Tag Archives: Homeland Security

News

Audio tapes reveal details of Democrat-facilitated arms sales to drug cartels

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Legal gun ownership = bad, selling guns to drug gangs = good
Obama administration approves of smuggling guns to drug cartels - in fact, they facilitate it!

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From CBS News.

Excerpt:

In a series of secretly recorded audio tapes believe to have been recorded last March and obtained by CBS News, an Arizona gun dealer and an ATF agent involved with ATF’s “Fast and Furious” operation worried about the unraveling scandal.

The tapes were made just weeks after CBS News broke the story in February.

The conversations were recorded by Andre Howard who ran the Lone Wolf Trading Company. Howard’s gun dealership had been cooperating with the ATF in “Fast and Furious.” At least two of his weapons were sold to a straw buyer before turning up later at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Hope MacAllister, the ATF agent heard in the conversations, was the lead case agent.

The ATF’s controversial “Fast and Furious” operation allowed thousands of weapons to be smuggled into Mexico and into the hands of drug cartels. Agents involved describe it as “letting guns walk.”

Among other things, Howard and MacAllister expressed concerns about ATF Special Agent John Dodson, who by that point had gone public about “Fast and Furious” in an exclusive interview with CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

They also spoke of their concerns that Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) was investigating, with Agent MacCallister saying of her superiors in Washington, DC, “they’re gonna say have to say Grassley you’re just gonna have to sit your a– down.”

These recordings are important because MacAllister has never spoken publicly about her involvement in the operation and its fallout and Howard’s role as a gun dealer cooperating with the ATF placed him in position to see “Fast and Furious” firsthand . The audio recordings contain new revelations about the guns involved, and ATF’s efforts to respond to the breaking scandal. The tapes were turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General in connection with their probe into “Fast and Furious.”

Why would the Democrats facilitate selling dangerous firearms to Mexican drug cartels? Arms that would later be used to murder American border patrol agents? Could it be that the Obama administration wanted to create a gun “crisis” that would allow them to impose draconian gun control laws? The left hates the idea that criminals might get hurt while committing crimes, and that means that law-abiding people shouldn’t be allowed to hurt the nice criminals. Never mind self-defense and the second amendment.

Now, another question. Why is it that only CBS News and the blogs are covering this story? Why can’t I hear about this story on the Comedy Channel and on MSNBC and on CNN? Are Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow real journalists? Don’t they report on all the news?

You can listen to the tapes and read the transcripts at the CBS News web site.

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Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder and the plan to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels

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Story from CBS News. (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Excerpt:

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Acting Director Kenneth Melson is being moved out of the top job at the bureau, ATF special agents in charge announced during an internal conference call today. He will transfer to the Justice Department and assume the position of senior advisor on forensic science, Office of Legal Programs.

[…]Also, U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke has submitted his resignation to President Obama, effective immediately.

[…]Sources tell CBS News that the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, Emory Hurley, who worked under Burke and helped oversee the controversial case is also expected to be transferred out of the Criminal Division into the Civil Division.

Why all of these “re-assignments”?

The flurry of personnel shifts come as the Inspector General continues investigating the so-called gunwalker scandal at the Justice Department and theATF.

The gunwalking scandal centered on an ATF program that allowed thousands of high-caliber weapons to knowingly be sold to so-called “straw buyers” who are suspected as middlemen for criminals. Those weapons, according to the Justice Dept., have been tied to at least 12 violent crimes in the United States, and an unknown number of violent crimes in Mexico.

Dubbed operation “Fast and Furious,” the plan was designed to gather intelligence on gun sales, but ATF agents have told CBS News and members of Congress that they were routinely ordered to back off and allow weapons to “walk” when sold.

Previously, ATF Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell was reassigned to headquarters, and two Assistant Special Agents in Charge under Fast and Furious, George Gillett and Jim Needles, were also moved to other positions.

Pajamas Media provides more of the history.

Excerpt:

The public scandal began when ATF whistleblowers disclosed that a multi-agency federal law enforcement operation in Arizona — Operation Fast and Furious — supplied weapons found at the crime scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

It was quickly revealed that federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, and administration appointees ensured that straw purchasers would be able to purchase weapons intended for the Sinaloa drug cartel without the threat of arrest. As federal agents watched — essentially acting as cartel security — 2,020 firearms were purchased, and the majority of them were “walked” by straw purchasers into the hands of the violent drug gang.

Mexican authorities claim that an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers, plus an unknown number of civilians have been murdered with weapons “walked” under the eyes of the federal task force. Three U.S. federal agents have also been shot in crimes using Fast and Furious weapons. Two died.

Initially, the Obama administration attempted to scapegoat acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. When that failed, they colluded with the Washington Post and later possibly the New York Times on attempted character assassinations of Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa, along with Senator Charles Grassley, is leading the charge to investigate the scandal.

A month following Melson’s testimony to Issa’s committee, the Gunwalker landscape has changed considerably.  Emails have been unearthed, additional figures with inside knowledge of the operation are testifying, and more congressmen and senators have joined the probe of the Department of Justice to see just how wide and high the administration’s knowledge of and participation in the gunwalking program — or programs — truly went.

All of these evolving disclosures are increasing the pressure on administration officials such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, both of whom simply must have known of the operations considering the high-level collaboration between multiple agencies under their control.

[…]A National Security Council (NSC) operative in the White House named Kevin O’Reilly was in direct contact with Bill Newell, the agent in charge of the operation. (Are we to believe that the benign emails released between the two men were their only Gunwalker conversations, and that O’Reilly wasn’t briefing the National Security Council or the president?)

The U.S. attorney involved in Fast And Furious, Dennis Burke, is a long-time Napolitano ally and was her chief of staff while she was governor from 2003-2008. Burke is also on the attorney general’s Advisory Committee border and immigration law enforcement subcommittee. He recently opposed a routine filing by murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s family, in a move that appears designed to protect him in criminal and civil trials regarding Gunwalker.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, you remember, is the woman who thinks that returning vets, opponents of illegal immigration, believers in the Constitution and small government, pro-lifers, etc. are all potential terrorists. I suppose that she thinks that actual terrorists are not potential terrorists, because that would be mean. I really don’t know for sure.

The thing to understand about liberals is that they are fine with criminals and drug cartels having guns. What they don’t like is when law-abiding citizens have guns, because they might hurt the innocent criminals who commit crimes against law-abiding people while running drugs, etc. The only people who follow gun control laws are law-abiding people, not criminals.

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Obama vows to continue prosecuting counter-terrorism experts

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Consider this Wall Street Journal article by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Excerpt:

Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information — including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden. That regimen of harsh interrogation was used on KSM after another detainee, Abu Zubaydeh, was subjected to the same techniques. When he broke, he said that he and other members of al-Qaeda were obligated to resist only until they could no longer do so, at which point it became permissible for them to yield. “Do this for all the brothers,” he advised his interrogators. . . .

The harsh techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of these techniques.

[…]President Obama ran for election on the promise to do away with these techniques even before he became aware, if he ever did, of what they were. Days after taking office, he directed that the CIA interrogation program be done away with entirely and that interrogation be limited to the techniques set forth in the Army Field Manual, a document designed for use by even the least experienced troops. It’s available on the Internet and used by terrorists as a training manual for resisting interrogation.

Jennifer Rubin, writing in the left-wing Washington Post comments on the Mukasey column.

Excerpt:

In addition to eliminating the very techniques that allowed us to track down and kill bin Laden, Obama has permitted the Justice Department to reopen investigation of previously cleared CIA operatives. Mukasey explains: “ I say ‘reopening’ advisedly because those investigations had all been formally closed by the end of 2007, with detailed memoranda prepared by career Justice Department prosecutors explaining why no charges were warranted. Attorney General Eric Holder conceded that he had ordered the investigations reopened in September 2009 without reading those memoranda. The investigations have now dragged on for years with prosecutors chasing allegations down rabbit holes, with the CIA along with the rest of the intelligence community left demoralized.”

That’s right – Barack Obama has intimidated the entire intelligence community with his prosecution of CIA operatives who were judged innocent. Does his decision to prosecute CIA counter-terrorism experts make us safer from terrorist attacks?

And just look at how he treated the 9/11 widow Debra Burlingame. He literally turned his back on her just because she asked him why he is continuing to prosecute the CIA interrogators for doing their jobs. That’s the real Barack Obama. He can’t take a question, he can’t handle criticism. He has no civility for people who disagree with him.

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