And Obama knew from the beginning
I write a daily email distribution, the DAILY CALL. The subject line yesterday was: DAILY CALL July 8, 2011 -FAST AND FURIOUS BIGGER THAN WATERGATE! I wrote:
This “Fast and Furious” will go right to the top of the Justice Department including Attorney General Eric Holder. I expect when it is finished, Holder will be in prison. (On the other hand, Casey Anthony ya’ know.) It is not clear that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be criminally culpable but the situation at Treasury could not be more serious. Fast and Furious was a secret inter-agency government program to make assault weapons available for sale to Mexican drug cartels. Supposedly to lead authorities to the cartel leaders. The program failed to identify cartel leaders but the Assault rifles did show up killing people including U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry last December 13th.
To bring you up to speed, John Hinderaker at Power Line gave us the best early report Wednesday:
This morning, there was a stunning development in Congress’s investigation of the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-running program: it was revealed that on July 4, Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Obama administration’s intended fall guy in the scandal, broke ranks with his superiors. Without their knowledge, he gave an interview to Darrell Issa’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, accompanied only by his personal attorney. While a transcript of that interview is not yet public, it is clear that he blew the whistle on senior officials in the Justice Department.
This morning, Issa and Senator Charles Grassley released a letter that they sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder. It is explosive, to say the least. You should read it in its entirety.
By Thursday, “Fast and Furious” was in many places on the Web and on talk radio—notably Rush. Chairman Issa appeared on Fox News.
I have read the five page letter to Attorney General Holder. It does not have Director Melson’s testimony but is more than a mere shot across the Holder bow. The Washington Post almost certainly will not have a Woodward and Bernstein on the case. It will not matter. There is no doubt, Fast and Furious will have (has) Andrew Breitbart with Righteous Indignation! There will be a righteous army on this. It could include some of us.
The likely political culpability cannot be overstated. This will quickly become a stink that the overwhelming percentage of Americans will not tolerate. Democrats will separate themselves from Obama himself. President Obama will likely not be impeached but he will be (altogether now) “A One Term President.”
This scandal is still largely kept out of the old corrupt media. But it is moving and moving quickly. I said Breitbart would be in with Righteous Indignation. Bullseye. Big Government’s ARW Hawkins had this piece Thursday, WHICH WAS WORSE: WATERGATE OR OPERATION ‘FAST AND FURIOUS’? With only the information available Thursday, Hawkins correctly went right to the heart of the matter. Read it all.
After The Washington Post broke the news of the Watergate break-ins in 1972, the Nixon administration circled the wagons. And in 1997 – a full 25 years after the fact – Katherine Graham, who was with The Post in 1972, vividly recalled how “Nixon began making threats of economic retaliation against the paper.”
According to Graham, Nixon bullied the paper, sought to silence it, and launched a “campaign to undermine public confidence in [it].”
Judging from what Graham said, it appears that Nixon wanted to be sure people understood that if they continued to pry into Watergate or talk about Watergate or break news about Watergate as it unfolded, there would be harsh ramifications. (Keep in mind – Nixon had nothing to do with planning Watergate. Only with covering it up once he learned of it after the fact.)
Honestly folks, Watergate provided the Left with such a singularly sweet opportunity to bring down a Republican president that they’ve never gotten over it. As recently as 2004, MSNBC sent reporters to the streets to be sure up and coming generations had not forgotten what Nixon had done. (I don’t want to belabor the point, but Nixon had nothing to do with planning Watergate. Only with covering it up once he learned of it after the fact.)
So for covering up something up, Nixon was crucified by Left: to the point that by the summer of 1974 it became evident the House of Representatives was going to bring up impeachment charges against him. But he nipped those plans in the bud by resigning office on August 9, 1974, and flipping the “V” for victory to the hippies and the war protestors as he boarded the chopper that carried him away from the White House.
No one died during the Watergate break-ins or as a result of Nixon’s cover-up.
Switch gears and jump to 2009, and the ATF’s special operation “Fast and Furious.” An operation with which you’re all familiar by now, where upwards of 2500 guns in Arizona were sold to “straw purchasers” under the assumption that those guns were going to end up in the hands of Mexican cartel members who could then be arrested.
Talk about an embarrassingly ignorant plan.
Jump now to 2011 – of the approximately 2500 guns sold only a few hundred have been recovered and at least one federal agent, Brian Terry, lost his life due to this ludicrous operation.
Talk about a cover-up: this operation was somehow planned and conducted without the full knowledge of the Acting ATF Director, the Justice Department, or President Obama having any knowledge of it. (By “full knowledge” I mean that Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson says knew about it, but was kept “in the dark” regarding the extent of the operation, and the involvement of other agencies like the FBI and DEA.)
In other news, on July 5th Jack Tapper (ABC News) peppered Obama’s White House Press Secretary with questions about “Fast and Furious” in front of the rest of the press reporters, but the most substantive answer that Jay Carney gave was: “The president takes this very seriously.” (In all fairness to Carney, he’s clueless because Obama keeps him clueless.)
Look folks, this is ridiculous. Where is Chris Matthews? Where is that Keith guy who used to work for MSNBC? Where are all the freaks who wanted to hang George W. Bush in effigy for supposedly-lying about Iraq?
Why are they silent in the face of so great a cover-up?
Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa are pressing for answers on “Fast and Furious,” yet the Justice Department is doing its best to keep people from talking. (Grassley and Issa actually had to send a letter to the Justice Department to ask them to avoid pressuring people into not talking and to provide protections for those who do.)
Remember: No one died during Watergate, yet Nixon had to resign. Federal Agent Brian Terry is gone due to “Fast and Furious” – it’s time for someone to lose their job, if not go to jail or face impeachment charges in the House of Representatives.
One of Holder’s (and Obama’s) tactics is offensive. They have the power of the United States Department of Justice. They use (and abuse) it. Within a week Fox News reported the Justice Department Launches Criminal Probe Into Deaths During CIA Interrogationsand The Blaze reported GOP Leaders Blast Obama for Bringing Somali Terrorist to Civilian Court. I exhort you to check these two out. Both will be contentious and news dominating. Neither will bring down a presidency but will be used to deflect attention from the Fast and Furious scandal.
President Obama in on Fast and Furious
Hang onto your hat—this goes right to President Obama! Fast and Furious was funded with STIMULUS! (Human Events) That’s right. $10 million to buy guns to stimulate the killing power of drug cartel kingpins. Murdered U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry and many other known killings would make this gruesomely the most successful component of the $787 billion Stimulus.
MSNBC or Allen Combs will offer the defense that President Obama didn’t know the $10 million guns for drug kingpins was in Stimulus. But that can’t be. In the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama promised to go over legislation one line at a time before signing any bill. So we know the president of the United States of America was in on this scandal from the beginning.
As I began, the likely political culpability cannot be overstated. This will quickly become a stink that the overwhelming percentage of Americans will not tolerate. Democrats will separate themselves from Obama himself. President Obama will likely not be impeached but he will be (altogether now) “A One Term President.”
The Patriot's Trumpet 