David's take: ATF emails and Assistant US Attorney memo point to official Gunwalker cover-up.
CBS has this blockbuster here.
Congressional investigators tell CBS News there's evidence the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona sought to cover up a link between their controversial gunwalking operation known as "Fast and Furious" and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Terry was murdered in Arizona near the US border last December. Two assault rifles ATF had allegedly allowed onto the street without interdiction were found at the scene.
But the US Attorney's office working both the Terry murder and the "Fast and Furious" operation did not immediately disclose the two had any link. Two Republicans investigating the scandal, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) say there's evidence that officials at ATF and the US Attorney's office sought to hide the connection.
In a letter, Grassley and Issa say the lead prosecutor on Fast and Furious, Assistant US Attorney Emory Hurley, learned almost immediately that guns allowed onto the street in his case, had been recovered at Terry's murder. "(I)n the hours after Agent Terry's death," says the letter from Grassley and Issa, Hurley apparently "contemplated the connection between the two cases and sought to prevent the connection from being disclosed." The Justice Department recently transferred Hurley out of the criminal division into the civil division.
An internal ATF email dated the day after Terry's death reveals the quick decision to not disclose the source of the weapons found at the murder scene: "... this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case."
Another ATF email indicates that the justification both offices used to not charge the suspect with crimes related to the murder scene "was to not 'complicate' the FBI's investigation."
ATF whistleblowers revealed the link between the two cases to Congressional investigators and CBS News, saying their supervisors were attempting to cover it up.
Today's letter from the Congressional Republicans also criticizes Hurley's boss, US Attorney Dennis Burke. It says Burke denied a connection between Fast and Furious and Terry's murder in court, but recently "readily admitted the connection" in an interview with Congressional investigators. Burke resigned from his job on Tuesday.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment. Burke and Hurley were not immediately reachable for comment.
Here's the Wall Street Journal take.
LATER: The target of this is Burke. Burke is in a bind. He is reported to have been losing both sleep and weight, and is looking "haggard and weary." His interview with the committee a few days was unsatisfactory, from what I hear, on both sides. He's going to have to give a lot more up before he gets any kind of deal. Who could he give up?
The references to OCDETF are no accident. F&F was a DOJ-driven operation encompassing a whole lot of other agencies besides ATF -- including, significantly, DHS -- and higher ups in DOJ. And Burke was? Anybody? Bueller? That's right, Napolitano's former chief of staff. Burke can give them a whole hell of a lot more than he has so far. The reference to the FBI investigation was not done idly either. The prairie fire picks up velocity.
Who's got the popcorn?
16 comments:
OMG....some one is going to get a one way ticket to Kenya, I mean jail....(along with our current POS...I mean POTUS).
It'd be nice to see the lot of them in Florence FCC ADMAX sentenced to life in solitary confinement.
I think that sentence would be harder on them than letting them quietly go to sleep with a needle in a vein.
Most of these men are in their late 40 to early 50s. They could wind up spending DECADES rotting in a cell before they finally died.
I wonder if Burke will have assistance to pull a "Vince Foster".
Mike & Dave,
Thanks for your continued service in exposing the depravity of these tyrants, to tighten the noose around mafia.gov
While the rest of the FreeFor waits- You two studs are showing everyone how to get it done.
Anon 6:54,
It's not if he'll have assistance with his Vince Foster imitation, but how much. Seeing as the Stage has been set with his depression being noted in the article by the W.S.J., and others, nation wide.
Burke had better RUN to the closest US Marshals office and get in the Witness Protection Program... No wait they were in on Gun-Walker also. Sorry Dennis your SCREWED, But maybe if ya can get back to Issa and Grassley maybe they can arrange for protection with the Secret Service. They are the only Federal Agency NOT implicated in Gun-Walker, so far.
Dennis
III
Texas
TOTALLY OT - but if you have not received TWO missives from my humble AO by tomorrow, you can complain to the postal supervisor and ask them to contact me if they need more info- you know that I can drive to your house in an hour, so there is no reason that the gubmint workers can't get it there ins three days.
But the launcher is on back order; our friends in Scotland will call you on the secret land line when things are ready.
As I understand the American legal theory of criminal law, during a criminal conspiracy - ongoing or not -, if a murder occurs, everyone upstream and downstream are just as guilty of that murder as the one who pulled the trigger..... even if they never knew the murder took place.
If a 'walked' rifle was used in a murder in Mexico, then possibly everyone in the ongoing criminal conspiracy will be wanted by the Mexican Federal Police. That depends on Mexican Law and legal theory.
Further, if the murder in question took place outside the jurisdiction of the United States, I believe the USDOJ can still assert its venue in the matter. Especially so, if one or more of the murdered victims is a U.S. Citizen or U.S. National.
Further, at the U.S. Federal level, murder can be a death penalty offense/case.
Immunity is not all encompassing.
Will we see U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder be the first USAG arrested, tried, convicted and executed for murder?
Will we see Janet Napolitano be the first Director of the Department of Home Land Security arrested, tried, convicted and executed for murder?
Will we see Barack Hussein Obama be the first President of the United States arrested, tried, convicted and executed for murder?
All of the little fish should be lawyering up. They all need deals wherein they agree to flip and testify against the larger fish above them in exchange for having any murder charge against them dropped.
But how does Burke or anyone else cut a deal with -ultimately - Eric Holder, the guy they want to testify against?
Methinks that in the dark, we will find Marcy Park getting quite crowded.
Methinks we should await with baited breath to see if USAG Eric Holder gets the Commerce Secretary Ron Brown experience.
And Methinks that President Obama will become a very, very dangerous man...a loose cannon.
Forget the Social Security Number.
Forget the Birth Certificate.
This is the time. This is the place. This is the crime. THIS is the torpedo that will sink this Presidency.
What did Holder and Obama know and when did they know it? Remember no one died because of Watergate.
Good, Burke and everyone involved is a traitor. This whole debacle is so wrong on so many fronts I don't know where to begin.
If you were Dennis Burke, would you TRUST the Secret Service? Methinks that his best option may be to go to Grassley and Issa, confess his sins, beg for forgiveness, and request sanctuary.
Ironic that his safety may be best protected by 2A supporters and Three-pers.
Glad to see that I'm not the only one who remembers Vince and Ron.
That explains Issa's demeanor on Greta the other night - kinda, "I know something I won't tell!" with a SEG!
I think some misread his expressed desire to wrap up gunwalker - maybe he meant "ramp up" the investigation.
I'm passing the word...
III N TN
Methinks we should await with bated breath to see if USAG Eric Holder gets the Commerce Secretary Ron Brown experience.
--Anon @September 1, 2011 9:02
Ron Brown was threatening to testify against Clinton; Eric Holder is stonewalling an investigation into BHO's connection with Fast and Furious.
That said, it would be helpful if Holder were to conveniently fly his airplane into a mountain.
After the eulogies were offered up he could subsequently be scapegoated for having acted without Presidential approval to initiate and direct the gunrunning operation to Mexico.
Dead men offer no contradictions.
MALTHUS
Hi guys. I just came over from UlsterMan's page and I'm starting to read your blog. First question: You say that F & F's main goal was to put civilian guns on the street, have them show up in crimes, then that would be used to push even more regulations onto us regarding gun control. Seriously? Isn't that somewhat paranoid? Wasn't the reason behind F & F to get the guns into drug cartel hands and then take down the cartels? Not that it matters what the reason was b/c it still killed Officer Terry, but the reasoning on this blog just seems paranoid to me. No personal attack but just your thoughts on my observation.
Three questions:
1) Assuming there is enough evidence to convict Wild Bill, who has jurisdiction to prosecute?
2) Likewise Burke? And what about Brian Terry's family and that lawsuit?
3) Who would have jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute a serving AGUS?
Gonna get mean, brothers and sisters, gonna get MEAN!
I am a retired federal special agent and I was assigned to the OCDETF Program for a good number of years. I have been responding as much as possible to press/media stories about F&F.
I know for a fact that this operation could have never gotten off the ground, if it originated in the field, with a case agent proposal. This was an operation conceived at a very high political level.
OCDETF proposals are normally written at the special agent level and require very fine detail, as to the identified criminal organization, method(s) to be used to infiltrate and dismantle the organization, and projected financial cost.
The submitting agency first has to approve of the proposal, prior to submission to the regional OCDETF office (in this case Houston). At the OCDETF office the proposal is supplied to the member agency representatives (DEA, FBI, ATF & ICE/DHS). Following an exhaustive review, the document, if approved, moves up to Main Justice, OCDETF Program manager.
The Main Justice program staff perform another review and if the proposal contains what is known as "sensitive issues" (like allowing guns to walk, especially into another country), consideration is given as to notifying the U.S. Department of State. This usually goes through the U.S. Ambassador to the country involved.
So, I doubt very seriously that William Newell, former SAC/PHX would have made that decision, or a single U.S. Attorney in any district, or even Ken Melson, former director, ATF.
No this would have been a HUGE decision and would require someone in a very high political office to decide, I assure you.
Popcorn, my ass. This calls for serious teeth-gritting schadenfreude, except that even that satisfaction isn't enough. I want to see justice done. I want to see justice done to these silk-tied suits of beaurogovernment agencies who thought they could play games with whole countries and get away with it.
Prosecute them all.
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