White House Knew About ATF's Fast and Furious (You Didn't Get This From Me)

"Project Gunrunner" (A.K.A Fast and Furious) was a project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fireworks where basically some "geniuses" high up in ATF (and possibly the DOJ) thought it would be a great idea to sell assault weapons to the violent Mexican drug cartels. Yes, that's right, the US government decided--in order to fight the Mexican Drug Cartels, we should arm them and let them keep their weapons once they were used in committing crimes .



Yesterday morning we learned that the administration was trying to obstruct the congressional hearings with intimidating letters to the ATF agents about to testify, later in the day we learned why,  at least one person on the White House staff was told about the flawed operation.



With Special Agent in Charge William Newell sitting on the committee hot seat, we not only know that the program's strategy found its way into the White House, but to the IRS, Drug Enforcement Agency and ICE.



Newell testified he discussed Operation Fast & Furious with his old friend, White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O’Reilly. Issa’s committee got its hands on an email from Newell that began with the frightening words, “you didn’t get this from me.”

Newell says O’Reilly 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.”  A White House spokesman denied this exchange had anything to do with Operation Fast and Furious.

But as you can see below, that's not what the testimony reflected:

LABRADOR: Special Agent Newell, do you know who Kevin O'Reilly is?

NEWELL: Yes, Sir.

LABRADOR: What's the nature of your relationship with him?

NEWELL: I've known Kevin for ‑ I'd say probably 10‑12 years?

LABRADOR: How often do you communicate with him?

NEWELL: Oh, I haven't communicated with him in a while but probably three or four times a year or something like that. Or maybe ‑ maybe more depending on him reaching out to me.

LABRADOR: Isn't it a little bit unusual for a special agent in charge of an ATF field division to have direct email contact with the national security staff at the White House?

NEWELL: He's ‑ he's a friend of mine.

LABRADOR: How many times did you talk to him about this case?

NEWELL: The specifics of this case? I don't think I ‑‑ I mean ‑‑ I don't think I had one specific conversation with him about the specifics of this case.

LABRADOR: OK. Who ...

ISSA (?): Would the gentleman allow me to help him a little? Not that you need it, but could you take the word specific out and ‑ and answer the general ‑‑ did you talk to him about this case?

NEWELL: I might have talked to him about this case. Yes, Sir.

ISSA(?): Do you know when that was?

NEWELL: It was probably ‑‑ I ‑‑ as I recall I think it was during the summer ‑‑ it might have been the summer or early fall of 2010.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy picked up the O'Reilly connection to press for more information:

GOWDY: Let me ask you this. When you begin a sentence, "You didn't get this from me..." what does that mean to you?

NEWELL: Just means that didn't get it from me.

GOWDY: Well, but that's kind of a pleonasm, isn't it, because you are getting it from them? So it's a ‑‑ what do you mean by that, "You didn't get this from me..."? I'm referring to your e‑mail to Mr. O'Reilly (ph).

NEWELL: Well, obviously Mr. O'Reilly (ph) was a friend of mine and it's ‑‑ it's ‑‑ I shouldn't have been sending him that, obviously, I recognize that, it being a friend.

GOWDY: But what do you mean, "You didn't get this from me..."? Does that mean you should not have been talking to him about it?

NEWELL: Not that I shouldn't have been talking about. He's a friend of mine. He asked for information and I provided it to him.

GOWDY: Well, then, why wasn't it appropriate for you to give it to him? Why would you preface it by saying, "You didn't get this from me..."? Was it an improper communication?

NEWELL: No, it wasn't an improper communication.

GOWDY: Well, then, why would you preface it by that?

NEWELL: It's ‑‑ he's been a friend of mine for a long time and he asked me for information. So I gave him information that ‑‑ it's probably an improper use of the term or phrase.

Operation Fast and Furious has become like a dripping faucet, every day a bit more information leaks out.  Just this week we learned that conflicted US felons were allowed to purchase weapons without background checks, an administration cover up, and that the scope of the project was much wider than originally thought.  Maybe its time for the Administration fess up and stop stonewalling.

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Obstruction of Justice? Obama Administration Accused of Intimidating Fast and Furious Witnesses

It appears that the Obama administration is forgetting a key rule of politics, its not the mistake that gets you, it's the cover-up.



For the second time in less than a month they are being accused of obstructing the Congressional  inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF operation which allowed Mexican drug cartels and convicted felons to obtain weapons. The purpose of these committee hearings is to discover how such a lame-brained scheme was allowed to proceed.



Today the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding hearings continuing its investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.



According to Committee Chairman Issa, the Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying before his committee. Issa said at least two scheduled witnesses ”received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony.



Issa made this revelation in an interview last night with the Washington Times.

But after receiving subpoenas, at least two of the agents got letters from ATF Associate Chief Counsel Barry S. Orlow warning them to keep certain areas off-limits, including those still under investigation. Neither of the targeted agents was identified.



Mr. Issa said at least one witness wanted to back out of testifying to his committee after receiving the letter, but the chairman declined that request. Instead he fired a letter back to William J. Hoover, deputy director of ATF, saying the “timing and content of this letter strongly suggest that ATF is obstructing and interfering with the congressional investigation.” 

This is the second time, there have been charges of obstruction made against the Obama administration regarding the Fast and Furious scandal.  On July 4th ATF Director Ken Melson testified before Darrell Issa's  Committee. As a result of the meeting, Issa along with ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley  fired off a letter about  Melson's charge that he had been directed to obstruct the Congressional investigation.

"If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand," Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder. "That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation."

Issa  told the Washington Times  he is certain Fast and Furious was known about by most top officials at the Justice Department and that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. either knew and misled Congress, or was so out of the loop that he’s guilty of mismanagement.

“How is it that the No. 2, 3, 4 at Justice all knew about this program, but the No. 1 didn’t?,” Mr. Issa said. “Is it because he said ‘don’t tell me’? Is it because they knew what they were doing is wrong, and they were protecting their boss? Or is it that Eric Holder is just so disconnected … ?



“Whichever it is — he knew and he’s lied to Congress, or he didn’t know, and he’s so detached that he wasn’t doing his job — that really probably is for the administration to make a decision on, sooner not later,” Mr. Issa said.

It will be interesting to see this play out, what can be stated as fact is that this was a misguided program which led to the death of at least one ATF Agent.  We also know that as of today there are two separate distinct charges of obstruction of justice against this, the "most transparent" administration in American history.



In more Fast And Furious News Chairman Issa released a report that summarized what the committee has discovered so far (embedded below). The report found:

• In the fall of 2009, ATF officials in Mexico began noticing a spike in guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes. Many of those guns traced directly to an ongoing investigation out of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division.

• As Operation Fast and Furious progressed, there were numerous recoveries of large weapons caches in Mexico. These heavy-duty weapons included AK-47s, AR-15s, and even Barrett .50 caliber rifles – the preferred weapons of drug cartels.

• At a March 5, 2010 briefing, ATF intelligence analysts told ATF and DOJ leadership that the number of firearms bought by known straw purchasers had exceeded the 1,000 mark. The briefing also made clear these weapons were ending up in Mexico.

• ATF and DOJ leadership kept their own personnel in Mexico and Mexican government officials totally in the dark about all aspects of Fast and Furious. Meanwhile, ATF officials in Mexico grew increasingly worried about the number of weapons recovered in Mexico that traced back to an ongoing investigation out of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division.

• ATF officials in Mexico raised their concerns about the number of weapons recovered up the chain of command to ATF leadership in Washington, D.C. Instead of acting decisively to end Fast and Furious, the senior leadership at both ATF and DOJ praised the investigation and the positive results it had produced. Frustrations reached a boiling point, leading former ATF Attaché Darren Gil to engage in screaming matches with his supervisor, International Affairs Chief Daniel Kumor, about the need to shut down the Phoenix-based investigation.

• Despite assurances that the program would be shut down as early as March 2010, it took the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent in December 2010 to actually bring the program to a close.

• ATF officials in Mexico finally realized the truth: ATF allowed guns to walk. By withholding this critical information from its own personnel in Mexico, ATF jeopardized relations between the U.S. and Mexico.

• The high-risk tactics of cessation of surveillance, gunwalking, and non-interdiction of weapons that ATF used in Operation Fast and Furious went against the core of ATF’s mission, as well as the training and field experience of its agents. These flaws inherent in Operation Fast and Furious made its tragic consequences inevitable.

ATF 07-26-11 Report on Impact on Mexico 2

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New Operation Fast and Furious Revelation Convicted Felons Allowed to Bypass Gun Purchase Background Check

"Project Gunrunner" (A.K.A Fast and Furious) was a project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fireworks where basically some "geniuses" high up in ATF (and possibly the DOJ) thought it would be a great idea to sell assault weapons to the violent Mexican drug cartels. Yes, that's right, the US government decided--in order to fight the Mexican Drug Cartels, we should arm them and let them keep their weapons once they were used in committing crimes .



The House Oversight committee reported that some of these guns were used in crimes. For example,  two of the approximately 2,000 guns that ATF let criminals walk away with were found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.



Now it seems that the cartels were not the only ones involved in the stupid operation. According to a Fox report at least two of these illegal gun purchases (360 total weapons) were made by felons whose records should have prevented them from buy even one weapon.

However, according to court records reviewed by Fox News, two of the 20 defendants indicted in the Fast and Furious investigation have felony convictions and criminal backgrounds that experts say, at the very least, should have delayed them buying a single firearm. Instead, the duo bought dozens of guns on multiple occasions while federal officials watched on closed-circuit cameras.



Congressional and law-enforcement sources say the situation suggests the FBI, which operates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, knowingly allowed the purchases to go forward after consulting with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which initiated Operation Fast and Furious.



Under the failed anti-gun trafficking program, straw buyers -- those who legally purchase guns and illegally sell them to a third party -- were allowed to buy guns, many of which were sold to Mexican drug cartel members and subsequently lost. Related to the case, the U.S. government in May charged Manuel Osorio-Arellanes with killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last year using a gun purchased through the program.



Court documents show the breakdown involves suspects Jacob Wayne Chambers, 21, and Sean Christopher Stewart, 28, both of Phoenix. Police arrested Chambers for felony burglary and trafficking stolen property in 2008, a year before he began buying more than 70 guns that ended up in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel. Stewart pled guilty to resisting arrest and criminal damage in 2001 and was arrested on drug charges in 2010. He was also charged with violating an order of protection and a local municipal court issued a warrant for his arrest. Stewart purchased 290 weapons.



"You cannot sanction the violation of federal law by enabling or co-enabling prohibited persons, which includes felony convictions, from purchasing firearms," said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a former federal prosecutor and a member of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the botched ATF operation. Gowdy said he would discuss the apparent violation with committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

When asked for an explanation by Fox the FBI had no comment.

However, an ATF agent who worked on the Fast and Furious investigation, told Fox News that NICS officials called the ATF in Phoenix whenever their suspects tried to buy a gun. That conversation typically led to a green light for the buyers, when it should have stopped them.



The apparent corruption of the system concerns Gowdy. "It is unconscionable and goes beyond just being a terribly ill-conceived investigation to bordering, if not crossing, into criminal activity," he said.

And when Congressman Issa's investigation is done, it is almost assured that the criminal activity will have been authorized by high-ups in the Justice Department.



More on the story below (if you cannot see video below click here)

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