Marathon Pundit: Report from Issa's conference call on Fast and Furious; he wants a special prosecutor

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Some still unidentified people within the Obama Justice Department and its Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division came up with the boneheaded idea of using straw buyers to purchase assault weapons in the United States, who would then hand them over to Mexican drug cartels in order to prove that these criminals get their guns from American sources.

Uh, we knew that already. And the ATF never came up with the next step in their plan.

It was called Operation Fast and Furious or Gunwalker. Issa prefers to use Fast and Furious as Gunwalker, or Gunrunner, refers to a larger operation that began under the Bush administration. Fast and Furious is the boneheaded part.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) held a bloggers' conference call this morning where he discussed his plans to further investigate this fiasco. And he wants a special prosecutor to investigate the scandal. "It's a little hard to get the Justice Department to prosecute the Justice Department," Issa lamented.

In his opening remarks, Issa said, "Our relationship with Mexico has been seriously harmed."

Weapons from Fast and Furious were used in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona and possibly in the killing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico. Of the 2,000 Fast and Furious weapons purchased by the straw buyers, only 600 have been recovered. The attorney general of Mexico says at least 200 of her citizens have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons.

"The administration took an active hand in deliberately letting guns walk," Issa asserted.

What did Attorney General Eric Holder know and when did he know it? Issa said that Holder traveled to Mexico City in March, 2009 to discuss border security issues with the Mexican government, but then claims he knew nothing about Fast and Furious until he read about it in a newspaper article earlier this year.

Of Holder's claimed ignorance, "Why wouldn't you have known?" Issa asked. "When was it appropriate for you to be briefed on [Fast and Furious] and who was keeping it from you?

As horrible as narcotics are, it represents just part of their operation. "[It's] like an old mob movie," Issa warned. "They're doing a lot of crime--they have a vast network."

And we sent 2,000 weapons to them.

Summing it up, Issa had this to say about Fast and Furious: "This was dumb, it was useless, and it was lethal."

One more item: Don't include Issa as a fan of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: "She seems to know everything and be running everything until something goes wrong."

Related post:

Oversight Committee releases video honoring fallen border agent Brian Terry

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