Where’s the accountably? As our President ramps up his gun control rhetoric in the U.S., we continue to see the fallout from of a botched government gun running program dubbed “Fast N’ Furious.” How can this duplicitous President carry on about guns falling into the wrong hands in the U.S. while sending illegal guns over to Mexico to be used by drug lords against U.S. law enforcement and possibly against American civilians?
A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.
A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car, or as it was intended, take down a helicopter.
After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.
When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said.
Federal officials told Fox News they are not sure how many of the weapons seized from Guzman’s house actually originated in the U.S. and where they were purchased, but are investigating.
Out of the roughly 2,000 weapons sold through Fast and Furious, 34 were .50 caliber rifles that can take down a helicopter, according to officials.
Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that ‘El Chapo’ would put his guardsmen on hilltops to be on guard for Mexican police helicopters that would fly through valleys conducting raids. The sole purpose of the guardsmen would be to shoot down those helicopters, sources said.
The Fast and Furious operation involved federal agents allowing criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them.
Instead, agents from the ATF lost track of 1,400 of the 2,000 guns involved in the sting operation.
The operation allowed criminals to buy guns in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them once they made their way into Mexico.
After years of legal battles between the House Oversight Committee and Attorney General Eric Holder, 64,280 redacted Operation Fast and Furious documents held under President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege since 2012, have been turned over by the Department of Justice after an order from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
“When Eric Holder wants to know why he was the first Attorney General held in criminal contempt of Congress, he can read the judge’s order that compelled the production of 64,280 pages that he and President Obama illegitimately and illegally withheld from Congress. Since these pages still do not represent the entire universe of the documents the House of Representatives is seeking related to the Justice Department’s cover-up of the botched gun-walking scandal that contributed to the death of a Border Patrol agent, our court case will continue,” Chairman Darrell Issa said in a statement. “I am deeply concerned that some redactions to these documents may still be inappropriate and contrary to the judge’s order in the case.
These documents being turned over is long awaited confirmation from both DOJ and the White House that officials withheld 64,280 documents that do not, and never did, fall under President Obama’s executive privilege claims. As a reminder, President Obama asserted executive privilege in this case just moments before Holder was voted in contempt of Congress in June 2012.
“The President and the Attorney General attempted to extend the scope of the Executive Privilege well beyond its historical boundaries to avoid disclosing documents that embarrass or otherwise implicate senior Obama Administration officials,” an Oversight Committee release states. “In effect, last night’s production is an admission that the Justice Department never had legitimate grounds to withhold these documents in the first place. Approximately two-thirds of the universe of documents that the Justice Department withheld from Congress has now been shown to be well outside the scope of Executive Privilege.”
The operation became a major distraction for the Obama administration as Republicans in Congress conducted a series of inquiries into how the Justice Department allowed such an operation to happen.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt after he refused to divulge documents for a congressional investigation into the matter.
This is the third time a weapon from the Fast and Furious program has been found at a high-profile Mexican crime scene.
Via: FOX News
