Posted by
Steve on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 12:13:41 PM
Operation Fast and Furious is becoming a bigger and bigger problem for the Obama administration. At first, they thought they could control the information to keep the operation in Arizona. But through testimony, memos and emails, the scandal has widened beyond Arizona to Washington. One reason it widened past Arizona is that they used wiretaps that had to be authorized at least at the assistant Attorney General level. That required that the investigation go to Washington.
Eric Holder, Attorney General, was questioned about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious. He stated that he became aware of the operation in the spring of 2011 after the lid blew off. Now, memos have been released showing that Eric Holder was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious in early 2010. Eric Holder still insists that he did not know of the operation until spring 2011. If that is possible, he either is incompetent because he was briefed and was supposed to know. If that is the case, he should be fired immediately for incompetence. If he is not incompetent, and I do not believe he is incompetent, then he is deliberately not telling Congress everything that he knows. If that is the case, he is committing perjury and should be convicted of a crime and put behind bars. Either way, he should be gone sooner, not later.
There is one other thing that is missing from the above statements. That is who authorized the Operation Fast and Furious. If you believe that Eric Holder or one of his minions authorized such a large misguided program, you have to be kidding me. Barack Obama has been talking about guns being sold to Mexico from America almost since he was elected. He was building a good case that there should be restrictions on what gun shops could sell to the public. Then, Fast and Furious blew up and the entire argument that Obama had been making was now egg on his face. If Obama was talking about guns being sold to Mexico, he must have had some knowledge of this operation. If he had some knowledge of this operation, he either authorized it or another person high up in the administration authorized it.
The people carrying out Operation Fast and Furious seemed to believe that the White House either authorized the program or knew about it. Nobody has said this, but reading between the lines and knowing how federal programs work, that is how it seems. I worked for the federal government for 20+ years. I know that nothing like Operation Fast and Furious would have been authorized and carried out by Arizona people. The authorization would have had to come from Washington. The people running it in Arizona would have to be assured that it was cleared up to the highest levels before they would have acted in a program so controversial as Operation Fast and Furious.
There are reports that many agents objected to the operation, but were assured it was authorized at the highest levels. I am not sure what that exactly means, but it has to mean someone above Eric Holder. Eric Holder strikes me as a soldier, not a leader. He has taken orders and carried them out successfully for Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama. He just does not seem to be the type of person who would stick his neck out and do something that might get his boss in hot water. That approval had to come from someone that Eric Holder assumed was operating for Barack Obama or he would not have carried it out.
The other thing to look at is why run Operation Fast and Furious at all? What were they trying to do that required the operation? The only thing that makes sense is that they were trying to restrict our second amendment rights. They were going to do that by proving that guns were being sold in America and transported across the border to Mexican Drug Cartels. Their justification would be that we have to restrict gun sales in the Border States and then other states to stop the flow of guns into Mexico. This all blew up in their faces before they could finish making the case.
We are not done with this Operation Fast and Furious. Some top level people will be fired or go to jail before the investigation is finished. My feeling is someone will fall on their sword at a high level to protect Barack Obama from the embarrassment of having authorized the program. When that happens, everyone will stop investigating and things will die down. The real culprit will get away, but that is the way things work in Washington.