Eric Holder Knew About Fast and Furious, Lied to Congress

When asked on May 3, 2011 by the House Judiciary Committee when he first learned about Operation Fast and Furious, US Attorney General Eric Holder replied,

I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.

This is significant, as it would mean that Holder did not find out about Fast and Furious until after the murders of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December 2010, and Immigration & Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata in February 2011. Further, it would exonerate Holder of any charges that he knew or approved of an operation which would inevitably result in a great deal of “collateral damage”–that is, the unnecessary deaths of law enforcement officers and innocent civilians.

We now know that Holder committed perjury in his testimony–he knew about Operation Fast and Furious while it was taking place.

A July 5, 2010 memo to Holder from Michael Walther, Director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, informs Holder that his team would be assisting the ATF in Operation Fast and Furious from July 12 to 16. The memo notes that Fast and Furious had been in operation since September 2009. But while the memo notes that the operation involved straw purchasers, it does not mention gun walking.

However, an October 18, 2010 e-mail attachment forwarded to his staff by Thomas Ott, Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the DOJ, contains the following exchange:

Do you think we should try to have Lanny [Breuer, Assistant Attorney General]  participate in press when Fast and Furious and Laura’s Tuscon case are unsealed? It’s a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked ….

I think so, but the timing will be tricky, too … It’s not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I’m not sure how much grief we get for “gun walking.” It may be more like, “Finally, they are going after people who sent guns down there…”

(Of course, the people “who sent guns down there” were the ATF in cooperation with the DOJ.)

Apparently, they did contact Lanny Breuer, as on November 1, 2010, Breuer sent a memo to Holder recording, under the heading “Significant Recent Events”:

Tuscon Gun Trafficking (D. Ariz.): On Oct. 27, the Organized Crime and Gang Section (OCGS) indicted eight individuals under seal relating to the trafficking of 228 firearms to Mexico. The sealing will likely last until another investigation, Phoenix-based “Operation Fast and Furious,” is ready for takedown.

Holder certainly knew of Operation Fast and Furious by July, 2010, and he knew that it had been in operation since September, 2009.

None of these memos prove that either Holder or his deputy, Breuer, knew that Fast and Furious involved gun walking. However, given that Holder has been stonewalling Congress and in fact perjured himself in his testimony to them, it is reasonable to think that he knew of Fast and Furious from its very inception, that he knew it involved gun walking, and that he was aware of the great potential for collateral damage.

In addition to the deaths of Terry and Zapata, an estimated 200 murders occurred directly because of Operation Fast and Furious. While the drug wars in Mexico have resulted in great loss of life, these are murders that would not have happened if the guns had not been allowed to walk.

(H/t CBS News via Politicons)

Related articles

• “Fast and Furious” E-mails Lead Straight to the White House (treeofmamre.wordpress.com)
• Kudos to CBS News for covering “Fast and Furious” while the rest of the MSM looks the other way (bigjournalism.com)
• FBI informant smuggled Fast & Furious guns across border (hotair.com)
• Arizona sheriff says Eric Holder, the DoJ, and the ATF are accomplices to murder (sistertoldjah.com)
• FAST-AND-FURIOUS FALLOUT? DoJ Considering Elimination of ATF. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving … (pajamasmedia.com)

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