Holder, guns were walked into Mexico.
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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder conceded this morning that under his leadership, agents allowed guns to "walk" into Mexico, where they ended up in the hands of drug lords, and he said that the effects of this mistake would be felt for years to come.
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http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...ns-walk-mexico
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the "hunt for blame" in the Fast and Furious probe "fails to address the overarching problem about the ease with which a person can purchase a gun in the country."The question really comes to what do we do about this," she said at the hearing today.
The ATF, Feinstein said, has been "beaten up at every turn of the road, and candidly its just not right. We have more guns in this country than we have people."
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http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/20...tigation-.html
Eric Holder
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"I first learned about the tactics and the phrase (Operation Fast and Furious) at the beginning of this year. I think when it became a matter of all of this public controversy," Holder said.
"In my testimony before the House Committee, I did say 'a few weeks' I probably could have said 'a couple of months.' I don't think that what I said in terms of using the term 'a few weeks' was inaccurate, based on what happened."
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Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Justice Department (DOJ) lied when it sent him a letter in February claiming that it did not approve of the tactics used in Fast and Furious, which was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
"In the nine months since then, mounting evidence has put the lie to those claims," Grassley said of the Justice letter. "We have learned that instead of making every effort to interdict, ATF actually allowed the transfer of firearms in several operations, in hopes of making bigger cases."
Holder said he regrets that the DOJ officials who wrote that letter to Grassley used inaccurate information, but said they believed that information to be true at the time. Holder said they were not intentionally misleading Congress.
"There was information in that letter that was inaccurate," said Holder. "The letter could have been better crafted.
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But beyond identifying where errors occurred and ensuring that they never occur again, we must be careful not to lose sight of the critical problem that this flawed investigation has highlighted: We are losing the battle to stop the flow of illegal guns to Mexico. One critical first step should be for congressional leaders to work with us to provide ATF with the resources and statutory tools it needs to be effective."
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Holder said the DOJ had extradited 104 suspected criminals from Mexico including the former head of the Tijuana cartel in the agency's effort to crack down on illegal gun trafficking and gun violence. "This work has undoubtedly saved and improved lives in the United States as well as Mexico," Holder said. "I am personally committed to combating gun trafficking and reducing the alarming rate of violence along the southwest border by using effective and appropriate, tools."
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...-have-happened
I believe we are seeing a historic day in the US. One that could affect our very future as a nation. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. 2006-2007 under Bush, an investigation of straw purchasing for the Mexican cartels using US gun stores to unlawfully buy firearms and bring them across the border (Operation Gunrunner: Wide Receiver) . Finding problems in tracking these weapons to recover them and make prosecutions, became the central issue and the Mexican government was informed of the operation. It was cancelled. Most of the issues of tracking came down to gps battery life, and other technical issues, not for want to take enforcement action.
Fast forward to 2009. DOJ has a brilliant idea and once again resurrects Operation Gunrunner but under the cutesy name Fast and Furious. While gun walking was not specifically mandated as the strategy to be used for the investigation, it became the principal means to the end. ATF was given the funding to carry out this investigation by the DOJ.
Results, 2 US law enforcement agents, and over 200 Mexican citizens were killed by these weapons. Weapons recovered at 170 crime scenes in Mexico were from the operation. As of October, only 661 of the 2020 firearms that were 'walked' into Mexico had been recovered.
With both Feinstein and Holder saying that the issue is the easy access to guns is the issue and new and more restrictive legislation is needed to curb gun violence.
Yet, they forget how this happened in the first place. Gun dealers were the ones that alerted law enforcement of the attempts at straw purchases. DOJ comes up with two plans to combat these straw purchases by allowing them to occur and attempt to make long term investigations to prosecute members of the cartels who are using these weapons to commit heinous crimes in both Mexico and the US. The first operation is suspended due to the fact that it failed to accurately track the guns. The second operation appears to have been tracking the guns and recovering them from crime scenes. An operation like this needs clearance from the HMFIC, whether his office is oval or at the DOJ.
Obviously, the laws on the books were enough to prevent such tragedies from happening. Had our government enforced the laws on the middle men how many lives would have been saved....we will never really know that answer. I do know this: the cost of innocent lives to push an agenda, is never worth it. |
