Sipsey Street Irregulars: LA Times: Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

LA Times: Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program.

Memos from 2010 show some in senior positions were aware of tactics used in a surveillance operation in which firearms were allowed into Mexico in a failed effort to catch drug cartel leaders.

Justice Department officials have said repeatedly that they knew nothing of Fast and Furious tactics until ATF whistle-blowers went public this year with allegations that guns were being illegally purchased with the ATF's knowledge.

Justice Department officials, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing investigations into Fast and Furious, said that although senior department officials knew that guns were "walked" in the Wide Receiver investigation, they were unaware that ATF agents were using similar tactics in Fast and Furious.

Jason Weinstein, deputy attorney general in the criminal division, brought up both cases in an October 2010 email, apparently concerned that they were going to overlap.

"Do you think we should try to have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and [the] Tucson case are unsealed?" he asked about his boss, Lanny A. Breuer, head of the criminal division. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but it is a significant set of prosecutions."

James Trusty, acting chief of the department's organized crime and gang section, responded, "I think so but the timing is tricky too."

He said the Tucson case would be ready for indictments before Fast and Furious, and that "it's not clear how much we're involved in the main F and F case."

Either way, he added that "it's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, 'Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there' "

9 comments:

Jhn1 said...: I still believe that nobody will talk before extradition hearings.
Only if it looks like they will stand trial in MX will we see fingers pointed "upstairs".; October 4, 2011 at 8:08 AM
Anonymous said...: I can't keep up with all this.

Now we have an Operation Wide Receiver?

Just how many operation names do we know of?; October 4, 2011 at 8:14 AM
Longbow said...: Hey! Doesn't the left just LOVE the idea of an International Criminal Court? Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to show the world how "liberal" they really are?

It gives real and present meaning to "Hoisted on their own Petard", doesn't it?; October 4, 2011 at 8:36 AM
Ashrak said...: Either way, he added that "it's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, 'Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there' "

We can finally be glad they are "going after the people who sent guns down there" when John Boehner breaks his Barry-protecting silence.; October 4, 2011 at 9:02 AM
Pericles said...: Looks like a "smoking gun" as it were.; October 4, 2011 at 9:25 AM
Anonymous said...: There be Marxists HEER!

Which is why holder was brought back to DOJ....

He is always willing to advance the "left" and attack it's enemies.

Anyone who still thinks Obama didn't know has a problem with information assimilation and critical thinking.

There are MANY people who knew, all of them vetted leftists, just like Holder.; October 4, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Dedicated_Dad said...: Damn, Longbow - I'd agree with you 100% were it not for the precedent that would be set...

If it could be used against these vermin without setting a precedent that would affect humans later, it would be sweet joy to watch...

As is, well...; October 4, 2011 at 11:18 AM
rdf67 said...: While LATimes tries to exonerate Holder in this article, CBS News does the opposite by revealing July 2010 memo that went from Walther to Holder and identified 1500 weps to Mexico. Why in the world did the program keep going after that and generate not only 1000 more, but the weps that killed Agent Brian Terry. And Holder pretends he heard about the program much later than Napolitano ("after Terry was killed") and just before his hearing before Issa. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/pdf_40_43.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBody; October 4, 2011 at 11:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Tricky or treaty? This is halloweeny alright.; October 5, 2011 at 3:36 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

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Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

LA Times: Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program.

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