For nearly a year now, House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R=CA) and Attorney General Eric Holder have locked horns over Operation Fast and Furious.  Throughout this time we have seen heated exchanges between the two during Congressional hearings, watched the DOJ’s narrative change more than once, and wondered why Holder has thus far been allowed to dictate the speed at which the committee can investigate him.

As of late, when Holder dug in and simply refused to the turn over the documents the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed, the contest between he and Issa turned into nothing less than a battle of wills. And Issa upped the ante when he drew a line in the sand and gave Holder until 5 pm on February 9^th to comply with the subpoenas or face charges of contempt of congress.

And so they squared off, and for any of you who wondered which man would blink first the answer has been revealed—Issa blinked, and gave Holder & Co. a time extension for turning over the documents.

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While Attorney General Eric Holder continues to “stonewall,” as Congressman Issa (R-CA) describes it, and make excuses concerning Operation Fast and Furious, the Mexican Government is making arrests.  According to the LA Times, over the weekend Mexican authorities arrested Jose Antonia Torres Marrufo, “a reputed enforcer for the country’s most powerful drug cartel — a man also alleged to have amassed weapons from the U.S. government’s failed Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operation.” (Italics mine)

Torres  “was in charge of operations in the border state of Chihuahua,” which includes the crime-ridden city of Juarez: a city that is just across the border from El Paso, TX, and one to which Fast and Furious weapons were believed to have been transported. Moreover, Torres, “[who] was wanted in connection with numerous crimes including murder, extortion, kidnapping and the sale and distribution of drugs,” had “two assault rifles and two  [semi-automatic] pistols” with him.

I can’t help but wonder, “Where did Torres get the rifles and the pistols?” Let’s see, he was “alleged to have amassed weapons” via Fast and Furious and he admits to taking over “armed operations for the organization in Chihuahua during the last two to three years.” Hmmm…it doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to figure this one out.

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At one point during the hearings before the House Oversight Committee on February 2nd, Attorney General Eric Holder said he hadn’t learned of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death until 24 hours after it happened. However, this timeline seems questionable at best when you consider that at 2:31 a.m. on very night of Terry’s death (Terry was shot on the night of December 14/15, 2010), then U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke received an email from an unnamed official that read:

On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.

Approximately one hour later, Burke received a follow-up email which said “our agent is dead.” The email was sent to Monty Wilkinson, Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the time. And a few hours later, Wilkinson responded that the incident was “tragic” and added: “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

Here’s the problem: the timeframe doesn’t match up. What I mean is, if we go by the times the emails were sent and the time at which Wilkinson responded to say he had alerted Holder about Terry’s death, it’s not unreasonable to suppose Holder knew within 12 hours of the murder. Claiming that he didn’t learn about Terry’s death until 24 hours after the fact gave him 12 extra hours in which he could go golfing or play tennis or perhaps even get his team at the DOJ on the same page before news of Terry’s death broke(?).

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As Attorney General Eric Holder sat before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday February 2nd, his answers were as predictable as they were unacceptable: predictable because they were the well-rehearsed answers he gives each time he’s asked about Fast and Furious (except when he gives different answers because the timeline demands it) and they were unacceptable because many of his answers were simply contrary to reality.

For example, consider how Holder continued to defend (and rationalize) the speed at which the DOJ is releasing subpoenaed documents to the committee. How he simultaneously maintained that the DOJ has “shared huge amounts of information” and promised to share more, albeit on the DOJ’s timetable rather than that of the Oversight Committee.

But the reality is that the DOJ has only released 8% of the subpoenaed documents, or approximately 6,000 documents. And according to a report from the Oversight Committee, among these 6,000 were many which consisted “of blacked-out pages containing no information,” as well as “many duplicate documents” meant only “to bolster [the DOJs] page count.” (In other words, among the measly number of documents delivered, many contain no information on them.)

At the same time, Holder & Co. have turned over 92% more materials (about 80,000 documents) to the DOJ’s in-house Inspector General. And I’m not the only one who views this through a skeptical lense, especially since the IG falls under the auspices of the DOJ. In fact, it’s easy to assume that Holder’s being more open with the DOJ’s IG because he fears them less than he fears Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and others on the Oversight Committee.

Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) certainly believes this is so. Thus during his exchange with Holder last week he said: “I think you’re hiding behind something here.  There [are] things you don’t want us to see.” Added Burton: “You ought to give us the documents.”

Stop for a moment and think about this: What would happen to the average American if they only provided a court or a federally-backed investigative committee with 8% of what that court or investigative body requested? Moreover, what if a portion of the 8% of documents they turned over were blacked-out pages “containing no information”?

Why then should Holder receive special treatment? (It’d be nice if the law were applied equally, to the ruling class as it is to the country class.)

The good news is that Issa is on record saying that if Holder hasn’t reversed course and complied with the document subpoenas by February 9th, the “committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold [Holder] in contempt of Congress.” Therefore, between now and the 9th Holder needs to hand over the documents  and we need to remind Issa that we expect him to follow through with the contempt charges if Holder simply thumbs his nose at the Oversight Committee again.

During the House Oversight Committee hearings yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder denounced what he called a “political gotcha game.” And he was not without his defenders, Democrats all, who also tried to spin the hearing into nothing more than an election year sideshow orchestrated by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Yet ironically, even as Holder and his defenders tried to make Issa and his Republican colleagues look like naïve political opportunists, the rhetoric of the Democrats was little more than a politically charged lesson in sycophancy 101.

For example, when Congressman Gerald Connolly’s (D-VA) time began, he addressed the room, and Holder, thus: “Thank you for being here and showing such dignity and honor in the face of some who are suggesting that you are other [than dignified and honorable].” And Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL)  opened his time by referring to yesterday’s hearing as a “bonfire of the vanities.” He said this was so because “after nearly six hearings, [by those who] are looking for the perfect case to embarrass the AG and the President,” all that’s been learned is that “this is not it.” These two examples were indicative of the praise Democrats heaped upon Holder, and they clearly demonstrated that the facts don’t matter. Rather, they put party and power above the truth.

Yet as stomach turning as this was, perhaps even worse was the Democrats’ unabashed, open pursuit of more gun control during yesterday’s hearings. Almost to a man, once they finished praising Holder they took turns trying to alleviate the pressure he’s under by suggesting Fast and Furious couldn’t have happened if we had more stringent gun control laws. (In making this point, they conveniently overlooked the number of gun control laws that violated with impunity during Operation Fast and Furious.)

So as the saga unfolded yesterday, once Connolly had praised the “dignity and honor” of Holder, he and the AG basically had a conversation in front of the world about the supposed need for a new federal firearms trafficking law.

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The highlight of the exchanges today between members of the House Oversight Committee and Attorney General Eric Holder came when Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) was given her time to question the AG. Her questions are important because she speaks for a district in New York, far removed from the border mayhem and violence connected to Fast and Furious. The fact her constituents are outraged goes a long way in describing how widespread the angst and disgust over Fast and Furious really is.

After opening her time by pointing out that Holder had frequently responded to charges in a dismissive way, by saying they were all part of a political game, or an election year charade, Buerkle said:

I think it’s important to recognize that you, as the Attorney General, with all due respect, need to  be held accountable, or someone does, as to what happened. Of all the issues that face this country, this is the issue that I hear from my district so frequently about. In fact, today I have no fewer than 30 questions from folks in my district who want to know what happened, why it happened, and who’s going to be held accountable.

She then stated that she’d been “taken aback” by Holder’s haughty declarations to others on the committee, wherein he said “I am the Attorney General,” as if that meant he were above reproach. Said Buerkle: “With all due respect, yes you are [the Attorney General], but you are also accountable not only to the folks in my district, but to the American people.

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I just received an email from Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office, and as I alluded to in my last post on Big Government, zero hour is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder. He is to appear before the  House Oversight Committee for questions over Fast and Furious this Thursday at 9 am, and the closer we get to that time, the greater the pressure that seems to be mounting on Holder.

At the head of the crowd applying pressure to Holder is Issa himself, who has simply grown sick and tired of waiting on Holder to comply with the numerous subpoenas he’s received for documents related to Fast and Furious. As a result, Issa has moved from a “wait and see” approach to one of demanding Holder comply or else. To that end Issa sent Holder a letter on January 31 warning him that he has until Feb. 9 to turn over all documents or face “contempt” charges.

Wrote Issa to Holder:

[Your] actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up. If the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress.

Issa has plenty of reasons to suspect a cover-up, and he’s not alone in doing so.  After all, the most recent DOJ document dump (on Friday, January 27), proved that despite months upon months of denials, the DOJ did have knowledge of gun-running all along. Not only that, but the DOJ’s own Lanny Breuer actually suggested gun-running at a tactic.  Who knows how many more revelations await us if Holder will only hand over the rest of the documents Issa has subpoenaed?

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February 2nd is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee for questioning on Fast and Furious. This will put him in the hot seat in front of Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and other congressional members like Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who have been steady on Holder’s trail since details of Fast and Furious became public.

Holder’s last appearance before a congressional committee was on December 8, when Issa made it clear how irritated he was over the changing timeline, Holder’s perceived arrogance, and the ongoing refusal to turn over subpoenaed DOJ documents. In one of the best exchanges on Dec 8, Issa looked at Holder and asked, “Have you no shame?” That was also the hearing in which Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), expressed his outrage over the fact that Holder’s DOJ had submitted inaccurate testimony then withdrawn it in an attempt to avoid being charged with providing false testimony.

But a lot has changed since that early December hearing. Most recently, the last minute release of subpoenaed documents which show that Holder learned about Border Agent Brian Terry’s death on the day it happened: a point Holder has heretofore denied. (Emails between Dennis Burke, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, and Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff prove this.) Additionally, other emails in the recently released DOJ documents show that the head of DOJ’s “criminal division, Lanny Breuer, suggested letting some illicit ‘straw’ weapons buyers in the U.S. [to] transport their guns across the border into Mexico where they could be arrested.”

Then there’s Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, who was subpoenaed to appear for testimony on January 24, but pleaded the 5th in order to avoid being “compelled to be a witness against himself.” As a result, a determined Congressman Issa has demanded that Cunningham’s underling, Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney, “speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”

All this to say, as I watch the hearings this Thursday I hope to see the committee place Holder under oath and then ask tough, pointed questions about these and other recently revealed matters. For example, in light of the emails, Holder needs to give a clear and binding answer regarding when he found out about Terry’s death. He needs to explain how the DOJ can claim ignorance regarding “gun running” while their own man, Lanny Breuer, was pushing it as a means making arrests. He needs to explain what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates had with Patrick J. Cunningham between the time Cunningham was subpoenaed and the time his attorney announced he would plead the fifth. And he needs to describe what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates have had with Michael Morrissey at this time regarding the testimony Morrissey is expected to give when he speaks with investigators.

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As I wrote in a post for Big Government this past Sunday, January 22, the Arizona’s legislature has decided once more to do the job the feds won’t do, and has launched its own investigation into Fast and Furious. And during an appearance on FOX NEWS this morning, Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin explained why they’ve taken this step. He said that constituents were flooding their offices with questions about the gun-running operation, and he said one recurring question was, “You’re not waiting for the feds [to do something] are you?” He then said the answer to that question was “No.”

Said Tobin:

This is an incident that occurred on Arizona soil, with Arizona business owners, [where we lost] an Arizona agent (Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry), and quite frankly we felt it needed a lot more attention. We felt our citizens needed a place to go to share their stories. Maybe there’s more there. This was a failed program right from the start and I think the idea is to put more light on it.

Tobin explained that as he’s watched this story unfold, and learned about the tactics used in Fast and Furious, it just hasn’t made sense: “I’m from the family of a law enforcement officer and I don’t think that the process by which they were going was the direction in which we fight back on border security and drug infiltration.”

He went on to explain that the Arizona House has been disappointed in the way Eric Holder has handled things up till now, and added:

It doesn’t appear he had a grasp on it right from the beginning when the inquiries started coming in. And forgive me for being concerned when I hear that the federal government’s here and they’re here to help. [We’re] the state that had to pass S.B. 1070 so we could help secure our borders, and the fed sued us…we’ve lost millions of acres of forest land [to fires] because the feds won’t let us clean them, we’ve got a Navajo power plant that the EPA may close…I meant the list goes on and on.

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When Obama was running for president in 2008, he promised to “fundamentally change America” – a phrase which lucid Americans took as meaning he was going to bring his leftist agenda to bear on us all. And if Obama has had any success as president, it’s certainly been his success in changing us fundamentally from a nation under law to a nation that often looks lawless. From a nation in which one feels secure into a nation in which more and more people are feeling that their security is in their own hands (literally). And this has led not only to record breaking gun sales since Obama’s election, but also to changes in state laws around the country to make it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry a handgun for their own protection.

As a result of this, Wisconsin, which was one of the few states to not have some form of concealed carry law within its borders, now has one thanks to their much maligned Republican legislature and Gov. Scott Walker. With the stroke of a pen in July of 2011, Walker made Wisconsin the 49th state in the union to allow the concealed carry of handguns. (Only Illinois, Obama’s old stomping ground, continues to deny its citizens this option right.)

And while I don’t want to take away from what Walker has accomplished in Wisconsin, during the last few years the momentum has shifted from seeking to allow licensed citizens to carry concealed handguns to allowing all citizens without a felony in their criminal record or mental health problems to carry concealed without a license or a permit. In other words, the growing push abroad is to recognize the 2nd Amendment as a sufficient permit for concealed carry and go from there.  After all, the 2nd Amendment does say we have the right not only to keep but also to bear arms.

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Yesterday, I had a post on Big Government which focused on a subpoena Rep. Darrell Issa had sent to Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. In both the subpoena and a letter accompanying it, Issa made two complaints: 1. That Cunningham had theretofore refused to voluntarily testify before the House Oversight Committee, and 2. That members of the DOJ had informed Issa that some of their inaccuracies in testimony were due to false information they’d been provided by Cunningham.

The subpoena demanded Cunningham testify before the committee on January 24, 2012. And yesterday, Cunningham’s attorney, Tobin J. Romero, made it known that although his client will show up as demanded, he will not be providing any information to Issa and the rest of the committee.

Here’s an excerpt from Romero’s letter:

My client, Patrick Cunningham, has spent his entire 32-year career in government service, including as a JAG officer in the United States Army, as a state court prosecutor, and as a federal prosecutor. He also served on the State Bar of Arizona’s Committee on Rules of Professional Conduct (Ethics Committee) from 1995 to 2002. When he returned to the United States Attorney’s Office in 2010, he did so to advance the law enforcement interests of the United States. Regrettably, he now finds himself caught in the middle of a dispute between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch, with both, according to the allegations in your letter, finding it convenient to make accusations that are inconsistent with the documentary evidence and the public record.

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I just received an email from Congressman Darrel Issa’s office, containing a copy of a letter that was just sent Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The letter announces that Cunningham has just been subpoenaed for “repeated refusals to testify voluntarily” before the House Oversight Committee, concerning accusations that he relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Justice Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

Wrote Issa to Cunningham:

During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used.  In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry.  Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.

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I just received an email update from Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office, stating that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 2. The questions will center on the Department of Justice’s knowledge of, and response to, the gunwalking tactics that were used in Operation Fast and Furious. The A.G. will also be asked to address the DOJ’s   “steadfast refusal to disclose information following the February 4, 2011 letter to Senator Grassley, which the [DOJ] has withdrawn because it contained false information denying allegations made by whistleblowers about Operation Fast and Furious.”

Wrote Issa:

The Department of Justice’s conduct in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious has been nothing short of shameful. From its initial denials that nothing improper occurred, to efforts to silence whistleblowers who wanted to tell Congress what really happened, to its continuing refusal to discuss or share documents related to this cover-up, the Justice Department has fought tooth and nail to hide the full truth about what occurred and what senior officials knew.  Attorney General Holder must explain or reverse course on decisions that appear to put the careers of political appointees ahead of the need for accountability and the Department’s integrity.

The last portion of the letter provided me via Issa’s email highlights new (and startling) information on the DOJ’s refusal to cooperate with investigators to date.

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Making a Christmas list is always fun. And I remember as a kid listing things in order, putting the gift I would most like Santa to bring at the top of list. One year that was a bicycle, another year a certain type of BB gun, and another year a video game system. Throughout other years the number one gift request varied but was always the one thing on my list I went to bed dreaming about on Christmas Eve. And although such is to be expected of a child, it seems that a lot of adults now go to bed on Christmas Eve dreaming of what Santa might bring them as well: especially when the number one thing on their list is a Walther .380 or a Glock model 27 or a Springfield XD subcompact 9mm, all of which are splendid guns for concealed carry permit holders.

As a matter of fact, judging from sales receipts and FBI reports regarding sales for December 2011, it seems that Santa delivered at least 1.5 million firearms for Christmas.

Not only is this news in light of the fact that it required the FBI to do a record setting number of background checks in a month – 1.5 million in December alone – but also because it continues to highlight what has been a growing trend among people of all walks of life: namely, folks are less and less trustful of government’s ability to keep them safe.

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A politician is described as a “lame duck” once he or she has been defeated or announced their retirement, and is simply finishing out the remainder of their term in office. And even after Nov. elections are over and a large number of Senate and House members are voted out, the lame duck Senators and House members are usually just that – lame. But occasionally, they are fierce because the defeated office holder is bitter and has approximately two months to wreak havoc with his or her vote before leaving DC. When this happens, ideologues will use the time where they’re completely accountable to voters to score points for their side. We saw this after the Nov. 2010 elections when defeated Senators and House members banded together in late Dec. to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” so homosexuals could serve openly in the military. Yet as bad as this is, the opportunities for a lame duck office holder to attack our freedom grows exponentially when said office holder is in the White House, and when he’s an ideologue who hates private gun ownership, the right to self defense, and the 2nd Amendment.

And this brings us to a crucial point. Namely, that if Obama wins re-election in 2012, he will be awarded four years of lame duck status in which to do anything and everything he wants to lessen our ability to own and use guns. He knows he won’t have to answer for it because he will not be running for re-election in 2016.

What would four years of a lame duck President Obama mean for gun owners? The only way to know is to gauge it by the things Obama has done already. In 1995, when pursuing a state level office in Illinois, Obama “endorsed a complete ban on all handguns.” At that time, he also expressed his support for waiting periods for handgun purchases. A “waiting period” is a set period of time, usually 5 to 10 days, which has to elapse between the time an individual buys a gun and is actually allowed to take it home. In other words, customer “X” would pay for a gun on Monday of this week, but would not be allowed to pick it up at the store until Monday of next week. (The foolishness of this scenario is evident when one considers what that waiting period might mean for a female who is being threatened by a violent criminal or sexual predator. She would have to buy her gun then spend the next week, the “waiting period,” hoping the criminal or predator would be willing to wait a week before attacking as well.)

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Late yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s office sent me an email with a copy of a letter the Congressman had sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on December 15 — a letter to which the A.G. has yet to respond. In it, Issa informs Holder that the Committee would like him to appear for more testimony on January 24, 2012.

In other words, Fast and Furious isn’t going away any time soon.

Issa wrote:

The hearing will examine flaws in the management structure of the Justice Department as demonstrated in the genesis and implementation of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. Specifically, the hearing will focus on what senior Department officials could and should have done to put a stop to this reckless program, as well as the specific areas where failures in communication and management occurred.

As those of you who watched the hearings on December 8th certainly noticed, Holder isn’t a big fan of the way Issa deals with him.

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In an interview published over the weekend by the New York Times, Attorney General Eric Holder reminded us he will go to any length to conceal his culpability in Fast and Furious. His latest ploy is to declare as “racist” everyone who’s hounding him about the illegal guns sales, the gun smuggling, and the death, cover-ups, and other examples of lawlessness connected with the operation.

In the Times piece, Holder intimated that President Obama is disliked because of his race, and that people are piling on the bandwagon against Holder as a means to get Obama. Holder’s exact words: “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him…both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

And who are the people going after Holder and Obama because of their race? Those rascally “conservative commentators and bloggers” of course. They are those who are part of what Holder describes as a “more extreme segment” of news reporting. (I suppose it’s extreme because it’s not news that’s run through a White House sensor or an MSNBC producer before being disseminated to the public.)

Besides informing us that we’re racists for making a big deal out of hundreds of deaths among Mexican citizens, thousands of weapons sold illegally (and over 1,000 still on the street), as well as the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Holder also took a little time out to pat himself on the back during the Times interview. Said Holder: “I think that what I’m doing is right” and “I think the stands I have taken are totally consistent with a person who is looking at things realistically, factually.”

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For the better part of a year, I have been saying that the end goal of Fast and Furious was more gun control. Rush Limbaugh has said this, Sean Hannity and other FOX NEWS personalities have said this, and the NRA and Gun Owners of America have said this, among others. (I had a post on Big Government on July 13th dedicated to making this very point.)

Throughout this time, I have had a copy of an email that was sent to me back in March of 2011. It’s an July 2010 email from ATF Special Agent in Charge Mark R. Chait to ATF Supervisor William Newell. It is copied to a third ATF Supervisor, William McMahon. Newell and McMahon were assigned to the Phoenix area at the time (and Phoenix just so happened to be ground zero for Fast and Furious.) In it, Chait asks Newell if he can find enough “anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales.” In other words, Chait was asking whether, in the midst of the flood of new weapons hitting the streets via Fast and Furious, a means could be found to justify more gun control.

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Last night I was on the NRA’s Cam & Company with Cam Edwards, and talked about the way Attorney General Eric Holder and his associates have thus far been able to spin and twist their way out of the prosecution they deserve for Fast and Furious. As we talked and I thought of how Holder has vacillated on what he knew and when he knew it, I couldn’t help but think of how helpful it would be to provide somewhat of a timeline of when information on Fast and Furious was made available to Holder long before he admits. As you read it, keep in mind this is only a partial record.

On April 2, 2009 Holder gave a speech in Cuernavaca, Mexico in which he boasted about Operation “Gunrunner” and told Mexican authorities of everything he was doing to insure its success. In that speech he told the the audience:

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.  My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.

Following that speech, Project Gunrunner began and was followed by Fast and Furious. During the earliest parts of Fast and Furious, there were three people in the White House who received email updates on Fast and Furious: Kevin O’Reilly, Dan Restrepo, and Greg Gatjanis. And for the purposes of this article, the important thing about those updates is that they came from the ATF’s William Newell, a supervisor who ultimately answers to Holder.

Then came March 2010, which is when the ATF briefed Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler on Fast and Furious. (The briefing was literally one in which the ATF briefed the DOJ on Fast and Furious using a slideshow that can be viewed here.) If you’re thinking it’s hard to believe all these things could have happened without Holder knowing about Fast and Furious then join the club. I would go further and say it seems almost impossible that he didn’t.

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One year ago tonight—the night of December 14 / 15, 2010—Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down with weapons sold to a straw purchaser in Operation Fast and Furious. Originally, two Fast and Furious weapons were said to have been found at the murder scene, but there has since been evidence that a third weapon, also tied to Fast and Furious, was found there too. However, it’s very existence still being covered up by the FBI. So we’ll just say “at least two” Fast and Furious weapons were found at the murder scene the night that Terry was killed.

There are so many sad aspects to this story that I don’t know where to begin.

For starters, Terry was just days away from going home to see his parents and his siblings for Christmas. (In the days after Terry’s death, his father highlighted again and again the fact that his son had already purchased his plane tickets to come home for Christmas.)

Following his death, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke did everything he could to cover up the connection between Terry’s murder and Fast and Furious. He even went as far as to deny “victim of crime” status to the Terry family, in order to prevent government liability for what had taken place with Fast and Furious weapons.

But it must be noted that there is absolutely no doubt that Terry was killed with Fast and Furious weapons: no doubt whatsoever. The name of the straw purchaser who bought the weapons is known, Jamie Avila, and the name of the gun store from which he purchased the weapons is known as well: Lone Wolf Trading Company in Phoenix. (If the name “Lone Wolf Trading Company” rings a bell, that’s because it’s where the secret ATF recordings were made that indicate Attorney General Eric Holder had a thorough working knowledge of Fast and Furious at least as early as mid-March 2011.)

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