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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Fast and Furious: March 2010 Wiretap Application Summary Shows Guns Were "Walking"


"Nein. The invasion of the Soviet Union vas carried out by a few rogue soldiers in the Wehrmacht. Ve didn't find out until Schtalingrad, and ven ve did, Der Fuhrer ordered an immediate vithdrawal."



More Eric Holder talking points go down in flames with this article by Andrew McCarthy in PJ Media. Remember that recent talking point that senior Justice Attorneys saw only summaries of wiretap applications that said nothing about the technique of allowing weapons bought by straw purchasers to "walk" into Mexico?

Read this.

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/06/29/the-fast-furious-noose-tightens-around-doj/

"[T]here were wiretaps in the F&F investigation, and when the government seeks a wiretap, federal law requires it to explain what investigative tactics have been used in the case, an explanation that is vetted by top DOJ officials because the government cannot apply for the wiretap without the approval of the attorney general or his designee (a high Justice Department official) — it seems highly unlikely, assuming DOJ complied with wiretap law, that top Justice Department officials did not know about the gun-walking tactic until late in the game."


This is an important point because one of the requirements for obtaining a wiretap is to demonstrate that all other investigative techniques have been employed and that a wiretap is needed to reach a successful conclusion of the case. McCarthy correct assumed that the wiretap applications sent to Justice would include information about this technique. Darrell Issa has clearly been supplied some applications by an inside source that confirms this. This helps explain why Justice is stonewalling on some 80,000 documents. It is increasingly clear that "high-level" Justice officials knew about the technique going way back into 2010 at the latest.


It is also crucial to note-as McCarthy does- that Fast and Furious was  was designated an OCDETF case (in January 2010). OCDETF stands for Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Such a designation makes it one of Justice's most important cases, one that is given priority for multi-agency resources, but (as McCarthy also points out) carries with it more supervision by Main Justice. For the Justice Department and Holder to claim that this scheme of gun-walking was concocted and carried out by rogue ATF agents in Arizona is laughable to anyone familiar with federal law enforcement.

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