Fast & Furious

[ussusimiel]

There are (at least) two very different narratives being extracted from F&F.

This article in the Washington Post (from about a year ago) highlights this nicely. Since I tend towards one narrative I have extracted some quotes that bolster it:

The battle has hobbled Fast and Furious, a case that individuals inside ATF say held the promise of becoming one of the agency’s best investigations ever.

“We have never been up so high in the Sinaloa cartel, the largest and most powerful drug cartel in the world,” said a federal official involved in the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is an open, ongoing investigation. It is so unfair.”

Agents along the border had long been frustrated by what one ATF supervisor later called “toothless” laws that made it difficult to attack gun-trafficking networks. Straw buyers — people with no criminal record who purchase guns for criminals or illegal immigrants who can’t legally buy them — are subject to little more than paperwork violations. Even people convicted of buying AK-47s meant for the cartels typically just get probation for lying on a federal form attesting that they were buying the guns for themselves. With such a light penalty, it is hard to persuade those caught to turn informant against their bosses. And federal prosecutors rarely want to bring such charges because they do not consider the effort worth their time, according to ATF supervisors. [My emphasis]

The reasoning was that an arrest of a straw purchaser would not get ATF the bigger fish; the buyer would get a light punishment, if any, and the cartel could just find another buyer.

The narrative I favour describes an operation that did not facilitate the cartels to buy guns, but rather, recorded a huge number of gun sales during the period it was ongoing. A key point, IMO, is that if F&F had not been in operation those gun sales would have taken place anyway.

This is absolutely crucial to how I view this scandal, because it outlines the political elements starkly. If guns were not deliberately 'walked' then Rep. Issa can be viewed as a political opportunist of the kind willing to jeopardise an ongoing investigation to score political points. On the other hand, if it can be shown that gun were allowed to 'walk' because prosecuters wanted to avoid an awkward 2nd Amendment debate during an election year, then all of Pres. Obama appointments can be viewed as clinically politically motivated.

I think that this is the first time that I have seen two such narratives emerge so clearly from what might loosely be called a single set of facts.

u.

[ussusimiel]

GOP sues to force Obama, Holder compliance on Fast and Furious

A civil lawsuit filed Monday by House Republicans asks a federal court to enforce a congressional subpoena of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in his refusal to turn over documents sought in an investigation by a House committee into the failed Fast and Furious gunrunning operation.

House Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement the lawsuit seeks to overturn the Obama administration’s “frivolous executives privilege claims,” forcing the Justice Department to make public documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee claims could show who at the department was aware of the botched investigation and what they did about it.

Mr. Boehner said President Obama and his team were ignoring an Oct. 11 congressional subpoena — something the courts have long recognized as valid — and that lawmakers were left with no choice but to ask the U.S. District Court in Washington to referee.

“By stonewalling Congress and ignoring a contempt order, the Justice Department has left the House no choice but to take legal action so we can get to the bottom of the Fast and Furious operation that cost border Agent Brian Terry his life,” Mr. Boehner said.

“After providing — then retracting — inaccurate information to Congress, Attorney General Holder has gone to extraordinary lengths to block access to subpoenaed documents and deny the efforts of the Terry family to get the truth,” he said.

“The White House has been complicit in this effort to hide the truth by making executive privilege claims that have no merit, which is why today’s action is necessary,” the Ohio Republican said, adding that a bipartisan vote by the House to hold Mr. Holder in contempt “made clear that the Obama administration owes the Terry family and the American people the truth.”

He said the House would continue to hold the administration accountable until it provides the documents and answers the questions sought by the committee “to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again.”

The House voted a contempt of Congress citation against Mr. Holder on June 28 in a 255-67 vote for his refusal to turn over subpoenaed documents in the Fast and Furious investigation.

The committee inquiry began in December 2010 after the death of Terry. Two AK-47 semiautomatic weapons purchased by straw buyers as part of Fast and Furious were found at the site of the Terry killing.

More than 2,000 weapons were purchased from Arizona gun shops during the lengthy operation, about 1,000 of which remain unaccounted for. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents were told to stand down instead of interdicting the weapons. The Fast and Furious operation was supposed to track the guns being sold to Mexican cartels to identify the actual buyers, but the ATF lost track of the weapons.

The White House, which had first said it would try to work out a way to release the documents but that they didn’t show anything incriminating, later reversed course and claimed executive privilege, thus preventing the Justice Department from releasing the records.

Department officials have said they were willing to negotiate over the documents but the committee sought instead to litigate the matter.

Republicans on Capitol Hill want to know who approved the ATF operation and have rejected Obama administration assurances that it was lower-level staffers. Released emails and documents paint a complex picture, showing some details either were or should have been noticed by high-level Justice Department officials.

Mr. Holder has disputed those characterizations — though he has already had to retract an official communication to Congress that had false information about the operation itself, and has also officially withdrawn part of his own testimony that seemed to suggest one of his predecessors under President George W. Bush had known of a similar operation.

Among other things, the lawsuit seeks documents showing why the Justice Department took 10 months to retract a Feb. 4, 2011, statement that contained false denials of the investigative tactics used in Fast and Furious. It also notes that minutes before the House committee convened a business meeting to consider the Holder contempt citation, Mr. Obama invoked an eleventh-hour assertion of executive privilege over the documents. The lawsuit asks the federal court to rule Mr. Obama’s assertion of executive privilege invalid and to compel Mr. Holder to produce documents.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the civil lawsuit “wastes taxpayer dollars and resources,” calling it a “distraction from the urgent business before Congress: Acting to create jobs and grow our economy.” She also said it was aimed at distracting the Justice Department from challenging state laws to tighten voting rules.

Doesn't look like Rep. Issa is going to give up easily on this one.

u.

[Cail]

Fast and Furious Report Exonerates Holder; Rogue Agents Done the Deed. Right.

I have to admit that, while I have a copy of the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General's Fast and Furious report, released yesterday, I have yet to read all 512 pages of obfuscatory goodness. What's fascinating to me is that the extensive and, just from the report's conclusions, rather damning document is immediately being spun as an exoneration of Attorney General Eric Holder. Because, really, in a deadly, multi-year gun-running scandal inolving federal officials, that's the most important issue at hand.

As the White House's Eric Schultz told Government Executive magazine:

"Today’s report affirms the problem of gun walking was a field-driven tactic that dated back to the previous administration, and it was this administration’s attorney general who ended it," he said. "Nevertheless, The Justice Department has taken strong steps to ensure accountability and make sure this does not happen again, including important administrative, policy and personnel changes."

The official take-away is that this was a rogue operation, run entirely by Kurtz-like federal employees, gone native and driven mad in the blinding sun and pervasive heat of the Arizona jungle desert. As Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz today told (PDF) the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

We concluded that both Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast and Furious were seriously flawed and supervised irresponsibly by ATF’s Phoenix Field Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, most significantly in their failure to adequately consider the risk to the public safety in the United States and Mexico.

And no way, no how, did the squeaky-clean bureaucrats of Washington, D.C. get their hands dirtied by this irresponsible rogue (did I say "rogue"?) operation.

Former Attorney General Mukasey became Attorney General after investigative activity in Operation Wide Receiver was concluded. We found no evidence that he was informed that ATF, in connection with Operation Wide Receiver, was allowing or had allowed firearms to “walk.” ...

We found no evidence that Attorney General Holder was informed about Operation Fast and Furious, or learned about the tactics employed by ATF in the investigation, prior to January 31, 2011. We found it troubling that a case of this magnitude, and one that affected Mexico so significantly was not directly briefed to the Attorney General.

Oh, the horror. The horror.

This may sell in Washington, D.C., where journalists know who rubs their bellies, but it's already getting some strong reactions in the Copper State. Today, the Arizona Republic editorialized:

Justice Department's inspector general report released Wednesday is a predictable 450-page exoneration of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The report blames "misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment and management failures that permeated the ATF headquarters and the Phoenix field division, as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona and at the headquarters of the Department of Justice."

Fourteen people, employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department, face disciplinary action. But the report says Holder knew nothing. Nothing. Did anyone really expect the DOJ's watchdog to bite the DOJ's boss?

I don't think for a moment the denizens of the imperial capital care what does and does not pass the laugh test in the provinces, but the Republic raises some good points. The Inspector General may find it "troubling that a case of this magnitude, and one that affected Mexico so significantly was not directly briefed to the Attorney General," but some of us find it completely freaking preposterous. Either Holder (and Mukasey, before him) knew about these operations and are being given a thorough whitewashing in the report, or else the U.S. Attorney General has lost control of whole sections of his department — whole armed, tax-funded sections that are dealing in weapons and operating in neighboring countries.

An either-or choice between deceitful bastard and incompetent figurehead should not be read as an exoneration.

[sgt.null]

not surprised at all. of course it was Bush's fault...

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I don't think for a moment the denizens of the imperial capital care what does and does not pass the laugh test in the provinces, but the Republic raises some good points. The Inspector General may find it "troubling that a case of this magnitude, and one that affected Mexico so significantly was not directly briefed to the Attorney General," but some of us find it completely freaking preposterous. Either Holder (and Mukasey, before him) knew about these operations and are being given a thorough whitewashing in the report, or else the U.S. Attorney General has lost control of whole sections of his department — whole armed, tax-funded sections that are dealing in weapons and operating in neighboring countries.

An either-or choice between deceitful bastard and incompetent figurehead should not be read as an exoneration.

Exactly. When your job title is "United States Attorney General" then your job is to know everything that your department is doing, down to the smallest current operation. If Holder didn't know about OWR and OFF, which were large, then what else is going on of which he is currently unaware?

How fortuitous for the Obama campaign, though, that Mr. Holder is completely exonerated only 1.5 months before the election. No, there is nothing suspicious about the timing of this report at all.

[ussusimiel]

I don't think for a moment the denizens of the imperial capital care what does and does not pass the laugh test in the provinces, but the Republic raises some good points. The Inspector General may find it "troubling that a case of this magnitude, and one that affected Mexico so significantly was not directly briefed to the Attorney General," but some of us find it completely freaking preposterous. Either Holder (and Mukasey, before him) knew about these operations and are being given a thorough whitewashing in the report, or else the U.S. Attorney General has lost control of whole sections of his department — whole armed, tax-funded sections that are dealing in weapons and operating in neighboring countries.

An either-or choice between deceitful bastard and incompetent figurehead should not be read as an exoneration.

Exactly. When your job title is "United States Attorney General" then your job is to know everything that your department is doing, down to the smallest current operation. If Holder didn't know about OWR and OFF, which were large, then what else is going on of which he is currently unaware?

I can't agree with you here, Hashi. From what I know, Operation Fast and Furious was a relatively small, under-resourced operation. While its subsequent ramifications may have been large it is quite plausible that the Attorney General, through no incompetence on his part, did not know about it.

The author of the article offers only two possible conclusions when, IMO, others are possible.

How fortuitous for the Obama campaign, though, that Mr. Holder is completely exonerated only 1.5 months before the election. No, there is nothing suspicious about the timing of this report at all.

Obviously the DOJ report was never going to indict Holder, but Rep. Issa's efforts have also been consistently negative towards the Attorney General. As I have said before, there are two contradictory narratives here somewhere in between lies something like the truth.

u.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Univision is running a special news story on Fast and Furious, linking the guns to various killings of civilians in Mexico and continuing to trace the guns through Mexico down into other parts of Central America. Although the story is in Spanish, the video from Univision's home site is here; I'll have to run it through a translator or find a version with subtitles--my Spanish isn't nearly as polished as it once was (I really need to delve back into it and regain my fluency).

Sometimes, to find out Paul Harvey's famous "the rest of the story" we must turn to media sources outside the Continential United States.

[sgt.null]

wow that was a LOT of guns in the video.

[ussusimiel]

*bump*

I read the Wiki entry, but was wondering what was the upshot of all the investigations and inquiries more generally.

u.

[Cail]

Many other shiny things have distracted the media since this occurred. It's forgotten.

[Vraith]

Many other shiny things have distracted the media since this occurred. It's forgotten.

That's true.
The question is: was it EVER really anything or just a shiny thing taking its turn?
The other question being: is it the MEDIA's fault if it is forgotten?
Cuz let's be very clear: We PAY the media to chase shiny things, and stop if they get a little dusty. The proof is that media groups that DON't do that get killed off...or at least marginalized...by "market forces."

[ussusimiel]

The question is: was it EVER really anything or just a shiny thing taking its turn?

I guess that this was part of what I wanted to find out. Now that it's a bit dusty and no longer shiny, where and how does it sit in the consciousness of people in the US. It hardly scuffed the surface over here and it was only someone like myself with access to a lively ongoing debate about it who took any note.

Is there any consensus as to who was really at fault? And was there any truth in the implications that it was a set up by Obama and the Democrats to be used as an excuse to tighten up gun laws (as way to make political hay)? Were the 'Pubs really after something substantial or was it political opportunism?

u.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

As Cail notes, this issue has been completely forgotten with the possible exception of a reporter or two and some posters on the Internet here and there.

In my opinion, the people at fault are the folks over at BATFE (which used to be only ATF) in conjunction with FBI trying to sting the cartels and the people supplying guns to them--all they did was give the cartels easy access to guns and not pursue crimes which they should have been pursuing. It certainly wasn't a set-up by the Obama Administration given that the program started under Bush.

Yes, it turned out to be potential for political opportunism but juicier targets presented themselves afterwards so this one was forgotten.

[ussusimiel]

I think that both the Dems and the 'Pubs were guilty of political opportunism. My suspicion is that the actual facts of the case became completely overwhelmed by the politics. I'd be interested in reading a comprehensive neutral account of the whole thing (I am not convinced enough by John Dodson to rely solely on his account of events. His book about it came out in Dec 2013.)

u.

[Zarathustra]

We're finally getting somewhere with Fast and Furious

OCTOBER 23, 2014

Judicial Watch announced today that it received from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) a “Vaughn index” detailing records about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. The index was forced out of the Obama administration thanks to JW’s June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent September 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)). A federal court had ordered the production over the objections of the Obama Justice Department.

...

This is the first time that the Obama administration has provided a detailed listing of all records being withheld from Congress and the American people about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal. The 1307-page “draft” Vaughn index was emailed to Judicial Watch at 8:34 p.m. last night, a few hours before a federal court-ordered deadline. In its cover letter, the Department of Justice asserts that all of the responsive records described in the index are “subject to the assertion of executive privilege.”

The Vaughn index explains 15,662 documents. Typically, a Vaughn index must: (1) identify each record withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption claimed; and (3) explain how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption. The Vaughn index arguably fails to provide all of this required information but does provide plenty of interesting information for a public kept in the dark for years about the Fast and Furious scandal.

...

On June 28, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives over his refusal to turn over records explaining why the Obama administration may have lied to Congress and refused for months to disclose the truth about the gun running operation. It marked the first time in U.S. history that a sitting Attorney General was held in contempt of Congress.

A week before the contempt finding, to protect Holder from criminal prosecution and stave off the contempt vote, President Obama asserted executive privilege over the Fast and Furious records the House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed eight months earlier. Judicial Watch filed its FOIA request two days later. Holder’s Justice Department wouldn’t budge (or follow the law), so JW filed a FOIA lawsuit on September 12, 2012.

...

Unhappy with having to produce the records prior to the elections, Justice lawyers asked the judge to give them one extra month, until November 3 (the day before Election Day!) to produce the info. Judge Bates rejected this gambit, suggested that the Holder’s agency did not take court order seriously. Rather than a month, Judge Bates gave Justice until yesterday to cough up the Vaughn index. Judge Bates issued his smack down on September 23.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation two days later.

Many share our opinion it was “no coincidence” that Holder’s resignation came “on the heels of another court ruling that the Justice Department must finally cough up information about how Holder’s Justice Department lied to Congress and the American people about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, for which Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives.”

....

They've only just released this massive document today. It will take some time to go through it, but it looks like we'll finally get a peek into what Obama claimed executive privilege to hide. Based on the preliminary results, it looks like it was mostly about protecting Holder, not Obama. Much of it didn't even involve Obama, which would invalidate the need (or justification) for claiming executive privilege. Curiously, even emails to Holder's wife were protected by Obama's order, claiming that it would disrupt internal government deliberations. One problem: Holder's wife isn't a government employee; she is not part of internal government deliberations, regardless of whether Holder blabbed to his wife something embarrassing about F&F.

The admin wanted to delay this right up until the day of the election, but the judge said no. So clearly, there is enough here that will take some time to dig through and get the juicy truth. But I think we'll finally see why Holder resigned.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Judge Bates issued his smack down on September 23.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation two days later.

Now it makes perfect sense. I knew there had to be a reason Holder stepped down so suddenly; I simply didn't know what it was.

[Zarathustra]

The files received by JW include three electronic mails between Holder and Jarrett and one from former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke to Jarrett. The e-mails with Holder are all from October 4, 2011, a significant date because, on the evening of October 3rd, Sheryl Attkisson (then at CBS news) released documents showing that Holder had been sent a briefing paper on Operation Fast and Furious on June 5, 2010. The paper was from the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, Michael Walther.

This directly contradicted Holder’s May 3, 2011 testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, during which he stated that he, “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” The October 4, 2011 date may also be significant because it came shortly after the August 30, 2011 resignation of U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke and reassignment of acting ATF director Kenneth Melson to the position of “senior forensics advisor” at DOJ.

The description of one of the e-mails, written from Jarrett to Holder, reads, “re: personnel issues.” Another, also from Jarrett, reads, “outlining and discussing preferred course of action for future responses in light of recent development in congressional investigation.” Unfortunately, the index is vague and that’s all the information we have about them. Nevertheless, given the timing and subject of these e-mails, it seems clear that Jarrett quickly became a key player in the Fast and Furious cover-up in the immediate aftermath of the revelation that Holder had lied to Congress.

As expected, more coming out from the Vaughn Index, which is being investigated by Judicial Watch.

[ussusimiel]

It all seems fairly damning alright. So much for 'transparency'. I generally gave Holder the benefit of the doubt in relation to this, looks like I was wrong about that

Is there any speculation as to why they covered it up in the first place? What purpose did it serve at the time?

u.

[Zarathustra]

You mean why they'd cover up the U.S. government giving the Mexican cartels 100s of assault rifles (as the O admin calls them) which ended up killing innocent people, including a border control agent? Seems pretty obvious why they wouldn't want people knowing about it. Then there's the cover-up of the cover-up, Holder lying about when he knew about it to evade responsibility, and then Obama swooping in claiming executive privilege to hide that. It's a web of bad decisions and lies.

[ussusimiel]

You mean why they'd cover up the U.S. government giving the Mexican cartels 100s of assault rifles (as the O admin calls them) which ended up killing innocent people, including a border control agent? Seems pretty obvious why they wouldn't want people knowing about it...

This part is a not as clear cut as that (as we've spent 9+ pages discussing).

...Then there's the cover-up of the cover-up, Holder lying about when he knew about it to evade responsibility, and then Obama swooping in claiming executive privilege to hide that. It's a web of bad decisions and lies.

This is the part I don't understand. I'm wondering if there was another agenda going on at the time of the initial briefing (elections, pushing for tougher gun laws); the later cover up seems completely corrupt with Obama aiding and abetting it.

u.