Everyone seems to think this all started under Obama but he was sworn in as President on January 20, 2009. This program was started THREE YEARS before Obama was elected by Bush and his people, NOT Obama. Like a lot of other things, Obama was left to clean up the mess.
Originally Posted by BigLouie
Law enforcement operations sometimes go horribly wrong, and every indication is that Operation Wide Receiver executed by the ATF during the Bush administration while Alberto Gonzales was the attorney general was a “keystone cops” operation of the first magnitude. It was a horrible failure.In Operation Wide Receiver, Tucson agents allowed the sales of more than 500 firearms to known straw purchasers. Like Gunrunner/Fast and Furious, the operation apparently backfired.
Some firearms in Wide Receiver were equipped with RFID tracking devices. In Wide Receiver, it seems the illegal purchasers seemed more than slightly knowledgeable of the ATF and how to take their aerial and electronic tracking procedures down.
Knowing the time aloft numbers for virtually all planes used in government surveillance, the buyers had a simple method of getting their purchases across the border undetected. They simply drove four-hour loops around the area.
As surveillance planes were forced to return to base for refueling, the smugglers simply turned and sprinted their cargo across the border.
The RFID tags also turned out to be problematic.
Rather than making large enough holes for the tags to be laid out inside weapons, agents force-fit them into the rifles.
That cramming caused the antennae to be folded, reducing the effective range of the tags. And an already short battery life (36-48 hours maximum) meant that should purchasers allow the firearms to sit, the tracking devices eliminated themselves.
As a result of the mistakes made in Wide Receiver, guns were lost: approximately 450 made it into Mexico. As a result, the botched operation launched in 2006 — and in this instance, actually botched — was shut down in 2007.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-gu...inglepage=true
The Fast and Furious operation had none of those controls in place. And the ensuing scandal became an Obama issue the moment he decided to use executive privilege to shield documents from being released to the House Oversight Committee.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ous-documents/
And Sen. Charles Grassley astutely asks, “How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen?”
http://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/...eID_1502=41368
How about a little hypocrisy?
Obama went on Larry King’s show in CNN in 2007 and accused the Bush administration of “hiding behind executive privilege” after King asked him for his opinion on its utilization. He further added that the American people have "a right to know."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpwYh...ature=youtu.be
Why did Obama change his tune? Don't the American people have a right to know now, as well? Video can be real bitch sometimes, huh?
This is a criminal investigation. An innocent American citizen was murdered. Its very likely that hundreds of Mexican citizens have been murdered. They were murdered with the very weapons that Holder and the DOJ knowingly sent to the drug cartels in Mexico, without working with the Mexican government and without tracking the weapons.
Here us a really good article on the history of this whole thing
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...ious-fall.html
You can argue it all you want, but the facts are the facts....and Fast and Furious happened on Obama's watch.
I don't recall anyone that died as a direct result of Watergate.