AG Holder implicated the Bush administration in the Fast & Furious scandal by falsely stating that the Wide Receiver program under George Bush was the same program as Fast & Furious and was well known to General Mukasey.
Wide Receiver, conducted under Bush from 2006-2007, was on a much smaller scale, was done in conjunction with Mexico, and organized attempts were made to trace the guns. It was a completely different program from Fast & Furious. General Mukasey had nothing to do with the program. Holder retracted the earlier statement today, June 20th.
General Mukasey was briefed on a case involving Fidel Hernandez, the first-ever wide receiver program. [Fox News]
The Hernandez case involved a controlled delivery of weapons to try and track down cartels. The weapons had RFID chips, unlike Fast & Furious in which there were no attempts to track the guns. It was also done with the full approval of the Mexican government. Since the guns were traced and led to numerous arrests, it seemed to hold promise.
Unfortunately, the Fast & Furious program under Holder, which went from 2009-2011, was with uncontrolled weapons, conducted without the knowledge of Mexico, and was done on a very large scale.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee blaming Bush -
Fast & Furious was Holder’s program which allowed for the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican cartels, Mexico was kept in the dark, and there were no attempts to trace the weapons. The idea of the program was to let cartels buy guns and then trace them back to their lairs, but without any attempt to trace them, what was the point?
Some believe that it was done to end the second amendment by exposing a crisis caused by U.S. guns. It would be beneficial to see the documents requested by Issa so we could know the truth.
hat tip to Sua Sponte for the following -
CNN’S LARRY KING: “Do you favor executive privilege or should Karl Rove and others in that like position be forced to testify before the House or Senate?
OBAMA: “Well, you know, I think we’ll — we’ll determine over the next several weeks how this administration responds to the very appropriate call by Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to have these individuals come in and testify. You know, there’s been a tendency on the part of this administration to — to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place. And I think, you know, the administration would be best served by coming clean on this. There doesn’t seem to be any national security issues involved with the U.S. attorney question. There doesn’t seem to be any justification for not offering up some clear, plausible rationale for why these — these U.S. attorneys were targeted when, by all assessments, they were doing an outstanding job. I think the American people deserve to know what was going on there.”
SOURCE: CNN’s “Larry King Tonight,” 3/20/2007
Since Obama believed Bush should come clean, why isn’t he? Are we to believe there is no cover up based on President Obama’s beliefs opposing this use of executive privilege?
Bush used executive privilege 6 times, Clinton 14 times, Reagan 3 times, and it has been used since George Washington. Prior to the last 30 years, it was used rarely, but even so, it is only used when there is a nexus with the WH. While that might not be a legal requirement, the more distance there is between the two, the less reason there is to believe this is a legitimate use of executive privilege. Are we to assume that the rules do not apply to President Obama?
We need a clear plausible reason. Let’s see if President Obama offers one up.
This is a constitutional issue.
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