Border: A 2-year-old video shows a high Justice official saying "the president has directed us," including the attorney general, to speed up Project Gunrunner and the offshoot that got a border agent killed.
This tape has no 18-minute gap, and while it does not feature the president himself, the March 24, 2009, video may rival the tape that turned a "third-rate burglary" into a presidential resignation. No one died at Watergate. Agent Brian Terry lost his life in the administration's obsessive pursuit of gun control.
In addition to Agent Terry, Immigration Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was also killed in a separate incident by a weapon allowed to "walk" into Mexico from the U.S. as part of the administration's third-rate alleged attempt to track and catch gun traffickers.
The video shows Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, who would resign nine months later after less than a year's service, telling reporters at a Department of Justice briefing of major policy initiatives to fight the Mexican drug cartels.
"The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels," Ogden begins, "and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration's comprehensive plan."
At the president's direction, Ogden said, the administration's plan included DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner," of which Operation Fast and Furious would be a part.
As we have noted, Attorney General Eric Holder himself gave a speech to Mexican authorities in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 2, 2009, taking credit for Gunrunner as well as Fast and Furious for himself and the Obama administration.
Holder told the audience: "Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner."
The administration's animus towards private gun ownership and the Second Amendment surfaced during the 2008 campaign, when President Obama spoke of bitter Pennsylvania townsfolk clinging to their guns. The Chicago Tribune noted that candidate Obama thought the District of Columbia's total gun ban was constitutional, an opinion with which the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed in its Heller decision.
Shortly after taking office, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and AG Holder made a point of putting forth what we and others have called "the 90% lie" at the same time the administration was advocating "sensible restrictions" on gun ownership.
The effort included releasing a report claiming that 90% of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels were purchased from or originated from the U.S. The actual number was found to be closer to 8%. But it perpetuated the myth that "easy access" to guns cause crime.
Last Thursday, some six months after the Tucson shootings that killed six and wounded 13, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the White House announced it was working on "common-sense measures" to improve public safety.
"The process is well under way at the Department of Justice," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced.
Of course, this is the same DOJ that pushed Gunrunner and Fast and Furious. Common sense has nothing to do with it. It is part of the administration's agenda to push gun control and chip away at our Second Amendment rights.
After funneling some 2,500 guns to criminals and drug lords, the DOJ announced it is requiring gun stores in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico to report individual purchases of multiple rifles of greater than .22 caliber by law-abiding American citizens to the ATF because — get this — such guns are "frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest border."
Really? Does that include the administration-supplied weapons that killed Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata? Where's the public apology for their deaths? "Brian Terry's loss was preventable," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chair of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee investigating this operation. "It was regrettable and preventable."
And now the trail leads directly into the Oval Office.
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