Holder Ridge Defenses Overrun. Holder isolated in his bunker, awaiting the coup de grâce. "Feldmarschall Holder ist kaput!"

This is Attorney General Field Marshal Eric Holder, assigned by Dear Leader Barack Obama to defend the DOJ kessel of the Gunwalker Plot Cover-up to the last man.

Below is the letter that notifies Holder that his defenses have been overrun. From Becca Watkins at the Issa Committee I just received this transcript of a letter by Congressman Issa responding to Holder's whiny jeremiad of last Friday.

The language in this letter, for DC, is "unprecedented," according to one DC source I just read it to over the phone. It announces that the battle for Holder Ridge is over, no matter what desperate forced optimism the White House may yet cling to.

Another source, one with whom I made a $50 bet that Holder would be out of office by Christmas, now admits that he may not last until Thanksgiving. "Feldmarschall Holder ist kaput!" he laughed. He is not disconsolate about the prospect of losing the fifty bucks.

The press release from Becca Watkins --

Issa to Holder: “You Own Fast and Furious”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa today sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder responding to his letter of October 7. The text of Chairman Issa’s letter to Attorney General Holder is below:

Dear Attorney General Holder:

From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.

Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.

To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.

Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.

Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days. Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.

The Mexican Cartels

A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.” You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”

Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.

Your September 7, 2011 Statement

On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don't think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we'll see that's not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.

Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.

For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.

This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the known drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation.

Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:

I had pulled out all Patino's -- and ROIs is, I'm sorry, report of investigation -- and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.

At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.

Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he alerted you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.

In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and Furious and a specific Mexican cartel – the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.

You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. Holder Letter, supra note 1. As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.

The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department – you.

Your May 3, 2011 Statement

On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.

In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.

The February 4, 2011 Letter

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.

As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.

These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.

Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing our investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.

Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives – destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.

Sincerely,
Darrell Issa
Chairman

Denny & Kenny, Gunwalker playmates, appreciate each other. AZ DOJ discusses Dennis Wagner, press bitches & the Grassley reponse. Email implicates Holder Chief of Staff Grindler in full knowledge of Grassley lie letter.

 The other day we learned that Kenny Melson played duplicitous with the Issa committee when he acted the "What, me Gunwalker?" fool with his own "modified, limited hangout" when we noted this email to his Gunwalker playmate Denny Burke provided by the White House in the religiously observed, and now enshrined, Friday Night Docu-dump --

From: Melson, Kenneth E. (ATF)
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 5:52 PM To: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Subject: Grassley
Dennis: I just got back from the Interpol meeting and wanted to thank you for your help on the Grassley response and for your work on Fast and Furious. Ken

Thanks to emails provided to Sipsey Street from an unknown benefactor, now we know what Denny said back to Kenny:

From:    Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
To:    Melson, Kenneth E. (ATF)
Sent:    2/3/2011 8:05:28 PM
Subject:    RE: Grassley
You are welcome. Tremendous investigation. Your folks were solid throughout. It is having a huge impact.
I am so personally outraged by Senator Grassley' falsehoods. It is one of the lowest acts I have ever seen in politics.

Ahem, well, let's let history be the judge of THAT.

We also have, over the same electronic transom, these emails, provided in no particular order by the source, of individuals in the Phoenix, Arizona, US Attorney's Office discussing the Grassley response, and press bitches of the cover-up artists at play.  Pdf posted here.

From:    Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Sent:    Wednesday, February 02, 2011 6:51 PM
To:    Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Subject:    Re: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

Masterful by the gun lobby. They ghost write Grassley' letter and then snooker reporters like Wagner to write abt ATF connected to Terry' murder, so no one writes abt why its legal to buy 30 AK-47s and not even report it. Just brilliant.

From: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 06:06 PM
TO: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Subject: RE: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

I thought you had called him, and I asked if he had talked to you. He said he hadn't. Which I guess is technically not a lie if it was a vm. Ridiculous tactic for one of their best reporters.

From: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 4:05 PM
To: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Subject: Re: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

Can't believe he frickin' called asking if we had probs w his story aft the vm I left him. He needs to stop being cute.

From: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 06:01 PM
To: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Subject: RE: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

I just had roughly the same conversation with Wagner, who was calling to see if we had any problems with his story. I explained that we did, and told him what I told Anglen, who had apparently passed on what I said but noted it was just on background. Should I give him the same Cunningham-crafted response about Grassley allegation being categorically false as "source close to the investigation"?

I told him that ATF was told about the Jan. 2010 purchase several days after the fact, and that we didn't knowingly let any guns get to Mexico (although it's obvious some did).

He mentioned that some of his ATF agent sources have issues with letting suspected straw buyers hand off the weapons at all. That they should have been stopped and "interviewed" about the purchases, essentially before they committed a crime. I don't know what to make of that. But seems like a whole other can of worms with ATF hassling gun buyers who are, at the time of said hassling, within their rights. Not my swim lane, though, just passing it on.

From: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 2:24 PM
To: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Subject: Re: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

Do it. Thx.

From: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 04:17 PM
To: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Subject: RE: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

Dennis,
Do you have any sense of when this might go out? I just got a call from LA Times Reporter wanting to know what's up with the Republic and Wash Post stories, and the Grassley letter. I walked her through what was wrong with the Grassley letter, same as I did with Anglen. And she got if. But she needs a source to pin it to. 
If you give me the high sign for "source close to the investigation" I will, but makes me very nervous with this very adequate push back already in the pipeline.
Robbie

From: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 11:38 AM
To: Hernandez, Rachel (USAAZ); Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ) ; Hurley, Emory (USAAZ); Cunningham, Patrick (USAAZ); Pimsner, David (USAAZ); Evans, John (USAAZ) 3; Figueroa, Jesse (USAAZ); Scheel, Ann (USAAZ); Tarango, Manuel (USAAZ)
Subject: Re: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

I sent her Pat' lingo demanding to include it.

From: Hernandez, Rachel (USAAZ)
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 01:29 PM
To: Sherwood, Robert (USAAZ) ; Hurley, Emory (USAAZ); Cunningham, Patrick (USAAZ); Burke, Dennis (USAAZ); Pimsner, David (USAAZ); Evans, John (USAAZ) 3; Figueroa, Jesse (USAAZ); Scheel, Ann (USAAZ); Tarango, Manuel (USAAZ)
Subject: RE: Draft response to Grassley letters; please review and comment asap

Dennis. Do you want us to get in touch with Faith with this addition? Or have you been in touch? R.

Finally, we have this gem from Gary Grindler, Holder's Chief of Staff.  Grindler was appointed COS effective 17 January 2911.  He replace Kevin Ohlson, a career appointee.  Prior to that Grindler served as Acting Deputy Attorney General from 5 February 2010 after the resignation of DAG David Ogdene, who left, according to press accounts at the time, over "philosophical differences" with Eric Holder.  Grindler joined the DOJ in 2009 as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division and was Lanny Breuer's deputy.  He is reported to have been very familiar with Fast and Furious:



Here Grindler is discussing the Grassley letter response, something that Holder claims he had no input into:

From:    Grindler, Gary (OAG)
To:    Monaco, Lisa (ODAG)
Sent:    2/3/2011 11:31:42 AM
Subject:    Letter to ATF from Grassley

I suggest that someone in ODAG review the ATF's response to Grassley's letter dated 1/31/2011 before it is finalized.
Gary

It strains credulity to believe that Grindler would not discuss this with Eric Holder.  We will find out today if the Judiciary Committee calls him on it.

CBS: Deputy AG received detailed Fast and Furious briefing. Apparently the dog didn't eat HIS homework.

"Hey, just because I made detailed notes on the briefing papers and photographs doesn't mean I actually understood what they meant, as far as you know, Congressman Issa."

Ooops.

Documents recently turned over by the Justice Department to Congressional investigators indicate that then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler received a detailed briefing on Fast and Furious more than a year and a half ago.

"Deputy Attorney General" is the Justice Department's No. 2 figure, directly under Attorney General Eric Holder.

Grindler moved from Deputy Attorney General to a spot as Holder's chief of staff last January.

The briefing Grindler attended was on March 12, 2010, six months into ATF's Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons on the street in an attempt to track down Mexican drug cartels. Portions of the documents are redacted.

In handwritten notes about Fast and Furious that are not all legible, Grindler writes about "seizures in Mexico" and "links to cartel." He also noted "seizures in Mexico" on a map of Phoenix, the home base for Fast and Furious, and Mexico locations where some guns ended up. And Grindler made notations on a photograph of several dozen rifles.

There is no specific mention of the controversial tactic known as "letting guns walk" which, law enforcement sources say, was the heart of the Fast and Furious case.

Late today, a spokesman for the Justice Department told CBS News that "Much like presentations given in 2010 on the status of ATF's investigative efforts along the SW Border to many others - including a briefing to Chairman Issa within the same timeframe - this one did not get into the operational tactics that have since raised concerns... Indeed, as both the former U.S. Attorney in Arizona and the former Acting Director of ATF (who provided this briefing) have made clear, they did not themselves know the operational details and did not brief Justice officials on them."

The run-up to next Thursday begins. FOX: Memo Shows Early ATF Concern on Fast & Furious Probe Despite Claims. Holder & Nappy "were not truthful."

William Lajeunesse:

While federal officials publicly denounced a lone whistleblower and told Congress the Obama administration had done everything it could to stop guns from going to Mexico, administration officials had signs that Fast and Furious investigators were losing track of weapons, a new memo obtained exclusively by Fox News suggests.

The memo, written in early February by Agent Gary Styers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, appears to corroborate allegations made a few weeks earlier by whistleblower ATF Agent John Dodson about the gunrunning probe. It also conflicts with a letter from Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich to Congress, in which he insisted, "The allegation ... that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons ... is false.”

Styers' memo to top ATF officials was dated Feb. 3, a day before Weich told Congress on Feb. 4 that Dodson's claims were false. Styers explained that Fast and Furious "divided and isolated agents," and the agent in charge called off surveillance. He detailed one instance in which agents monitoring a firearms transaction at a gas station were told they were too close to the scene -- while they repositioned, the buyer left the area without agents following.

"It is unheard of to have an active wiretap investigation without full time dedicated surveillance units on the ground," he wrote.

Styers wrote that his advice, and the advice of other agents, was "widely disregarded."

And Senator Grassley took to the Senate floor yesterday, calling into question possible perjury by both Holder and Napolitano.

Grassley has demanded to know who at Justice approved the Weich letter before it was sent out. So far, Justice has failed to comply, prompting Grassley to speak out Thursday afternoon on the Senate floor.

"It’s clear that multiple highly placed officials in multiple agencies knew almost immediately of the connection between Operation Fast and Furious and Agent Terry's death," Grassley said. "Yet a month and a half after Agent Terry’s death, Attorney General Holder was allegedly ignorant of the Fast and Furious connection."

Grassley said "documents that have come to light in my investigation" that suggest to him both Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano WERE NOT TRUTHFUL when they told Congress they didn't know Fast and Furious guns were used kill Terry. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

Those documents include emails suggesting U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke knew immediately guns found at the scene belonged to Fast and Furious and that Burke briefed Napolitano when she arrived in Tucson. The Phoenix FBI director knew it as well, and he too allegedly spoke to Napolitano.

"So, a very important question comes up. Why would they conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano days later?" Grassley asked. "Why would Mr. Burke conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano?"

Grassley says emails also show Burke spoke on Dec. 15, the day after Terry was shot, with Holder’s deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson.

Shortly after that, the deputy director of the ATF made sure briefing papers were prepared about the Fast and Furious connection to Terry’s death and sent those to the deputy attorney general’s office at the Justice Department. Within 24 hours, Grassley said, they were forwarded to Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, accompanied by a personal email from one of Grindler’s assistants, explaining the situation. Two weeks later, Grindler was named Holder's chief of staff.

"So, a very important question is unanswered," Grassley said. "Why wouldn’t Mr. Grindler bring up these serious problems with Attorney General Holder? The Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security lost a man. ... And, if that’s not serious enough to brief up to the top of the department, then I don’t know what is."

Holder will be grilled on Fast and Furious next week by the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They are likely to bring up the memo from Styers which quickly made its way to Washington in February.

Well, well, well. What do you know about this, Mr. President?

Doug Ross at Director Blue asks "What did President Obama know -- and when did he know it?"

Newly released White House Visitor Logs list Grindler as having visited the White House 40 times, but only four times with the President himself. All four meetings with the President occurred over a two-week period, between 7 May 2010 and 19 May 2010. . .

Summary: In early 2010, Gary Grindler was intimately involved in all aspects of Operation Fast and Furious. During the height of the operation, Grindler visited the President on four separate occasions in only two weeks -- his only documented meetings with the president at the White House.

So my question is this:

What did President Obama know -- and when did he know it?

Doug gives a hat tip to Michelle Malkin's column "Did you miss the Thanksgiving White House visitor log document dump?"

Issa drops the big one on Holder Ridge, secondary legal explosions seen in the direction of the White House.

Just in case Barack Obama still held out hope for Eric Holder's portion of the cover-up, the Issa committee released their subpoena today.

Oversight Committee Subpoenas Attorney General for ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ Communications and Documents

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced the issuance of a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. for Justice Department documents related to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun walking scandal.

"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," said Chairman Issa. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth."

The subpoena seeks the following:

In accordance with the attached schedule instructions, you, Eric H. Holder Jr., are required to produce all records in unredacted form described below:

1. All communications referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious, the Jacob Chambers case, or any Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) firearms trafficking case based in Phoenix, Arizona, to or from the following individuals:

a. Eric Holder Jr., Attorney General;

b. David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General;

c. Gary Grindler, Office of the Attorney General and former Acting Deputy Attorney General;

d. James Cole, Deputy Attorney General;

e. Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General;

f. Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General;

g. Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

h. Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

i. John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

j. Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

k. Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General;

l. Ed Siskel, former Associate Deputy Attorney General;

m. Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General;

n. Kevin Carwile, Section Chief, Capital Case Unit, Criminal Division;

o. Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section, Criminal Division; and,

p. James Trusty, Acting Chief, Organized Crime and Gang Section.

2. All communications between and among Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and Executive Office of the President employees, including but not limited to Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any other firearms trafficking cases.

3. All communications between DOJ employees and Executive Office of the President employees referring or relating to the President's March 22, 2011 interview with Jorge Ramos of Univision. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

4. All documents and communications referring or relating to any instances prior to February 4, 2011 where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) failed to interdict weapons that had been illegally purchased or transferred.

5. All documents and communications referring or relating to any instances prior to February 4, 2011 where ATF broke off surveillance of weapons and subsequently became aware that those weapons entered Mexico.

6. All documents and communications referring or relating to the murder of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, including but not limited to documents and communications regarding Zapata's mission when he was murdered, Form for Reporting Information That May Become Testimony (FD-302), photographs of the crime scene, and investigative reports prepared by the FBI.

7. All communications to or from William Newell, former Special Agent-in-Charge for ATF's Phoenix Field Division, between:

a. December 14, 2010 to January 25, 2011; and,

b. March 16, 2009 to March 19, 2009.

8. All Reports of Investigation (ROIs) related to Operation Fast and Furious or ATF Case Number 785115-10-0004.

9. All communications between and among Matt Axelrod, Kenneth Melson, and William Hoover referring or relating to ROIs identified pursuant to Paragraph 7.

10. All documents and communications between and among former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., former Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any OCDETF case originating in Arizona.

11. All communications sent or received between:

a. December 16, 2009 and December 18, 2009, and;

b. March 9, 2011 and March 14, 2011, to or from the following individuals:

+ Emory Hurley, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
+ Michael Morrissey, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
+ Patrick Cunningham, Chief, Criminal Division, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
+ David Voth, Group Supervisor, ATF; and,
+ Hope MacAllister, Special Agent, ATF.

12. All communications sent or received between December 15, 2010 and December 17, 2010 to or from the following individuals in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona:

a. Dennis Burke, former United States Attorney;

b. Emory Hurley, Assistant United States Attorney;

c. Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney; and,

d. Patrick Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division.

13. All communications sent or received between August 7, 2009 and March 19, 2011 between and among former Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual; Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer; and, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz.

14. All communications sent or received between August 7, 2009 and March 19, 2011 between and among former Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual and any Department of Justice employee based in Mexico City referring or relating to firearms trafficking initiatives, Operation Fast and Furious or any firearms trafficking case based in Arizona, or any visits by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer to Mexico.

15. Any FD-302 relating to targets, suspects, defendants, or their associates, bosses, or financiers in the Fast and Furious investigation, including but not limited to any FD-302s ATF Special Agent Hope MacAllister provided to ATF leadership during the calendar year 2011.

16. Any investigative reports prepared by the FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) referring or relating to targets, suspects, or defendants in the Fast and Furious case.

17. Any investigative reports prepared by the FBI or DEA relating to the individuals described to Committee staff at the October 5, 2011 briefing at Justice Department headquarters as Target Number 1 and Target Number 2.

18. All documents and communications in the possession, custody or control of the DEA referring or relating to Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta.

19. All documents and communications between and among FBI employees in Arizona and the FBI Laboratory, including but not limited to employees in the Firearms/Toolmark Unit, referring or relating to the firearms recovered during the course of the investigation of Brian Terry's death.

20. All agendas, meeting notes, meeting minutes, and follow-up reports for the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys between March 1, 2009 and July 31, 2011, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious.

21. All weekly reports and memoranda for the Attorney General, either directly or through the Deputy Attorney General, from any employee in the Criminal Division, ATF, DEA, FBI, or the National Drug Intelligence Center created between November 1, 2009 and September 30, 2011.

22. All surveillance tapes recorded by pole cameras inside the Lone Wolf Trading Co. store between 12:00 a.m. on October 3, 2010 and 12:00 a.m. on October 7, 2010.

Codrea & Vanderboegh Exclusive: Documents detail early knowledge by Lanny Breuer and subordinates of "gunwalking."

"I'm shocked! Shocked! To find gunwalking going on here!"

Email correspondence and handwritten notes obtained today by
David Codrea of the National Gun Rights Examiner and this correspondent provide details on information and strategy being shared between top level officials of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, including between Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and then-ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson.

These documents, in the possession of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, provide a much clearer picture than that given by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in his statement of yesterday of what the Justice Department knew of the tactic of "letting guns walk" and when they, and Breuer himself, knew about it.

Readers will recall that on 4 February 2011, Ronald Weich the Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General wrote a letter to Senator Charles Grassley, saying, "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico."

Yet, in an email exchange during the 3rd and 4th of December 2009, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer approved a Gang Unit prosecutor being assigned to ATF gun trafficking cases at the request of ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson. These documents are labeled with the committee filing notation "HOGR ATF 2730."

From: Melson, Kenneth E. (REDACTED)
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 5:45PM
To: Breuer, Lanny A.
Cc: Siskel, Edward N. (ODAG) (SMO); Hoover, William J.
Subject: Weapons seizures in Mexico

Lanny: We have decided to take a little different approach with regard to seizures of multiple weapons in Mexico. Assuming the guns are traced, instead of working each trace almost independently of the other traces from the seizure, I want to coordinate and monitor the work on all of them collectively as if the seizure was one case. Using the traces as intelligence, and compiling the information from each trace investigation, we can connect the purchases, identify the traffickers and use more serious charges against them. The intelligence analysis and linking of trace data and investigation results will be done at HQ out of our intelligence directorate. I would like to see if you have any interest in assigning a criminal division attorney to work with that group to develop multi-division/district cases and perhaps go to the district with the best venue to indict the case. The level of activity will depend on the number of Mexican seizures, and whether they will trace the guns, or allow us to do it. We do seem to be making progress with our Mexican partners. We are currently working on a case with SSP which might lead us to the first joint arrest in Mexico of a person connect to US arms trafficking. We should meet again just to catch up on where we are in our gun trafficking issues and we could talk about the above idea as well. Let me know what you think. Thanks. Ken.

From: Breuer, Lanny A. (REDACTED)
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 10:18 AM
To: Melson, Kenneth E.
Cc: Siskel, Edward N. (ODAG) (SMO); Hoover, William J.; Weinstein, Jason; Rosen, Paul; Raman, Mythili; Fagell, Steven
Subject: RE: Weapons seizures in Mexico

Ken,

We think it is a terrific idea and a great way to approach the investigations of these seizures. Our Gang Unit will be assigning an attorney to help coordinate this effort. Please let us know who will be the POC at ATF on this, and we'll have the Gang Unit folks reach out to that person. I would love to see you to discuss this further and other issues of common interest. I hope you are well.

Best,

Lanny

From: Melson, Kenneth E.
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 12:26 PM
To: Back, Michelle A.
Subject: FW: Weapons seizures in Mexico

Would you set up a meeting with Mr. Breuer. Billy, Mark, and Sam should go too. Thanks.

Pursuant to this meeting of the minds, on 1 March 2010, DOJ Gang Unit prosecutor Joe Cooley reported to ATF and began work on Operation Fast and Furious around the time his fellow Gang Unit prosecutor Laura Gwinn is reporting up the chain that guns were walked in Operation Wide Receiver. These documents are filed by the committe as "HOGR ATF 2155-2156."

From: Cooley, Joseph (REDACTED)
Sent: March 01, 2010 10:43 AM
To: Gillett, George T. Jr; Voth, David J.
Cc: O'Keefe, Kevin C.
Sunject: Firearms Investigation

Gentlemen,

At the request of ATF Headquarters, Gang Unit has agreed to assist in the Firearms trafficking into Mexico investigations. Earlier this year, I was assigned to this task. I just finished up a trial last week and am now available to provide any assistance needed. I understand that the case agent working out of the Phoenix Office is Hope McAllister. I could not find her in the email directory. Please have her contact me at her earliest convenience.

JAC

Joseph A. Cooley
Trial Attorney
Gang Unit
Department of Justice

From: Gillett, George T. Jr. (REDACTED)
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 12:59 PM
To: Cooley, Joseph; Voth, David J.
Cc: O'Keefe, Kevin C.; MacAllister, Hope A.; Hurley, Emory (USAAZ)
Subject: RE: Firearms Investigation

Mr. Cooley --

The investigation you are referring to has been dubbed, "The Fast and Furious." This is an approved OCDETF investigation. I will have group supervisor David Voth coordinate with you to meet on this investigation. There is a briefing scheduled at 1:00 PM on Friday, May 5, at ATF Headquarters on this and other active, southwest border investigations. It may be most effective (if your schedule permits) to attend this briefing. However, I will have Mr. Voth contact you on your cell phone to coordinate a meeting with you before the briefing so you can be completely up to speed.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions/concerns.

George T. Gillett
Assistant Special Agent in Charge
ATF -- Phoenix Field Division
(REDACTED)

Committee documents (HOGR 2807-2809) also present the evidence from 5 March 2010 of Joe Cooley's handwritten notes when Cooley is briefed on Operation Fast and Furious as well as Operation Wide Receiver. (See pdf here.)

Committee documents HOGR DOJ 2817-2823 from a 12 March 2010 briefing on Operation Fast and Furious include Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler's notes. The notes include such details as the fact that by 12 March one straw buyer had bought 313 guns and another had bought 231; the amount of money each straw buyer had spent on gun purchases, most in the tens of thousaands of dollars, along with a note from Grindler saying "all cash"; and a map of where in Mexico guns were being recovered.

(See pdf of all documents, photos, notes and emails here.)

In committee document number HOGR WR 3439 On 16 March 2010, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein asks the chief of the Gang Unit Kevin Carwhile, to whom both Cooley and Gwinn report: "(D)id ATF allow the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL began cooperating?"

From: Carwhile, Kevin
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:47 AM
To: Weinstein, Jason
Subject: talking points

Here is a quick page of talking points. You did not describe the intended audience. The two operations are pre-indictment so the info on these matters would need to be kept internal. See attached.

P. Kevin Carwhile
Chief, Gang Unit
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

From: Weinstein, Jason
Sent, Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:04AM
To: Carwhile, Kevin
Subject: RE: talking points

I'm looking forward to reading the pros memo on Wide Receiver but am curious -- did ATF allow the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL began cooperating?

From: Carwhile, Kevin
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:09 AM
To: Weinstein, Jason
Subject: RE: talking points

My recollection is they learned afterward. The pros memo will be ready soon. Any thoughts/progress on the (REDACTED) matter?

P. Kevin Carwhile
Chief Gang Unit
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

Sources indicate that Justice Department officials acknowledged recently in a widely-attended briefing with Congressional staff that Carwhile's recollection that "they learned afterward" would "prove false."

According to committee document HOGR WR 3845, on 30 April 2010, Weinstein told Breuer that "ATF let a bunch of guns walk in effort to get upstream conspirators but only got straws, and didn't recover many guns. Some were recovered in MX after being used in crimes."

From: Weinstein, Jason
To: Breuer, Lanny A.; Raman, Mythili; Fagell, Steven
Sent: Wed Apr 28 18:59:27 2010
Subject: Operation Wide Receiver

Jim T and I met with Billy Hoover and with Laura and Alisa to talk about this gun trafficking case with the issues about the guns being allowed to walk for investigative purposes. Can fill you in tomorrow in more detail but we all think the best move is to indict both Wide Receiver I and Wide Receiver II under seal and then unseal as part of Project Deliverance, where focus will be on aggregate seizures and not on particulars of any one indictment.

Jason M. Weinstein
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

From: Breuer, Lanny A.
To: Weinstein, Jason
Sent: Fri Apr 30 18:39:45 2010
Subject: RE: Operation Wide Receiver

Anything I should know about thos? (this).

From: Weinstein, Jason
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 7:03 PM
To: Breuer, Lanny A.
Subject: Re: Operation Wide Receiver

As you'll recall from Jim's briefing, ATF let a bunch of guns walk in effort to get upstream conspirators but only got straws, and didn't recover many guns. Some were recovered in MX after being used in crimes. Billy, Jim, Laura, Alisa and I all think the best way to announce the case without highlighting the negative part of the story and risking embarrassing ATF is as part of Deliverance.

Jason M. Weinstein
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

On 10 June 2010 Project Deliverance was announced by DOJ:

DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart joined Attorney General Eric Holder to announce the arrest of 2,266 individuals on narcotics-related charges in the United States and the seizure of more than 74.1 tons of illegal drugs as part of a 22-month multi-agency law enforcement investigation known as “Project Deliverance.”

Yesterday, 429 of the arrests took place in 16 states as part of “Project Deliverance,” which targeted the transportation infrastructure of Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the United States, especially along the Southwest border, through coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement. More than 3,000 agents and officers operated across the United States to make the arrests yesterday. Also, during yesterday’s enforcement action, $5.8 million, 17 pounds of methamphetamine, 112 kilograms of cocaine, 2,951 pounds of marijuana, 141 weapons and 85 vehicles were seized by law enforcement agents.

In addition to 2,266 arrests overall, “Project Deliverance” has led to the seizure of $154 million, and 1,262 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.5 tons of cocaine, 1,410 pounds of heroin, 69 tons of marijuana, 501 weapons and 527 vehicles during the entire course of the operation.

“This interagency, cross-border operation has been our most extensive, and most successful, law enforcement effort to date targeting these deadly cartels, and it is a direct result of our ongoing Southwest Border Strategy,” said Attorney General Holder. “This successful operation, however, is just one battle in an ongoing war. So long as cartels and smugglers attempt to wreak havoc on our borders, we will continue to target them with every resource available to the federal government. This Administration, working with law enforcement at all levels as well as our international partners, is committed to defeating these cartels, and we have proven the power of strong collaboration and coordination in achieving the goal.”

Whether the strategy to fold the Wide Receiver prosecutions into the larger Project Deliverance was actually implemented is unclear at this writing. What is clear is that the Jason Weinstein, Lanny Breuer and their subordinates were so convinced of the risk of "embarrassing ATF" with charges of gunwalking that they were willing to hide the one case within another.

And the date was 30 April 2010.

Breaking: Grassley & Issa name Holder's "Dirty Dozen" of Gunwalker conspirators at the DOJ. Demand all communications. The big "or".

Below is the transcript of a letter sent yesterday and released late this afternoon from Senator Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa to Eric Holder. In it, they name twelve senior DOJ officials, past and present, who were "unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program" (Fast and Furious).

These men represent Eric Holder's "Dirty Dozen" of Gunwalker conspirators within the upper ranks of the DOJ.

Perhaps the most significant word to me in this letter can be found in this paragraph:

"These records should include e-mails, memoranda, briefing papers, and handwritten notes. Additionally, any records related to communications referring to a large firearms trafficking case within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or in Phoenix should be included in any production."

That's a big "or". It means that the records they seek are not simply limited to Phoenix but to any "large firearms trafficking case within (ATF)."

Houston and Tampa, here we come!

Mike Vanderboegh
5:50 CDT

July 11, 2011

The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avennue, NW
Washington DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

As our investigation in Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program. Therefore it is necessary to review communications between and among these senior officials. As such, please provide all records relating to communications between and among the following individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious:

1. David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General;

2. Gary Grindler, Officer of the Attorney General and former Acting Deputy Attorney General;

3. James Cole, Deputy Attorney General;

4. Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General;

5. Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

6. Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

7. John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

8. Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General;

9. Ed Siskel, Former Associate Deputy Attorney General;

10. Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General;

11. Kevin Carwhile, Section Chief, Capitol Case Unit; and

12. Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section.

These records should include e-mails, memoranda, briefing papers, and handwritten notes. Additionally, any records related to communications referring to a large firearms trafficking case within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or in Phoenix should be included in any production.

Please provide this information no later than July 18, 2011, at noon. If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Tristan Leavitt in Ranking Member Grassley's office at (202) 224-5225 or Henry Kerner of Chairman Issa's Committee staff at (202) 225-5074. I look forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,

Darrell Issa, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Charles Grassley, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary

cc: The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary

LATER: David Codrea's take.

And David has kindly posted the PDF on Scribd here.

David Codrea: Issa parrots the unknowable as Holder deputy abandons ship

How the IG has been able to determine that with certainty, and why Issa accepts it with full faith are unknown. At most, all anyone can say with assurance is they haven’t been able to prove if Grindler communicated with Holder about a program under the attorney general's authority, where enforcers and prosecutors were up to their necks in a sanctioned operation that has produced lethal collateral consequences .

LA Times article on The Dirty Dozen. "Operation Fast and Furious scandal reaches into the highest levels of the Justice Department."

Republicans seek documents related to Fast and Furious gun scandal

Believing that the Operation Fast and Furious scandal reaches into the highest levels of the Justice Department, congressional Republicans asked the attorney general's office to turn over a sweeping trove of emails, documents and other material to determine Washington's role in the "reckless" operation that allowed U.S. semiautomatic weapons to flow to Mexican drug cartels. . .

A top Justice Department spokesperson, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing investigation, declined to say how the Obama administration would respond, other than, "We will review their request."

The spokesperson added: "Already, hundreds of thousands of pages have been reviewed and over 2,000 produced or made available, and we also have provided witnesses for interviews. There are all sorts of ways we have been responsive to the committees' requests and we will continue to be."

An official from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the agency would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Nevertheless, as one congressional investigator said Tuesday evening: "We've got questions. Lots of questions."

Several Washington sources, who also asked not to be identified because of the current investigation, said since the operation was managed out of the ATF field office in Phoenix, senior officials in Washington were not necessarily aware of its specifics.

Right. The old Sergeant Schultz defense.

Holder testified in March that he had recently learned of the program after two of the guns recovered from the December slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent were traced to Fast and Furious. Scores of others ended up at crime scenes in Mexico, after U.S. federal agents permitted the sale of about 1,700 guns to illegal straw purchasers in Arizona. The idea was to trace the weapons to Mexican drug cartels, but the ATF lost track of them.

The Republicans' latest request is to review all written communications to and from a dozen top officials. His top assistant, Deputy Atty. Gen. James Cole, is included, as are Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny A. Breuer, and Gary G. Grindler, the former deputy attorney general now assigned to Holder's office. Three of the 12 listed officials are political appointees.

Republicans also are upset that the Justice Department and ATF announced Monday that they soon would require gun dealers in the four border states, including California, to report anyone purchasing two or more semiautomatics in a five-day period.

Several internal ATF emails were released Tuesday, some indicating enthusiasm for the Fast and Furious operation in its early stages. In one, from January 2011, ATF officials described the program as lending support to their new reporting requirements, "to ferret out those intent on providing firearms to these criminal groups" in Mexico.

Another email, from July 2010, described the arrest in a Phoenix suburb of an illegal straw purchaser and former felon who was captured after a high-speed car and foot chase in which he broke his leg. In his vehicle, authorities recovered 20 rifles and two pistols that had just been obtained from a local store under Operation Fast and Furious.

I am told that the emails will released to all in their entirety later today. When they are, I will post them here.

"Do you believe that if there were some form of registration when you purchase these firearms that that would make a difference?" "I do."

Senator Diane Feinstein. The specter of a fifty caliber sniper rifle evidently haunts her nightmares.

"Very few hunters in the United States or sports people and law-abiding people really need to have semiautomatic weapons or long guns." -- Lanny Breuer, 1 November 2011, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Holds Hearing on Combating International Organized Crime.

Testimony from today's hearing. What Grassley is trying to do here is get Breuer on the record under oath, knowing that he's committing perjury. That's why the back and forth is so "collegial." What is more revealing is the enthusiastic swapping of spit over more gun control between Feinstein and Breuer. (Here's Dave Workman's take.)

"See, my concern, Mr. Chairman, is there has been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made. But I think this hunt for blame doesn't really speak about the problem. And the problem is anybody can walk in and buy anything, .50 caliber weapons, sniper weapons, buy them in large amounts."

There is one thing that is always fascinating to me about Feinstein. She can't mention gun control without mentioning fifty caliber rifles. I mean she is a monomaniac on the subject. It is obvious that the thought of a projectile which can be fired from a mile away that can penetrate her limousine's armor in some nominal green zone "safe envelope" is the stuff of her nightmares.

And you know what? If she keeps on soliciting civil war with her firearm registration and confiscation schemes, she's right to fear them.

In the meantime, however, here is Senator Grassley, setting up Darth Breuer for his future perjury charge.

GRASSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Breuer, yesterday, you made a public statement saying that ATF and the U.S. Attorney's Office officials, quote, unquote, repeatedly assured officials in the criminal division and the leadership of the Department of Justice the allegations about walking guns in Fast and Furious were not true. Please be more specific. Who exactly at ATF said that the gun walking allegations were untrue? And who exactly at the U.S. Attorney's Office said the allegations were untrue?

BREUER: Senator Grassley, as I said yesterday, of course, it was my office that ultimately prosecuted the Wide Receiver case. And I want to be very clear to you, senator, that when I learned of this in April of 2010, and -- I learned about it and we decided to prosecute this case from 2006 and 2007. I regret that, at that point, that I -- knowing then -- knowing now what -- knowing now -- I wish that at that time that I had said clearly to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general that in this case Wide Receiver, we had determined that in 2006 and 2007, guns had walked. I did not do that. And I regret not doing that.

GRASSLEY: Thank you for that statement. Not who told you at ATF and the Attorney General's Office that these allegations were untrue?

BREUER: Well, Mr. Senator, at the time, as I recall, my -- we first spoke to the -- to the ATF back in April of 2010. My front office did. And based on what I understood, we had an understanding from the ATF that this practice of 2006 and 2007, that the ATF understood the seriousness of that.

GRASSLEY: What is that individual's name?

BREUER: Well, there's clearly, as far as I know, Senator Grassley, at the time, Mr. Hoover, who was the deputy, was one of the people who would have been involved in that discussion. Of course, I wasn't there for it. So I can only tell you my understanding.

GRASSLEY: That's all I want, is your understanding of it.

BREUER: That's my understanding, senator. Then, of course, senator, in early this year, when this matter came to life and the ATF agents made the claims that they did, I recall that both the leadership of ATF and the leadership of the United States Attorney's Offices in Arizona, those, of course, who were closest and were handling the matter, were adamant about the fact that this was not, in fact, a condoned practice. I'm sure you recall that as well.

GRASSLEY: The word leadership applies then to the people that were head of the U.S. Attorney's Office and the head of ATF? Even though you didn't give me their names, that's who you're talking about, right?

BREUER: That's exactly right, as I recall.

GRASSLEY: Let me go on then.

BREUER: Yes, senator.

GRASSLEY: On February 4th, 2011, the department sent me a letter also assuring me that allegations of gun walking were untrue. It reads, quote, "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally, and prevent their transportation to Mexico," end of quote. That statement is absolutely false. And you admitted as much last night, that you knew by April, 2010, that ATF walked guns in Operation Wide Receiver. That is that correct, yes?

BREUER: Yes, senator. What I...

GRASSLEY: That's all I need to know, if that's correct. Did you review that letter before it was sent to me?

BREUER: Senator, again, I just want to be clear that, as I told you a moment ago, I regret that in April of 2010 that I did not draw the connection between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious. Moreover, I regret that -- that even in earlier this year that I didn't draw that connection. In direct answer to your question, senator, I can say -- I cannot say for sure whether I saw a draft of the letter that as sent to you. What I can tell you, Senator, is at that time, I was in Mexico dealing with a very real issues that we are all so committed to. But I also regret, as I've said, that I didn't draw that connection earlier.

GRASSLEY: After learning of gun walking in Wide Receiver, did you ever inform the Attorney General Holder or deputy attorney general about it? And if so, when? And if not, why not?

BREUER: Senator, I can't be more clear. I've said to you, and I will continue to, I regret the fact that in April of 2010, I did not. At the time, I thought that we -- dealing with the leadership of ATF was sufficient and reasonable. And frankly, given the amount of work I do, at the time, I thought that that was the appropriate way of dealing with it. But I cannot be more clear that knowing now -- if I had known then what I know now, I, of course, would have told the deputy and the attorney general.

GRASSLEY: Did you ever tell anybody else in the Justice Department leadership the same thing? And if so, who and when?

BREUER: Senator, I thought we had dealt with it by talking to the ATF leadership.

GRASSLEY: OK. How many guns were walked in Wide Receiver?

BREUER: Senator, I can probably try to look at that. Of course, that was in 2006 and 2007. Just to be clear, if I may, senator, that was a case that had been abandoned and languished. It was my division that decided to take a case where guns had been permitted to go to Mexico years earlier, and at least make sure that the criminals who were responsible for purchasing those guns were held to account. As a result of that, senator, we prosecuted 11 different people. I think to answer your question, in total, probably about -- if my math is good, probably about 350 or so. But, senator, I will have to double check that number.

GRASSLEY: I think you are very close. So you don't have to check that number. According to my information, just five straw buyers -- I will refer to the chart here and then I'll quit and let you go on to another member. And I'll do some more on a second round. According to my information, just five of the straw buyers in Fast and Furious were allowed to buy nearly 1,000 weapons. When did you first know that guns were walked in Fast and Furious?

BREUER: Senator, I found out first when the public disclosure was made by the ATF agents early this year. When they started making those public statements, of course, at that point, as you know, both the leadership of ATF and the leadership of the U.S. Attorney's Offices adamantly said that those allegations were wrong. But as those allegations became clear, that is when I first learned that guns that could -- that ATF had both the ability to interdict and the legal authority to interdict, that they failed to do so. That is when I first learned that, senator.

GRASSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Breuer.

BREUER: Thank you, sir.

GRASSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

WHITEHOUSE: I will next call on Senator Feinstein, who not only brings to this concern her distinguished service on this committee, but her service as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Feinstein?

FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Mr. Breuer, in June of this year, I received a letter from the ATF. This was in response to a letter I had asked them from Acting Director Melson, stating that 29,284 firearms recovered in Mexico in '09 and 2010, and submitted to the ATF tracing center. With those weapons, 20,504, or 70 percent, were United States sourced. A country of origin for the remaining firearms apparently could not be determined by ATF, meaning that the number could be much higher. What info -- what actually is the number? Now this was back in June. Is that the most current number? Is it fair to some that 70 percent of the firearms showing up in Mexico are from the United States?

BREUER: Thank you, Senator, for the question, and for your leadership on this issue. You have, of course, identified the paramount issue that we have to face as we deal with transnational organized crime from the Mexican cartels. From my understanding, 94,000 weapons have been recovered in the last five years in Mexico. Those are just the ones recovered, not the ones that are in Mexico. Of the 94,000 weapons that have been recovered in Mexico, 64,000 of those are traced to the United States. We have to do something to prevent criminals from getting those guns, Senator. That is my understanding of the most accurate numbers.

FEINSTEIN: Well, you see, this is a deep concern for me. And I know others disagree, but we have very lax laws when it comes to guns. I think this, to some extent, influences the ATF in how they approach the problem, as to whether they have political support or not. But I think these numbers are shocking. And I think when you know the number of deaths these guns have caused, used by cartels against victims, it's in -- literally up in the tens of thousands. So the question comes, what can we do? And I'd really rather concentrate on the constructive rather than other things. And so the question comes, do you believe that if there were some form of registration when you purchase these firearms that that would make a difference?

BREUER: I do, Senator. Senator, we're talking today about transnational organized crime, and your leadership and the chairman's and other senators shows that information -- information is the tool we need to challenge and defeat organized crime. Today, Senator, we are not even permitted to have ATF receive reports about multiple sales of long guns, of any kind of semiautomatic weapon or the like. So the ATF is unable to get that. Very few hunters in the United States or sports people and law-abiding people really need to have semiautomatic weapons or long guns. So today if I go into a dealership today and I want to buy 50 or 60 semiautomatic weapons, there is nothing that requires that to be in any way notified to ATF. Without that kind of a notification, we lose track and can lose track of these kinds of potent weapons. And that's just one example of the kind of tool that I think would empower ATF and law enforcement to help fight this scourge.

FEINSTEIN: See, my concern, Mr. Chairman, is there has been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made. But I think this hunt for blame doesn't really speak about the problem. And the problem is anybody can walk in and buy anything, .50 caliber weapons, a sniper weapons, buy them in large amounts, and send them down to Mexico. So the question really comes, what do we do about this? I've been here 18 years. I've watched the BATF get beaten up at every turn of the road. And, candidly, it's just not right. I mean, we have more guns in this country than we have people. And somebody has got to come to the realization that when these guns go to the wrong places scores of deaths result, and that's exactly the case with the cartels. So you are saying today that -- if I understand this -- over five years in recovered weapons, there were 94,000; 64,000 of those came from the United States.

BREUER: That's right.

FEINSTEIN: So clearly over two-thirds of the weapons used in Mexico by cartels are coming from the United States.

BREUER: That's correct, Senator. And just to make a point of that, in Wide Receiver, which was a matter where the guns were permitted to go to Mexico during the prior administration in years 2006 and 2007, when my team discovered that, we decided we had to prosecute that case because even though years and years earlier the guns had gone to Mexico, we had to hold the people who bought those guns responsible. And so we prosecuted those people, as Senator Grassley pointed out. But it is clear that we need more tools to get those people who are buying the guns and illegally transporting them to Mexico. We cannot permit the guns to go knowingly and we cannot permit the guns to go unknowingly. We need to stop the flow.

FEINSTEIN: Last question. What would be the number one tool that would be of help to you?

BREUER: Well, I think that the number one tool would be if ATF were given the ability to know when guns are purchased. And, frankly, as -- I don't know if it's the number one, but one of the -- one of the issues we're asking for in connection with the legislation we're talking about today is the ability to forfeit the weapons and the inventories of gun dealers who knowingly sell their guns to criminals. If we could -- if we could forfeit the guns of the dealers who we can prove knowingly are selling to criminals -- we don't want to do anything to people who are selling to law-abiding citizens but we have to stop these dealers from selling to criminals.

FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. . .

WHITEHOUSE: Yes, first of all, Senator Feinstein, thank you very much for stepping in as chair for me. As I think the witnesses are aware, we are now in a voting sequence in the Senate, and so Senator Grassley and I have made the mad dash back and forth to vote in order to be here for a second round. I have to say he was quite something to keep up with. Senator Grassley?

GRASSLEY: Thank you. Mr. Breuer, I think this will be my last round of questioning. Were you aware at the time that Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious in March of 2010?

BREUER: Senator, I don't believe that I was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious. And senator, I do not believe that I was aware of that briefing.

GRASSLEY: OK. In December, 2009, Director Melson asked you to assign a prosecutor to the case from headquarters. And in March, 2010, a prosecutor from the Gang Unit was assigned to Fast and Furious. Why did the number two official in the Justice Department get a briefing around the same time headquarters assigned a prosecutor to Fast and Furious?

BREUER: Senator, I can't answer that. What I can say to you is from the very beginning of my tenure as the assistant attorney general, I became very committed to doing everything we could to fighting the drug cartels and to doing what we can to stop the -- what they are doing. It was in that vein that I offered to southwest borders whatever help we in the criminal division could bring. That is how the very issues you are raising came about. But I cannot tell you anything about the briefing because I simply did not participate in it.

GRASSLEY: OK. You -- you said that when you first learned about gun walking in Wide Receiver, you instructed one of your deputies to schedule a meeting with the ATF acting director to, quote, "bring these issues to their attention," end of quote. When you first learned about gun walking in Fast and Furious, did you do the same thing? If not, why not?

BREUER: I did not, senator. That is what I regret.

GRASSLEY: OK. Was the deputy who you assigned to meet with ATF, Jason Weinstein, also responsible for authorizing any of the applications to the court for wiretaps in Fast and Furious?

BREUER: Senator, the answer is he and other deputies in my office, including the longest serving deputy in the United States' history, who has served for almost 60 years, did. If I may, senator, for a moment, I would like to explain what that role, is if you would permit me. The Congress made clear in law that wiretaps on telephones are an extraordinarily intrusive technique. They're a technique that I support fully, and that I think are essential in fighting organized crime and transnational organized crime. And they're why, senator, in my 2.5 years, I have over tripled the number of reviewers who do it. But as Congress made clear, the role of the reviewers and the role of the deputy in reviewing Title Three applications is only one. It is to insure that there is legal sufficiency to make an application to go up on a wire, and legal sufficiency to petition a federal judge somewhere in the United States that we believe it is a credible request. But we cannot -- those now 22 lawyers that I have who review this in Washington -- and it used to only be seven -- can not and should not replace their judgment, nor can they, with the thousands of prosecutors and agents all over the country. Theirs is a legal analysis; is there a sufficient basis to make this request. We must and have to rely on the prosecutors and their supervisors and the agents and their supervisors all over the country to determine that the tactics that are used are appropriate.

GRASSLEY: Thank you for that explanation. You said in your statement last night that you, quote," did not draw a connection," unquote, between gun walking in Wide Receiver and gun walking in Fast and Furious. You also said that you regret your failure to, quote, "alert others within the department leadership," end of quote, of similarities. What finally made the light bulb go on for you in the -- that the two cases had similar problems?

BREUER: Senator, thank you for that question. I mean, I hope you know, senator, that I have tried and my division has tried as comprehensibly as we can to deal with the plight of Mexico. I am proud to say, senator, that it is my division that is prosecuting the thugs and criminals who killed the three U.S. consulate officials in Juarez. It's my division that is responsible for the investigation right now of the murderers of ICE Agent Zapata and the shooting of Avila. And it is my division, working with law enforcement, that has brought 104 Mexican criminals, cartel leaders and the like, including Benjamin Arellano Felix, to justice this year into the United States. So every day, whether it is an organized crime or white-collar crime or cyber crime, we are working. There is absolutely no question, senator, that as I was involved in this exercise, and as all of this has come to light, that I, in thinking about it, realized that I should have back in April of 2010 drawn that connection. I have expressed that regret first personally to the attorney general of the United States. And then I determined that I should do it publicly as well.

GRASSLEY: I have just three short questions, Mr. Chairman. When did you finally alert others within the department leadership about the similarities that I just described? And who did you alert?

BREUER: Senator, I can't anymore recall, because, of course, by the time that the connection is drawn with me...

GRASSLEY: That's OK. How did you -- how did you first hear about Fast and Furious?

BREUER: Well, I first heard about the tactics, about guns being permitted to go to Mexico when ATF had both the legal authority to interdict them and the ability to interdict them -- I first heard of those allegations when the ATF agents went public.

GRASSLEY: OK. And then when and how did you first learn about the connection between Fast and Furious and U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's murder.

BREUER: Senator, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's murder is an absolute horrible tragedy, as are the tragedies of the other people who -- law enforcement and others have been killed. The only way I learned about any connection there was when these became -- when it became public. But, of course, as you know, senator, with respect to many of these tragedies, my division has done everything we can to hold the people liable. When CBP Agent Rosas was killed, I worked personally tirelessly to bring his murderer to the United States. I attended the funeral. I spent time with his family. And that is why we are working tirelessly to hold the murderers of Agent Zapata accountable and the murderers of the consulate officials accountable.

GRASSLEY: Mr. Chairman, I have a request to view. I released a report that I would like to ask be made a part of the record. It refutes the numbers referenced early that 70 percent of the guns in Mexico came from the U.S. The answer isn't to clamp down on law abiding citizens or gun dealers. Would you include that in the records?

WHITEHOUSE: Without objection, the report will be included in the record.

GRASSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Breuer, for your comments.

BREUER: Thank you, senator.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Senator Grassley.