Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department
An email cited in Senator Charles Grassley’s testimony in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Operation Fast and Furious indicates that knowledge of the program was spread across the highest levels of the Justice Department. This lends even greater suspicion to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim that he knew nothing about the program until well after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.
The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
- Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer,
- Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF
- William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
- Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
- Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session. Their names were redacted in the released document. U.S. attorneys for all four southwest border states also attended.
Operation Fast and Furious, now known to many by the more accurate name of “Gunwalker,” was a multi-agency operation that allowed and — in some instances — approved the purchase of firearms destined for Mexican drug cartels by so-called “straw buyers.” The purchasers, who had clean criminal records, would buy firearms from U.S. gun stores for drug gangs. While most gun smuggling involves small quantities of weapons, a small number of high-volume straw purchasers each bought hundreds of firearms for the cartels.
ATF agents were told by their supervisors to ignore their agency’s charter and training and allow the guns to be smuggled into Mexico without interdiction. Roughly 2,000 firearms — ranging from pistols and AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles to .50 BMG sniper rifles — were smuggled into Mexico under Gunwalker and without the knowledge of Mexican authorities. Hundreds of smuggled weapons have turned up at crime scenes across Mexico and the U.S. border states and at least 152 law enforcement officers and soldiers have been killed with Gunwalker weapons.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.
It strains credibility to claim that the assistant attorney general, the AGAC, the directors of the five major DOJ agencies in charge of law enforcement, and all the U.S. attorneys in the Southwest region were privy to Gunwalker, but that the attorney general himself was unaware of the operation. It suggests that either Holder is being untruthful about what he knew about the operation, and when he knew about it, or that he is so out of touch with a major operation conducted by his key law enforcement agencies that he is too incompetent to fulfill his official duties.
If the government gets away with this dreadful crime against innocents, it is the end of America as we know it. We CANNOT have a government that supplies weapons to narco terrorists.
Why not? Isn’t Chavez doing the same thing in Central America? Arming the narco terrorist. You tell me the difference between Hussein Obama and Chavez?
Ill take a shot at answering this one. How about: One of them works for us, the citizens of the US, who ultimately have the power to remove him from office in a little over a year. One of them also is answerable to the US Congress, one chamber of which can initiate articles of impeachment to remove him if necessary, the other to follow with a trial.
Does that answer work for you, Atilla?
Not when the process that is supposed to do the removal is under the so-called oversight of the same criminals involved in Gunwalker, who have openly instructed that blatant voter intimidation and donation fraud be ignored, and that voting laws are only for “their people”.
Not quite. The House of Representatives files articles of impeachment and conducts all hearings. The Senate conducts the trial. The Chief Justice presides. In the case of impeachment, the DOJ has no official role. Although I can see them actively destroying documents, stonewalling and refusing to respond to subpoenas for testimony and official documents, and Fosterizing individuals considered too dangerous to keep around.
We also have the power to remove Chavez from office….
The question, of course, is whether we can get the media involved. If we can, I believe that it’s reasonable to charge individuals with crimes. After all, people died…but of course no one will be willing to step forward and say “It was my idea.” Without that, what do you bet the bureaucratic gobbledegook will obscure who was responsible, and everyone will say “I thought so-and-so was handling it…”
I wonder if the media will really investigate this horrow. I mean it’s not like this involves a failed ‘Pub VP candidate or anything important, correct?
If we can only find a Casey Anthony link somewhere, the media would be on it!
The media is involved.
Pajamas Media.
Like O’Keef’s Acorn and NPR stings, this will filter up.
Now, let’s do our part and bring these corrupt bastards down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwEsiGP46gQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5MtjMCaROU TWO VIDEOS on FoxNews Today.
It could happen.
1 – The initial terse, bare-bones report in the New York Times.
2 – A longer, more serious yet biased piece in the WaPo.
3 – More and more.
4 – A cumulative expose of top administration officials.
5 – A raft of high-profile firings and resignations, to the indignation of Obama’s base who call him a sellout.
CBS woke up a month back or so, and FoxNews has been giving this more and more time recently.
It’s only a matter of time before the WaPo shifts from coverup to criticism.
The NYT will continue blissful in their ignorance.
I am puzzled by your subtitle. Eric Holder has credibility?
“When Justice is administered by the lawless, there is no justice.” – Very true, but you might add that when the law is administered by the lawless, there is no law.
I must admit that I am getting a bit of a sick satisfaction out of this whole scandal. Finally the mask is off and we see how evil and despicable the anti-second amendment crowd is. Is it too much to hope that this will put their cause back a hundred years? Is it too much to ask that these guys be hanged from the highest yard-arm?
Additional point of interest; Many Mexican citizens are begining to call for the right to arm and defend themselves against violence. How ironic is that? What I wouldnt give to see O’s face contort if this debacle actually results in more liberalized gun laws in Mexico instead of more restrictive ones here. HA!
I don’t know what’s worse: the theory that it was intended to provide evidence for the “river of steel” and buttress calls to restrict 2nd Amendment rights, or that it was an attempt to break open a fictional crime ring they JUST KNEW had to be there, despite a complete lack of evidence.
I don’t think there is the slightest chance that this was anything other than an attempt to crush the Second Amendment. Neither Holder nor Obama would give hoot about gunsmuggling rings in Mexico. Both have expressed a hate for the Second Amendment and a desire to disarm Americans. An unarmed populace is a submissive populace.
Add this to the possibilities: The US commits an offense so egregious that it has to give Mexico major concessions to make it go away. What’s the easiest? Open borders, amnesty for all illegals currently here, immediate citizenship for any who want it, Spanish officially the second language. Think that would about do it?
Meanwhile, the officials who have been mentioned generally have immunity for their official acts as long as those acts were in compliance with US Law, which includes any ratified treaties. If they were to be impeached and removed from office, then subsequently tried in a US criminal court and convicted, it stands to reason that all immunity would be thus removed and they would then be subject to prosecution for international war crimes.
Since Boehner and the House lack the stones to impeach Obama lest they jeopardize the election with an infusion of sympathy votes, I suggest they impeach Holder to start with, and watch the whole house of cards come toppling down, bringing BHO with it.
Add this to the possibilities: The US commits an offense so egregious that it has to give Mexico major concessions to make it go away. What’s the easiest? Open borders, amnesty for all illegals currently here, immediate citizenship for any who want it, Spanish officially the second language. Think that would about do it?
Meanwhile, the officials who have been mentioned generally have immunity for their official acts as long as those acts were in compliance with US Law, which includes any ratified treaties. If they were to be impeached and removed from office, then subsequently tried in a US criminal court and convicted, it stands to reason that all immunity would be thus removed and they would then be subject to prosecution for international war crimes.
Since Boehner and the House lack the stones to impeach Obama lest they jeopardize the election with an infusion of sympathy votes, I suggest they impeach Holder to start with, and watch the whole house of cards come toppling down, bringing BHO with it.
Extradite them all to Mexico, starting with Holder. They can determine what he knew and when he knew it.
Calderon’s government is calling for exactly that. Its going to be hard for the MSM to ignore this one for much longer. Contact your representative, your senators, and the White House to demand a thorough investigation.
No put them all every last official who knew, on the same “bus” and send them to the Mexican prison of choice. One way trip with pine boxes on the next truck.
Others have said it but it needs repeating – there was no reason for cartels to waste their money buying guns in the USA when they could have gotten them (or even better ones) overseas more cheaply.
Unless the US govt. was also giving the straw buyers taxpayer’s money to make purchases…
What did Obama know and when did he know it?
It has been revealed that several of the straw-buyers were paid informants of other agencies.
So, taxpayer money was used to directly facilitate the movement of weapons from the United States to Mexico.
It’s taking quite a while for this story to get traction in the MSM, but lest we forget it took a long time for Watergate to take off, too.
Of course, the media are still largely in the tank for Obama and his minions, but that could change—indeed, this could change it. It helps that our neighbor to the South is (rightly) furious about this; if it were merely an internal scandal like Watergate, or involved a smaller country farther away, like Nicaragua, it is likely the media would still circle the wagons around Obama. But Mexico is too large and too close for even the friendly media to ignore entirely.
For every major policy that a president supports, you can find intelligent people who agree with it and intelligent people who think it is a bad idea. That is politics. But who the hell said, “Here is a great idea. Let’s give military grade weapons to drug cartels and see what happens.”
Giving military grade weapons to drug cartels and thinking something good would come of it is like giving cocaine and hookers to Charlie Sheen and expecting a revival to break out.
Every one of the people named on this e-mail, and any other high ranking official that knew about the operation needs to be turned over to the Mexican authorities and tried for murder.
Hate to nitpick because I agree with the rest of your post, but I take issue with the phrase “military grade”. Semiauto rifles were “military grade” in the 1950′s, not now. It has been illegal to own automatic weapons(without the proper permits, licenses and tax stamps) in the U.S. since the 1930′s.
There are more than 60 million firearms in Yemen, many of them full auto AKs. If you’re a major drug cartel, do you buy semi-auto rifles on a ‘onesy-twosy’ basis and ship them over a well-policed (bah-hah) border, or do you buy real “military grade” weapons from the WalMart of the Middle East and ship them through say, Guatemala? These are people with BILLIONS of dollars – they don’t need to pick up a few semiauto rifles here and there. They can afford to buy the real thing in bulk. I just can’t understand why people don’t see this.
According to the findings of Grassley’s committee staff, more than half the guns and other weapons confiscated from narcos in Mexico came from… the Mexican army and police.
Watergate? IranContra? Oh come now. Look with whom you’re dealing with? This is the Chicago Democratic Machine … no one will cooperate, no one will testify, no one will tell the truth. These folks beat the Clintons at THEIR OWN GAME for cryin’ out loud! Holder will not be touched. Melson might, (I repeat) might get tossed under the Obowmao Bus, but that’s it. Holder KNOWS TOO MUCH! Even HE doesn’t know WHY Vince Foster is DEAD!
Tell you what, give me a call when they start the Congressional Hearings in to “GunWalker” or even see this as front page news on either coast?
Cummings’ gun control measures will receive more press than this. Guaranteed.
On the other hand there is much to digest.
Folks only care if laws were broken. There were no laws broken. Oh, wait.
Folks only care if innocents get injured or killed. That didn’t happen did it?
NO? Oh, wait. Jaime Zapate of DEA was murdered with a ‘Fast & Furious’ weapon.
But heck, that’s only one person, right? Oh, wait.
There is another … Brian Terry of USBP … yea he was murdered with an AK-47 that was bought via the GunWalker process. This after he and his BP collegues confronted a group of ‘banditos’ out in S. Arizona and were told by the chain of command (via Janet Napalitano) to ‘tone down their level of force/weaponry’ by using BEAN BAG gun’s against drug mule robbers in the DEAD OF NIGHT. Brian died from a single 7.63×39 rifle round into his chest.
Nothing to see here, just move along. And the criminal main stream media is and will continue to do just that. Because Obama is AWESOME.
7.62
Melson has testified (7/4) with his personal lawyer in attendance, and not a DoJ lawyer to “guide” him.
Any chance Obama is going to plead innocent by reason of having been born in Kenya and therefore not qualified to be Potus? And therefore not responsible for anything that happened while pretending? Yeah, me either.
If ever there was a need for a special prosecutor to investigate, this is it. The potential criminality here is 1,000 times worse than Bubba Clinton lying about an Oval Office BJ, and Congress felt the need to spend billions on that investigation. Not to mention the Valarie Plame non issue.
So where were the Export Control agencies? Did the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls not look into even one of these guns exported from the US in violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or were they warned off? Were they informed so as to not open investigations? Would they not have told the Secretary of State about this gross violation of International Arms treaty violations such as the Wassenaar Arrangement?
This criminal endeavor by our own government shows, disregard for law, disregard for our Constitutional Rights, it shows the willingness to enter into a scheme that has ended in the murder of hundreds of Police Officers in both Mexico and the United States, it show a criminal mind and a political evilness that is hard to believe in a free society. All of this was done in secrecy and with ‘Main Stream Media’ complicity and proves that they are in the pay of the Democrat Party, not one of the so called newspapers or talking heads have said anything. Hey Senator Feinstein, your President and the DOJ are dealing in machine-guns to narcotic dealers and you have nothing to say?
Let’s remember:
mexico has nurtured and encouraged the drug trade for years.
During that time mexico has always insisted that the existence of the cartels was the fault of America, not them. They, the nation and government of mexico, are victims of the drug abusing pale empire to its north.
Gunwalker will only afford the demonstrably corrupt and calculating government of mexico to once again plead victimization at the hands of America.
Among other things, this victimization justifies their unloading of tens of millions of their hostile uneducated citizens on us.
Funny, Mexico’s Commission for National Security has no concern regarding mexican illegals crawling across our border with drugs or other contraband. Now they want justice?
There is no justice in mexico beyond what money can buy.
All statements and proclamations from the mexican government should be viewed with suspicion and mistrust. Much like one might listen to the statements of a criminal or a con man.
Thereis a severe shortage of truth and justice below our southern border. Gunwalker hasn’t changed that fact.
What you list as failures of the Mexicans may well be true. None of that excuses the abuses of our own laws and Constitution. The old saying that two wrongs do not make a right certainly would apply.
The whole program can be traced back to 2005 in Houston, TX as a trial run. It was initially successful and then expanded. It allowed the Feds to track and follow the guns furnished, leading to many arrests and convictions of bad guys.
The whole concept changed when Holder became the AG. The thrust lost a legitimate purpose when it seems to have become politicized as a means to the end game desire of gun control in the US. Who are the leading proponents of gun control? You got it–Mr. O and Eric (Beholdin’ to BHO) Holder.
I cannot connect the dots of this criminal fiasco from Holder to Obama but the siganture of Mr. O was affixed to the law funding this program on 2/17/2009. Actual knowledge? Maybe. Implied knowledge? Absolutely.
It may be worth mentioning that the US government sees no problem in moving kidnapped accused felons across the US-Mexican border for trial (see: Humberto Álvarez Machaín). Just sayin’.
Formal extradition by our government? I’d like to see Dog the Bounty Hunter do the job. Or maybe the Mexican version, Perro el Cazador de Botin. Or maybe the Mexican government should just hire the cartels to capture the Americans. Those cartel guys have weapons, connections, cash, mercilessness, skill, everything the job requires.
So, what did these officials really know? And when did they know it? Did Melson get legal immunity from congress for his private congressional interview? How exactly do DOJ department heads, among others, investigate themselves regarding their alleged criminal acts to implement political policy? Looks like an “independent prosecutor” is called for. Perhaps a select Senate committee is required to investigate the paradoxical situation where domestic federal gun running is implemented to up the homicide rate in Mexico by American political appointees who normally want to ban guns to prevent killings and other terrible things. Are Mexican lives worth less than Americans? Does “gun walker” violate core American values, or is “gun walker” unexceptional, the norm, and typical? Should pro gun control senators be on such a committee?
You’ve got to know, when you’re Holder
Which case to fold, or
When not to investigate
What has been done
You never answer discovery
Requests from Congress
Unless the pages are blacked out
Each and every one
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/07/06/buzz-ballad-the-dissembler/
When reporting on this story, can y’all please, please, PLEASE, P-L-E-A-S-E point out that the gun store owners all did the “right thing”, reporting the purchases to law enforcement, etc.
Failure to repeat that the gun stores were in 100% compliance with US Law, and 100% cooperating with US law enforcement will conveniently convince the dim-wits to think the gun stores were part of the problem.
Well maybe the gun stores were part of the problem for going along with the ‘Gunwalker’ requests & dictates of US Law Enforcement, but y’all know what I mean.
Yes, this. Speaking of the gun store folks, I never understood how the back story worked via Leftist Logic.
Are we to believe that these racist, gun toting rednecks intentionally sold gobs of weapons to undocumented Hispanic alternative pharmaceutical security agents? Whom they hate more than African Americans this decade? I know rednecks are dumb but that’s stretching it a bit.
These are the same rednecks that are shooting Mexicans at the border, right?
*sigh* Maybe MSNBC will explain it to me some day.
Sounds like Holder expects all his underlings to jump under the bus like good little employees, so he can emerge blameless.
He may not get *quite* what he expects when his subordinates get under oath and Obama starts putting pressure on Holder to get under the bus with them.
So let’s play a little ‘What If’ movie in our heads:
Imagine that it becomes crystal-clear that Holder is in the thick of this. The Mexican government does a little ‘extraordinary rendition’ of their own. Holder wakes up chained to a chair on the other side of the border. I’m pretty sure the Federales are free to use their own enhanced interrogation techniques.
Do you think he would keep quiet or would he finger BHO?
I think he would suddenly discover that torture IS effective in extracting intel.
WWJBD? — What Would Jack Bauer Do?
I’ve been very impressed with the PJM coverage of this story to date, but I’m not sure this piece is all that compelling. It does lay out the overall strategy, and makes any claim the field offices are acting on their own hard to credit.
But the e-mail does not mention “gunwalker” only “gunrunner”; and apparently that program predates Holder (it started in 2006 according to the blurb on page 7). Moreover, every reference to weapons is in the context of interdicting them or stopping the flow across the border. I’m not convinced anyone who read this would have any idea there was a “sting” operation in the works.
The irony is that I never really wanted to own a gun, but after this, I’m pretty sure I might. Their strategy backfired big time, and I hope they are punished fully (especially Holder- arrogant).
Gather these officials up, including the AG, and send them in manacles to Mexico for trial then back to be tried on US charges. Case closed. Different jurisdictions, no double jeopardy.
ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell e-mail and AFT Director Melson’s testimony will make it very difficult to disappear the electronic records of the affair.
It also makes it very possible that most listed in that e-mail will be facing an international warrant for their arrest from Mexico.
We have entered very dangerous political territory for the American Republic in that the Dept. of Justice, ATF, FBI, DEA and the Dept of Homeland Security are now filled with leadership cadres who face the possibility of jail time or extradition if Pres. Obama loses in 2012.
I fear that JR Dunn’s “The Spanish Civil War is Coming” meme (http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/democrats_unveil_the_weapon_of_the_future.html) is set to join Peggy Noonan’s line on Obama’s economic policies “He made it worse,” as a dominate theme of the 2012 election.
It’s time for the Obama Regime to kick off a “wag the dog” campaign.
My suggestion is: alien spacecraft have landed in some remote area of Canada and are massing for an invasion of North Dakota. The aliens look exactly like Republicans.
(Don’t bother to thank me, Barry)
Obama and Holder see themselves as above the law and see their powers in their respective capacities as unlimited.
If frustrated in legislation like cap and trade or granting benefits to a new voting bloc, illegal immigrants, through the DREAM act, Obama will do end arounds using the EPA or executive fiat to attempt to get his agenda met in fact if not in law.
I have seen Eric Holder smirk in Congressional hearings at the mere suggestion that anyone has oversight over decisions made at his department of (in)justice. He will pursue his agenda of trying foreign terrorists in United States civilian courts, with full protections of US citizens, at all costs, witness the Somali terrorist captured and held on a US navy vessel for 2 months before being charged in civilian (non military) court.
If Issa, Grassley and others are attempting to get information out of the department of (in)justice, the main reaction of Holder and friends, in imposing their own ignorant and subjective brand of justice, is to be irked by what they regard as interference.
Tell me the man’s character and I will describe to you how he will behave.
The essence of governance under Obama is completely rogue, from top to bottom.
The best frame for the O’bwana junta’s program is the late Sam Francis’s idea of ‘anarcho-tyranny’. Criminals are left to run free while govt spends its time harrassing law-abiding citizens for administrative mistakes. The purpose of this program is to destroy society. Healthy societies maintain their cohesion by supporting members who abide by society’s rules, while punishing or expelling those members who do not or can not conform to society’s standards. If the normal, natural processes are reversed, the probable result is the dis-integration of society. The goal of every Leftist, everywhere is the destruction of existing societies. Thus, the Left’s promotion of perversion, crime, insanity, sloth, envy, and the rest of the seven deadly sins.
Please continue to follow this story. From what has been disclosed, this is infinitely worse than Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. And it is not receiving the coverage that a major debacle merits; this appears to be crimes commited at high levels of government authority. This story is in its earliest stages, we do not know important facts, confusing contradictions exist, but from what we know, it is reasonable to hold that our executive departments have commited felonies, which reasonably led to the murder of US peace officers, and the slaughter of hundreds, or thousands of innocents. This is not low level employees taking naked pictures or water boarding of a few terrorists; it is not incompetent management.
It points to Accessory to Murder, and cover up.
Please shine the light. Hard.
I think that—as in all such situations of similar character always has been done—the USA officers who authorized “Gunwalker” should be brought into hearings, their faces decorated in placid appearances, to there give a limited variety of responses such as: “I don’t know.”; “I didn’t know anything about it.”; “I didn’t know anything about that.”, and: “I don’t remember.”; “I don’t recall.”, and then maybe put to answer Mexico’s complaints by extradition to Mexico—where most of the dead LEO’s, are, . . .
Mexico should sue Obama and Holder in the Internation Court at the Hague. They want a global government, let them be the first to experience the result of their undeclared war on another sovereign country.
Why to Mexaco? If we do try these traitors under the Constitution of the United States of America, the death penalty is on the table. WE ARE AT WAR.
While we are making comparisons to Watergate, and trying to decide which is worse, there is one important fact that should be part of the comparison, Watergate did not kill anybody, GunGate did. Of course there will be another important difference. If there were any tapes or other material linking Obama to the scandal, Obama, unlike Nixon, will have already taken measures to destroy the evidence.
Maybe they were trying to arm these people.
Law Enforcement Finally Admits Hezb’Allah is Operating in Mexico
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
You and von Spakovsky are doing a great job of reporting. No matter what else happens we need to keep this on the front burner, and not accept a few sacrificial resignations or firings, but keep it going until we have full knowledge right to the biter end.
Sorry for the length of this post that follows, but I feel it is germane to this story. I found this info after a bit of digging.
There were more than 2,000 guns illegally shipped, or walked, into Mexico. By all accounts I have read, less than 100 have been located. There is still a lot of death-dealing guns out there. I note that 43 +/- were taken in Phoenix in the last couple of days and they are part of the 100 or so.
The funding for The Gunrunner Project was included in the Stimulus Package and signed into law on February 17, 2009 by Mr. Obama. The Gunrunner Project is clearly identified in that law as being a Project of the ATFBE. As we all know, ignorance of the law is no defense to a violation of that law. I did not get time to read the law likewise is of no avail.
The ATFBE is directly under the aegis of Mr. Holder. He is responsible for what goes on in that shop. When stuff hits the fan, Mr. Holder is the closest to the fan. He and Obama tried to get Kenneth Melson, the acting head of the ATFBE to take the fall, which he refused. Mr. Melson, seeing the handwriting on the wall got himself an independent attorney, not one of the DOJ stiffs, and sang to Sen. Grassley on the glorious 4th of July. What a fitting date to expose treason to the light of day.
I am willing to bet that when Holder read the letter from the committee his backside chewed holes in his chair. He knew, at that point, that Mr. Melson was certainly not one of “his people” even though Melson was under his chain-of-command.
This program was initiated under the Bush Administration and continued by Mr. Obama. So to say Bush started the program as an excuse the lid blowing off this fiasco as Obama chose to continue the program. In fact he expanded the program after his election and the confirmation of Holder as AG.
With that as a backdrop we now know this was not a “legal” sale of weapons as is done with other countries. This was not a government-to-government transaction. This falls into a Iran-Contra affair and is worse. By enlisting and ordering licensed gun dealers to make sales which are known to be illegal those dealers have been enticed to join in the breaking of the law. ATFBE and Border Patrol agents were ordered to stand down when they discovered these illegal sales.
An excellent description of High Crimes and Misdemeanors is as follows:
Meaning of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”
by Jon Roland, Constitution Society
The question of impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. I have carefully researched the origin of the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to understanding it is the word “high”. It does not mean “more serious”. It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.
Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibited by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court. Whether an offense could qualify as punishable depended largely on the obligations of the offender, and the obligations of a person holding a high position meant that some actions, or inactions, could be punishable if he did them, even though they would not be if done by an ordinary person.
Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject’s fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.
Perjury is usually defined as “lying under oath”. That is not quite right. The original meaning was “violation of one’s oath (or affirmation)”.
The word “perjury” is usually defined today as “lying under oath about a material matter”, but that is not its original or complete meaning, which is “violation of an oath”. We can see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From An Elementary Latin Dictionary, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the letter “j” is the letter “i” in Latin.
periurium, i, n,, a false oath, perjury.
periurus, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus, are, to swear, take an oath.
iurator, oris, m., a swearer.
iuratus, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath.
ius, iuris, that which is binding, right, justice, duty.
per, … IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, … under pretense of, by the pretext of, ….
By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.
When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of “witness under oath”, for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.
An official such as the president does not need to take a special oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not justified for national security.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr erred in presenting in his referral only those offenses which could be “laid at the feet” of the president. He functioned like a prosecutor of an offense against criminal statutes that apply to ordinary persons and are provable by the standards of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. That is not to say that such offenses are not also high crimes or misdemeanors when committed by an official bound by oath. Most such offenses are. But “high crimes and misdemeanors” also includes other offenses, applicable only to a public official, for which the standard is “preponderance of evidence”. Holding a particular office of trust is not a right, but a privilege, and removal from such office is not a punishment. Disablement of the right to hold any office in the future would be a punishment, and therefore the standards of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” would apply before that ruling could be imposed by the Senate.
It should be noted, however, that when an offense against a statute is also a “high crime or misdemeanor”, it may be, and usually is, referred to by a different name, when considered as such. Thus, an offense like “obstruction of justice” or “subornation of perjury” may become “abuse of authority” when done by an official bound by oath. As such it would be grounds for impeachment and removal from office, but would be punishable by its statutory name once the official is out of office.
An executive official is ultimately responsible for any failures of his subordinates and for their violations of the oath he and they took, which means violations of the Constitution and the rights of persons. It is not necessary to be able to prove that such failures or violations occurred at his instigation or with his knowledge, to be able, in Starr’s words, to “lay them at the feet” of the president. It is sufficient to show, on the preponderance of evidence, that the president was aware of misconduct on the part of his subordinates, or should have been, and failed to do all he could to remedy the misconduct, including termination and prosecution of the subordinates and compensation for the victims or their heirs. The president’s subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, and their agents and contractors. It is not limited to those over whom he has direct supervision. He is not protected by “plausible deniability”. He is legally responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing.
Therefore, the appropriate subject matter for an impeachment and removal proceeding is the full range of offenses against the Constitution and against the rights of persons committed by subordinate officials and their agents which have not been adequately investigated or remedied. The massacre at Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and many, many other illegal or excessive assaults by federal agents, and the failure of the president to take action against the offenders, is more than enough to justify impeachment and removal from office on grounds of dereliction of duty. To these we could add the many suspicious incidents that indicate covered up crimes by federal agents, including the suspicious deaths of persons suspected of being knowledgeable of wrongdoing by the president or others in the executive branch, or its contractors.
The impeachment and removal process should be a debate on the entire field of proven and suspected misconduct by federal officials and agents under this president, and if judged to have been excessive by reasonable standards, to be grounds for removal, even if direct complicity cannot be shown.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/7/inquiry-of-weapons-smuggling-to-expand/#ixzz1RcQn3VZ6
Using the handy dandy wayback machine the earliest mention of “Project Gunrunner” on the atf.gov front page I found was Jan 2008. I found news stories going back to 2006 mentioning it as well. I think what happened here is “Operation Gunrunner” morphed into “Operation Gunwalker” by whoever ordered agents and dealers to let the guns walk. Morally bankrupt, stupid, or sinister. You decide.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080131224113/http://www.atf.gov/
I think Pajamas does a dis-service to its readers with this type of incomplete reporting. First of all the funding for “Project Gunrunner” was in the stimulus which means it was conceived and planned in 2006. This is a huge conspiracy that was planned and executed by the top leaders of the Democratic party. Obama signed the authorization for funding. Holder bragged in 2009 that he had implimented the program.
Only 10 million of the 40 million went into Arizona. The other 30 million went elseware, New Mexico, Texas, Georgia and Florida. Nobody is talking about what was done with the other 30 million dollars. When Calderon, Hillary and Obama gave speaches at the White House about 90% of the guns in the cartels hands were from America 2,000 of these “Gunrunner” guns had already been recovered. There are 40,000 dead already in this narco-war at the border and statistically about 3,000 Mexicans have died from the guns supplied by “Gunrunner”. One contributor states that it is impossible to get fully automatic weapons such as the M-16, legally yes but since when did the cartels care about legal. If Hillary OKs a deal to ship 5,000 M-16s to Honduras for their army through Mexico and they get stolen in Mexico enroute to Honduras the cartel just got 5,000 M-16s. A lot of the M-16s came from the Mexican army when they had mass defections and the Zetas were formed. Let’s put a real number on “Gun Runner”, 15,000 to 20,000 guns and by the time they are mostly picked up the dead in Mexico by Obama’s plan will be well into 5 figures.
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