NRA Turns Up Heat on Attorney General Holder for ATF Controversy
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Jason Ryan, Jack Cloherty and Pierre Thomas report:
The National Rifle Association is turning up the heat on Attorney General Eric Holder, running television ads charging that he committed perjury in congressional testimony about the controversial “Fast and Furious” undercover, gun-running operation. The ad calls on President Obama to fire Holder.
Things could get even hotter for the attorney general Tuesday, when he returns to Congress to be questioned again about Fast and Furious.
The NRA ad is the latest salvo in a battle between critics in Congress and the Justice Department on the controversial “gun-walking” operation. Run by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Fast and Furious involved tracking weapons sold to straw purchasers, who then passed the guns along to their hidden buyers in the Mexican drug cartels.
Hundreds of guns flowed into Mexico under the program, while ATF agents watched and did nothing. The ATF says it hoped to track the guns to their ultimate destination, and then make arrests. Instead, many of the guns were used in crimes, including one that was used in the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
The controversy has focused on testimony Holder provided to the House Judiciary Committee May 3, 2011. During that hearing, Rep. Darell Issa, R-Calif., who is spearheading the congressional investigation, asked Holder, “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?”
Holder answered: “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.”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released last month a series of Justice Department memos sent to Holder’s office going back to July 2010, that made reference about the gun trafficking investigation being run out of Arizona.
Justice Department officials say the memos are only generic updates and offer no detail or specifics of ATF strategies to allow the guns to pass in large numbers.
A paragraph in a July 5, 2010, weekly update briefing to the attorney general makes broad reference to Fast and Furious but makes no reference to the specific tactics used. “This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Phoenix Police Department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manuel Celis-Acosta. Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
Holder has stood by his previous statements, writing to members of Congress Oct. 7, “Much has been made in the past few days about my congressional testimony earlier this year regarding Fast and Furious. My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout. I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.
“Prior to early 2011, I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation and it is my understanding that the former United States Attorney for the District of Arizona and the former Acting Director and Deputy Director of ATF have told Congress that they, themselves, were unaware of the tactics employed,” Holder wrote.
In prepared testimony released Monday evening, Holder reiterates previous comments about the flawed operation in a statement, asserting, “This operation was flawed in concept, as well as in execution. And, unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crimes scenes both here and in Mexico. This should never have happened. And it must never happen again.”
The investigation into Fast and Furious has also revealed previous instances of guns going into Mexico from other ATF operations in Arizona. Operation “Wide Receiver” pre-dated Fast and Furious and spans back to March 2006 during the Bush administration. The ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Arizona were investigating a gun trafficking case but did not press charges until the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Gang Unit moved forward with the case in 2009 and moved to bring indictments in 2010.
As Wide Receiver moved closer toward indictment, Justice Department officials in the Criminal Division noted serious concerns about ATF’s tactics in the case by letting guns into Mexico.
Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, said last week he made mistakes after being briefed last year about Wide Receiver but says he never raised the issue of the gun tactics to Holder or the deputy attorney general.
“I wish that at that time that I had said clearly to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general that in this case, Wide Receiver, we had determined that in 2006 and 2007, guns had walked,” Breuer said, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Nov. 1. ”I did not do that, and I regret not doing that.
“At the time, I thought that, dealing with the leadership of ATF was sufficient and reasonable,” Breuer said.
The Justice Department’s inspector general, at Holder’s request, is investigating Fast and Furious. Sen. Patrick Leah, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has also asked the inspector general to review Operation Wide Receiver.
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While perjury has not yet been proven, the circumstances surrounding this issue would indicate the probability that Holder knew a lot ore, than he was admitting to knowing.
Kind of like Obama and Solyndra. Obama won’t cooperate on that issue anymore, either, because now it will expose his crony capitalism, if he does, leaving no doubt…….abut the impropriety.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 7, 2011, 6:29 pm 6:29 pm
The Justice Department has now been investigating Fast & Furious for over 10 months. Agent Terry was murdered almost a year ago.
If Holder goes before Congress and claims not to know the full who, what, when, where, why, and how of Fast & Furious, then he is either lying or he has made no effort to find out the facts. In either case he should no longer be Attorney General.
There is no longer any reason why the Justice Department should not have the answers to who authorized Fast & Furious, what crimes were committed and where the money came from.
Posted by: Dave in Colorado | November 7, 2011, 10:46 pm 10:46 pm
What a bunch of conservative crap! Cons, do some research and you will find that Bush and Reagan did the same thing! I and many reasonably Americans know that the cons are desperate for some dirt on Holder,but your desperate attempt is going to fail, just like Bush’s and the former conservative controlled government did!
Posted by: bobbob7779311 | November 7, 2011, 11:16 pm 11:16 pm
Did any conservative question where Ollie North got his money from in order to sell and push guns in South America? I don’t recall any outcry’s from conservatives at that point in time! But i understand the conservative stance, “North do not matter,however, Holder do because he is a Dem and an appointee of that dreaded Obama!”
Posted by: bobbob7779311 | November 7, 2011, 11:27 pm 11:27 pm
NRA has to be proactive on this. Otherwise the public will realize that all the machine guns that the drug traffickers use are coming from the gun show loophole. And then the government will start insisting on background checks at gun shows! Eeek!
Much better to try to turn this Bush era program into an Obama scandal, try to keep the real implications of the story from settling in the public mind: The NRA has unintentionally armed the drug cartels and killed US law enforcement in the process.
If the public were to realize this, the NRA would lose a lot of its lobbying clout. Think about it.
Posted by: buzz | November 8, 2011, 5:14 am 5:14 am
This is probably the only time, however, that you will hear conservatives admit that the availability of guns is a decisive factor in crimes like murder. Normally, they just shrug and say “guns don’t kill people” or “he would have just gotten a gun some other way.”
But here, they just can’t resist the opportunity to blame Obama for killing a Border Patrol Agent. It mixes all their favorite things: Obama being unamerican, the fear of Mexicans, paranoid fears about the ATF…. all timed for an election year.
But once this scandal blows over, they’ll go back to insisting that gun shows have nothing to do with the illegal arms trade.
Posted by: Buzz | November 8, 2011, 5:35 am 5:35 am
Buzz,
As a former Federally Licensed Gun Dealer, I can tell you that, Machine Guns ie: fully automatic weapons are not freely traded at gun shows.
Posted by: hipshotpercusion | November 8, 2011, 10:20 am 10:20 am
Wonderful, Holder is investigating himself. This whole administration has to go, seems no one made any decisions on Fast & Furious or Solyndra, etc. What are they doing up there besides spending money we don’t have and ruining our country?
Posted by: Freedom | November 8, 2011, 10:34 am 10:34 am
Whatever…. you can buy an AK and make a small adjustment. The gun nuts are dishonest.
Posted by: Buzz | November 8, 2011, 10:54 am 10:54 am
“Whatever…. you can buy an AK and make a small adjustment. The gun nuts are dishonest.”
Really, tell me how!
Posted by: Select Fire | November 8, 2011, 12:08 pm 12:08 pm
“But here, they just can’t resist the opportunity to blame Obama for killing a Border Patrol Agent. It mixes all their favorite things: Obama being unamerican, the fear of Mexicans, paranoid fears about the ATF…. all timed for an election year.”
No biggie, an agent was killed…
Posted by: RIP | November 8, 2011, 12:21 pm 12:21 pm
A surprised but sincere Thank You ! to ABC for covering this. I will consider watching your network news again.
Buzz, Bob–your ignorance and hate is showing.
Posted by: Dlyn | November 8, 2011, 12:26 pm 12:26 pm
The NRA (National Riot Association) would love it if all anti-gun laws were repealed/overturned, that way they would get their way of having murder legalized in this country. They hide behind the words “law-abiding’ and ‘god-given right’ to carry weapons anytime and anywhere and anyplace they want. This is the most dangerous group in the country
Posted by: neastsider | November 8, 2011, 2:11 pm 2:11 pm
“No biggie, an agent was killed…”
Funny, didn’t hear too much hand-wringing or introspection going on after the Tucson shootings….. Or after Oklahoma City, for that matter.
One day, the feds are jack-booted thugs…. on another day, they are innocent poster kids for your pro-gun agenda!?!?!
Hypocrite!
Posted by: buzz | November 8, 2011, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
How many guns have killed our law enforcement officers over the years?
Yet the NRA consistently lobbies against local police departments when they try to pass sensible gun control laws to keep our officers safe.
For every single incident in which a person saves their life with a gun, over 40 people are killed with guns. This number includes women, children, law enforcement officers, etc.
But suddenly conservatives are really concerned about how dangerous guns are making it for law enforcement?
You spend every day of the year lobbying against the very solutions that would save lives…. close the gun show loophole… and you’ll be sparing a lot more than ONE border patrol agent. You’ll be sparing thousands of people.
But I suppose that conflicts with your agenda. So don’t tell me I don’t care about our law enforcement…. you just want to use this poor dead man as a little plaything in your dreams of an Obama impeachment. But guess what…. Issa is stringing you along. He knew about Fast and Furious. It wasn’t strictly an Obama program. He knows that. You probably know it, too. But, I suppose after Trump, Palin, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, voter supression, impeachment hearings, birth certificate conspiracies, and all your other bizarre fantasy scenarios in which you achieve conservative rule through some deus ex machina…. what’s it hurt you to buy another bottle of snake oil. It’s all you have left.
Posted by: buzz | November 8, 2011, 2:44 pm 2:44 pm
Funny, didn’t hear too much hand-wringing or introspection going on after the Tucson shootings….. Or after Oklahoma City, for that matter.
One day, the feds are jack-booted thugs…. on another day, they are innocent poster kids for your pro-gun agenda!?!?!
Hypocrite!
—
Yes, the weapons used in those incidents were part of an ATF program…And Mexican civilians? Who cares?
Posted by: AG | November 8, 2011, 2:45 pm 2:45 pm
Obamanidiot knew, Holder knew obqamanidiot tipped their hand in January 2010 when answering someone from his party he said “we are working under the radar”.
Posted by: Jaws1 | November 8, 2011, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm
@bobbob7779311
No actually it’s because as the representative of his office and the US Justice System, he is expected to be unimpeachable. So far he’s demonstrated only that he’s a perjurer, and not a convincing one at that. Rather than keep/clean his own house, he’d rather waste time, resources and our money trying to skirt the law of the land, and prosecute States for taking up the slack his department creates in it failure to enforce our laws.
With regard to your comments about “Wide Receiver” .. the State Department and the Mexican Government were in the loop, the guns were properly tracked, individuals captured, and indited … this Admin gets the credit ..
Posted by: David Brenchley | November 8, 2011, 6:52 pm 6:52 pm
buzz wrote:”How many guns have killed our law enforcement officers over the years?”
.
You should have an issue with illegal aliens then in addition to the guns…. the last 6 police officers killed in the line of duty in Houston have been at the hands of illegal aliens…. what say you?
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 7:04 pm 7:04 pm
Buzz, that’s a really impressive pile of fail you’ve made here.
For the record:
There is no “gun-show loophole”. No such thing. The laws are just the same at gun shows as they are anywhere else.
Any “AK” legally for sale in the US (unless you have a special “tax stamp” and an FBI background check) is not a machine gun, they are semi-auto, that means only one shot each time you pull the trigger.
Converting a semi-auto “AK” to full-auto is not a “small adjustment”. It would need a small machine shop plus lots of time and expertise.
Civilian guns are (at the very least) 2 to 5 times more likely to be used to prevent a crime than to commit one. I don’t know where you got your backward “40 times” number, but you should go back there and let them know you don’t like being lied to.
The earlier Bush era “gun-walker” program involved guns with trackers and transmitters built in, and was done with the knowledge and cooperation of the Mexican government. It seems that F&F had neither. There is really no comparison between the two.
Rank and file police officers tend to support gun owners. The Chief in my small town certainly does.
We always oppose selling guns to criminals. An interesting feature of gun debates is the Left’s complete inability to see a difference between the law-abiding 99.999% and criminals. (When you assume the worst of everyone, what kind of country do you get? What freedoms remain?)
We oppose the guns laws you want because they don’t work. Really, it is that simple. Complete gun bans did not reduce violence in DC or anywhere else. Widespread adoption of concealed carry has not turned America into the “wild west”, contrary to decades of fear-mongering. Your comments here show you don’t know much about guns, existing gun laws or crime stats. So why should anybody listen to your demands for new laws?
The rest of your poo-flinging, where you tell everybody how much you hate some fictional straw-man you choose to call “conservatives” doesn’t deserve a reply. But you might want to seek professional help with some of your delusions.
Posted by: Shel | November 8, 2011, 7:10 pm 7:10 pm
Buzz. Police Departments are not supposed to be trying to pass laws. Even though they are sometimes ordered against their will and contrary to the law, to appear illegally as props for anti-gun politicians. Rank and file police officers are among the biggest supporters of the NRA. Only when you get to the Police CHIEFS, who are politicians dependent on the favor of city officials, do you find anti-gun or anti-NRA sentiment common among the Police.
And there is no gun show loophole. The laws at a gun show are the same as anyplace else.
Posted by: Dlyn | November 8, 2011, 7:16 pm 7:16 pm
Man, cons are too smart! They know all and are all (wink & ah youbetcha)! The program was set in motion by a previous conservative administration! Do some research and stop taking the conservative talking points at face value!
Posted by: bobbob7779311 | November 9, 2011, 12:33 am 12:33 am
Funny how Holder & the goons get busted & now they want to say it started with Bush, Still cant take the blame for there faliures can they.
Posted by: Greg | November 9, 2011, 5:39 am 5:39 am
Haha. Our feeble gun laws work? At creating a first world nation with a third world murder rate.
Next to the other conservative triumphs like our increasingly third world educational achievements… Our third world income inequalities… Third world incarceration rates….. and increasingly third world opportunities for upward mobility….
I’d say you probably do think the system is working… at creating a system in which a small minority rules over every body else… Great job Trickle Downers. We got trickled on alright, but not with wealth.
Posted by: buzz | November 9, 2011, 2:18 pm 2:18 pm
Uh Buzz…. YOUR people have been running the educational system for generations now. And your posts show the result. And the murder rate has been dropping just at the very time more people are owning and carrying guns. How can that be ?
Posted by: Dlyn | November 10, 2011, 7:02 pm 7:02 pm
My Occupy has a few libertarian gun-owners, oops. Did media lie?
The occupy message here is simply “Separation of Corporation and State (antithesis of fascism)” and a larger middle class as a result, we want the Federal Reserve (private central bank) dissolved and to be left alone. Pretty American here. Give us our guns, leave us alone.
Posted by: Anonymous Occupy | November 11, 2011, 1:19 am 1:19 am