The first member of the Obama Administration has reportedly fallen on his sword in the scandal involving 'Fast and Furious', the Department of Justice op deliberately allowing illegal weapons to be sold to Mexican drug cartels.
BATF head Kenneth Melson is expected to announce his 'resignation' in the next day or so, following the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's investigation, spearheaded by Darrel Issa and Chuck Grassley.
The program involved ordering BATF agents to stand down while illegal 'straw buyers' bought automatic weapons which the agency knew were going to be sold to Mexican drug cartels. The operation led to a spike in drug violence in Mexico and and eventually to the shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
During the Congressional hearings, which involved a great deal of stonewalling and outright misstatements by the White House, committee chairman Issa referred to 'Fast and Furious' as "felony stupid."
Over two thousand weapons ended up going south of the border, and about three quarters of them remain unaccounted for.
Since BATF is under the Department of Justice, it's obvious that officials high in the Justice Department knew about the program. It remains to be seen whether Melman is going to be the only Obama Administration official to 'resign' over this fiasco.
I would think Mexico would demand a full investigation of this. If I were in their situation, I know I would.
ReplyDelete"Felony stupid" sounds about right in describing this. The first goal of law enforcement should be to prevent loss of innocent life. This policy did the exact opposite. It led to the needless deaths of innocents and these guns that are unaccounted will l;ikely continue being used to kill inncoent people.
The people who came up with fast and furious are evil. I think their is no other way to describe it. Evil and arrogant.