Fast and Furious: A Bloody Scandal & Cover-up

Anyone who wants to know what’s at stake in Congressman Darrell Issa’s investigation of Attorney General Eric Holder should read Katie Pavlich’s book “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Coverup.”

Pavlich’s “Booknotes” interview (available on YouTube) offers a good introduction. Unfortunately, the damning details about this guns-to-killers scheme are being withheld from Issa’s Oversight Committee because of the President’s recent “executive privilege” claim.

The central question posed by Pavlich is why the Obama Justice Department (specifically its Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms branch) secretly pressured American gun dealers to illegally sell thousands of untraceable weapons to purchasers working for Mexican drug cartels—thus creating a more audacious and dangerous operation than the limited program the Bush Administration (in coordination with Mexico) had abandoned.

The most plausible reason for this decision, Pavlich argues, was Obama’s desire to promote gun control in the U.S. Evidence starts with a coordinated publicity campaign that began shortly after Obama became President.

On April 16, 2009, President Obama said this about Mexico’s drug violence, “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here (in Mexico) but in the United States.” He added that “more than 90 percent of the guns recovered” from Mexican crime scenes were from the U.S.

This mantra was echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats, including Senator Diane Feinstein. The truth, as subsequently revealed, was that less than 20 percent of Mexican crime scene guns were traceable to the U.S.

Not long after the 90% claim was debunked, the deadly Fast and Furious scheme was launched—a program that would greatly bolster the argument that American gun dealers were causing mayhem in Mexico.

A major goal of “Fast and Furious,” in other words, was to provide a compelling rationale for gun-control in the U.S. Two-hundred dead Mexicans and at least one dead American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry, were collateral damage.

It’s a damming indictment that explains the President’s belated “executive privilege” claim and Eric Holder’s prior stonewalling of Issa’s committee--including the Attorney General’s incredible statement (undermined by various memos) that he was unaware of the “Fast and Furious” program until shortly before his testimony in May, 2011.

Pavlich’s charge also makes sense of lies told by various officials, including Assistant Attorney General Lanny Brewer, who in February 2011, sent a letter denying high-level involvement in the program—a letter that was subsequently “withdrawn” because of inaccuracies.

Whistleblowing ATF Agent John Dodson said he never heard an explanation from anyone involved in “Fast and Furious” that would justify the operation. That’s probably because its primary purpose was unspeakably callous and coldly political.