Fast and Furious: I don't want resignations, I want handcuffs

The more I learn about Fast and Furious, the angrier I get. Recent congressional testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder and his subordinates is making it clear that the entire AG's office is infected with epidemic-level incompetence, stupidity, corruption, or a combination of the three.

Free advice for Eric Holder: your goal should be to appear incompetent, because the alternative (liar) makes prison a solid possibility.Thu Dec 08 18:11:39 via EchofonSarah Rumpf
rumpfshaker

Remember, this investigation is about an operation in which thousands of powerful weapons were entering Mexico (aka crossing international borders) under the control of gangs, drug cartels, and other dangerous criminals. To claim that this was happening not just without Holder's permission, but completely without his knowledge, strains credibility. In other words, believing Holder is telling the truth means that he has lost all control of the agency which he is supposed to be leading.

And let's back up one step further: the very rationale for the operation does not make a darn bit of sense. When law enforcement agencies plan a prostitution sting, the undercover police officers don't actually have sex with the targeted customers, they just arrest them as soon as the actual solicitation occurs. Likewise, in a drug sting, the police make the arrest as soon as the drugs are sold. They don't let the criminals take the cocaine home with them!

Memo to the Obama administration: if don't want us to just default to the obvious conclusion - that the objective of Fast and Furious was to increase drug cartel violence in Mexico, blame American-made weapons, thereby justifying stricter gun control laws - then you better come up with a new excuse in a hurry, because there's nothing else coming to mind.

Let me get this straight. The gov't wants to control *my* guns, but can't keep track of its own? Alrighty then. #fastandfuriousThu Dec 08 15:01:51 via Tweetbot for iPhonezarfmeister
the_zarf

I had an interview with Representative Sandy Adams recently at her office in Washington on this topic, and she shares my disbelief that our government would engage in such outrageous behavior, and a determination to pursue a full investigation of the matter:


YouTube | Interview with Sandy Adams about Fast & Furious

Even better, here's video from yesterday's Congressional hearing, in which Adams grills Holder:

YouTube | Adams Grills Holder Over Fast and Furious Operation

Adams' previous law enforcement career serves her well here, and she chews Holder up into teeny pieces from the very beginning, and never lets up. Holder is clearly uncomfortable and fidgety, and personally, I don't feel even a little bit sorry for him. 

Holder's feigned ignorance, the refusal to turn over emails, the attempts to blame political motivations...it all just makes me sick. 

The fact that no one has yet been held accountable is inexcusable. Everyone involved with this horrific endeavor still has their job. Absolutely unacceptable. 


This has reached the point of outrageous corruption where I don't want resignations, I want handcuffs. By the end of this, I want to see people behind bars. It would be little comfort to the family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, but at least it would be justice.

See also: 

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has written an op-ed on this topic, posted at RedState:

RedState | Chairman Reince Priebus | Unaccountable and Unacceptable: Fast and Furious and the Incompetent Administration

When the Fast and Furious scandal came to light, [Holder] unsurprisingly denied any knowledge or wrongdoing. While the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—the agency responsible for the botched operation—is part of the Justice Department he oversees, he pled ignorance.

But old memos and emails proved he knew much more than he let on. So when the Attorney General finally relented and complied with a Congressional subpoena last month, he faced an appropriately harsh grilling.

To recap: Over 2,000 guns were knowingly sold to straw purchasers with the plan of being traced to Mexican drug cartels. When that scheme failed, over 1,400 guns were lost.  More than 500 weapons have been recovered so far in the United States and in Mexico. Worse still, trafficked guns were later involved in the death of a border agent.

And yet, where’s the accountability? Where’s the outrage? The Justice Department carelessly empowered Mexican drug cartels and Holder still has his job...

The leadership deficit in the Obama administration begins with the man who put the team together. Incompetence starts at the top. If no one is held accountable for his team’s many missteps, voters will undoubtedly make sure the buck stops where it’s supposed to. If Obama won’t fire Geithner, Chu, and Holder, we will. We’ll fire the whole team—in just 11 months.

Yid With Lid blogger Jeff Dunetz has written a funny Christmas present list post, and here's what he thinks Eric Holder should get for Christmas:

Eric Holder - Hooked on Phonics. You ever see him at a committee hearing? All he ever says is  "no I didn't read that." It's obvious that the guy can't read.

Jeff, I think you may be right.

UPDATE: Great synopsis of the steaming-pile-of-bovine-excrement by Moe Lane over at RedState:

RedState | Moe Lane | AG Eric Holder calls Operation Fast & Furious ‘Reckless…’

• The Obama administration created Operation Fast & Furious, which deliberately put large numbers of guns in the hands of people who were considered likely to resell them illegally to Mexican narco-terrorists.
• The Obama administration did not follow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives’ own rules for selling guns in sting operations.
• The Obama administration did not keep track of the guns.
• The Obama administration did not inform the Mexican government that the USA was arming their country’s drug gangs.
• The Obama administration did not do anything about the Mexican civilian deaths that resulted from Operation Fast & Furious.
• The Obama administration did not keep our own country’s law enforcement personnel in the loop, which inevitably resulted in at least one of our own Border Agents getting shot(possibly even by a weapon that the Obama administration facilitated).
• The Obama administration did not voluntarily tell the truth about any of this.
• And there is at least some suggestion that the Obama administration had a domestic political agenda in mind. One involving domestic gun control.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin has lots of viciously brilliant stuff on the Obama administration's thriving culture of corruption (plus, she was nice enough to retweet this post - thanks, Michelle!):

Michelle Malkin | Holder, Blago, Richardson: Triangle of Sleaze
Michelle Malkin | Capitol Hill hearing/vote watch: Holder, Corzine, Cordray