Issa: 'Fast and furious' subpoenas issued soon

[Atypical Liberal]

http://news.yahoo.com/issa-fast-furious-subpoenas-issued-soon-204241306.html

"WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House oversight committee said Sunday that he could send subpoenas to the Obama administration as soon as this week over weapons lost amid the Mexican drug war."

[no limit]

1. I wonder if Obama and his admin will pull a Bush and simply refuse to show up.

[PuffedMica]

2. President Obama should tell Issa and the Republicans to go pound sand

Whatever is going on in the ATF and the Justice Department should be handled by the Executive Branch. We will come out of this a whole lot better if Democrats repair the damage rather than letting the repukes get mileage from this.

[Atypical Liberal]

3. I disagree.

What it appears is going on here is that we are selling arms to the Sinaloa cartel to undermine the power of the Zetas cartel.

If so, we are supporting the suppliers of the very thing we jail US citizens for selling and using.

This is not an issue to be quietly handled behind the scenes.

[PuffedMica]

5. I didn't say behind the scenes

What I mean is that Executive Branch needs to repair the damage we have sustained under people appointed by this Administration. The objective of the Republicans is not to correct anything wrong over at the BATF & E, but to center punch our President.

Don't give Issa the pleasure, we should make things right from within.

[Glassunion]

4. I think the entire issue goes back before the current administration...

I personally would love to see some of that transparency we were all sold a few years back.

[one-eyed fat man]

7. The only difference I see

From all reports the Operation Wide Receiver the intent was to track weapons using RFID devices and surveillance aircraft. The smugglers outfoxed them by driving in circles for the time they figured the aircraft stayed aloft, dashing across the border, then waiting for the batteries in the tracking devices to die. The operation was ended when it was clear it was not working.

BY contrast, Fast and Furious there appears to have been no intent to keep track of weapons when they crossed the border. The ATF quit surveillance once the border was crossed. The Mexican authorities were unable to to follow the bad guys as they were deliberately not informed.

In the first case, I would call that a botched operation and failure was in underestimating the technical savvy of the smugglers. In the second case the operation was ill-conceived to start. It came to the public's attention because street level agents were complaining that they were not being allowed to interdict weapons before they crossed the border and they was no mechanism of any kind to trace the weapons after they had crossed the border.

With any sting operation, the idea is to get a little fish to lead you to a bigger fish. In Operation Wide Receiver they planned to follow the little fish with high tech and got outsmarted.

In Fast and Furious they had no plan to follow the little fish and the high level political hacks that dreamed up the idea have been trying to out dumb each other. After all, without ANY mechanism to track the weapons up the chain of supply anyone with the intelligence of turnip could see it failing to LEAD anyone to the bigger fish. Then what was its real intent? Just send guns to Mexico? One has to wonder when panicked internal memos pop up worrying that one of the "walked" guns may have been used to shoot Congresswoman Giffords.

In that case, why? To pump up numbers of US gun tracings? Arm one cartel against another? Undermine the Mexican government? Corruption? Incompetence? Duplicity? Why would the Agent in Arizona in charge of the operation have back channel communications with the White House staff outside the normal chain of command?

Assuming whoever approved this operation did it with a pure heart but the brain of a flat worm, an admission of "We fucked up. We will fix it," would go a lot better than the lying and the cover-up.

[Callisto32]

10. +1

Maybe we should call it the "Opaque-a" administration.

[TheWraith]

6. Unfortunately, Congress has the power to investigate.

I just hope to hell they clean house and tie this off fast. The Reps won't give two shits about the facts, it's just going to be used to tar Democrats.

[Callisto32]

11. Why, exactly, is that unfortunate?

[one-eyed fat man]

8. Holder agrees with you

He got asked about Fast and Furious at his news conference yesterday, blew it off and walked out.

AG Holder dodges & ignores questions on Fast & Furious

[Callisto32]

9. Let the foxes guard the henhouse...for your party aspirations?

See, this is the kind of shit that is wrong with America.

[Iktomiwicasa]

12. The President...

...should fire Holder and cooperate with an investigation into this cluster fuck.

[one-eyed fat man]

13. Holder should be easy to fire.

Holder's defense during the Marc Rich pardon scandal was he didn't read all the stuff before he recommended Clinton pardon the guy.

Holder told Issa he didn't read all the memos that, over a year, briefed him on Fast and Furious.

Clearly, he is either negligent and incompetent in his duties, or he is a liar. The administration would be a lot better off painting him as incompetent, but honest.

If he comes off as a liar, then nothing he says is trustworthy. If nothing he says is trustworthy, who is going to believe him even if he claims he authorized Fast and Furious and President knew nothing about it?