From CBSNews:

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3″. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

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From Reuters:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday expressed regret over a botched operation meant to track guns smuggled to Mexican drug cartels and said his department misinformed Congress about it.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley slammed Holder and the Justice Department for inaccurately telling lawmakers in a February letter that the agency did everything possible to try to stop weapons bought illegally from being sent to Mexico.

“In the nine months since then, mounting evidence has put the lie to that claim,” Grassley said to Holder at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “Documents contradicting the department’s denials came to light.”

Grassley said the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, Lanny Breuer, who is a close Holder friend, failed to correct the record for months even though he knew it was inaccurate to say the agency had done everything it could. (more…)

BILL DALEY: You shouldn’t have used the phrase “leading from behind” last spring when you spoke off the record about Libya, Mr. Vice-President.

BIDEN:  Well, I didn’t, Billy boy.  I said Hillary was leading with her behind.  Or maybe I said the whole NATO operation was like the blind leading the blind.  I don’t remember.  But the guy misquoted me.

OBAMA:  No lasting harm.  Research and Destroy knocked that off the front pages fast with the Cain revelations.

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Oh, Mr. President, the Smithsonian taxidermist just delivered Gaddafi’s head.

OBAMA:  Okay.  Tell Housekeeping to mount it above the mantel in the Residence, next to bin Laden’s.  And remind them to leave room for Baby Assad and Boehner.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Sir, the Libya bump is fading since Fox reported diehard Islamists have seized control of the country and Gaddafi’s massive stock of surface-to-air missiles.

BIDEN:  Damn Ailes, trying to make people think we shoulda known that could happen. (more…)

From ABC News:

As the Justice Department investigates how U.S. guns were allowed to flow illicitly into Mexico under the watchful eyes of federal agents, President Obama said today in an exclusive interview with ABC News that “people who have screwed up will be held accountable.”

“Our overarching goal consistently has been to say we’ve got a responsibility not only to stop drugs from flowing north, we’ve also got a responsibility to make sure we are not helping to either arm or finance these drug cartels in Mexico,” Obama said in the interview with ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper that will air on “Nightline.”

“It’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen,” he said. “And we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.” (more…)

From CBSNews:

Late Friday, the White House turned over new documents in the Congressional investigation into the ATF “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal.

The documents show extensive communications between then-ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office Bill Newell – who led Fast and Furious – and then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. Emails indicate the two also spoke on the phone. Such detailed, direct communications between a local ATF manager in Phoenix and a White House national security staffer has raised interest among Congressional investigators looking into Fast and Furious. Newell has said he and O’Reilly are long time friends.

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REP. CHARLES RANGEL:  Hiya boys and girls.  It’s me again, your Uncle Chollie in Washington.  I help your Uncle Sam take care of you and your mom, and your dad, too, if he hasn’t run off yet.

I’m here to introduce someone special, a person who can calm the raging Maxine Waters with a look, sell solar panels below cost and still make a profit, and cause the stock market to plummet with a single word.

C’mon, kids, give it up for the President of the United States, Baraaccck Obama!

FADE TO:

A Command and Control bunker deep beneath the White House.  Wearing a headset, the President is sitting at a console facing three large-screen HD monitors showing complementary views of a tactical assault in progress.   He is issuing orders.

At a break in the action, the CIC swivels to face the camera, covers his mike, and whispers:

Hey kids.  Good to see you again.   Hold on a sec; I’m just finishing up a mission here.

He turns back to direct the closing moments of the operation:

Zulu 1: secure perimeter.  Henderson: white SUV fleeing site.  Task Predator to take it out.  Bravo 1: Standoff See-Through Infrared shows targets at top of stairwell. Body signatures confirmed.  Authorization granted. [pause] Roger that.  Well done.  Bring me back some ears. (more…)

JAY CARNEY:  Sir, word from the Senate on your American Jobs Act.  Majority Leader Reid is complaining of constipation.  Says he’s been pushing since yesterday, but he can’t pass the bill.

OBAMA:  Merde!  After I did all the heavy lifting.  Damn do-nothing Congress.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Good thing you’re leaving the country next week, sir.  No one can blame you if the measure tanks when you’re abroad on official business.

OBAMA: Where am I off to?

BILL DALEY:  You’ll begin your working tour of Scotland’s golf courses on Monday, sir.  Meanwhile, the First Lady and several dozen close friends and family members are already aboard the presidential yacht, Alinsky, en route to the Galapagos for a holiday.

OBAMA:  Message her confirmation that we’ll rendezvous a week from Friday on the Côte d’Azur.  When do I return home?

DALEY:  Um, we want to be flexible, sir.  Tell him, Poll Boy.

CHUCK TODD:  Recent surveys indicate hiring spikes and an uptick in consumer confidence when you’re away, sir.  It’s as if some great weight was lifted from. . . . .

OBAMA:  I get it, Chuck.  All right.  Add Ireland to my itinerary.  Inform Michelle I’ll join her on the Riviera October 1^st.  Eric, do you have this “Gunwalker” thing under control? (more…)

So far, the shuffling of employees–and some might argue, the buying of their silence–has been the only reaction to the Gunwalker scandal, in which various agencies of the federal government conspired to assure the success of straw purchasers and smugglers running guns to a violent Mexican drug cartel.

In the months since the scandal was revealed, the Department of Justice (DOJ) , BATF, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Internal Revenue Service Criminal Division (IRS-CD), Department of Homeland Security, and Department of State, have conspired to stonewall and House and Senate investigations that have been launched to investigate a scandal that appears to be worse than Iran-Contra and Watergate combined.

The scandal is not complicated, and would be revealed by the answering of five simple questions that the media dare not demand answers to from this Administration.

1. Who came up with the idea of allowing guns to be purchased by straw purchasers and then “walked” across the border by smugglers?
2. Who authorized Operation Fast and Furious in the Department of Justice?
3. Who authorized Operation Fast and Furious in the Department of Homeland Security?
4. Is Operation Fast and Furious the only operation of its type, or were there similar operations in Texas, Florida, and other states as evidence suggests?
5. What, precisely, did Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Janet Napolitano know about Operation Fast and Furious, and when did they know it?

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