Reasoned Politics: Fast and Furious

Showing posts with label Fast and Furious. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Will Obama and Holder Throw the ATF Under The Bus?

In just two days, Eric Holder is scheduled to testify before Congress in the Fast and Furious scandal. What will be his plan?

I believe that it is possible that Holder and the administration will try to blame the ATF for the entire scandal - and that having done so they will join Republican Rep. Issa in calling for the agency to be abolished. Of course, all the gun laws would stay on the books, and likely be enforced by the FBI.

Here are some of the reasons why I think this move is possible:

1) The BATFE - more commonly called the ATF - has a long and troubled history going all the way back to it's beginning as the agency the enforced Prohibition. At that time the vast majority of agents were believed to be corrupt. After prohibition ended - in the depths of the Depression - it became an agency with little to do. In order to keep the agents employed, they were given additional responsibilities - including enforcement of the few Federal gun laws on the books (and a few new ones). After the passage of the Gun Control act of 1968, firearms became ATF's main job. Agency abuses began almost immediately. In the early 1980's this lead to Democratic Representative John Dingell of Michigan calling ATF agents "jackbooted government thugs". In addition to hundreds of lessor known incidents, ATF was responsible for both the Waco and Ruby Ridge debacles. Now there is Fast and Furious. Ample cause exists to conclude that ATF has major problems as agency - although many, many fine agents work for it.

2) Earlier this year, it was revealed that a "whitepaper" calling for the elimination of the ATF was being circulated within the administration.

3) The gun rights movement has been calling for this step for years. By calling for the elimination of the ATF, Obama and Holder could turn the tables on Republican critics who accuse them of being "anti-gun rights". This could make the difference in several "swing states" in the upcoming election.

4) Finally, by eliminating the BATFE the administration could prove that they are doing something to prevent something like "Fast and Furious" from ever happening again.

Will this be the administration's plan? An article in a Bloomberg publication strongly suggests that Holder will try to push responsibility back down the chain of command - and that is precisely where the ATF is.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Is Holder Headed for Impeachment?

Eric Holder seems to be getting more and more desperate as his testimony before a joint session of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on December 8th grows nearer.

Yesterday, in a move that can only be described as Nixonian, he tried to intimidate The Daily Caller into killing the story. This clearly has backfired, resulting in even more coverage - albeit in the alternative media.

Even more ominous is the increasing number of House members (now 52, plus two Senators) calling for his resignation before even hearing his testimony. It is hard to imagine that these calls will decrease after he is questioned on the 8th. It is much more likely that even more Representatives will join those now calling for Holder to go.

A wise president would have asked for Holder's resignation by now. President Obama may yet do that - but if he does not, Holder is probably headed for impeachment - and a trial before the Senate.

It is by no means certain that he would not be convicted. As we all know, 2012 is an election year - and many, many senators come from pro-gun states, and many are up for re-election. These senators cannot afford to lose the support of gun owners - and less than 20 senate Democrats voting to convict would spell the end of Holder as Attorney General.

Even if Holder is not convicted, a Senate trial would be an absolute disaster for President Obama as he is running for re-election. It would bring the entire Fast and Furious scandal to the front pages, and could easily cost him several swing states, and therefore the presidency.

We will soon find out if he is smart enough to avoid this by firing Eric Holder.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Who and Why of the BATFE Scandal

Yesterday the House Oversight and Reform Committee held additional hearings in the ATF gunrunning scandal. In these hearings we learned that in addition to the ATF facilitating the smuggling of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels - which were then used to kill hundreds of Mexicans and two US Federal Agents, the scandal extended even further:

1) In addition to BATFE - FBI, DEA, ICE and the IRS were all involved.
2) Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer clearly knew all about the operation. Breuer has been described as Attorney General Eric Holder's "right hand man". Of course, Holder's boss is President Obama.
3) All ATF personnel in Mexico were intentionally kept in the dark.
4) A high ranking ATF manager has admitted to communicating details of the operation to a White House aide.
5) The big question still is, "Who authorized this operation?"

With the news that Lanny Breuer knew of the operation in detail, we have moved from this being an operation supposedly authorized by ATF managers in the South West, to an operation authorized at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Would Lanny Breuer or for that matter Eric Holder authorize an operation that sent guns to criminals in a foreign country? Are either of both of these men willing to take the blame - and potentially the jail sentence?

We may very well find out soon, as house investigators are now focusing on the highest levels of the Justice department.

I am amazed that no one in the press - right or left - is applying a little critical thinking to this story.

As one committee member asked, "How cold this have ever worked?" He never got an answer.

Consider:

1) Without any coordination with Mexican authorities there was no way anyone in Mexico could have ever been arrested.

2) The only method ATF had of tracking guns in Mexico was to wait for them to be seized - usually after someone innocent was dead. The disdain for the lives of Mexican citizens was incredible.

3) Even when they were able to tie someone in Mexico to the guns, it was only a low level soldier - not someone high up in the cartel.

4) Even if this was the strategy, within the first year they had everything they were ever going to get. Why did they continue?

5) After DEMANDING that cooperating gun dealers sell large quantities of firearms to people they would have otherwise refused to sell even one gun to, ATF then named these very same gun dealers as "sources of crime guns" - citing the very sales they were ordered to make.

6) Given the fact that there was absolutely nothing to be gained investigatively be allowing guns to cross the boarder - what was the purpose?

7) President Obama has told gun groups that he is "working for gun control under the radar".- why are members of the press not asking what this means?

8) If it were not for the courage of the ATF whistle blowers, what kind of scandal would we have? Answer: We would have a dead boarder patrol agent, killed with a gun channeled from a US gun shop to the cartels. We would also have a list of thousands of guns from US retail channels, recovered in Mexico.

Conclusion: The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that the purpose of this program was to create justification for additional gun control laws here in the US. Yes, this is far fetched - yes this is hard to believe - but at this point it is the only explanation that makes any sense at all. The only other explanation is that ATF brass is totally incompetent and there for unable to tell after two years that the operation would not work. I find that even harder to believe.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this is the evidence that people in our government were willing to kill people on both sides of the boarder in order to limit the gun rights of Americans. So much for the motive being to save lives. What was their true motive?