Eric WithHolder Held in Contempt

[Al B. Sure!]

It was an attempt to determine what the chain of custody the Cartels were using for weapons purchases was. Since we couldn't require that gunstores report all purchases, we tried to engineer it artifically.

I get what they're trying to do I'm saying why the hell did people in the government think it was a good idea that wouldn't backfire horribly? It's like arming Bin Laden or propping up Noriega. When are we going to learn?

Hey, I have a better idea! If you can't track the guns, don't walk them at all!

Right. It was a stupid idea to begin with because the probability and damage of it backfiring were too great. But once they tried it and realized it wasn't working, why try again?

[Al B. Sure!]

In all three cases (the two under Bush and the 1 under Obama) the goal was to catch higher up people in the cartel red handed with the guns. Sure, they could catch the low level mules but that doesn't really do anything to stop the cartels so the idea was to work with Mexican police to arrest them once the guns were delivered to cartel officials in Mexico (that way you have rock solid proof of a crime). The problem is the Mexican police were both incompetent and corrupt as they either failed to track the mules on their side of the border and in some cases even tipped off cartel members. The basic idea of catching the middle management guys instead of just the hired mules was nice but the big weak point in all three operations was the Mexican police not doing their jobs. Also these were local office operation in Arizona so it's hard to tie them to high level officials in either administration so, once again, we're back to nothing more than election year partisan BS.

Umm... The Mexican authorities were in the dark on this. Look it up.

The ATF's "gunwalking" operations were deliberately kept secret from the Mexican government, even after related firearms began to be found at violent crime scenes and in criminal arsenals in 2010 and 2011. When they were told in January 2011 that there was an undercover program in existence, they still were not given details.[79] Mexican politicians expressed widespread anger at the operations as information developed in 2011.[80] Mexican officials stated in September that the US government still had not briefed them on what went wrong nor had they apologized.[79]

Attorney General of Mexico Marisela Morales, well-liked by US law enforcement, said, "At no time did we know or were we made aware that there might have been arms trafficking permitted. In no way would we have allowed it, because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans." In addition, she expressed that allowing weapons to "walk" would represent a "betrayal" of Mexico.[79]

Why are you ALWAYS wrong? What else are you wrong or lying about? Where do you get your information from?

[giblets]

I get what they're trying to do I'm saying why the hell did people in the government think it was a good idea that wouldn't backfire horribly? It's like arming Bin Laden or propping up Noriega. When are we going to learn?




Right. It was a stupid idea to begin with because the probability and damage of it backfiring were too great. But once they tried it and realized it wasn't working, why try again?

Possibly because they had done it before without it backfiring horribly...?

Also, it's not clear if it even can backfire horribly, because if Mexican drug lords can acquire guns from other sources then these killings may have happened anyway. In that case, it's better if you at least have some means of catching the criminals.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Also, it's not clear if it even can backfire horribly, because if Mexican drug lords can acquire guns from other sources then these killings may have happened anyway. In that case, it's better if you at least have some means of catching the criminals.

What conceivable mechanism for the Fast and Furious operation allowed for the criminals to be caught? Once the guns were purchased there was no ability to trace their current whereabouts.

[giblets]

Yes, it would seem that the operation was flawed. I never said it worked.

[Al B. Sure!]

Possibly because they had done it before without it backfiring horribly...?

Also, it's not clear if it even can backfire horribly, because if Mexican drug lords can acquire guns from other sources then these killings may have happened anyway. In that case, it's better if you at least have some means of catching the criminals.

The guns the drug lords would have acquired anyway would be the guns denied other criminals.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

It was interesting to see Republicans like the corrupt douchebag Issa (one of the lead paid Republican attack dogs on this nonissue) claim executive privilege completely covered all Bush Administration officials in cases like this but flip flop and say it doesn't the second Obama got into office. Gee, how convenient.

Such flip flopping is an obvious indication that this is nothing more than the usual election year partisan BS.

Executive priviledge was asserted in the Bush admin to cover deliberations and communications with the executive (President himself) and his staff. Further, the favorite example is to say that Bush prevented Bolton, Rove, and Miers from providing testimony to congress on the appointment of US Attorneys. Certainly one expects Bush had some discussions with the staff members on that decision, thus applicability of the executive priveledge seemed to make sense. OTOH, What has previously been asserted by the DOJ in this case is that there was no white house involvement whatsoever, furthermore it would not have involved presidential level discussions/decisions. To now properly assert executive priveldge means presidential involvement did indeed occur and thus implies perjury from Holder.

[Dinner]

Are you serious man?

I find it astounding that you think there is no difference between the two. If you had a doctor that tried a treatment that had a 10% success rate, and a doctor that just shrugged his shoulders and went "whelp" which would you assume was the more professional of the two?

Not at all. One used expensive tracking systems which failed in "vast majority of the cases" so in the future operations the local ATF office in Arizona decided to skip wasting money on "precautions" which had repeatedly failed to work as advertised and instead decided to physically follow the gun mules both on the ground and in the air. That's not "welp let's do nothing" as you've been claiming.

I've posted links to both the wiki article and the ATF fact sheet.

[Dinner]

"You know, there's been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there's something a little shaky that's taking place. And I think, you know, the administration would be best served by coming clean on this," then-Senator Barack Obama said in an interview with CNN in 2007.

Which proves EXACTLY what I said. "Such flip flopping is an obvious indication that this is nothing more than the usual election year partisan BS." When Bush is in office Republicans claim it's covered by executive privilege and Democrats claim it is unconstitutional then when Obama gets in office the two sides switch places. It should be obvious to everyone with half a brain that the two parties are just engaging in election year BS and nothing more.

[Al B. Sure!]

Still waiting for Oerdin to acknowledge his mistakes.

[The Mad Monk]

Oerdin, federal agents provided weapons to violent, organized criminals in another country without that country's knowledge or permission, with no means of retrieving them.

Under what circumstances is that not:

Illegal?

An international incident?

Incompetant?

Firing / Resignation worthy?

This is the sort of thing our dirty tricks departement pulls on our enemies, not purported freinds that we share a reasonably open border with.

[Al B. Sure!]

What amazes me about this is how so few people are aware about it. It's barely getting news traction outside of Fox News and a few outlets like the LA Times. I asked regular people about it and no one heard of this.

It's nowhere at MSNBC.com, for example. Even if you search 'Fast and Furious' (which you shouldn't have to; one would think it would be one of the headlines in the US or Politics sections), you see short articles but 0 comments and 0 Facebook recommends.

The media really knows how to keep this under wraps.

[Dinner]

Speer, it has gotten a lot of coverage on MSNBC though mostly to make fun of it.

TMM, The local office ran the operation all three times but when the Obama administration found out about it they ended the program (which began under the Bush Administration) and fired both the US Attorney in Phoenix and the ATF Office head in Phoenix. The people who came up with the idea and carried it out have been punished so what's the big deal? The only reason Republicans want to try to make a mountain out of this mole hill is because they want to play politics. They're welcome to try but their efforts are pretty damn transparent.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/eric-holder-contempt-of-congress-fast-and-furious-what-you-need-to-know/258783/

Oh, and Republicans aren't helping themselves out by inventing stupid tin foil hate conspiracy theories either. Their claims that Obama created this back in 2005 as part of an elaborate plot to tighten gun control laws which he's never even proposed is just laughable yet EVERY SINGLE elected Republican is currently spewing that tinfoil hat BS. The really sad thing is the nutjob who came up with that conspiracy theory is the same nutjob blogger who was inciting wing nuts into throwing rocks and bricks at the windows of the offices of Democratic candidates. Yet that tin foil nutter is now Fox's lead expert on this topic. I mean wtf?

[Dinner]

Is the executive privilege claim unprecedented?
No, but it is unusual. The Obama White House has never before claimed executive privilege. George W. Bush used it six times, Bill Clinton four, and George H.W. Bush once. It's also somewhat problematic for Obama. As Conor Friedersdorf points out, candidate Obama criticized its invocation by the Bush Administration, when it was used, for example, to try to cover up the political firings of U.S. Attorneys. It's also a little unclear how the documents are too sensitive to hand over if Holder was indeed willing to trade them for dropping the contempt proceeding.
What does it mean if Congress holds Eric Holder in contempt?
For the record, he's not yet in contempt -- the full House has to vote, which would happen next week. (Before you make that joke about how polls show the rest of America already holds Congress in contempt, stop. It's been made a million times already.) It would also be an unusual move. In fact, a sitting attorney general has never been held in contempt; in 1998, the Oversight Committee recommended that Janet Reno be held in contempt, but the recommendation was never brought to a vote of the entire House. But the move is largely symbolic. As Dana Milbank pointed out today, the person who would have to prosecute Holder for refusing to cooperate with Congress would be ... the attorney general, Eric Holder.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/eric-holder-contempt-of-congress-fast-and-furious-what-you-need-to-know/258783/

[Dinner]

BTW many of the papers in question would literally be illegal to turn over so it is perfectly obvious that this really is partisan BS.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/#47926690