DOJ Inspector General Report Proves Dems Misled Public On ‘Wide Receiver’
The inspector general’s investigation into the Department of Justice’s role in Operation Fast and Furious was not expected to be a blockbuster report. The primary interest in the document for members of the media, investigators, and the public alike was how Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz would choose to participate in a cover-up.
Horowitz did not disappoint. The six-part, 471-page report dedicated an entire chapter to Operation Wide Receiver, a program that began in 2006 and did not terminate until mid-2009.
Wide Receiver was an ATF operation started by local agents during the Bush administration which allowed hundreds of weapons to “walk” into Mexico. During congressional hearings, House Oversight Committee Democrats pounded a “Bush did it too” theme — attempting to excuse the Obama administration for Fast and Furious because a similar operation took place in Arizona prior to Obama taking office.
But what precisely did the inspector general’s report say about the practice of gunwalking during Operation Wide Receiver, and does it actually support what Democrats and the media have claimed?
The first thing established by Horowitz is that the OIG’s report was by no means a “finished” report or the final word on either Wide Receiver or Fast and Furious. It did not compel those most closely linked to possible corrupt behavior to testify, something that only a much-needed criminal investigation by an independent prosecutor could provide.
Key personnel involved in both cases flatly refused to talk to the inspector general (a significant detail most reporting on the story to date has overlooked). Charles Higman was the Resident Agent in Charge (RAC) in the ATF Tucson office during Operation Wide Receiver and had direct management responsibility. Wide Receiver was “his” case, and he flatly refused to respond to the OIJ’s repeated requests for interviews.
Operation Wide Receiver started in early 2006, when a Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder contacted the ATF about a purchaser that had bought six AR15 lower receivers (the individual part that is legally the gun) at a gun show, and wanted to purchase 20 more. The FFL suspected the purchaser, an 18-year-old, was a straw purchaser. The ATF formally opened an investigation on March 2, 2006, after interviewing the FFL.
Agents then “lost” the first batch of 20 guns on March 20 when they were given the slip by a smuggler.
By March 28, the straw purchaser was recorded making arrangements to buy more lower receivers, and stated that the lower receivers were being illegally converted into fully automatic weapons. The ATF refused to arrest the straw purchaser at the time, hoping the illegal gunsmith could also be busted.
RAC Higman then sent an email explicitly calling for 50 lower receivers to be walked on March 30:
The bandits have put a $ deposit toward buying 50 this Sat., and intend on 50 more in the next week or two. We have verified 26 to date; the USAO is on board. We are looking to let these 50 walk while identifying the location/subject who is doing the conversions with an eye to doing Search/Arrest warrant the next go ‘round.
Higman’s email was the first explicit, documented mention in the IG report noting an intention of facilitating weapons smuggling to Mexican drug cartels in hopes of catching “bigger fish.”
“OIG Horowitz’s report barely scratches the surface.” Ya’ don’t say! Did you really expect a true investigation? Nah, didn’t think so. There isn’t time between now and the election to get a special prosecutor established and hunting. If 0 wins, forget about it. If Romney wins, he may have other fish to fry.
“If Holder didn’t know about Project Gunrunner, why did he give a speech about it 3 years ago?”
http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090402.html
Holder speech on April 2, 2009 (according to DOJ site!): “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. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail.”
DoJ silences Obama associate Daniel S. Mahru with his freedom
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/09/20/doj-silences-obama-associate-daniel-s-mahru-with-his-freedom/
let’s see, this d.o.j. fiasco was just another failed attempt to catch bad guys, just like ‘wide receiver’ – not
the uprisings in the middle east were caused by a video and were not a terrorist attack (on 9-11) – not
notice how nobody is talking about the fact that this administration was warned about this pending attacks days ahead of time? oh, that’s right, our leader hasn’t been to a security briefing in … who knows? how could he be expected to know?
didn’t obozo brutally castigate bush about not responding properly to katrina? everybody on the net (with a brain) was talking about these planned attacks from the beginning. how come we knew more than the commander in chief? heck, for that matter, bloggers were talking about fast & furious many months before the lame stream media finally even mentioned it. wuwt?
gas prices going up up up. just wait until winter up north when fuel costs soar up up up, and they will. unemployment rates are up up up. layoffs are up up up, and more up up up to come. house foreclosures are up up up. food prices are up up up.
maybe obozo should use that as an ad for his campaign. up up up is where obama has taken us, and we can go a lot higher. who could argue with that?
Well, actually “UP” is where the leftists got “SQUIRREL!” from. Sadly, the hapless golden retriever in the film is what the socialists think of conservatives.
Fine, let them think that.
I can talk about Romney’s supposed “gaffes” while still being stinkin’ mad over the economy, Hitlery’s ineptitude and pronounced socialist/lesbian nature, and countless other things. Multi-tasking is easy in this case, they all fall under “The reasons I despise socialists”.
So, what’s the odds there will be a lot of post election Presidential pardons of former DOJ employees? Gitmo’s inmates? Holder? I think maybe even the blind sheik will get his humanitarian release to Egypt to sooth the savage Muslim street. Let’s see, over two hundred Mexican nationals and three US agents killed as a consequence of Fast and Furious, but only four State Department officials killed as a consequence of Gitmo prisoner releases: it won’t sooth the Muslim street, but releasing the blind sheik should raise the American killed in action to Mexican levels. I suppose that counts as redistributive justice.
When captain zero is unelected, you can count on him and especially his minions having the tantrum to beat all tantrums.
Clinton taking all the “W”‘s off of keyboards was child’s play compared the the theft of properties that will take place in January. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they backed up several dozen U-Hauls and toted away everything so that there is no place to even sit.
There will be damage, theft, viruses left on computers, water poured into other electronics, classified documents purloined, etc., etc.
And, cuz he’s black, no one will say a word and thus, it broadcasts that it is expected behavior. The pundits and talking heads will go on for the entire Romney term about how a racist America got rid of perhaps the smoothest talking president the US ever had because he’s black.
However, I still think that the pendulum had got to swing the other way sometime. Maybe not in my lifetime but I would like to not die before I see the type of comeuppance we all remember from TV shows of the past when the bully got it right between the eyes.
My biggest fear is that a Romney presidency will be consistently hamstrung by the media. They have already demonstrated their desire to lie to create a narrative and they will turn it up to 11 when Romney takes office.
On the good side of that coin, the old media is also doing a bang-up job in turning their readers/listeners/watchers away. Their revenues (lack thereof) have proven that. I haven’t watched network news garbage in 20 years +.
Maybe the nation can recover. But I think there’s going to be violence by the “gimmees” against the “earned its” before all is said and done it the responsibility for it will rest squarely on the socialists who are currently in office.
I still think that the pendulum had got to swing the other way sometime.
There are many pendulums swinging – and they are not all are on the same ‘cycle’. As they say – what comes around goes around. Be patient – we’ll see those that deserve ‘more’ get ‘it’. Karma is a bitch.
Owens makes a good point that Wide Receiver was conceived and executed by ATF agents in Phoenix with no oversight from Washington or the US Attorney’s office.
But it still happened during the Bush Administration and the agents in question reported to Bush appointees. Some of them are responsible, and so is Bush for appointing them.
It’s still not even close to the equivalent of Fast And Furious. At least in Wide Receiver, ATF tried to track the guns; and the number of weapons was far smaller.
One could also note that the Obama Administration tried to cover up the failure of Wide Receiver, which makes them as complicit in it as the Bush Administration.
In the employment of adults involved in life and death matters, there are three levels of performance to consider: acceptable, unacceptable, or criminal. ATF, and the criminal arm of DOJ dropped the first option long ago. If the Republican Administration only let 400 weapons kill people, while the Democrats allowed 2000 weapons to kill people, it does not follow that one should vote for Mitt Romney. The task, in front of us, is to clean house in DoJ, down to the footings. There are many highly paid employees of DoJ who would be better suited collecting grocery carts in my local mall. Grocery carts also tend to walk away, I see them all over the neighborhood. However, it is a crime to give weapons to killers, particularly in another nation. Burying lots of innocents tends to make them angry at Gingos.
The continuous utterly stupid logic voiced by the Democratic lead, Mr. Cummings: since Eric Holder is professed not to have been informed of this fiasco, it follows that it is simply a Republican witch hunt, is a root problem. When one major party only cares about power, and covering a historic disaster in our Department of Justice, we are in deep……. trouble. Perhaps we must clean beyond the footings and trash everything north of the Potomac River.
A few tiny “facts”, reported, once, one year ago, which bears on the criminal vs. incompetency issue. The weapons in Wide Receiver supposedly held electronic transmitters secretly but amateurishly installed. It made the weapon detectable at a range of ten miles, until you racked the bolt, severed the antenna, and made the range a useless ten feet. And Mexico was informed of the WR effort. IF true, these “facts” moves the conduct from criminal to merely inept. Some folks should make license tags, others should collect grocery carts. Mr. Owens, please inform.
This is only useful if it is disseminated widely so the general public knows. This will NOT happen by the media.
EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security: Media Monitoring Seeking Disclosure of Records Detailing the Department of Homeland Security’s Media Monitoring Activities
http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/