Fast and Furious Update - Who Knew What, When?

Attorney General Eric Holder is starting to feel some of the pressure on his job, and in particular, his complete lack of truth and transparency regarding his role in the fiasco known as Operation Fast and Furious - which was the Administration's plan to provide weapons to the Mexican drug cartels in order to create a case to 'justify' increased US gun control laws.

Over 50 current Members of Congress are calling for AG Holder's resignation or dismissal based on the untruths he as testified to regarding this program and his knowledge of the program. One of the basest was his claim this past spring that he had only learned of the program in the March 2011 timeframe - well after Fast and Furious supplied weapons were known to have been used to murder a US Border Agent. Subsequent information showed that AG Holder received briefing materials dating to early 2010 - but the AG claims that he doesn't read all of the materials given to him. (OK, then we demand his dismissal for incompetence!)

What the Attorney General is doing is getting very testy over the focus that is being placed on the Department of Justice efforts to cover-up details about the program, who authorized it, and his conflicting testimony to Congress.  But most of all, he's testy over the questions about all of these demands that he is either fired or that he resigns.

Holder stepped towards the exit, then turned around, stepped back toward the reporter, and sternly said, “You guys need to — you need to stop this. It’s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it.”

President Obama has also maintained that he did not know anything about the program - although FOIA obtained emails show that members of his National Security Team were discussing the program with members of the Department of Justice in 2010.   However, new information has been obtained that President Obama apparently knew the specifics of this program in May 2010 - the same time that AG Eric Holder knew about the program to arm Mexican drug cartels.

Fast forward one year, and White House logs show that then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler met personally with Obama four times between May 7 and May 19, 2010.


Just in case Grindler’s name doesn’t set off sirens in your mind, he had received an in depth briefing on Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. (This briefing came via an ATF slideshow which I covered in a post for Big Government earlier this year.) During this same briefing, Grindler was provided with details concerning the number of times that a straw purchaser named Uriel Patino had purchased guns during Fast and Furious. (Patino’s total weapon acquisition numbered approx. 720 guns.)


By the way, Grindler is no longer a Deputy Attorney General. Rather, he is Holder’s Chief of Staff.


So what do you figure he and Obama talked about when they met four times in May 2010?

It's clear that this is far from the most ethical, open, and transparent Administration in the history of this country - all of which were proclaimed to be the case when the President took office in January 2009.  They have become experts in the cover-up, the redacted delivery of materials being 'full compliance', and the Friday 5PM document drop.  It is a Chicago style Administration - which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone given the dirty deals done to get Barack Obama into the Illinois Senate as well as the US Senate.

Both Big Government and PJ Media have done stellar jobs in investigating Fast and Furious, something that almost every mainstream media organization has avoided like the plague.  Only one reporter at CBS News is working on the case and asking hard questions - and it appears as if the network is trying to slow her down.

This remains not only a major scandal, but an illegal operation by the US government to provide military grade weaponry to organized crime operations in a foreign country - weapons that have accounted for hundreds of deaths including at least 2 US agents.  It was conducted by an Administration that needed to create a 'story' to support their claims for tougher US gun control laws - and fit the meme that the cartels were not being armed by weapons sold to them by corrupt Mexican police and military officials, obtained from arms suppliers in Central America, or other sources - but exclusively from the United States because of it's 'lax gun control laws'.

It is a reflection of the arrogance and contempt of too many Administration officials and leaders towards the US people, the Mexican government and poeple, Congress, and the laws they have sworn to uphold and protect.