Owebamma is only responsible for good things....

This is very easy to understand,,

The Libs did this because they wanted to curb our gun ownership rights .sadly for all,it backfired and people died.Now the cover up is in full swing.
This is truly an administration out of control.

Federal ATF chief said to resist pressure to step down

Kenneth Melson of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms faces controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns into Mexico. He is said to be eager to testify to Congress.
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau


The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.

Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.

Melson does not want to be "the fall guy" for the program, under which ATF agents allowed straw purchasers to acquire more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers, the sources said. The idea was to track the guns to drug cartel leaders. But that goal proved elusive, and the guns turned up at shootings in Mexico, as well as at the slaying in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.

"He is saying he won't go," said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. "He has told them, 'I'm not going to be the fall guy on this.' "

Added a second source, who also requested anonymity: "He's resisting. He does not want to go."

Melson has an open invitation to appear on Capitol Hill. So far, he has not been given Justice Department approval to appear before Congress.

This week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he hoped that Melson would give a full accounting of how the gun operation was conceived and carried out. He also said Melson should resign, and that other senior leaders at ATF and the Justice Department should be held accountable as well.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also is awaiting answers from Melson, and cautioned this week that even if the acting director stepped down, it "would be, by no means, the end of our inquiry."

The Justice Department said it was cooperating with congressional leaders.

"We've been working with the [Issa] committee on interviews, including Melson, and will continue to do that," said Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokesperson.

At ATF headquarters in Washington, officials said Melson "continues to be focused" on leading the agency. His chief spokesman, Scott Thomasson, added, "We are not going to comment on any speculations" about Melson's status as head of the agency.

At a House hearing last week, testimony from ATF agents portrayed Melson as closely involved in overseeing the venture. At one point, according to documents released by Congress, he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed in order to watch some of the illegal straw purchases.

[email protected]





OH SNAP!!! THIS is gonna be great to see just HOW high this goes up the foodchain!!!

Awesome. Hope he doesn't frequently Marcy park....

Is it melting in the dark?

We're gonna need a lot of body bags.[gonzo]

Yesterday: Police chief gunned down in Monterey. I wonder if any of the weapons used are "Gunrunner". [gonzo]

I sure hope eric holder sleeps well at night.....

Getting closer to appointing a special prosecutor on this matter if congress has the stones. The longer it takes the more shredding and hard drive destruction will and is taking place. [gonzo]

...and now might possibly be connected with a similar program out of Florida involving Honduran based MS-13 gangs. They operate throughout central America, Mexico and U.S. [gonzo]

I wonder who got all the drugs that were traded for these guns? Sitting in the white house on bricks of hash?

E

When Ignorance Is the Best Excuse

Eric Holder's only defense of the ATF's "Fast and Furious" program is that he didn't know it existed.

Mike Riggs | July 20, 2011



When Rupert Murdoch went before the British Parliament yesterday to testify about the News of the World hacking scandal, he did not attempt to downplay the severity of his employees’ crimes. Rather, he apologized for the damage done and then said, "I didn’t know of it." When asked who, then, was responsible for the culture of criminality that had developed at News of the World, Murdoch told Parliament, "The people I trusted and the people they trusted."

Even longtime Murdoch haters had to concede that the mogul’s response was brilliant. If he’s telling the truth, the News Corp. owner is guilty only of having trusted the wrong people to oversee his British papers (such as News International chief and former World editor Rebekah Brooks), and of never checking in on things himself. Luckily for Rupert, being a disinterested executive is not a crime. Unforunately for the staff of the shuttered News, this means their boss quite possibly ignored Britain’s largest circulation newspaper into the grave.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Attorney General Eric Holder and his protectors in the Justice Department are using the same defense to keep the DOJ chief from being implicated in the increasingly sordid ATF gunrunner scandal.

Earlier this year CBS discovered that the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Attorneys office in Phoenix had allowed known gunrunners to buy heavy arms, including several .50 caliber rifles, from border state gun shops and take them to Mexico. The program became public when U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry turned up dead near Rio Rico, Arizona, killed by two assault rifles that the ATF had practically shepherded into cartel possession.

That the U.S. government had a hand in Terry's death wasn't just news to his grieving family, it was allegedly news to the government as well.

When the House Oversight Committee began investigating the program, which was known as “Fast and Furious,” it found that border state ATF agents wanted to make arrests related to the program, but were told not to do so. Earlier this month Congress found out why: The FBI and the DEA both had cartel informants whose cover would’ve allegedly been jeopardized had the ATF acted on its intelligence.

This revelation means that three of the biggest enforcement agencies within the Department of Justice knew about a program that one DOJ spokesman described to me as “illegal” and “isolated.” The one person who supposedly did not know is Holder. His first reaction to media reports about the gunrunner program was to “vehemently deny...that ATF has ever knowingly allowed weapons to get into the hands of suspected gunrunners for Mexico's drug cartels." His second and enduring response was to plead ignorance.

"Holder said he became aware of the ATF agents concerns about certain tactics used in Fast and Furious earlier this year,” a DOJ spokesperson told me last week. “That’s when he asked the IG to investigate those concerns.” Holder said the same thing in testimony before the House in March.

After several months of hearings and countless requests for documents and intra-department communications, there’s still no evidence that Holder knew about the program before the rest of us did. Holder’s ignorance is supported by acting ATF Director Ken Melson, who told Oversight that it “would be unusual for other Justice Department officials in Washington to know the details and that the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix was overseeing the program.”

The House Oversight Committee is now trying to find out why. “It’s hard for us to believe that all throughout that year-plus process and even as this program fell apart and became a problem for [the Department of] Justice, that nobody should have told [Holder] something,” Oversight Chair Rep. Darrell Issa told Fox Business Channel host Lou Dobbs last week.

While there’s some evidence that the people Holder trusted—his own Rebekah Brooks, you could say—knew about Fast and Furious, Holder appears to have been genuinely oblivious to the development and implementation of a project that has stained the U.S.-Mexico border blood-red.

Mike Riggs is an associate editor at Reason magazine.




Riiiight...he didn't know. Experience matters and this is Owebama's boy. Holder is a dead man walking.

Every paper they have given the oversight committee has been redacted..........by the DOJ.

HOLDER IS A ROYAL POS.

"ATF allowed the sales" BULL$HÏT. They forced and threatened the sellers WHO WERE THE ONES WHO CALLED THESE MFERS TO ALERT THEM.

Holder should be impeached. Arrested. And spend a long time behind bars playing hide Bubbas salami.

ATF Manager says he shared Fast and Furious Info with White House - By Sharyl Attkisson

At a lengthy hearing on ATF's controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O'Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O'Reilly is unclear and wasn't fully explored at the hearing.

It's the first time anyone has publicly stated that a White House official had any familiarity with ATF's operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain intelligence. It's unknown as to whether O'Reilly shared information with anybody else at the White House.

Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O'Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: "you didn't get this from me."

"What does that mean," one member of Congress asked Newell, " 'you didn't get this from me?' "

"Obviously he was a friend of mine," Newell replied, "and I shouldn't have been sending that to him."

Newell told Congress that O'Reilly had asked him for information.

"Why do you think he asked for that information," Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked Newell.

"He was asking about the impact of Project Gunrunner to brief people in preparation for a trip to Mexico... what we were doing to combat firearms trafficking and other issues."

Today, a White House spokesman said the email was not about Fast and Furious, but about other gun trafficking efforts. The spokesman also said he didn't know what Newell was referring to when he said he'd spoken to O'Reilly about Fast and Furious.

President Obama has said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized or knew about the operation. Holder has asked the Inspector General to investigate.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20083772-10391695.html 

Obama and Holder should both be arrested.

Since we live in a "hi-tech" world, are there shredders that work with hard drives? How about entire servers? Going to be a tough time ringing out info what with a absence of paper. Maybe there's a lone wolf out there whose made hard copies out there of everything and keeping them in a safe deposit box. One can only hope. This mess ain't your fathers Watergate. Where's Deep Throat when you need him.[gonzo] [gonzo]

...this just in...the top 3 screw-ups that rammed this debacle past the AG and the President...they got PROMOTIONS!!!!


They're Peter Principaling these idiots right in front of your eyes in BROAD DAYLIGHT!

See the roaches for what they are!

Is Holder doing a damn thing?

Does the President even care?

I mean he does have a vacation to go on soon and all.

I'm sure they learned from their mistakes and won't do it again.... the new guys might.... 😟