The deadly-but-forgotten government gun-running scandal known as “Fast
and Furious” has lain dormant for years, thanks to White House
stonewalling and media compliance. But newly uncovered e-mails have
reopened the case, exposing the anatomy of a coverup by an
administration that promised to be the most transparent in history.
A federal judge has forced the release of more than 20,000 pages of
emails and memos previously locked up under President Obama’s phony
executive-privilege claim. A preliminary review shows top Obama
officials deliberately obstructing congressional probes into the border
gun-running operation.
Fast and Furious was a Justice Department program that allowed
assault weapons — including .50-caliber rifles powerful enough to take
down a helicopter — to be sold to Mexican drug cartels allegedly as a
way to track them. But internal documents later revealed the real goal
was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast
and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.
Only, the scheme backfired when Justice agents lost track of the
nearly 2,000 guns sold through the program and they started turning up
at murder scenes on both sides of the border — including one that
claimed the life of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
While then-Attorney General Eric Holder was focused on politics,
people were dying. At least 20 other deaths or violent crimes have been
linked to Fast and Furious-trafficked guns.
The program came to light only after Terry’s 2010 death at the hands
of Mexican bandits, who shot him in the back with government-issued
semiautomatic weapons. Caught red-handed, “the most transparent
administration in history” flat-out lied about the program to Congress,
denying it ever even existed.
Then Team Obama conspired to derail investigations into who was
responsible by first withholding documents under subpoena — for which
Holder earned a contempt-of-Congress citation — and later claiming
executive privilege to keep evidence sealed.
But thanks to the court order, Justice has to cough up the
“sensitive” documents. So far it’s produced 20,500 lightly redacted
pages, though congressional investigators say they hardly cover all the
internal department communications under subpoena. They maintain the
administration continues to “withhold thousands of documents.”
Read the full story at the NY Post, here.
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