ATF Project Gunrunner

Once again, I can't imagine how they think this is a useful comparison.
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It's about the ten second sound bite, something like, "The Bush administration began a policy of walking guns into Mexico. Now, the Republicans blame the Obama administration for doing the same thing when, in reality, it's the Republicans who are to blame." Sadly, that's all that a good number of Americans will remember.
 
It's about the ten second sound bite, something like, "The Bush administration began a policy of walking guns into Mexico. Now, the Republicans blame the Obama administration for doing the same thing when, in reality, it's the Republicans who are to blame."
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...which would work, if the current administration had put a stop to it when they took office. Instead, they chose to continue the operation.
 
The briefing appears to lay the blame for gunwalking in 2007 on less than enthusiastic assistance by their Mexican counterparts, meaning that unlike Fast and Furious, Mexico was aware of and cooperating with the investigation. Which naturally leads to the "How was Fast and Furious going to work if Mexico did not know it existed?" question. And given that Newell and Hoover were involved in both operations, it seems really strange that the choices made in Fast and Furious almost inevitably magnified the problems encountered during Wide Receiver.
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I think "less than enthusiastic assistance" by Mexico may not be the real explanation, even if it was the one offered.

They said they warned the Mexicans that the guns were coming, and after the guns had time to get away, the Mexicans responded. That's what would happen if the Mexicans in question were lazy and/or unenthusiastic, but it is also what would happen if they were corrupt.

The Mexicans deliberately let the Wide Receiver guns get away because that is what they were paid to do, then they made a late effort to pursue the guns in order to fool the stupid Americans.

The stupid Americans were not fooled, and did not tell anyone in Mexico the next time they started walking guns in that direction.

That explanation might be true, but it will not be the case made in public. "The Mexican government is so corrupt that we could not tell them" is not the kind of thing diplomats say in polite company or in public.
 
The stupid Americans were not fooled, and did not tell anyone in Mexico the next time they started walking guns in that direction.
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The main problem I see with that line of reasoning is that if you don't tell the Mexicans about your new gun walking program, then the only way you find out where those guns went is when they turn up at crime scenes, which is a remarkably bloody way to track guns and a relatively inefficient one as well since it doesn't expose much of the network.

From what I've read, that appears to be exactly was done; but I'd really sleep a lot better at night if they could give any plausible explanation for why they thought they'd be able to track the guns without Mexican cooperation, without tracking devices, and without bloodshed.
 
Concerning the video... do you think Breuer and Feinstein rehersed this much?
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Hard to be surprised, and DiFi needs campagn money very badly. Helping Obama could help solve her problem, except that she really does look pretty silly saying ATF walking guns demonstrates how the laws need stiffening. No matter to the zealots, but sentient people may question how much butter does remain on her linguine.
 
Sorry - we ditched the barf smilie.
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Could always have a "crazy" smiley.
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/:D
 
Re Tom servo and post 1480, the present administration, the failures of Bush et al are another matter, re Obama et al, the rotteness seems to overpower all else.
 
Holder is going to claim it is all because Congress does not support BATFE.

Why Congress even threw his multiple rifle scheme out!!:eek:
 
Holder is going to claim it is all because Congress does not support BATFE. Why Congress even threw his multiple rifle scheme out!!
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Well of course. Nevermind that in every one of these cases the FFL voluntarily notified the ATF only to be told to keep selling firearms to suspicious characters. Nevermind that the ATF rigged the NICS system to allow the same suspicious characters to beat the background checks that would have stopped the sale. Nevermind that the suspicious characters were buying firearms with money the FBI gave to one of its informants. Nevermind that the ATF is alleged to have directly sold two Browning machineguns that cannot be purchased in any FFL to drug cartels.

None of those are relevant to the main issue, which is that when an FFL fails to voluntarily notify the ATF of multiple purchases of firearms, ATF misses yet another potential opportunity to smuggle guns to Mexican drug cartels.

It seems to me that Congress can make a strong case that not notifying the ATF of these sales is more likely to reduce the flow of weapons to Mexico than notifying would based on the past 2 years.
 
Twice(at least) now, Mr. Holder has assured the committee and the American people that anyone who made mistakes would be held accountable.
Yet I lost count of all the times he has said today "he/we/I obviously made a mistake".

So when does he expect to begin rendering that accountability, or is being caught in a lie in public what he means by being accountable?

Cornyn was on today with a colorful timeline.
 
From PJMedia covering today's testimony:
Cornyn: "Would you like to apologize today for this program that went so wrong that took the life of a United States law enforcement agent?"

Holder: "I certainly regret what happened to Agent Brian Terry. I can only imagine the pain that his family has had to deal with, in particular his mother. I am a father of three children myself. We are not programmed to bury our kids. It pains me whenever there is a death of a law enforcement official, especially under the circumstances that this occurred. It is not fair, however, to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast & Furious directly led to the death of Agent Terry. Again my feelings of sympathy and regret go out to the Terry family and I hope that the steps that we have put in place, the measures that I have called for will prevent other federal agents, local, state agents from being the subject of this kind of violence as well as civilians, both in the United States and in Mexico."
 
I was not surprised to hear AG Holder essentially say that all of the problems at ATF were because the agency was not adequately funded. Disappointed, but not surprised.

He also very clumsily (at least for an attorney) danced around the Bureau's responsibility in the Terry case. I think that it's obvious that the ATF was not "directly" responsible for his death, but it certainly shares a significant indirect responsibility.

I also was not surprised that some members of the Senate committee wanted to bring up the Bush-era gun-walking operation. I assume that the connection is that if a Republican administration walked guns, then the Republicans shouldn't be upset if a Democratic administration did the same thing. Sort of a red herring, I guess, since no administration ought to do it. Seems to me that the only point of bringing that operation up would be to ask why the ATF thought that doing the same thing, only bigger and with less control, would lead to better results.

Oh, and the 70% number popped up again.
 
Here is a good exchange:

Cornyn: "Do you know the differences between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious?"

Holder: <awkward silence>

Short summary of testimony today:

1. We need more gun laws
2. Bush's fault
3. Didn't know nothing no how no way. Never got any memos. My staff reads all that.

On the plus side, Senators Grassley, Coryn and Lee gave Holder a good grilling. Suprisingly, Holder seemed woefully unprepared for a lot of the questions. At one point, after Holder's 400th "held accountable" comment, he was asked to name one person who has been held accountable so far and couldn't. Another good one was when they asked him when Breuer had told him he knew about previous gun-walking. Much hemming and hawing.

It will be interesting to see if Holder is any better prepared for his testimony before the House committee on December 8th. With that kind of sloppy performance, I remain cautiously optimistic he set himself up for perjury. It also seems apparent from testimony that Breuer is the new scapegoat-du-jour.
 
While our solutions are wildly different, I have common cause with Occupiers in rage at dishonest politicians and being lied to in all sorts of ways, while insider deals enrich the filthy and their enablers, at the cost of citizens.
 
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