The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (43 page)

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Authors: David Limbaugh

BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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According to the committee report, ATF officials said their goal from the beginning was to go after the people at the top of the gun trafficking operation, not the low-level straw purchasers. That, supposedly, is why they didn’t confront those purchasers or interdict guns—they were focused on dismantling the entire cartel organizations. While the ATF said they were dealing with a very complex gun trafficking operation, the committee said, “In reality… the network was not complex…. It actually included a small cadre of about forty straw purchasers—only five of whom purchased 70 percent of the weapons—one ringleader (Manuel Celis-Acosta), and two cartel associates who were the link to the Sinaloa Cartel. The whole point of Fast and Furious … was to identify this ringleader and these two cartel associates.”
65
As it turns out, federal law enforcement officials had already identified the ringleader by December 2009. Also around that time, the operation had expanded to include fifteen interconnected straw purchasers known to have bought 500 firearms. The report makes clear that the ATF well understood that these gun sales—which the ATF allowed to proceed—were going to violent criminals. The ATF, based on DEA wiretap intercepts, had sufficient probable cause to make arrests as early as 2009, or at least to use other investigative techniques to disrupt the purchases and seize the weapons.
But the ATF chose not to act or to arrest Celis-Acosta. Instead, according to the committee report, the ATF wanted to get its own wiretaps and build up its own case. This decision “ensured that Fast and Furious lasted nearly a year longer, with 1,500 more guns being purchased—including the guns bought by Jaime Avila in January 2010 that were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.” It wasn’t until the ATF finally brought in Celis-Acosta in January 2011 that it learned the identities of the two cartel associates.
It was later discovered that other branches of the DOJ had already been aware of the two associates because their names often appeared in DEA logs provided to the ATF as early as December 2009. But the ATF missed the names because it failed to review this information.
Additionally, the DEA and FBI had jointly opened a separate investigation specifically targeting the two men. Thus, by January 2010, both agencies had collected abundant information on them. Yet the ATF, unaware of that, “spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them.” Adding insult to injury, the FBI made the two men informants, preventing their indictment. The upshot was “that the entire goal of Fast and Furious—to target these two individuals and bring them to justice—was a failure.” The ATF apparently disputed that the two were untouchable.
66
Consistent with its posture throughout the investigation, the DOJ barely demonstrated any concern for the egregious absence of information-sharing among its three subsidiary entities—the ATF, DEA, and FBI. Upon being apprised of this situation, the deputy attorney general merely remarked, “We will look into it.”
67
Fortunately, it was not only Republicans who were alarmed by the DOJ’s misdeeds. Concerned about the lack of interagency coordination along the border and the miscommunication between law enforcement agencies concerning Fast and Furious, Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, directed staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which he chairs, to examine the situation.
68
The committee report explained the acquisition of wiretap affidavits that eventually led to the authorization of seven federal wiretaps. The affidavits established the necessity for wiretaps by detailing—with specificity—why other investigative techniques were insufficient. What was appalling was that no one in either ATF leadership or any political appointees at Main Justice admitted to having reviewed the affidavits, even though someone among them had to have read them to approve their issuance. As the committee observed, “Because of the Wiretap Affidavits, the Criminal Division at Main Justice was in a position to know as much about Fast and Furious as ATF. Both Justice Department and ATF leaders in Washington, D.C. claimed that they were unaware of the gunwalking that occurred during Fast and Furious, yet both could have and should have reviewed the Wiretap Affidavits.”
69
This is precisely the point Congressman Gowdy was pressing Eric Holder to admit during the February 2012 hearing.
Moreover, the ATF was directly aware of the purchase of weapons when they occurred, because agents were monitoring feeds from cameras inside the stores of cooperating gun dealers. Indeed, ATF Agent Dodson, during a March 3, 2011 CBS News interview, showed footage of ATF agents watching known straw purchasers leave a gun store and load their new weapons into their vehicles. The committee report stated that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein and his Criminal Division should have known, based on the wiretap affidavits, that the ATF agents were witnessing, monitoring, and recording the purchases and illegal transfers of the weapons. They also should have known that in some cases these weapons were being recovered in Mexico within a day of their purchase.
Weinstein testified that he was unaware of the detailed information in the affidavits because his general practice was only to review the summary memos, not the affidavits themselves. But Weinstein did admit he reviewed what he thought were three of the Fast and Furious wiretaps, saying he found nothing in them that concerned him. Nothing, he said, gave him “any reason to suspect that guns were walking in that case in Fast and Furious.” And if he had encountered such information, he “would have reacted very strongly to it.” The committee report said it is now clear why Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer were so adamant in their testimony to explain that the Criminal Division reviews the wiretap affidavits only to see if they are legally sufficient, and not to evaluate the appropriateness of tactics. “That distinction,” said the report, “is essential in order to avoid responsibility for knowing of the tactics described in the Wiretap Affidavits.”
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This typified the DOJ’s attitude toward the entire investigation—showing a “serious lack of inquisitiveness when it came to discovering details about Operation Fast and Furious,” and obstructing the committee’s investigation at every turn. Ken Melson’s testimony that Justice was managing the investigation to protect its political appointees turned out, according to the committee report, to be “prophetic.” The department “has blamed everyone except for its political appointees for Fast and Furious. This includes the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, the ATF Phoenix Field Division, and even ATF Headquarters.”
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In its conclusion, the committee said that the ATF blames Main Justice for encouraging Fast and Furious while the DOJ blames the ATF and Arizona’s U.S. Attorney’s Office. Meanwhile, the DOJ officials in a position to stop the operation blame their staffs for not bringing the critical issues to their attention. Additionally, U.S. Attorney’s Office personnel have either taken the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify before Congress or have been prohibited by the DOJ from talking to Congress altogether. As Melson testified, the Department is clearly “circling the wagons to protect its political appointees.”
And we can never forget the real victims here. As the committee report stated, “The family of Brian Terry, the families of countless citizens of Mexico slain by weapons purchased through Fast and Furious, and the American people deserve to know the truth.”
72
The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to distance itself from Fast and Furious. Yet the operation shows many hallmarks of Obama’s governance, from its excessive secrecy to the incompetence of its execution to the refusal of anyone to take responsibility. We still don’t know at what level of the administration this operation was ultimately approved—and Attorney General Holder seems determined that we never find out. Regardless, Operation Fast and Furious testifies to a federal government that, while itself is out of control, demands ever more control over
our
guns,
our
economy, and
our
everyday lives.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WAR ON THE DIGNITY OF HIS OFFICE
T
hree years into Obama’s presidency, widespread criticism has done nothing to temper his unbounded narcissism. According to
Fox Nation
, as of the beginning of August 2010, “Obama [had] spoken some form of ‘I’ or ‘me’ more than 16,000 official times since he took office.” In his defense, his self-image may be distorted by the fawning and pandering that surrounds him daily, including from our hapless vice president. “This guy has a backbone like a ramrod,” said Biden, in one of his many panegyrics to his boss, adding that Obama also possesses “a brain bigger than his skull and he’s got a heart to match both.”
1
And as his first term comes to an end, Obama still can’t resist placing himself in the cultural limelight, appearing on pop-culture television programs ranging from
The Daily Show
to
Mythbusters
.
“WE KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT”
But was the anger justified? Who walked on whom here?
Politico
said the White House was well aware Obama’s speech would conflict with the Republican debate, which had been planned well in advance, but it insisted on acting like the aggrieved party. Treating the Republican debate as a non-event and Obama’s speech—another predictable, monotonous presidential sales job—as singularly paramount to the nation, the White House source insisted that the “debate was one that was going on a cable station. It was not sacrosanct. We knew they would push it back and then there would be a GOP debate totally trashing the president. So it wasn’t all an upside for us.”
3
So, the White House deliberately scheduled over the Republican debate and arrogantly presumed the GOP would automatically reschedule. Continuing in this adolescent posture, Obama sent an email to his supporters with the subject line “Frustrated.” His message read, “It’s been a long time since Congress was focused on what the American people need them to be focused on. I know that you’re frustrated by that. I am too.” Obama said he was advancing “a set of bipartisan proposals to help grow the economy and create jobs” and was “asking lawmakers to look past short-term politics and take action on that plan.” Even
Politico
acknowledged Obama’s non-presidential tone, saying it “was, perhaps, not the friendliest message, but the White House was not in a friendly mood.”
4
WHEN THINGS AREN’T GOING RIGHT, FOLKS ARE GOING TO DIRECT ATTENTION AT YOU
Just a year before, President Obama had assured us that he, too, despite his lavish presidential lifestyle, could relate to the plight of struggling Americans during our economic downturn, as he and the first lady took a hit in the financial meltdown. “We’re just not that far removed from what most Americans are going through,” Obama told ABC News. “I mean it was only a few years ago when we had high credit card balances, we had two little kids that we were trying to figure out how to save enough for college, we were still thinking about our own retirement and looking at our retirement accounts and wondering, are we going to be able to get enough assets in there to make sure we’re protected.” At the time of the interview, his disclosure forms revealed he had a net worth of some $7.7 million.
5
A few weeks later, still fully me-directed, Obama lamented that he was not given the credit he deserves. And “here’s the reason,” he explained to CBS News: “We’ve gone through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. No other depression comes close. When people have gone through that much trauma, people have every right to be scared, to be angry, to be frustrated. And I don’t expect the American people to be satisfied when we’re only half of the way back.” He added, “One of the things when you’re President is, folks are gonna, you know, direct attention—when things aren’t going right for them—at
you
.”
6
That’s Obama—ever the victim.

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