Fast and Furious

                    The investigation into Project Fast and Furious, the failed gun-running program, is still big news, but it is not widely reported except by Internet news sites.  This is a bigger scandal for Obama than Watergate was for Nixon, but the lame stream media is either not reporting it at all or not widely. 

NRANews.com has "covered it and the resulting cover-up by the Obama Justice Department more thoroughly and completely than any other media outlet in the country."  Mark Chesnut, NRA editor, reported that "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" has done the "poorest job covering this misguided program, which potentially put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels."  According to Chesnut, "`NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' has not done a single story on `Fast and Furious' in 2011!

CNN.com did run an article on February 2, 2012, concerning Attorney General Eric Holder and his appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about Operation Fast and Furious.  When Holder was asked about the steps he had taken since the controversy arose 13 months ago, he replied that "he is awaiting the conclusions of an internal investigation. Regarding people found culpable in that inquiry, he said, `I can assure you those people will be removed from federal service.'"  He also said at the hearing that "any possible charges will not be filed until the department has the evidence to get a conviction."

Representative Darrell Issa, R-California, has grown tired of waiting for Holder to be forthcoming about releasing documents.  In fact, he has recently threatened to begin a contempt proceeding against Holder to force him to release the necessary documents.  At least 60 congressmen and two senators have called for Holder to resign his position; 75 representatives have sponsored a House resolution, stating in part that "it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress has lost confidence in the Attorney General of the United States."

 Project Fast and Furious is a huge scandal.  It was designed to monitor the flow of weapons - firearms that were purchased illegally - to be taken from United States gun stores to drug cartels in Mexico, but it failed miserably.  The problem is that hundreds of weapons were lost or unaccounted for, and two of those missing weapons were found near the site where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed on December 15, 2010, in Peck Canyon near Rio Rico, Arizona.  He and his unit were patrolling in search of bandits who prey on smugglers when a firefight broke out and Agent Terry was shot in the pelvic area.

Agent Terry's family quickly realized there were problems when they heard that two "Fast and Furious" guns that were allowed to "walk" across the Mexican border were found at the scene of his slaying.  They knew that there was a congressional investigation into "Fast and Furious and that the investigation was met with stonewalling, diversions and lies by the Obama-Holder Department of Justice (DOJ).  This behavior is coupled with refusal by Holder to apologize to the family, an order to seal all records in relation to his slaying, and other odd treatment of the family by the DOJ."

The Terry family finally decided to take some action on its own and filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the federal government on Wednesday, February 1, 2011.  This claim charges that U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals.  "The murder of Agent Terry and other acts of violent crimes were the natural consequence of (the) decision to let dangerous weapons designed to kill human beings `walk' into the hands of violent drug-trafficking gangs."

Democrats and Republicans are at odds about "who knew what about the operation and when" they knew it.  Democrats have even stooped so low as to blame the problem on President George W. Bush.

General Michael V. Hayden, former CIA director under Bush from 2006 until February 2009, wrote an interesting article about Fast and Furious here.  He is currently a principal with the Chertoff Group, which is a security consulting firm, and also serves on the boards of several defense firms.   He is also an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Hayden discussed a few of the safeguards that have to be in place before the CIA authorizes any program.  He then wrote, "Now Holder, without such safeguards in place, must defend himself against some very tough accusations, including one by some skeptics that the operation was intended principally to discredit, and thereby justify further regulation of, firearms dealers."

Russ Vaughn in an article on American Thinker quoted the above article and then continued:  "Reading that, from one of the top intelligence minds in the world, has to make one wonder.  Why, while diverting the claim away from himself by attributing the belief to some skeptics, did the former director of the CIA drop that bit of speculation into the mix?  Do you seriously believe that a man of his stature and inside connections would raise the question purely gratuitously?

"Details of Operation Fast & Furious, with the revelations of all the deaths caused by this incredibly stupid federal program, are infuriating enough; but they are nothing compared to the fury that will engulf tens of millions of citizens when they finally learn the truth:  that the Obama Administration secretively and criminally used the Justice Department to further a liberal Democrat agenda to curtail the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  Trust me, they know and fear that reaction should the truth ever see light.  Not only could that revelation prevent any chance of re-election, it could also result in multiple impeachments and criminal indictments, because hundreds of Mexicans and some American agents died as the result of a foolishly conceived and stupidly implemented liberal political scheme to undermine the constitution."

Vaughn remembered, as did I, that President Obama made a statement approximately ten months ago about working on gun control "under the radar."  I wondered what he meant by his statement, but I believed him.  Like Vaughn, I think it is highly likely that he was talking about Fast and Furious.  If he knew about and/or approved Fast and Furious, he should be impeached!