Mexico’s Ambassador Upset Over Fast & Furious, Investigation Continues

Posted by Tina

Last week Mexico’s Ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhan, spoke at a conference on Capitol Hill and expressed grave disappointment in the Obama administration:

“Regardless of whether this was or was not the intent or the design of Fast and Furious, the thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders.”

In May of 2011 Eric Holder told a Judiciary Committee that he had heard of Fast and Furious only recently: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

However, documents obtained by CBS showed that Holder was sent briefings in July of 2010 and in fact had received memos frequently.

In April of this year Republicans in Congress investigating the matter decided to prepare a contempt citation against Holder because of his lack of cooperation:

The resolution will accuse Holder and his Justice Department of obstructing the congressional probe into the allegations that the government let thousands of weapons fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

The citation would attempt to force Holder to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents related to the probe, which has entered its second year.

Eric Holder claims his office has cooperated by releasing about 7,000 pages of documents and that he has testified before Issa’a committee seven times.
But Rep Issa isn’t buying it:

In a statement accompanying the briefing paper and contempt citation draft’s release, Issa said they describe how the Department of Justice and Holder have refused to cooperate with the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious.
“This briefing paper and draft contempt report explains the case, to both Members of the Committee and the American people, for holding Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress,” Issa said in the statement. “In describing the results of the Justice Department’s refusal to cooperate – including the hardships the family of a fallen Border Patrol agent have faced in seeking the truth, and retaliation against agents who blew the whistle on gunwalking – this briefing paper provides the facts, on which decisions will be made.”

Evidence has surfaced indicating operations in Texas mirrored the federal gunwalking scheme:

House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said he thinks there are “similarities” between the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking tactics and the way those who murdered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata obtained the weapons used to kill him.

During Fast and Furious, which was organized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and overseen by the Department of Justice, the Obama administration sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via “straw purchasers” who bought guns in the United States with the intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else. This tactic is known as “gunwalking.”

Fast and Furious weapons were used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and at least 300 Mexican civilians.

Zapata was killed with guns that were purchased in Texas by two different traffickers. According to CBS News reports, both of those traffickers were under ATF surveillance without being arrested for a period of time while they were trafficking guns. Both were arrested at a later date.

The most disturbing accusation about this egregious and lethal scheme is that it may have been devised as a method for politically demanding tighter gun laws:

Several House Republicans are even more furious with Attorney General Eric Holder after new video surfaced in which he planned to “brainwash” the American people to oppose gun ownership. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, who’s leading the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, told The Daily Caller that he’s not surprised, as Holder and many of his deputies come from an extremist anti-gun background.

The C-Span video

Attorney General Eric Holder supported using Hollywood, the media and government officials in order to “really brainwash people” into opposing firearm ownership, according to a 1995 C-SPAN video that emerged Sunday online.

Holder, who was then the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was addressing the Women’s National Democratic Club on Jan. 30, 1995. In his speech, he held up anti-smoking campaigns as a model for an anti-gun campaign.

“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we’ve changed our attitudes about cigarettes,” Holder said.

Katie Pavlich has written a book on Fast and Furious. See her interview with Glenn Reynolds in which she suggests that the administration is involved in a massive cover-up in the video below: