Operation Fast & Furious

[tombogan03884]

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46339

When the Watergate break-ins took place in 1972, President Richard Nixon knew nothing about them.  But once he found out, he acted quickly to keep them secret, and it was his role in the cover-up that eventually led to his resignation in August 1974.  Excerpts of recorded conversations between figures in the Operation Fast and Furious U.S.-Mexico gunrunning scheme are becoming ominously reminiscent of the 1970s watershed event in American politics.
 
In the historically monumental Watergate scandal, Nixon’s role in the cover-up was verified when he handed over personal tape recordings of conversations he’d had in the Oval Office on the subject.
 
That was 1974, and this is 2011, and in an eerie twist of fate, another batch of recordings has turned up that might reveal more about Fast and Furious than the current administration wants anyone to know:  In fact, it might create more of a storm than Obama & Co. can weather.
 
The recordings, which seem to have been made in March 2011, are of conversations between Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Ariz., and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent Hope McAllister.  Lone Wolf was one of the gun stores used for Fast and Furious sales to straw purchasers.
 
Although the recordings have been turned over to congressional investigators and the Inspector General, excerpts that were released to the public make it sound like the gun dealer was extremely concerned that news of Fast and Furious was going to reach a House member or senator who would take action on it.
 
Howard’s concern arose from a March 9 letter from Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.) and other members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder come clean about Fast and Furious.  The House committee had been spurred into action by the testimony of ATF whistle-blower John Dodson.
 
Of the four excerpts released to the public, the first one best demonstrates the angst of those involved in the operation and the necessity for everyone, including Holder, to be sure their stories matched up:
 
HOWARD:  "[Dodson’s] more toxic than you realize.  I can tell you because I asked him, 'How much of this f-----g file did you release?' ”
 
McALLISTER:  "Mmm hmm."
 
HOWARD:  "He said basically the underlying case file.  I said, 'Okay, who’d you release it to?  F-----g [Sen.] Patrick Leahy​!'  Okay?  Wasn’t just [Sen. Chuck] Grassley, it was Leahy, alright?  Leahy, as we both know, has adjourned this inquiry right now, okay, with no plans to reconvene it.  So your people were successful to that end."  (Italics added.)
 
McALLISTER:  "Right."
 
HOWARD:  "Obviously that’s good.  However these idiots from …"
 
McALLISTER:  "… The House?"
 
HOWARD:  "Yeah, and that I don’t know.  What is troublesome with this [is] I expected [Rep.] Darrell Issa​’s signature to be on this [but] it wasn’t.  He’s your biggest thorn.  He hates Holder."
 
McALLISTER:  "Yeah.  Where’s he out of?"
 
HOWARD:  "Darrell Issa?"
 
McALLISTER:  "California."
 
HOWARD:  "Lamar Smith, you know’s, out of Texas, I don’t know.  Holder has to respond to this tomorrow."
 
McALLISTER:  "Yeah, he’s gonna respond."
 
HOWARD:  "I know he is.  And I assure you the media isn’t gonna like his response, because basically it’s gonna mirror what he’s told Grassley."
 
McALLISTER:  "Yeah."
 
HOWARD:  "He can’t deviate."  (Italics added.)
 
McALLISTER:  "Well if, I mean, I’ve seen a rough copy of what our U.S. attorney here has sent up.  Whether or not he has the balls to actually use it or not, I doubt it.  But I mean, it’s pretty aggressive.  The way I see it, our local U.S. attorney is extremely aggressive.  [But] when it gets to D.C. …"
 
HOWARD:  "Who, [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Emory [Hurley]?"
 
McALLISTER:  "No, the U.S. attorney."
 
HOWARD:  "Burke, yeah, used to work under Clinton.  …Talking about [Dennis] Burke?"
 
McALLISTER:  "Mmm hmm."
 
HOWARD:  "Yeah, well ..."
 
McALLISTER:  "But the problem is, once it gets to D.C., it just gets … well, you know."
 
HOWARD:  "Discombobulated—that’s a good term for it.  Yeah, I get that."
 
Even from a cold transcription, it’s evident that Howard is as nervous as a cat about Fast and Furious becoming public knowledge.  It’s also evident that McAllister is confident of how U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke had handled things, but not very confident about how things will go once everything is shifted to D.C.  It is important to note that Burke was the one who tried to cover up the ties between the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Fast and Furious.  He retired last month without facing any criminal prosecution for his role in the mess.
 
Interesting too, is that as Howard wraps up the first excerpt of the recordings, it appears he understood how widespread the federal involvement in Fast and Furious had been.  He knew that it wasn’t just the ATF, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI too:
 
HOWARD:  "Let me tell you, you got more people out there now talking about this f-----g thing than anything I've ever seen.  … People are not shutting the hell up … and that goes from DHS to f-----g FBI to everybody.  I’m hearing it hypothetically on every fringe."
 
Judging from the tenor of these recordings, particularly the consternation on the part of Howard, these excerpts may only scratch the surface of the immensity of the crimes hidden behind the door marked Fast and Furious.

[Hazcat]

Obama's Watergate... now there is a happy thought.

[tombogan03884]

Wouldn't it be nice to see him ducking into the chopper in admitted disgrace 

[Pathfinder]

Wouldn't it be nice to see him ducking into the chopper in admitted disgrace 

Perp walk would be better.

[crusader rabbit]

Perp walk would be better.

From the White House to the Big House...

suggested by a whistful Crusader (sigh)

[Sponsor]

[twyacht]

It's actually Watergate Times Three.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/watergate_times_three.html

September 19, 2011
Watergate Times Three
By Robert J. Mack

You think Richard Nixon's presidency was the worst scandal ever?  Well, so far, anyway.

It all started with a tape holding a door open at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., discovered by a security guard 39 years ago on June 17, 1972.  That discovery started a sinister chapter in America's history, fueled by the fervent investigative work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post and ending with the president, Richard M. Nixon, exiting the White House in disgrace on August 9, 1974.

A similar Watergate scandal could erupt for Barack Obama.  The only difference is that there may be three of them.

The insane Solyndra loan, the LightSquared cronyism, and the Operation Fast and Furious gun-running debacle have all come into America's consciousness at the same time.  How could the government invest in a solar panel start-up that had no prospects for any kind of success, and to the tune of  $535 million dollars?  Why would a four-star Air Force general say that the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor?  What were directors at the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the ATF thinking when they persuaded gun dealers to allow more than 2,000 firearms to get in the hands of drug lords in Mexico, resulting in over 200 deaths? 

These are questions that demand answers.  And the American people are not mesmerized enough by the star power of their president to avoid those answers and where they might lead.

Are the current body blows to the president's political stature of these humiliating events, not to mention the legal ramifications, enough to distract voters next year from returning him to the progressive throne?  If Obama had provided any explorer's gold or spices to lard the treasury from the first term, then maybe all might be forgiven, assuming no laws were broken.  But with Obama's poll numbers in the toilet over the economy (and the awkward question of competence in the air), Americans are ticked off.  And when the populace gets mad, watch out.  Royalty's crowns get removed unceremoniously when the people revolt. And, so far, Obama, the king of the progressives, has taken a "let 'em eat cake" position about the three scandals.

"What did the president know and when did he know it?"  This was the famous question posed by then Senator Howard Baker during the Watergate hearings.  Will this question be raised about Obama?  MSNBC will continue, no matter what, to carry the president's water.  But the Washington Post and ABC News have broken stories based on emails leaked to them in the Solyndra scandal, and with more hearings coming, it will be difficult to maintain radio silence on the scandals mushrooming.

We can expect underlings who will be scapegoated and have to walk the plank, as Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman did in the Watergate saga.  As a matter fact, two federal officials have already been reassigned, and a third has resigned in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.  The acting director of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, has been reassigned by Attorney General Eric Holder.  Dennis Burke, Arizona's U.S. Attorney who approved the operation, resigned immediately, and Emory Hurley, a Phoenix U.S. Attorney's Office prosecutor involved in the operation, has been reassigned to civil cases.  But will there be a John Dean who will not willingly go loyally and quietly?  Will, for instance, Eric Holder resign in shame over the Fast and Furious disaster but tell all?  Considering his ego, he just may be Obama's John Dean.

When hubris invades a leader's mindset, he can do no wrong.  And when he can do no wrong, then all those who question his actions are questioning his authority and must be eliminated.  This was the fatal flaw of Richard Nixon's presidency regarding Watergate.  His paranoia about those on the left who were out to get him finally did him in.  The fact that he used his power to try to destroy people's lives constituted the criminal element in the tragedy.  Fortunately, we did have the Watergate hearings, and Nixon quit before there was a constitutional crisis.

Obama is no Nixon, locking himself in the White House, getting inebriated, and praying with his secretary of state -- at least not yet anyway.  And right now that's a very good thing for him because he has enough to worry about with his ridiculous jobs initiative, his poll numbers, and the failed "Arab spring" turning out Islamic extremists.  The smoking guns, if any, are waiting to be discovered, perhaps in the vast data archives the White House must maintain.   

For a guy trying to quit smoking, Barack Obama is facing a lot of stress.  Pass the Nicorette.

*****

I hope it all "blows up" and renders BHO as useful as tits on a boar, and gives new meaning to the term "lame duck".

[jyates]

*THIS ARTICLE CREDIT IS TO SIPSEY STREET IRREGULARS** THEIR CONTENT. Just spreading the word ;-)

Official ATF documents as well as sources in Arizona and Washington D.C. confirm that in at least two instances in 2010, an agent of the United States government purchased Kalashnikov-pattern semi-automatic pistols from licensed federal firearms dealers with taxpayer money and delivered those weapons directly into the hands of cartel smugglers.

In a letter dated June 1, 2010, then Phoenix ATF Group VII supervisor David Voth instructed a Federal Firearms Licensee in Arizona as follows:

Dear Sir,

Per Section 925(a)(1) of the Gun Control Act (GCA) exempts law enforcement agencies from the transportation, shipment, receipt, or importation controls of the GCA when firearms are to be used for the official business of the agency.

Please accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62x39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson. These aforementioned pistols will be used by Special Agent Dodson in furtherance of the performance of his official duties. In addition, Special Agent Dodson has not been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. If you have any questions, you may contact me at telephone number 602-605-6501.

Sincerely,

(Signature)
David Voth
ATF Group Supervisor
Phoenix Group VII


In the lower left-hand margin of the one-page letter is the hand-written notation:

"Picked guns
up 6/10/10
Paid Cash"


"Paid Cash" is underlined.

The existence of this letter provided to these reporters by a previously reliable source familiar with the Fast and Furious investigation, coupled with interviews of other sources across the country which put it into context, provides startling proof that the Federal government did not merely "lose track" of weapons purchased by "straw buyers" under surveillance by the ATF and destined for the Mexican drug cartels. In an undercover operation ordered by Fast and Furious supervisor David Voth, the U.S. government purchased firearms with taxpayer money from licensed firearms dealers, instructed them to conduct the sales "off the books," and used an ATF agent, John Dodson, to deliver them directly to people that Dodson believed were conducting them across the border.

According one source close to the Issa committee and knowledgeable of its workings, this revelation "puts a stake in the heart of the 'botched sting operation' lie." He continued, "There never was any 'sting,' there was only a deliberate effort to provide weapons to the DTO's (Drug Trafficking Organizations)." He added, "this was one hundred percent us -- our money, our guy, our (gun)walking."

This source also provided context and explanation of how the letter came to exist in the first place.

(It should be noted that although we would never reveal our sources for any story, it is important in this case for the readers to understand where we did NOT get it. Neither John Dodson nor his lawyer provided us this letter. Nor did they pass it through to us via a third party, as the DOJ has been known to do lately.)

"Dodson was given this undercover assignment by Voth," said the source, "to purchase weapons directly and provide them to the smugglers. He was operating under cover, pretending to be a 'straw buyer.'" He continued, "I think Dodson demanded the letter from Voth to cover both himself and the FFL (Federal Firearm Licensee). He didn't want to be hung out to dry" by Voth.

A source also said that the undercover assignment was an effort by Voth to "dirty him (Dodson) up," pointing out that by the time of the undercover assignment that Dodson's vocal opposition to "letting guns walk" was well known to his superiors in the Phoenix ATF office.

Sources also describe a second letter from Voth to another FFL authorizing Dodson to purchase two more Draco pistols. One source stated flatly: "Issa and Grassley have copies of both letters, and have had for a long time."

Subsequent to this undercover weapons buying and transfer to cartel smugglers by Dodson, say the sources, "Dodson just about came apart all over them (his supervisors)." In a "screaming match" that was heard throughout the Phoenix office by many employees, Dodson yelled at Voth and Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillett, "Why not just go direct and empty out the (ATF) arms room?" (to the cartels), or words to that effect.

After this confrontation, say the sources, ATF managers transferred Dodson to a post as "liaison to the intel guys at FBI" in the Phoenix office. For clarification, it is worth noting that the Brian Terry murder investigation was at this time being carried out by the criminal investigations side of the FBI out of the Tuscon office, not Phoenix.

Sources describe continuing harassment of Dodson as his access to the Phoenix office building was restricted. "They removed him from the (Fast and Furious) case as politically unreliable," said another source, adding, "And of course after the Terry murder all the shots were being called by D.C."

After the death of Brian Terry, the "rumor" post on the ATF agent's website, CleanUpATF.org and the initial coverage by these reporters in the early weeks of January, 2011, "things got ugly" for Dodson. Blamed by his immediate supervisors as well as many of his fellow agents in the Phoenix office for "treason" as one source described it, Dodson's existence at the Phoenix office was described as "precarious" by one D.C. source. The threats to his life were perceived to be so great that "solitary range days" were arranged by a sympathetic supervisor so Dodson could practice marksmanship in safety. "He (the supervisor) didn't want him (Dodson) to eat one in the back" in a range "accident," said the source.

Dodson has not given any more interviews of late. "Not since the hearings as far as I know," said one source, and it is not because he hasn't been asked.

"They're (the Justice Department) coming at him hard, looking for anything they can use against him," said another. "Can you blame him for keeping his head down?"

Although our sources firmly agree that Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa have both of the Voth/Dodson letters, we are forwarding copies of the June 1, 2010 letter to staffers of both men, asking for comment on this story and an explanation as to why they have not previously released the letters.

Given the fact that it is a weekend, these reporters do not expect any reaction until later on Monday morning.

[Hazcat]

Here's a link  Letter implicates ATF in committing straw purchases for Gunwalker

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/breaking-letter-implicates-atf-committing-straw-purchases-for-gunwalker

[twyacht]

David Codrea, and Mike Vanderboegh, have covered this from day one, and it is growing, and growing, and yet the MSM, gives it a snippet or a very brief "mention".

There are now audio tapes, a vanishing "third" gun at the crime scene of Border Patrol Agent Terry's murder, Congressman Issa stating the DOJ is obstructing and stonewalling,...Similar ops in Tampa, Houston, even Indiana coming fwd.

An ATF agent committed suicide in AZ, (we're told it's not related),....folks re-assigned, emails and doc's shredded or deleted.....still hundreds and hundreds of these guns still out there, OBTW, a couple of RPG's, and grenades (available at any gun show)...Dealers raising red flags, as an unemployed "migrant worker" bought a couple hundred firearms....

Issa is ready to appoint a Special Prosecutor, and another hearing in Oct, and another by the end of the year.

As Sipsey Street Folks say: Open Up A Second Front! Keep the pressure on, email your reps. and Senators.

Or pay no attention to that man behind the curtain folks,....nothing to see here.....Holder and BHO knew nothing....all is well.

[Pathfinder]

BTW, David Voth is one of three ATF management involved in this who got a promotion. His is apparently a real promotion - higher pay grade - than the other 2 who basically got a lateral move.