thallub
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This is one of the emails Congress has requested that has not been provided by DOJ yet. It sounds like the Oversight Committee may have given Holder enough rope to wind it around his neck a few times.
Theres also the lie about the source of guns used in Brian Terrys murder. Its significant that federal prosecutor Burke lied to the family of Brian Terry about the source of those guns. The BATFE in Phoenix and federal prosecutor Burke knew where those guns came from within hours of Terrys murder. Why did they lie? Was the decision to lie made at Main Justice? We shall see-maybe.

There is controversy over a third gun found at the murder scene, an SKS. FBI director Mueller says there was no third gun. A recorded conversation between a BAFTE agent and a gun dealer point to a different conclusion. From a tape made available to CBS:

Quote:
In the following secret conversation made public between an ATF agent and a local gun store proprietor who was cooperating with the agency in its Fast and Furious operation, it is clear that something afoul occurred regarding the 3rd gun:


Agent: Well there was two.

Dealer: There's three weapons.


Agent: There's three weapons.


Dealer: I know that.


Agent: And yes, there's serial numbers for all three.


Dealer: That's correct.


Agent: Two of them came from this store.


Dealer: I understand that.


Agent: There's an SKS that I don't think came from.... Dallas or Texas or something like that.


Dealer: I know. talking about the AK's


Agent: The two AK's came from this store.


Dealer: I know that.


Agent: Ok.


Dealer: I did the Goddamned trace


Agent: Third weapon is the SKS has nothing to do with it.


Dealer: That didn't come from me.


Agent: No and there is that's my knowledge. and I spoke to someone who would know those are the only ones they have. So this is the agent who's working the case, all I can go by is what she told me.

Last edited by thallub; June 25, 2012 at 09:52 PM.
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Old June 26, 2012, 08:14 AM   #2377
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I wonder why the Zapata case isn't getting traction, and it doesn't get the media attention that Brian Terry's murder garnered.

Maybe because it happened in Mexico, the American public doesn't have as strong a reaction to it?

Or maybe they think that because it happened in Mexico it's irrelevant where the murderers got their weapons or where the weapons originated?

Or maybe the Jaime Xapata murder gets overshadowed in the media by the congressional hearings and the contempt proceedings. But even with members of congress - they'll mention Brian Terry but never mention Jaime Zapata
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Old June 26, 2012, 09:19 AM   #2378
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Maybe because it happened in Mexico, the American public doesn't have as strong a reaction to it?
In certain circles the deaths are only meaningful when they can be used to push legislation. Law enforcement deaths are down 50% from last year and so they are not getting much attention these days.
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Old June 26, 2012, 11:11 AM   #2379
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The House has scheduled the floor vote on for contempt for this Thursday.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/...ry?id=16648169

The NRA is saying this will be a graded vote - meaning it is unlikely a Rep will keep their A+ rating if they decline to vote for the contempt motion.
http://www.examiner.com/article/nra-...pt-of-congress

Given that there is already a solid majority of NRA A-rated Representatives in this Congress, it looks like the NRA will either see a lot of defections or Holder is going to be held in contempt of Congress.
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Old June 26, 2012, 12:45 PM   #2380
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An NRA graded vote is going to give Holder supporters more cover to say that there is no substance to F&F - it's merely election year politics.

But I think the NRA has to do this.

For one thing it sends a strong messgage (hopefully) to future administrations that if the party in power tries to use a government agency to do something as insidious as manipulate public opinion on a Second Amendment issue - the NRA will be there to sound the alarm and take up the fight.
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Old June 26, 2012, 12:58 PM   #2381
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I expect the vote to be completely along party lines... wouldnt matter if they had video proving the allegations... Politics as usual...
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Old June 26, 2012, 01:22 PM   #2382
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The House has scheduled the floor vote on for contempt for this Thursday.
Yeah, same day as a major expected Supreme Court ruling. That'll siphon off mindshare.

Even the most strident of the administration's supporters in the media are now acknowledging the incompetence and severity of the operation, but they're still swearing it doesn't lead to Main Justice. Even though it was an OCDETF op.
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Old June 26, 2012, 01:44 PM   #2383
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Originally Posted by BGutzman
I expect the vote to be completely along party lines
I think you are going to be surprised on that count.
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Old June 26, 2012, 01:52 PM   #2384
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My guess is that if it's not party line or very close, it will be Republicans voting against rather than Dems voting for but I expect very close to party line.
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Old June 26, 2012, 02:20 PM   #2385
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While the committee vote was polarized along party lines, I think a vote in general assembly will be a different matter.

Many Democrats who took office in 2006 were moderates, and quite a few had favorable NRA grades. More than a few of those guys signed off in support of the plaintiffs in Heller and McDonald.
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Old June 26, 2012, 02:28 PM   #2386
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True, but the pressure from the party "leaders" will be IMMENSE on this issue. It's hard for me to imagine many of them withstanding that pressure.

I'm not bashing the Dems on this either. I would expect a party line vote if the tables were turned.

It's why the system is so broken. If Holder were a Republican, everything the Dems have said and done would be coming from Republican mouths, and vice-versa.
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Old June 26, 2012, 04:45 PM   #2387
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I'd expect a party-line vote in an election year, but I think Holder is going to be fired in a few weeks, and pardoned after the election.
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Old June 26, 2012, 05:49 PM   #2388
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The thing about it is, each branch tends to get a little bit testy when its power in the checks-and-balances system is belittled or challenged.

IE, Congress tends to react in a more united front when its authority is actually challenged.

So, this could go by party-line - it being an election year as others have noted, but it could also surprise some and come as a Congressional slap to an Executive that has tried to run both around and over Congress.
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Old June 26, 2012, 08:39 PM   #2389
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How does the NRA grade a representative who is absent or decides not to vote? I could see some of that happening if a nose count shows approval of the contempt vote. The administration might let some reps off the hook.
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Old June 26, 2012, 08:43 PM   #2390
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The Minority Whip is already blaming "NRA pressure" for causing some Democrats to vote for contempt, so it looks like it won't be a straight party-line vote.
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Old June 26, 2012, 09:41 PM   #2391
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The 'commentators' on MSNBC were cursing out the NRA for pushing the investigation. Uh, just answer the questions and defuse this. Stupid politicians - always the coverup.
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Old June 27, 2012, 06:10 AM   #2392
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I don't know if anyone has posted this, but here goes.

The Five Biggest Differences between Fast & Furious and Operation Wide-Receiver
  1. First and foremost, operation Wide Receiver did not result in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent or an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. Fast and Furious did.
  2. Second, Wide Receiver, though flawed, was more of a gun-tracing operation than a gun-walking program. Gun-tracing involves putting specific safeguards in place to track firearms, such as RFID chips perhaps with video or aerial surveillance. Gun-walking is what happened in Fast and Furious, where ATF agents sold thousands of guns without a reliable way to recover them, apparently just hoping for the best.
  3. Third, one must take into account the size and scope of the operations.
    Speaking to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Holder said that “three hundred guns” were allowed to “walk” (although note the difference between “tracing” and “walking” above) in Wide Receiver. While there is no evidence that suggests otherwise, the figure is dwarfed by the approximately 2,000 firearms that walked in Fast and Furious.
  4. Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence proving the two operations are separate from each other is the fact that Wide Receiver was shut down in 2007 shortly after it was clear the program was a failure. This was before Obama was even in office and nearly two years before Fast and Furious began. Fast and Furious wasn’t shut down until late 2010 after the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans, a border agent and an ICE officer.
  5. Finally, unlike Fast and Furious, officials involved in Wide Receiver were reportedly in close contact with Mexican authorities during the operation, though how involved Mexican officials were is not entirely known. What is known is that Mexican authorities were kept completely in the dark during Fast and Furious, according to the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. He announced on June 1, 2012, that Mexico would be launching its own probe into Fast and Furious.

Source: Jason Howerton, The Blog at TheBlaze.com
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Old June 27, 2012, 06:31 AM   #2393
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I beleive you're forgetting another important difference between F&F and Wide Receiver.

Operation Wide Receiver came before F&F and involved attempting some new tactics, there were no precedents when the operation was executed.

In Fast & Furious however, the appointees who planned the operation took a known failed tactic from a failed operation and repeated it - defying all logic and common sense.
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Old June 27, 2012, 07:35 AM   #2394
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In Fast & Furious however, the appointees who planned the operation took a known failed tactic from a failed operation and repeated it - defying all logic and common sense.
Not just took a known failed tactic and repeated it; but took a known failed tactic, which they thought up in the first place, then removed every single safeguard in that tactic, and THEN repeated it. And if you believe Assistant AG Lanny Breuer's testimony, they did this within a month of him warning them about the previous failed tactic.

This is why I am puzzled when sympathizers of Fast & Furious keep bringing up Wide Receiver. Surely they have to realize that continually bringing up Wide Receiver is eventually going to lead to a comparison between the program and Fast and Furious is going to look even worse when that happens? I don't think that is a comparison you want the average American to even think about making if you are trying to defend Fast and Furious.

From a spin control standpoint it just seems like amateur hour at the White House. When even the New York Times is going "If it is so straightforward, then just give them the documents already and put this to rest", you've got a publicity problem.
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Old June 27, 2012, 08:52 AM   #2395
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In Fast & Furious however, the appointees who planned the operation took a known failed tactic from a failed operation and repeated it - defying all logic and common sense.
The appointees did not plan Fast and Furious: They approved a flawed plan concocted by career bureaucrats of the BATFE. F&F was planned in the Phoenix office of the BATFE by many of the same folks who ran Wider Receiver.

Project Gunrunner was the program under which Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious operated. Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious were run by the same career bureaucrat; SAC Newell of the BATFE.

Gunrunner remains an ongoing BATFE operation.

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/programs/project-gunrunner/

Last edited by thallub; June 27, 2012 at 08:58 AM.
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Old June 27, 2012, 09:07 AM   #2396
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This is why I am puzzled when sympathizers of Fast & Furious keep bringing up Wide Receiver. Surely they have to realize that continually bringing up Wide Receiver is eventually going to lead to a comparison between the program and Fast and Furious is going to look even worse when that happens?
FWIW I think this position was intended as a carefully aimed tactic to defuse potential criticism of F&F by diehard left-wing supporters of the President. Spokespeople have defused controversies amongst this crowd by saying that other Obama policies this constituency dislikes (automaker bailouts, Gitmo staying open for business, etc.) are simply continuations of bad Bush policies. This is one of two themes the administration likes to use when it goes on the defensive; the other is "...the president's mean-spirited far-right-wing critics are blowing it all out of proportion", which has also been invoked here.
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From a spin control standpoint it just seems like amateur hour at the White House.
+1; despite what I just wrote, I think the comparison is backfiring in the President's face with the decision to invoke executive privilege- a decision that can be seen as an implicit admission that Cabinet officials have actually done something so seriously wrong that the spin doctors won't be able to handle it.
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Old June 27, 2012, 09:17 AM   #2397
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Originally Posted by BillCA
[Second, Wide Receiver, though flawed, was more of a gun-tracing operation than a gun-walking program. Gun-tracing involves putting specific safeguards in place to track firearms, such as RFID chips perhaps with video or aerial surveillance. Gun-walking is what happened in Fast and Furious, where ATF agents sold thousands of guns without a reliable way to recover them, apparently just hoping for the best.
F&F had nothing in place to track the guns once they crossed the border. Perhaps I've missed some new information, but it is my understanding that not only weren't Mexican authorities informed, our own BATFE agents in Mexico weren't informed. The intent of F&F apparently didn't involve "tracking" the guns at all. The intent was specifically to allow them to enter Mexico and to be used in crimes and recovered at the crime scenes (or afterward), at which point they could be "traced" (not "tracked") back to the U.S. and to gun shops in Arizona.

Thereby "proving" the administration's (and the Mexican government's) dubious claim that the cartels were arming themselves through gun shops in the U.S.
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Old June 27, 2012, 09:58 AM   #2398
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Fortune Magazine: The Truth About Fast and Furious

An article was just published in Fortune Magazine titled "The Truth About Fast and Furious"

Quote:
"A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust."
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.co...furious-truth/

It's a long arduous read but very insightful. It is either a smoking gun about political intrigue or one of the best constructed smokescreens in the history of a free press. The timing of this article is "too coincidental to be coincidental", considering the vote on Holder. I have to wonder if somebody was holding this back for just the right moment.

In either case, it's a must read for anyone interested in this case.
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Old June 27, 2012, 10:10 AM   #2399
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I gave it a glance and vote for politically convenient smokescreen.

All this could have been said ages ago.
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Old June 27, 2012, 10:13 AM   #2400
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It's a long arduous read but very insightful. It is either a smoking gun about political intrigue or one of the best constructed smokescreens in the history of a free press
Just made my way through the Fortune article. A very interesting read. Will have to read it through again later, as it's full of detail.

Glenn is probably right in his assessment, but I've seen few articles that covered what is known this thoroughly.
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