By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Yet another gun linked to the disastrous Operation Fast and Furious has turned up at the scene of a bloody gun battle in Mexico, and this time, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a statement that the agency “has accepted responsibility for the mistakes made” in that investigation.
A lingering House investigation of the scandal is tied up in the courts, in a fight over access to thousands of subpoenaed documents that were extended protection by the White House under the “executive privilege” umbrella.
The BATF gun trafficking debacle was first publicly reported by National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea and independent blogger Mike Vanderboegh three years ago, following the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in the desert mountains of southern Arizona. Codrea subsequently was honored as Journalist of the Year in 2011 by the Second Amendment Foundation for his investigative reporting. CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson received an Emmy award for her work on the story.
This latest rifle turned up at the scene of a Dec. 18 gun battle in Puerto Peñasco. At least five people were killed in that shootout, according to CNN and other published reports.
US Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), who launched the first Capitol Hill inquiry about the disastrous gun running sting operation, issued a statement criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the affair.
“In Operation Fast and Furious, the Mexican drug cartels found an easy way to supplement their own illegal ways,” Grassley stated. “Worse yet, the Obama administration has yet to publicly hold anyone accountable for this disastrous policy. Unfortunately, guns from Fast and Furious will be found in operations like this for years to come.”
Earlier last month, House attorneys filed papers with the federal court in Washington, D.C. to force Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to release documents they believe would “reveal the extent of efforts to stonewall” the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who spearheaded a formal congressional investigation in early 2011.
Because of that investigation and his refusal to provide hundreds, if not thousands, of documents, Holder was held in contempt of Congress. President Barack Obama extended executive privilege protection for those documents, leading to considerable speculation that he knew more about Fast & Furious than he had initially asserted.
TGM and its predecessor, Gun Week, extensively covered the Fast & Furious scandal and the historic contempt vote against Holder in June 2012. It was the first time an attorney general had been held in contempt of Congress. Because Holder is the first African-American attorney general in the nation’s history, the debate surrounding the contempt vote devolved into bitter partisanship. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked out of the House chamber rather than vote. Seventeen Democrats cross the aisle to vote with the Republican majority.
Following the report about the recovered gun, the BATF released a statement that the agency “has accepted responsibility for the mistakes made in the Fast and Furious investigation, and, at the Attorney General’s direction, we have taken appropriate and decisive action to ensure that these errors will not be repeated.
“And we acknowledge that, regrettably, firearms related to Fast and Furious investigation will likely continue to be recovered at future crime scenes,” the ATF statement added.
