…Eric Holder. I doubt that he’ll go voluntarily, though. The House might want to start to think about impeachment.
[Update a while later]
This is almost certainly about the administration pushing a gun-control agenda:
AR-15 rifles routinely cost $750 for the most basic versions, and quality versions can easily run more than $1000 each. The cartels raid armories and buy selective-fire M-16 and M-4 rifles from deserting or corrupt Mexican military members for far less than the semi-automatic rifles finding their way to the cartels with federal government assistance, or obtain them from the same South American armories that they get their grenades from. It is a bit harder to pin-down a “street price” for an M-16/M-4 in Mexico, but cartels can probably obtain them for $5o0 or less.
The point, of course, is that it isn’t remotely cost-effective for cartels to buy these weapons in the U.S.
Yet the AK- and AR-pattern weapons that are most bitterly opposed by gun-grabbing groups and politicians in the United States are the most common weapons purchased by Operation Fast and Furious.
So they deliberately allowed hundreds to be murdered, here and in Mexico, so they could slander law-abiding gun dealers and subvert the Second Amendment. They shouldn’t be allowed to resign. They should be doing hard time.
[Update a while later]
Gang control, not gun control.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I hadn’t read the whole piece when I first posted the link (the first one in this post). Toward the end:
Prominent anti gun politicians who had been aggressively promoting the “90-percent lie” were in a position to use agencies under their control to carry out a gunwalking plot that planted the evidence to support their contentions. The very guns that these politicians wanted to most control or ban outright with far stricter gun control measures were then pushed to the cartels. No wonder the president laughed about his plot to advance gun control “under the radar.”
Hard time.
The point, of course, is that it isn’t remotely cost-effective for cartels to buy these weapons in the U.S.
Except, they did buy them in the US. Fast and Furious by your own account involved sales at retail to people who shouldn’t have been allowed to buy guns. Apparently we shouldn’t let mere facts get in the way of a good theory.
Chris, are you completely out to lunch?
They bought them with US taxpayer money, and the dealers were forced to sell them by the ATF.
Talk about not letting facts get in the way of a good theory.
You have some evidence that the US gave money to criminals to buy weapons? I haven’t seen any such evidence.
Chris, even if the government didn’t pay for the guns, it is still the case that it forced dealers to sell guns to people who were not legally permitted to buy them. You don’t think that’s something worthy of going to jail over?
Somebody going to jail? Police monitor and allow illegal drug sales all the time in order to build a case against “bigger fish.” I don’t know where the line legally is between “incompetent” and “illegal” in those cases.
I do know that an allegation that the Attorney General used government funds to buy illegal weapons for criminals is, without proof, libelous.
Chris,
the problem with your example and Gunwalker is that as soon as the guns crossed the border, they all disappeared–no way of keeping track of them.
Oh, and, of course, when cops have drug stings, they do it themselves; they don’t force third parties to commit felonies.
I have
n’t seenbeen studiously avoiding looking for any such evidence.FTFY
here’s the most detailed report on Gunrunner I could find. There is no, zero, nada evidence or even an allegation that government money was used to buy guns in Gunrunner. Provide a link with any evidence otherwise.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/07/too-bad-to-check-project-gunrunner-was-funded-by-the-stimulus/
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fast-furious-update-federal-funds-used-to-purchase-weapons-sold-to-drug-gangs/
I’ve read this at other sites, but google isn’t being terribly helpful. The “documents obtained by fox news” are from reports to Rep. Issa, in other words federal employees have stated to a member of congress that they purchased weapons with government money, and then delivered those weapons to cartel members. This is of course the definition of a straw purchase, and it was done by the agents under protest by direct orders of their supervisors.
As for your statement “Police monitor and allow illegal drug sales all the time”, they may monitor third party sales without interference to gain insight into an operation, but when officers get involved, it’s always a direct part of a bust. In this case, no bust or even further monitoring was planned or attempted, they simply handed weapons over and walked away. What’s the legitimate law enforcement goal? That’s the question that has been asked, and never answered.
Six out of 2,000 guns proves that Eric Holder was funding the drug cartels? No, it proves that David Voth, the guy ordering the sale, was an idiot.
Six is greater than zero. And who does David Voth answer to? Utlimately, Eric Holder and Barack Obama. I’d have greater confidence in your interpretation of events, Chris, if Voth hadn’t been promoted in the meantime.
Egad Chris, you take the cake for the most studious effort at ignorance. I clicked on the link above and actually read the article, which includes this quote from the Congressman’s letter to Holder:
Operation Fast and Furious funneled firearms legally purchased at gun shops in the U.S. to known criminal syndicates to prove these syndicates have access to legal purchased weapons
“Legally purchased” means exactly what it says. This is the first step. Those guns were then shipped to firearms dealers (that verb “funneled” comes into play now). where they were sold illegally to folks that normally should not be allowed to purchase guns.
So where do you stand at this point on “Provide a link with any evidence otherwise” considering such a link was already provided? There is no, zero, nada evidence or even an allegation that you have a lick of reading comprehension.
The funnelling was done by the straw buyers, not the ATF. It’s not illegal for a gun store to buy guns. The ATF should have stopped the gun sales, but the allegation as written makes it seem like the ATF created the problem of US guns moving to Mexico out of whole cloth.
They didn’t. As my article points out, By 2009, the ATF was reporting that some 90 percent of the weapons Mexican authorities recovered and submitted for tracing originated in the United States.
So, before Gunwalker, 90% of the guns traced in Mexico came from the US. The ATF was trying to stop that. Incompetently, yes. Possibly illegally. But they didn’t create the problem nor has anybody shown any proof that the Attorney General was directing this operation.
And BTW, before I get called a liberal gun controller, know that I own guns and am a member of the NRA.
Yeah, and that 90% was a small fraction of the guns recovered from cartels. The vast majority of criminals’ guns were NOT coming from US gun stores.
Chris, the reason 90% of the weapons they tried to trace to the US did successfully trace to the US was because Mexican authorities only gave the ATF weapons they thought came from the US. There weren’t very many such guns among the vast stockpiles of weapons they were seizing, because Mexico and Central America have been awash in fully automatic weapons for at least half a century. Do you really think all those Marxist rebel armies, right wing juntas, and various generalismos were shopping at Cabellos?
But Obama and the ATF were spinning that 90% statistic to imply that 90% of all guns seized in Mexico were traced from the US, even though the actual percentage of US origin guns seized from the Cartels was only 18%. But to prop up the lie that you keep repeating, the DOJ was willingly complicit in the murder of hundreds of innocent people, including US federal agents.
So, before Gunwalker, 90% of the guns traced in Mexico came from the US. The ATF was trying to stop that.
Chris, why did you try to make this point? Why is it so hard for you to admit that Holder probably committed a few federal felonies and probably through his actions killed a US law enforcement officer and up to a few hundred others?
My view is that this should already be in the courts and the motive and degree of involvement by the various responsible parties should already be examined.
Because nobody has shown that Holder designed or executed this program. It looks to me like somebody much lower down in the food chain came up with this idea.
Which absolves Holder how exactly? The question is whether or not he KNEW about it and did or did not act on that knowledge. And if he did act, what did he do.
It’s unlikely that a record will surface that indicates high-level acquiescence with “we need more US-originated assault weapons to show up in Mexican drug cartel hands; here’s a way to accomplish that”. But if this kind of thing had occurred 6 years ago, you know the media would be pounding on it daily.
By “this kind of thing” I’m referring to Operation First and Foremost:
Operation FF (Top Secret, Eyes Only)
Due to the recent sting operation which captured video of high-level members of Gideons selling bibles at below cost, we have gained cooperation from that organization to increase bible placement in certain gang-influenced areas of east Los Angeles. And they have agreed to include an introduction page containing the pledge of allegiance and an image of the American flag. Please see appendix B for targeted hotels.
If that had been exposed, the innocent bystander casualty count from heads exploding at the New York Times and Washington Post would have been significant.
The next person down the food chain from Holder in this mess is the head of the ATF, who already fingered higher ups and said he wasn’t going to be the fall guy for the DOJ. On top of that, the level of interdepartmental coordination involving the ATF, FBI, and other DOJ branches clearly means that this was run at Holder’s level of above.
Whether he designed it or not, he told Congress that he wasn’t aware of the program, yet he was briefed on the program twice. Perjury doesn’t require that Holder created the program. I don’t expect Gerrib to care; Gerrib lies too.
Also see my link about Voth’s promotion. In what reality does someone legitimately get promoted for screwing up as bad as Voth did? And Voth and two other managers involved, were moved to Washington, DC. “Keep your enemies close and your friends closer.”
If I were president right now instead of this preening worm, I’d have summoned Holder immediately upon hearing this story and ask him where these three guys are. If the answer is that they’re still working for ATF, then I’d fire Holder. I’d fire whoever else was responsible for the move. And I’d put these three managers on leave with pay.
That 90% story has always been a lie. The administration was trying to make it be true.
Purchased by straw buyers? The money still came from the federal government! You are asking me to believe that a group of individuals participated in this program and were not reimbursed for their purchases?
Dude, I’ve got this bridge that I just know you will want to buy…
The straw buyers sold the guns to the cartels. The cartels paid with drug money.
In most cases they paid, in some cases the federal government paid. The big question is why the cartel was knowingly cooperating with the operation, and how much untraceable drug money went directly into the hands of high administration officials or organizations they controlled. Drug cartels have historically developed close ties with law enforcement and politicians south of the border – always by buying them off or buying them out. When politicians are caught doing something insanely idiotic from a law-enforcement perspective, but something that is exactly what they would be doing if they had been bought off by narco terrorist drug cartels, Occam’s Razor says they’ve been bought by narco terrorist drug cartels.