DOJ Inspector General Report Proves Dems Misled Public On ‘Wide Receiver’
Despite Higman’s claim in his email, the U.S. Attorney’s Office was all but left out of the investigation to this point, and remained so even as the ring of suspects grew. One suspect indicated a desire to buy “short” AR15 upper receivers, which can only legally be used to mate with registered “pistol” AR15 lowers. Creating a short barreled rifle (SBR) by combining an AR15 rifle lower and pistol upper is a major federal felony violation of the National Firearms Act, and due to the long-recognized theory of “constructive possession,” merely owning the pistol length upper and a rifle lower is grounds for a lengthy prison sentence. Once again, the responsible Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Office was unresponsive, and the Tucson ATF declined to pursue an arrest, and let more guns walk.
SAC Bill Newell of the ATF Phoenix office was collaborating with Higman by this point, and approved of the tactics of letting guns walk. Newell later became a central figure in the Fast and Furious gunwalking plot.
It was only months later, in an operation with a separate group of suspects and dubbed “Wide Receiver II,” that ATF Tucson agents attempted to finally coordinate with Mexican authorities. They proved to be as inept as the ATF agents and U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The gunwalking of Operation Wide Receiver finally ended in August of 2009. The report is curiously vague as to why the operation ended the way it did, suggesting it dried up naturally. This bears more scrutiny.
Of the 474 firearms purchased during Operation Wide Receiver, ATF Tucson let 410 of them “walk.”
The OIG report shows definitively that Wide Receiver was an ATF Tucson operation, with limited involvement of ATF Phoenix and barely competent involvement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix.
It further established that the tactics of Operation Wide Receiver never came to the attention of senior DOJ officials during the Bush administration, and only came to the attention of senior Justice officials under the Obama administration. Even though the same individuals that ran Wide Receiver also launched Fast and Furious using similar tactics, Obama’s DOJ failed to provide oversight.
It was late 2009 or early 2010 before DOJ began pursuing criminal indictments, and it was at this time, under the Obama administration, that the first hints of a pending coverup were noted in the OIJ report:
Both prosecution memos detailed the number of firearms purchased and the evidence against each defendant, including information from real-time recordings made of the transactions between the FFL and the subjects, and both noted, “[T]here are many things about this case that could be embarrassing to ATF,” including the fact that that guns “were sold and not accounted for” and likely “are in Mexico killing people.”
By April 12, 2010, the Obama Department of Justice’s clear interest was in avoiding embarrassment more than seeking prosecutions. Jason Weinstein, who later makes an appearance as the Obama administration fall guy for the scandal, sent an email indicating the DOJ was in damage control mode:
Been thinking more about “Wide Receiver I.” ATF HQ should/will be embarrassed that they let this many guns walk — I’m stunned, based on what we’ve had to do to make sure not even a single operable weapon walked in UC operations I’ve been involved in planning — and there will be press about that. In addition, this diary that casts aspersions on one of the agents is a challenge for the case but also something that is likely to embarrass ATF publicly. For those reasons, I think we need to make sure we go over these issues with our front office and with Billy Hoover before we charge the case. Of course we should still go forward, but we owe it to ATF HQ to preview these issues before anything gets filed.
“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/