Article

2011-07-06 Home Front: Politix

Part II Project Gunwalker: Issa, Grassley Blast Holder In Letter After Secret Meeting With ATF's Melson

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Sherry 2011-07-06 11:42|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Pajamas Media's Bob Owens writes about who knew and how high:

n email cited in Senator Charles Grassleys testimony in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Operation Fast and Furious indicates that knowledge of the program was spread across the highest levels of the Justice Department. This lends even greater suspicion to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holders claim that he knew nothing about the program until well after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.

The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:

Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer,
Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF
William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
Robert Mueller, Director FBI

Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session. Their names were redacted in the released document. U.S. attorneys for all four southwest border states also attended.

...While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.

It strains credibility to claim that the assistant attorney general, the AGAC, the directors of the five major DOJ agencies in charge of law enforcement, and all the U.S. attorneys in the Southwest region were privy to Gunwalker, but that the attorney general himself was unaware of the operation. It suggests that either Holder is being untruthful about what he knew about the operation, and when he knew about it, or that he is so out of touch with a major operation conducted by his key law enforcement agencies that he is too incompetent to fulfill his official duties.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-07-06 18:45|| 2011-07-06 18:45|| Front Page Top

00:06 JosephMendiola
23:44 JosephMendiola
23:35 Skidmark
23:30 JosephMendiola
22:03 Dale
21:30 CincinnatusChili
21:25 CincinnatusChili
21:11 Frank G
21:05 Eric Jablow
20:40 Rambler in Virginia
20:39 Dale
20:07 Uneper Thomock8371
20:04 Uneper Thomock8371
19:50 JosephMendiola
19:49 Uneper Thomock8371
19:43 JosephMendiola
19:26 Bobby
19:18 Cyber Sarge
19:15 Cyber Sarge
19:13 Bobby
19:11 Barbara
18:59 Dale
18:45 trailing wife
17:49 Beavis