AG Holder Cleared in Justice Gunwalking Probe

[Suzieq]

September 19, 2012
Updated at 5:36 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) The Justice Department's inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico.

But Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there were "serious failures" at both the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives going back more than six years, CBS Radio News reporter Stephanie Lambidakis reports.

Horowitz found that no one running the operations -- not agents, nor prosecutors, nor managers -- questioned the wisdom of letting guns vanish across the border with Mexico, where they ended up in the hands of drug traffickers.

Two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been acquired by illicit buyers in the Fast and Furious investigation were recovered at the scene of a 2010 shootout with drug traffickers that claimed the life of U.S. border agent Brian Terry. About 1,400 of the total have yet to be recovered.

In his 471-page report, Horowitz referred more than a dozen people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration.

Second arrest in "Fast and Furious" killing
Exclusive: Fast and Furious report slams Phoenix ATF
GOP-led panel files suit against AG Eric Holder

Gun-walking was an experimental tactic, barred under long-standing department policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed suspected "straw purchasers," in these cases believed to be working for Mexican drug gangs, to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution.

Lambidakis reports that between November 2009 and mid-April 2010, straw buyers purchased approximately 1,300 firearms for more than a million dollars, "yet agents made no arrests and just a single seizure," the report states.

Links: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...walking-probe/

[kittyluvr]

here is the cbsnews article:


AG Holder cleared in Justice gunwalking probe

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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder answers questions while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill June 12, 2012, in Washington. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)
Fast and Furious

Complete Coverage »

Updated at 5:36 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) The Justice Department's inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico.

But Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there were "serious failures" at both the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives going back more than six years, CBS Radio News reporter Stephanie Lambidakis reports.

Horowitz found that no one running the operations -- not agents, nor prosecutors, nor managers -- questioned the wisdom of letting guns vanish across the border with Mexico, where they ended up in the hands of drug traffickers.

Two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been acquired by illicit buyers in the Fast and Furious investigation were recovered at the scene of a 2010 shootout with drug traffickers that claimed the life of U.S. border agent Brian Terry. About 1,400 of the total have yet to be recovered.

In his 471-page report, Horowitz referred more than a dozen people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration.

Second arrest in "Fast and Furious" killing
Exclusive: Fast and Furious report slams Phoenix ATF
GOP-led panel files suit against AG Eric Holder

Gun-walking was an experimental tactic, barred under long-standing department policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed suspected "straw purchasers," in these cases believed to be working for Mexican drug gangs, to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution.

Lambidakis reports that between November 2009 and mid-April 2010, straw buyers purchased approximately 1,300 firearms for more than a million dollars, "yet agents made no arrests and just a single seizure," the report states.

Because of thin ATF staffing and weak penalties, the traditional strategy of arresting suspected straw buyers as soon as possible had failed to stop the flow of tens of thousands of guns to Mexico — more than 68,000 in the past five years. The operation was a response to criticisms of the agency's anti-smuggling efforts.

The inspector general found fault with the work of the senior ATF leadership, the ATF staff and U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix and senior officials of Justice's criminal division in Washington. He also said that poor internal information-gathering and drafting at Justice and ATF caused the department to initially misinform Congress about Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious has produced charges against 20 gun traffickers, 14 of whom have pleaded guilty so far.

Two senior officials left the department, one by resignation and one by retirement, with the report's release.

While Horowitz heaped most of the blame for Fast and Furious on investigators in Phoenix, one senior official, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, is blamed for not acting to stop the tactics.

"Weinstein was the most senior person in the department in April and May 2010 who was in a position to identify the similarity between the inappropriate tactics used in Operations Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious," the report said. ATF agents in Arizona conducted Wide Receiver in 2006 and 2007 and began Fast and Furious in October 2009.

Weinstein resigned Tuesday night, CBS Radio News reports. Weinstein's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, called the report's criticism "profoundly wrong" and "deeply flawed."

In a statement released Wednesday, Holder said: "Jason has dedicated much of his career to fighting violent crime and has led highly successful efforts around the country in this effort. The American people are safer because of his work."

One of those criticized in the report, former ATF acting director Kenneth Melson, who headed that office during the Fast and Furious investigation, retired upon release of the report.

"Melson made too many assumptions about the case," the report stated. "Melson should have asked basic questions about the investigation, including how public safety was being protected."

Melson responded in a written statement: "While I firmly disagree with many of the speculative assumptions, conclusions and characterizations in the inspector general's report, as the acting director of the agency I was ultimately responsible for the actions of each employee."

The report did not criticize Holder, but said lower-level officials should have briefed him about the investigation much earlier. The inspector general also said he found no evidence that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who took office late in the Bush administration after Wide Receiver was ended, was ever informed that it used gun-walking.

Holder, who the Republican-led House of Representatives cited for contempt in a dispute over Fast and Furious documents earlier this year, said that the report was "consistent" with what he's said about the botched operation.

"It is unfortunate that some were so quick to make baseless accusations before they possessed the facts about these operations - accusations that turned out to be without foundation and that have caused a great deal of unnecessary harm and confusion," Holder said. "I hope today's report acts as a reminder of the dangers of adopting as fact unsubstantiated conclusions before an investigation of the circumstances is completed."

The report found no evidence that Holder was informed about the Fast and Furious operation before Jan. 31, 2011, or that the attorney general was told about the much-disputed gun-walking tactic.

On Capitol Hill, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the report confirms his panel's findings of a "near total disregard for public safety," CBS Radio News correspondent Bob Fuss reports. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., points out the report also confirms what the attorney general has said from the start, that as soon as he learned about the operation, he stopped it.

Horowitz is scheduled to testify before Issa's committee Thursday morning.

Among others the report singled out for criticism were former acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler; Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer who heads the criminal division; Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke; and Holder's own former deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson.

The report said:

Wilkinson should have promptly informed Holder of the fact that two guns found at the scene of Terry's slaying were among the 2,000 illicitly acquired weapons in Operation Fast and Furious.
Grindler relied on the FBI to investigate the Terry killing. That reliance was misplaced, given that the bureau did not have the responsibility to determine whether errors in ATF's investigation led to the weapons ending up at the murder scene.
Breuer should have promptly informed Deputy Attorney General James Cole or Holder about the gun-walking problems in the earlier gun probe, Operation Wide Receiver.

Once allegations of gun-walking surfaced, the Justice Department waited 10 months before withdrawing an incorrect letter to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley in early 2011 denying that gun-walking had taken place. Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A May 2011 Justice Department letter to Grassley said that "it remains our understanding that ATF's Operation Fast and Furious did not knowingly permit straw buyers to take guns into Mexico."

The inspector general said that by May, senior department officials knew or should have known that ATF had in many instances allowed straw purchasers to buy firearms knowing that someone else would transport them to Mexico. The report also found that the department should not have provided testimony in June 2011 before Issa's committee that created ambiguity over whether the department was still defending its Feb. 4 and May 2 letters.

Speaking to reporters at ATF headquarters, acting director B. Todd Jones said the agency is already implementing some of the report's recommendations and there are no gun-walking operations going on.

"We are recalibrating how we do business at ATF," Jones said. "Everyone in the current crew knows that that is not an acceptable investigative technique unless I know about it, and I don't know about any."

[sardog]

Stunning. Words fail me.

[Hfcomms]

Was there ever any doubt about the outcome of this so called investigation?

[kittyluvr]

here is the bbc story:

19 September 2012 Last updated at 16:58 ET
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Fast and Furious: Eric Holder cleared but 14 faulted
Attorney General Eric Holder chats with Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer (left) was the most senior official criticised in the report
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

US attorney general 'in contempt'
Justice 'not co-operating' Watch
Obama seals Fast and Furious file

The US justice department has cited 14 people for possible disciplinary action for their roles in a botched gun-running operation.

Operation Fast and Furious saw US agents lose track of hundreds of illegal guns sold in Arizona and allowed into Mexico to target dealers.

The inspector general's 471-page report comes after a 19-month review.

Attorney General Eric Holder was not criticised, as no evidence was found he knew about the controversial tactics.

Mr Holder was held in contempt of Congress in June for not handing over documents related to the operation.

Two of the illegal weapons were found in December 2010 at the scene of a US border agent's murder. Fast and Furious ended in early 2011.

No criminal charges were recommended as a result of the report.
'Misguided strategies'

The most senior official cited by Inspector General Michael Horowitz's 471-page report was Lanny Breuer, head of the justice department's criminal division.
Continue reading the main story
Operation Fast and Furious

Began in October 2009
Officials hoped to follow the guns to drug cartel leaders
But weapons were lost after being transferred from buyers to smugglers who brought them to Mexico
Congressional report showed at least 122 weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico were linked to the sting
About 1,400 have yet to be recovered
The operation has produced charges against 20 gun traffickers, 14 have pleaded guilty

Mr Breuer was criticised for not alerting his superiors in 2010 to flaws in a similar programme, known as Operation Wide Receiver, which started under former President George W Bush.

A "series of misguided strategies, tactics, [and] errors in judgment" all contributed to the failure of Fast And Furious and Wide Receiver, the report said.

The problems dated back to 2006 but current senior officials were criticised for failing to question firearms officials about the questionable tactics during Fast and Furious.

The strategy known as "gun-walking", allowing suspected straw purchasers to leave gun stores with weapons with the intent of tracking them, was barred under a long-standing departmental policy.

The inspector general also concluded that poor internal information-gathering and communication at the justice department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms caused them to misinform Congress about the operation.

"The key conclusions are consistent with what I, and other justice department officials, have said for many months now," Mr Holder said in a statement.

Two other top justice officials named in the report, Kenneth Melson, the former head of ATF, will retire after its publication. Jason Weinstein, a senior criminal division official, will resign.

Mr Holder said officials cited in the report, from the ATF as well as the US Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, have been referred for disciplinary action.
Contempt citation

In June Mr Holder became the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress. He faced proceedings after the House Oversight Committee led its own investigation into operation.

The roots of that investigation began on 4 February 2011 when the justice department sent lawmakers a letter denying it had sanctioned or otherwise knew about guns illegally ending up Mexico.

The department withdrew the letter 10 months later, acknowledging the operation had allowed guns across the border.

Led by Republican Darrell Issa, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed documents for that 10-month period.
House Democrats walk out on the Eric Holder contempt vote Dozens of House Democrats, including leader Nancy Pelosi, walked out of the contempt vote

The justice department sent the committee more than 7,000 documents relating to Fast and Furious, and to a similar operation that took place during the George W Bush administration.

The Department of Justice says it has denied access to rest of the files because they contain information that could affect ongoing criminal investigations.

The White House then raised the stakes by announcing it would exert executive privilege to protect the documents in question from subpoena.

Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama administration communications director, called the vote a "transparently political stunt".

[MtnGal]

Never doubted Holder, he's such a fine man who lives the Constitution. Where's that puke icon?

[Bps1691]

lol...

So a DOJ inspector General finds Holder not guilty

... that's to be expected of the usurper's administration

No surprise here ... nothing of interest ... just move along

[brokenwings]

Washington Insider was wrong then.

[blueridge]

Wasn't there a song a ways back that had a line something like:

"....mind may be dirty but his hands they are clean..." ???

[Thunderbird]

It will take a long time to get all of that whitewash off him.

[Tristan]

AG Eric Holder has been cleared of charges according to CBS & BBC.

Links: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...walking-probe/

Links: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19656316

Of course he was.

[Panner]

Funny, he is in charge of the guys that did the investigation. This is just another move by a slimmy administration. Did anyone ever think he wouldn't come out come out smelling like a rose.

[shinerbock]

Cleared by whom, the NBPP?

[timbo]

So was Holder (he alone) just funnin with congress and withholding all that evidential emails,etc?

What a guy! What a clown! What a TRAITOR!

[Garryowen]

The Justice Department's inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico.

Well, ain't that just special? I guess he knows about the other IG who was fired after he exposed the BO's fraudulent friend. No sense being thrown under the bus with those other guys.

[Suzieq]

Here's youtube video titled: "DOJ IG Agrees That Holder Should Have Given Congress "Fast And Furious" Documents"


(Remarks about this video from youtube is below.)
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice says during a hearing of the
House Oversight Committee that AG Eric Holder should have given over the
"Fast and Furious" documents to Congress (September 20, 2012).

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqKiBSvzfak

[DryCreek]

But Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there were "serious failures" at both the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives going back more than six years,

Get it? It's BUSHES FAULT!

I knew it, knew it!

[dstraito]

You know, after enough guys get thrown under this bus by the admin, someone is going to turn whistle blower.

[Be Well]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/19/Q ...ouse-testimony


September 20, 2012
Q uayle on Fast and Furious report: Holder ‘lied to my face’ during House testimony

Arizona Republican Rep. Ben Q uayle told The Daily Caller that Attorney General Eric Holder gave him false testimony under oath about Operation Fast and Furious wiretap application documents during a June 7 House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Q uayle said the Department of Justice’s inspector general report proves that Holder lied to him while under oath during the hearing.

“I saw earlier that Holder is basically doing a victory dance and that he thinks this [inspector general] report exonerates him and there was no dishonesty with Congress — that’s just a blatant lie,” Q uayle said in a phone interview. “I mean, he lied to me — to my face — during questioning, saying they had reviewed the wiretap applications after the fact and claiming that there was no reference to gunwalking, which is blatantly false.”

Holder told Q uayle during congressional questioning that wiretap application affidavits and summaries from Fast and Furious did not, upon his review, mention anything about gunwalking that would have raised the concerns of senior Justice Department officials who signed and approved them.

“I’ve looked at these affidavits. I’ve looked at these summaries. There’s nothing in those affidavits as I’ve reviewed them that indicates gunwalking was allowed,” Holder said during the hearing. “Let’s get to the bottom line. I didn’t see anything in there that would put on notice a person who was reviewing either at the line level or at the Deputy Assistant Attorney General level, that you would have knowledge of the fact that these inappropriate tactics were being used.”

Q uayle followed up by asking: “Are you saying in the summaries or in the whole affidavit?”

Holder confirmed that his statement was about “in the summary as well as in the affidavit.”

The DOJ inspector general came to the opposite conclusion about those very same affidavits, essentially implying that that Holder statement is not true.

“We reviewed the wiretap affidavits in both Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast and Furious and concluded that the affidavits in both cases included information that would have caused a prosecutor who was focused on the question of investigative tactics, particularly one who was already sensitive to the issue of ‘gun walking,’ to have questions about ATF’s conduct of the investigations,” the inspector general wrote in its report released Wednesday.

If House members were to pursue perjury charges against Holder for this apparently false statement to Congress, they would likely run into the same roadblock they encountered in holding Holder in criminal contempt of Congress. (RELATED: Key Holder deputy resigns as inspector general releases Fast and Furious report)

This summer, a bipartisan group of House members voted Holder into both criminal and civil contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a congressional subpoena into Fast and Furious. The criminal contempt resolution stalled because Holder’s DOJ told Ron Machen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, not to enforce it.

House members, however, remain intent on pursing the civil contempt charges in court — with the ultimate goal of having a federal judge overturn President Barack Obama’s use of executive privilege to help Holder withhold Fast and Furious documents.

DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to TheDC’s request for comment about the inspector general contradicting Holder’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee

[Be Well]

Of course the DOJ finds Holder not guilty. Issa and others like Gowdy and Ben Q uayle (the name is asterisked out....) are not giving up. The REAL problem is eunuch Boehner!

[more ammo]

He should be swinging from the nearest above structure.

[Straycat]

Washington Insider was wrong then.

Sometimes I think a lot of people still expect the rule of law to hold, and underestimate just how blatantly the administration ignores it.

[Ronman2002]

September 19, 2012
Updated at 5:36 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) The Justice Department's inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico.

But Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there were "serious failures" at both the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives going back more than six years, CBS Radio News reporter Stephanie Lambidakis reports.

Horowitz found that no one running the operations -- not agents, nor prosecutors, nor managers -- questioned the wisdom of letting guns vanish across the border with Mexico, where they ended up in the hands of drug traffickers.

Two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been acquired by illicit buyers in the Fast and Furious investigation were recovered at the scene of a 2010 shootout with drug traffickers that claimed the life of U.S. border agent Brian Terry. About 1,400 of the total have yet to be recovered.

In his 471-page report, Horowitz referred more than a dozen people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration.

Second arrest in "Fast and Furious" killing
Exclusive: Fast and Furious report slams Phoenix ATF
GOP-led panel files suit against AG Eric Holder

Gun-walking was an experimental tactic, barred under long-standing department policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed suspected "straw purchasers," in these cases believed to be working for Mexican drug gangs, to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution.

Lambidakis reports that between November 2009 and mid-April 2010, straw buyers purchased approximately 1,300 firearms for more than a million dollars, "yet agents made no arrests and just a single seizure," the report states.

Links: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...walking-probe/

The inspector general cleared him, But "WE" sure as hell did not. Some of us have looong memories and just remember- Karma is a bitch!!

[Flippper]

AG Holder Cleared in Justice Gunwalking Probe

I expect it was the probing that got him cleared, and frankly, he looks like he's being probed. oboingo takes care of his 'peeps', but for a price.

[Dozdoats]

I've been thinking a lot about consequences lately.

There have been times in America before when people didn't seem to worry so much about consequences. Times like the Roaring Twenties, when a bunch of people managed to make it through WWI and get home in one piece, when business was booming and society was changing in so many ways, when music and dance and fashion and night life stepped things up a notch, that people- or some of them- just seemed to get swept up in the current and lose their bearings.

Times like the late 1960s, when the Baby Boomers started making their numbers felt for the first time, when the protests over the war in Vietnam began to get traction, when repeated assassinations seemed to jerk the rug out from under various segments of the population, when the Flower Children showed up and blew their own minds as well as the minds of everyone else, when the 1920's mantra of 'wine women and song' got repackaged into 'sex drugs and rock&roll' and once again people just got swept away by events and changes.

It was basically forty years from the 1920s to the 1960s. And it's been about 50 years from the 1960s till now. I get the impression there are a lot of people around me who are waiting for some sort of signal that there is less reason to be concerned about consequences these days. That consequences seem not to matter as much as they did in years gone by - that there might not even BE any consequences imposed externally before too long, because there might not be any power structure out there TO impose consequences.

This is going to be REALLY interesting, I think...