Via Sipsey Street Irregulars
The latest in a series of revelations in the ongoing saga of the Fast and Furious scandal -- where more than 2,000 rifles were knowingly and willfully allowed to be transported untracked from the United States into Mexico -- is truly stunning.
A series of damning memos from 2010 was recently obtained by CBS News, and they indicate that Attorney General Eric Holder -- as well as several senior Justice Department officials -- were aware of the deadly program.
In one of Mr. Holder's weekly briefings in July of last year from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mr. Walther had written Holder that the Phoenix-based operation was "responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
That October, Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division, sent a colleague a memo concerning an upcoming press conference that his boss, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer (who is a longtime friend and associate of Holder), would be attending.
"It's a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked," wrote Weinstein.
Then, in October, Breuer himself reported to Holder that "Operation Fast and Furious" would soon be ready for a "takedown."
Fox News then obtained four more weekly briefings in July and August 2010 sent from Mr. Walther to Holder discussing Fast and Furious.
The problem for Mr. Holder is that just this past May, he told Congress while under oath that he had "probably heard about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks."
And only recently, Holder stated that no one in the upper levels of his department was involved. Since the release of the damaging memos, Justice Department spokespeople have given several spurious reasons to explain Holder's statements: that he was confused during his testimony, that he thought he was being asked about another investigation, that he doesn't see every memo that passes his desk. And after calls from Congress for a special counsel, a Justice spokesman attempted to fend off that plan by saying that once Holder had learned of the operation's "questionable tactics" earlier this year, he then "promptly asked the inspector general to investigate the matter."
Cynthia A. Schnedar is the acting inspector general, and just this past month, in yet another stunning revelation, it was discovered that she had released secret audio tapes of candid conversations from last March between Hope McAllister, an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) agent in the Phoenix office, and Andre Howard, owner of a Phoenix-area gun shop, who had been authorized by the ATF to sell weapons to known Mexican cartel members in the botched sting operation.
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