Northern California Sheriffs Leading The Way Back to the Constitution – Full Video

Northern California Sheriffs are leading the way back to the Constitution.  This is the full video of a recent event in Northern California.  Thank you Sheriffs for waking up and fighting for truth, freedom, and liberty.

http://RTR.org | Americans are pushing back all over the country. It’s very clear that a revolution is in full swing. Tea Parties have been organizing to fight the bailouts and taxation. Occupy Movements have be springing up to fight against Wall St corruption at the hands of the Federal Reserve. Americans are pulling their cash out of Big Banks and supporting local Credit unions, as we move into a heated election season where it looks like it’s anyone’s game.

In today’s exclusive special report Gary Franchi is joined by Former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack. They discuss the County Sheriff Project, a movement that will compound the effort to push back against an over reaching Federal Government, a movement that needs your support.

There are a few things you can do to support the County Sheriff Project:

1st. Visit their website at http://CountySheriffProject.org and make a financial contribution

2nd. Simply share this video to your social networks and email lists.http://on.fb.me/sharvid

3rd. Give your local Sheriff a copy of Sheriff Mack’s book “The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope” available at http://SheriffMack.com, and tell them about the County Sheriff Project.

Website: http://CountySheriffProject.org
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/County-Sheriff-Project
Share it: http://on.fb.me/sharvid

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New York Times: U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels – Updated

Wachovia Drug Money Laundering Device For Federal Policy

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U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels

By Ginger Thompson

Published: December 3, 2011

WASHINGTON — Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents.

The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations.

Read entire story at the New York Times -

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html?_r=1

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Representative Issa’s letter to Attorney General Eric Holder dated December 05, 2011 (pdf) –

http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Letters/2011-12-05_DEI_to_Holder-DOJ_-_request_briefing_DEA_Money_laundering_due_12-7.pdf

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David Codrea’s coverage of December 05, 2011 –

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today announced an investigation into the Drug Enforcement Agency’s alleged laundering of millions of dollars in Mexican drug cartel money,” a December 5 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform press release declared.

Read article at source: http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/issa-broadens-doj-investigation-to-include-drug-money-laundering-report

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Note from Elias Alias: In June of 2011 I published an article here at Oath Keepers about Wachovia Bank’s laundering of $378 BILLION dollars in Mexican drug cartel cash.  See the details of Wachovia’s confession and their payment of a $160 Million dollar fine before being bought by Wells Fargo, who received a $50 Billion dollar reward through the banking bailouts for cleaning up Wachovia’s mess. Please note in reading the Wachovia article that no one was indicted, no one was charged with any crime, no one went to jail in a confessed admission that the bank had laundered hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Mexican drug cartel money while the ATF at the same time was furnishing thousands of guns to those same Mexican drug cartels.

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/06/18/american-banks-high-on-drug-money_part-1/

To all of America’s cops and soldiers being used in this farcical charade called the “War on Drugs”, I would like to challenge you individually to question your orders. Is there any authorization in the U.S. Constitution for the Federal government to assume ownership of any citizen’s body?  If you can find that authorization, please leave it here in the comments section under this article.

If you cannot find any justification for Federal ownership over any citizen’s body, then you must ask yourself about the nature of the orders under which you are operating in the so-called “War on Drugs”.

The reason we must ask such questions has to do with the destruction of America from within and the various aspects of that destruction which are no longer hidden from public scrutiny. The War on Drugs has eviscerated the Bill of Rights in our Constitution and has assaulted the spirit and letter of the U.S. Constitution. The War on Drugs is un-Constitutional on its face, and has been used to weaken our Constitutional protections for American citizens, while at the same time damaging the sovereignty of the several autonomous nation-state Republics which are party to the compact which created the Federal Union.

The so-called War on Drugs has been used to keep the Wall Street bubble afloat as well as to finance the “Black Budget” which was created in the late 1940s after WWII at the same time the CIA was created. (1947, 1949, National Security Act of 1947, with amendments in ’49, and subsequent revisions.) The CIA has been required by Congress twice – that’s two different times – to investigate its proximity and relationship to international drug smuggling activity, including importation of tons of cocaine into the United States of America, and has published its reports on its website. As one might expect of CIA when CIA is ordered to investigate CIA, of course CIA has denied that CIA is involved in drug smuggling.

However, under President Reagan the CIA and the Department of Justice communicated between DOJ and CIA regarding President Reagan’s Executive Order 12333 (1982). William French Smith, Reagan’s Attorney General (same position now held by Eric Holder), sent on Justice Department letterhead a letter to Bill Casey, Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence (DCI of CIA) a letter explaining that DOJ would not require CIA to report CIA’s drug smuggling activities.  This is rather disturbing news for many peace officers who read here, so allow me to offer you the document itself on the CIA’s website.

https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/contra-story/13.gif

For readers who do not want their computer being tracked while visiting the CIA’s website, here is a jpeg copy of the document –

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That document was the forerunner of the CIA’s massive importation of cocaine into Florida, Mena, Arkansas, and California during the subsequent “Iran-Contra-Mena” scandal, which revealed in the U.S. Senate not only the proximity of CIA black operatives to drug smuggling into America, but also the existence at the NSC (where Oliver North operated) of “Continuity of Government” (COG).

These are not easy times. However, it is certainly time to honor one’s Oath to the Constitution. The War on Drugs is one part of a juggernaut built on two pillars; the other part is this insane, so-called “War on Terror”. Both pillars are supporting a burgeoning tyranny right here in America, and Oath Keepers must not remain silent as our country is destroyed by evil men in positions of the public trust. As Stewart Rhodes quickly declared upon passage of the National Defense Appropriations Act of 2011, “the Federal government has declared war on the American people”.

Notes From Congress:

This is on the Congressional Record, placed on record during budget hearings for Intelligence. In response to CIA’s request for additional funding, one member of Congress noted the following, on the record.

Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 1999

(House of Representatives – May 07, 1998)

1960

In support of the U.S. war in Vietnam, the CIA renews old and cultivates new relations with Laotian, Burmese and Thai drug merchants, as well as corrupt military and political leaders in Southeast Asia. Despite the dramatic rise of heroin production, the agency’s relations with these figures attracts little attention until the early 1970s.

1967

Manuel Antonio Noriega goes on the CIA payroll. First recruited by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in 1959, Noriega becomes an invaluable asset for the CIA when he takes charge of Panama’s intelligence service after the 1968 military coup, providing services for U.S. covert operations and facilitating the use of Panama as the center of U.S. intelligence gathering in Latin America. In 1976, CIA Director George Bush pays Noriega $110,000 for his services, even though as early as 1971 U.S. officials agents had evidence that he was deeply involved in drug trafficking. Although the Carter administration suspends payments to Noriega, he returns to the U.S. payroll when President Reagan takes office in 1981. The general is rewarded handsomely for his services in support of Contras forces in Nicaragua during the 1980s, collecting $200,000 from the CIA in 1986 alone.

MAY 1970

A Christian Science Monitor correspondent reports that the CIA `is cognizant of, if not party to, the extensive movement of opium out of Laos,’ quoting one charter pilot who claims that `opium shipments get special CIA clearance and monitoring on their flights southward out of the country.’ At the time, some 30,000 U.S. service men in Vietnam are addicted to heroin.

1972

The full story of how Cold War politics and U.S. covert operations fueled a heroin boom in the Golden Triangle breaks when Yale University doctoral
student Alfred McCoy publishes his ground-breaking study, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. The CIA attempts to quash the book.

1973

Thai national Puttapron Khramkhruan is arrested in connection with the seizure of 59 pounds of opium in Chicago. A CIA informant on narcotics
trafficking in northern Thailand, he claims that agency had full knowledge of his actions. According to the U.S. Justice Department, the CIA quashed
the case because it may `prove embarrassing because of Mr. Khramkhruans’s involvement with CIA activities in Thailand, Burma, and elsewhere.’

JUNE 1975

Mexican police, assisted by U.S. drug agents, arrest Alberto Sicilia Falcon, whose Tijuana-based operation was reportedly generating $3.6 million a week from the sale of cocaine and marijuana in the United States. The Cuban exile claims he was a CIA protege, trained as part of the agency’s anti-Castro efforts, and in exchange for his help in moving weapons to certain groups in Central America, the CIA facilitated his movement of drugs. In 1974, Sicilia’s top aide, Jose Egozi, a CIA-trained intelligence officer and Bay of Pigs veteran, reportedly lined up agency support for a right-wing plot to overthrow the Portuguese government. Among the top Mexican politicians, law enforcement and intelligence officials from whom Sicilia enjoyed support was Miguel Nazar Haro, head of the Direccion Federal de Seguridad (DFS), who the CIA admits was its `most important source in Mexico and Central America.’ When Nazar was linked to a multi-million-dollar stolen car ring several years later, the CIA intervenes to prevent his indictment in the United States.

APRIL 1978

Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan sets stage for explosive growth in Southwest Asian heroin trade. New Marxist regime undertakes vigorous anti-narcotics campaign aimed at suppressing poppy production, triggering a revolt by semi-autonomous tribal groups that traditionally raised opium for
export. The CIA-supported rebel Mujahedeen begins expanding production to finance their insurgency. Between 1982 and 1989, during which time the CIA ships billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to guerrilla forces, annual opium production in Afghanistan increases to about 800 tons from 250 tons. By 1986, the State Department admits that Afghanistan is `probably the world’s largest producer of opium for export’ and `the poppy source for a majority of the Southwest Asian heroin found in the United States.’ U.S. officials, however, fail to take action to curb production. Their silence not only serves to maintain public support for the Mujahedeen, it also smooths relations with Pakistan, whose leaders, deeply implicated in the
heroin trade, help channel CIA support to the Afghan rebels.

JUNE 1980

Despite advance knowledge, the CIA fails to halt members of the Bolivian militaries, aided by their Argentine counterparts, from staging the so-called
`Cocaine Coup,’ according to former DEA agent Michael Levine. In fact, the 25-year DEA veteran maintains the agency actively abetted cocaine
trafficking in Bolivia, where government officials who sought to combat traffickers faced `torture and death at the hands of CIA-sponsored
paramilitary terrorists under the command of fugitive Nazi war criminal (also protected by the CIA) Klaus Barbie.’

FEBRUARY 1985

DEA agent Enrique `Kiki’ Camerena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico. DEA, FBI and U.S. Customs Service investigators accuse the CIA of stonewalling during their investigation. U.S. authorities claim the CIA is more interested in protecting its assets, including top drug trafficker and
kidnapping principal Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. (In 1982, the DEA learned that Felix Gallardo was moving $20 million a month through a single Bank of America account, but it could not get the CIA to cooperate with its investigation.) Felix Gallardo’s main partner is Honduran drug lord Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, who began amassing his $2-billion fortune as a cocaine supplier to Alberto Sicilia Falcon. (see June 1985) Matta’s air
transport firm, SETCO, receives $186,000 from the U.S. State Department to fly `humanitarian supplies’ to the Nicaraguan Contras from 1983 to 1985. Accusations that the CIA protected some of Mexico’s leading drug traffickers in exchange for their financial support of the Contras are leveled by government witnesses at the trials of Camarena’s accused killers.

JANUARY 1988

Deciding that he has outlived his usefulness to the Contra cause, the Reagan Administration approves an indictment of Noriega on drug charges. By this time, U.S. Senate investigators had found that `the United States had received substantial information about criminal involvement of top Panamanian officials for nearly twenty years and done little to respond.’

APRIL 1989

The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, headed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, issues its
1,166-page report on drug corruption in Central America and the Caribbean. The subcommittee found that `there was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zone on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras supporters throughout the region.’ U.S. officials, the subcommittee said, `failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.’ The investigation also reveals that some `senior policy makers’ believed that the use of drug money was `a perfect solution to the Contras’ funding problems.’

JANUARY 1993

Honduran businessman Eugenio Molina Osorio is arrested in Lubbock Texas for supplying $90,000 worth of cocaine to DEA agents. Molina told judge he is working for CIA to whom he provides political intelligence. Shortly after, a letter from CIA headquarters is sent to the judge, and the case is dismissed. `I guess we’re all aware that they [the CIA] do business in a different way than everybody else,’ the judge notes. Molina later admits his drug involvement was not a CIA operation, explaining that the agency protected him because of his value as a source for political intelligence in Honduras. [EA note: However, DEA/CIA aircraft flew in the tonnages which people like Osorio distributed, so Osorio's “admission” was to scratch CIA's back – after the CIA had him released. One favor deserves another.]

NOVEMBER 1996

Former head of the Venezuelan National Guard and CIA operative Gen. Ramon Gullien Davila is indicted in Miami on charges of smuggling as much as 22 tons of cocaine into the United States. More than a ton of cocaine was shipped into the country with the CIA’s approval as part of an undercover program aimed at catching drug smugglers, an operation kept secret from other U.S. agencies. [...]

-end passages from 1998 Congressional Record-

At the same time we learn that the ATF is arming the Mexican drug cartels and the U.S. banking fraternity is laundering the Mexican drug cartels’ money in cash, the Department of Homeland Security is classifying anyone who votes for Ron Paul, anyone who mentions the U.S. Constitution “too much”, anyone who opposes the ‘new world order’, anyone who is a returning war veteran, anyone who opposes a North American Union (the SPP started by Bush-43 and carried forth by President Obama), anyone who does not support state-funded abortions, anyone who believes in personal sovereignty, anyone who believes in State sovereignty, anyone who does not approve of the Federal Reserve System, Inc., anyone who believes that Congress must declare war before fielding a military invasion of a foreign nation-state, anyone who disbelieves the government’s official story about Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 or the attacks of September 11, 2001, anyone who doubts the authenticity of the ratification of the 16^th Amendment  – anyone, in other words, who has not swallowed the propaganda of the Federal government – as potential threats to law enforcement, potential radicalized extremists, and potential terrorists or supporters or sympathizers of terrorism.

Further, the Federal government under Obama has stated directly and publicly that “conspiracy theorists” are to be opposed proactively by the Federal government, as suggested by Cass Sunstein,

http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_323_30802.php

 

Government is faced with suppliers of conspiracy theories, and might aim at least in part to persuade, debias, or silence those suppliers...

-end quoted passage from Cass Sunstein, Obama Administration-

Bear in mind that the brand new National Defense Appropriations Act of 2011 invites law enforcement and domestic military operations to view suppliers of conspiracy theories as potential extremists (possibly guilty of “pre-crime mental activity”), which is a Govlish term for “thought crime“, who may be categorized, under the rubric of giving comfort to the enemy, as “enemy combatants” in the global War on Terror.

Under this year’s NDAA America has been classified officially as a battleground in the global war on terror, and the U.S. military is now tasked with policing extremism in America, on American soil. Just bear that in mind please while we consider how that might relate to the Federal government using its DEA to launder billions of dollars in Mexican drug cartel profits and using the ATF to provide combat-grade arms to the same Mexican drug cartels.

Further yet, private sector think tanks affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are applying Govlish twists to common terms  such as “anti-government“, “extremism” and “sovereignty“.  Here is an example from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

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One manifestation of the ideology of resistance to the government was the creation of the Oath Keepers group in March 2009… The “orders” the Oath Keepers refuse [to obey] reveal their extreme conspiratorial mindset, because the “orders” are not instructions ever likely to be actually handed down by Obama or his officials; instead, they are reflective of the anti-government conspiracy theories embraced by the extreme right… Indeed, in a message posted to the Oath Keepers’ Web site and “recommended” by Stewart Rhodes, one member using the pseudonym Elias Alias claimed that the United States was currently ruled by an “imposter government” and warned against the encroachment of a “New World Order.”

-end quoted passages from ADL article-

To further define patriotic Americans as the “enemy” and demonize us, another infamous government tool of psy-war, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has had plenty to say about Oath Keepers and Constitutionalists. Example -

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Oath Keepers, the military and police organization that was formed earlier this year and held its April muster on Lexington Green, may be a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival. Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore while in the military or law enforcement. “Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders,” the group says… That same pugnacious attitude was on display after conservatives attacked an April report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that suggested a resurgence of radical right-wing activity was under way…

-end quoted passages from the SPLC-

And even further yet, the head of DT Analytics, Daryl Johnson, former employee at Homeland Security for six years and author of the infamous and leaked report of April 07, 2009, says this about Oath Keepers -

The Oath Keepers organization is, however, a domestic extremist group that embraces antigovernment conspiracy theories such as FEMA detention camps and the New World Order. They are not a traditional threat such as organized crime, violent gangs or terrorist groups. Rather, they represent an internal operational security and counterintelligence threat.

The Oath Keepers’ mission is solely about subverting the U.S. Government through secretive infiltration, covert monitoring of law enforcement, military and intelligence communications and, if necessary, unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information to their membership, affiliated groups and the general public. This makes the organization and its membership a particularly dangerous (and peculiar) type of domestic threat.

-end quoted passages from Darly Johnson’s website-

It has likely never occurred in the tortured mind of Daryl Johnson that Oath Keepers might actually be here to subvert the actions of those who would use our seats of governmental power and authority to subvert the Constitution itself. The Constitution is our highest original law. It is the source of all other law in America.

The Constitution is the law which is most directly connected to the bosom of the people. The people extended from their own personal sovereignty a portion of themselves through delegation of their own autonomy as free men the granted (and enumerated) authority of the General (Federal) government.

Oath Keepers expects all who swear [or affirm] the Oath to that Constitution to honor the Constitution. When a criminal mind makes its way into seats of governmental authority, it is only patriotic and just to remove that criminal mind from our government. That is not “anti-government”. That is in fact very “pro-government”.

Indeed, for all power-damaged mentalities who are subjected to Feducation and Govlish conditioning, it would seem absurd to ever question the mission as dictated for each Department in any President’s Cabinet. To the willfully blind zealot statist, whatever the government dictates is gospel and law, and anyone who challenges un-Constitutional acts by government is therefore obviously an enemy of the state. The NDAA of 2011 is the Govlish answer to any challenge through traditional lawful channels, including mental pre-crime, such as this article you’re reading.

In other words, people like me who share a vision of returning this nation to the rule of law under the highest uncontested law of the land, the Constitution for the united States of America, are now painted by our own government as being enemies of the state. I, an aging and simple man who once fought in a foreign war for this nation, am now being defined by my own damned government as an enemy, and cops and soldiers are presently being trained to subdue me with the full force and might of the Federal mechanism which issues marching orders for cops and soldiers through DHS.

Now, under the NDAA act which our treasonous Congress has just passed, this same government which was created in compact between the several sovereign nation-state Republics, claims the right to waive Posse Comitatus, to waive Habeas Corpus, to waive our Bill of Rights, to waive our right to trial by jury of peers, to waive our citizenship, to engage in pre-crime indefinite detention under the military’s rules of war, for anyone, including me, who belligerently opposes the destruction of our Constitution by government fiat.

I object. I object because of this. Above in this article we have seen that the ATF has broken our laws by arming the Mexican drug cartels. We also have seen that the banking industry and the DEA have both been complicit in laundering the Mexican drug cartels’ profits here in America. It must be seen as plainly as possible – our government is behind both sides of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, creating it, facilitating it, making it profitable – all the while accruing thousands of innocent deaths in the wake of such insane Federal policies.

And that same government which is breaking very serious laws for which you and I would be given life sentences or worse, now targets me for being a Constitutionalist. Well, I can stand up to that, for I am a Marine and have fought for what’s right before, and even now as an old guy shall stand again in the face of tyranny.

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So here is how it looks to me. Eric Holder has been caught running operations which have

1) Furnished Mexican drug cartels with military-grade weapons in large numbers;

2) Assisted the Mexican drug cartels with their drug-money laundering operations here in this country and abroad.

These two things are now known, and the man has not been indicted. I must ask, is the Federal government completely impotent? Can the Law itself not indict this mass murdering money-laundering illegal-gun dealing explosives-furnishing power-damaged individual?

Holder is directly answerable to the Obama Administration. Where is Obama on this, aside from initially lying about how much he and Holder knew about the gun-running scandal over at ATF?

This Administration now has declared that I and people like me, including all Oath Keepers, John Birchers, Tax Honesty people, sovereignty and States’ Rights groups, Ron Paul supporters, Constitutionalists, libertarians, and general patriot movement groups and individuals, are to be seen as “enemies of the state” (i.e., “anti-government”) and are now subject to being black-bagged in the night from our homes and silently condemned into military custody under international rules of war and subject to military tribunal as our only chance at review – all on the say-so, without any need or requirement of filing charges against one, of some idiot like Holder in the Obama Administration.

I did not draw this line. The damned by God Federal government drew this line. I’m too old to back down now. I can still remember the grandeur and glory of “America”. I will carry on my work to expose the corruption of those who would use the American people’s government to enslave them. I will call out for a great wakeful remembrance in the bosom of the American people, a great and moving return to the Constitution, to our roots as free people meaning no harm to any nation anywhere but possessed of the will to do peaceful trade with all nations, a great awakening to our individual authority over this Federal madness and our powers collectively as the rightful source of legitimacy for our respective sovereign nation-state Republics, through which we may lawfully, easily, and non-violently dispose of those who would subvert the Constitution and use its offices and powers to oppress we the people.

To use government offices and agencies to do what DEA and ATF have been proven to do is a grave betrayal of the American peoples’ trust. Yet the criminal Holder walks to work each day and runs other agencies which have an interest in what Oath Keepers is saying and doing.

That is the Federal military-police state corporate/industrial banking/elitist socialist national-fascist Marxist line. This is the government’s line in the sand nowadays.

The government drew that line by stepping out of line according to its founding legal charter. I have drawn my own line in response.

My line is simple:

Regarding the NDAA of 2011, I shall regard that in terms which a dear friend suggested, and greet that sort of Govlish idiocy with “Red Neck Nullification”. I shall simply nullify that law in my heart, mind, and soul, and resolve that I “ain’t gonna take it”. The marching order I walk under today states simply, “Ain’t Gonna!”

Red Neck Nullification, American style. That’s my line. The NDAA put my back against an immoveable wall. I’m nullifying the Federal government right here and now, and will continue to nullify the Federal government until it operates totally within its enumerated granted powers and recognizes those powers retained by the States or by the People.

I will close by reminding every cop and soldier and firefighter that the Oath you swore [or affirmed] was sworn to the Constitution and it was not sworn to the government which came after that Constitution. The Federal government did not sign the Constitution, nor did anyone on its behalf. Only the designated representatives of the several sovereign nation-state Republics signed that document. On that America now depends. On your ability to honor your Oath, I, as a war veteran, a former businessman, a grandfather, and as an American patriot, now depend.

The time for serious introspection, serious self-questioning, serious awakening, is at hand for each woman and man who has sworn [or affirmed] the Oath. Are you for the American people and our Constitution, or are you for a berserk, imposter Federal government? This is the question all Oath takers will now face as America enters the tumult of 2012.

Part of our awakening involves recognizing that we, as a country full of good people, have been mercilessly and relentlessly lied to by the very government we depend upon to represent us. We have to face up to that, we have to admit it. The DEA has laundered billions of dollars for the drug cartels at the same time the ATF has armed the drug cartels. And we now have on-the-record proofs that the FBI was involved in furnishing the bombs for the 1993 WTC bombing in New York.  None of that would be possible without the Federal government spearheading its so-called “War on Drugs” and the equally treasonous “War on Terror”.

Whatever else a firefighter, cop, or soldier decides regarding the Oath, please – Please! – do not turn your tax-dollar-financed arms upon your own people. Our country is in trouble. As you can see, the most massive crimes harming the American people are being committed in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street. Think of your families and their future as free people. Think of your friends’ families. Think of what’s right. Think of America.

You can help Oath Keepers as we try to steer this nation away from the encroaching tyranny.   We are an educational organization with outreach to those with guns and badges and uniforms.  Do not be a tool of oppression. Join us! Support Oath Keepers! Honor our tradition of freedom. Honor your Oath!

Salute!

Elias Alias

Feds Raid Washington State Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Drug Thugs

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Feds Raid Washington State Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

By Laura L. Myers

SEATTLE | Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:41pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/16/us-marijuana-raids-washington-idUSTRE7AF0BN20111116

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(Reuters) – Federal agents and police raided state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries across western Washington on Tuesday, targeting storefronts deemed to be engaged in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering.

The dispensaries singled out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were essentially operating under the state’s medical marijuana law to conceal criminal activity, U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said in a statement.

Federal officials did not immediately disclose the number of suppliers shut down in the sweep.

But the Cannabis Defense Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group for marijuana, said on its website that 15 “medical cannabis access points” in at least six western Washington cities — Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Puyallup, Lacey and Rochester — were raided on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Durkan’s office, Emily Langlie, said one person was arrested by federal agents, and that additional arrests had been made by sheriff’s deputies in separate raids across three counties although she could not say how many.

Search warrant affidavits unsealed in federal court cited evidence that the dispensaries targeted in the sweep were involved in large-scale drug distribution and money laundering.

Storefront cannabis shops are neither explicitly permitted nor banned under a 1998 voter-approved state law that legalized pot in Washington for medical purposes, but they have widely proliferated nevertheless.

State law does allow collective medical marijuana gardens of up to 45 plants, or a maximum of 15 plants per patient.

Although cannabis is still listed as an illegal narcotic under federal law, 16 states and the District of Columbia have statutes decriminalizing marijuana for medical reasons, according to the National Drug Policy Alliance.

NOT GOING AFTER PATIENTS

Tuesday’s sweep marked the first major federal crackdown on pot shops in western Washington since Governor Christine Gregoire in April vetoed most provisions of a bill that would have established a new regulatory system for medical marijuana.

Gregoire has said she was swayed by a legal opinion from U.S. prosecutors threatening to target not only dispensary owners but state regulators who would enforce the proposed new law.

Federal prosecutors said they were not going after patients who have a legitimate medical need for pot.

“We will not prosecute truly ill people or their doctors who determine that marijuana is an appropriate medical treatment,” Durkan said.

Federal agents had raided more than seven dispensaries in the eastern Washington city of Spokane in May and April after facility operators there refused to shut down.

Last month, federal prosecutors announced a get-tough stance against dispensaries in California that were found to be engaged in drug trafficking under the guise of supplying medical marijuana patients.

The raids on Tuesday appeared to take dispensary operators by surprise, said Seattle defense attorney Aaron Pelley, who told Reuters that two pot dispensary clients were “served with pre-indictment paper” by law enforcement but not jailed.

“In eastern Washington and California, they fired a shot over the bow. Here in western Washington, it looks like the feds put boots on the ground and started kicking down doors.”

In July, Seattle’s mayor signed into law a city licensing system for medical marijuana distribution, requiring suppliers to comply with city codes that govern public nuisance complaints, plumbing and food-handling, for example.

Three of the facilities that Cannabis Defense Coalition said were raided are in Seattle.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Cynthia Johnston)

Oath Keeping At The ATF _ Updating

ATF_Badge

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Oath Keeping At The ATF _ Updating

It’s been a while since posting earlier coverage of the BATFE (ATF) boondoggle named “Fast And Furious” – an amazing escapade into international criminal operations which included sending thousands of guns into Mexican drug cartels’ hands while at the same time laundering, at Wachovia Bank, $378 billion – that’s Billion – dollars of Mexican drug cartels’ money.

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/06/18/american-banks-high-on-drug-money_part-1/

Fast And Furious also involved the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This was confessed by acting Director of ATF, Kenneth Melson to Senator Grassley.

ATF implicates FBI in Mexico gun-trafficking probe

Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Co.

tribune co. July 7, 2011   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/06/MNBC1K7CFE.DTL

Thursday, July 7, 201

Washington —

The embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF’s acting director, has been under pressure to resign after the agency allowed guns to be purchased in the United States in hopes they would be traced to cartel leaders.

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Gun-smuggling cartel figures possibly were paid FBI informants

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cartel-guns-20110717,0,6972222.story

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

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July 17, 2011

Reporting from Washington—

Congressional investigators probing the controversial “Fast and Furious” anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at least six Mexican drug cartel figures involved in gun smuggling also were paid FBI informants, officials said Saturday.

 

The investigators have asked the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration for details about the alleged informants, as well as why agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the Fast and Furious operation, were not told about them.

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So as time passes we learn more and more, thanks to Representative Issa and Senator Grassley – and – to CBS’ Sharyl Attkinson – and – more specifically, to Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars and David Codrea of National Gun Rights Examiner.  Our full initial coverage includes all of it, but updates are now due. Here is our original article on Fast And Furious for background –

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/03/30/oath-keeping-at-the-atf/

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Now let’s hit some highpoints from ensuing months -

‘Fast and Furious’ docs reveal Holder was given multiple detailed accounts of gun program

Published: 12:10 PM 10/06/2011

New Department of Justice documents the House Oversight Committee released Thursday morning show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious many more times than previously discovered documents suggested. They also show that Holder was given detailed information on what happened in Fast and Furious.

These new documents show Holder received information and updates on Fast and Furious in at least five weekly memos starting in July 2010 — including over four consecutive weeks last summer.

In summer 2010, Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 9. Each briefing memo contains the name “Operation Fast and Furious.” Each memo also contains a description of what appears to be how Operation Fast and Furious was conducted.

“This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involved a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manuel Celis-Acosta,” each one of those briefings reads. “Celis-Acosta and straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”

This new revelation suggests Holder may have withheld information on the gunrunning program from President Barack Obama. Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Obama said Holder has “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious. Certainly, I [Obama] was not [aware].”

“I think both he [Holder] and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could’ve been prevented by the United States of America,” Obama said. “He’s assigned an inspector general, and I have complete confidence in him, and in that process, to figure out who was responsible for that decision,” Obama added.

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October 08 2011

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/fast-and-furious-docs-reveal-holder-was-given-multiple-detailed-accounts-of-gun-program/

‘Fast and Furious’ docs reveal Holder was given multiple detailed accounts of gun program

Published: 12:10 PM 10/06/2011

New Department of Justice documents the House Oversight Committee released Thursday morning show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious many more times than previously discovered documents suggested. They also show that Holder was given detailed information on what happened in Fast and Furious.

These new documents show Holder received information and updates on Fast and Furious in at least five weekly memos starting in July 2010 — including over four consecutive weeks last summer.

In summer 2010, Holder received briefing memos from National Drug Intelligence Center Director Michael Walther on July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 9. Each briefing memo contains the name “Operation Fast and Furious.” Each memo also contains a description of what appears to be how Operation Fast and Furious was conducted.

“This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix Police Department, involved a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manuel Celis-Acosta,” each one of those briefings reads. “Celis-Acosta and straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”

This new revelation suggests Holder may have withheld information on the gunrunning program from President Barack Obama. Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Obama said Holder has “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious. Certainly, I [Obama] was not [aware].”

“I think both he [Holder] and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could’ve been prevented by the United States of America,” Obama said. “He’s assigned an inspector general, and I have complete confidence in him, and in that process, to figure out who was responsible for that decision,” Obama added.

One of these newly released briefing memos — from July 5 — and a November 1, 2010 memo to Holder from Deputy Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of the DOJ Criminal Division, surfaced earlier this week.

In a statement on the newly released documents, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said he’s worried about Holder’s behavior as head of the U.S. Justice Department.

“Attorney General Holder has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and other senior Justice Department officials knew about gun-walking and Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa said in the statement. “The lack of candor and honesty from our nation’s chief law enforcement officials in this matter is deeply disturbing.”

The new documents directly contradict what Holder told members of Congress at a May 3 House Judiciary Committee hearing, and what the DOJ has publicly claimed since documents surfaced earlier this week. Issa has said that Holder is either incompetent as a leader or has deliberately deceived Congress while under oath.

“I certainly believe that he either misrepresented the facts or he’s sufficiently incompetent that he didn’t know what was in his weekly briefings,” Issa told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Tuesday evening.

(read rest of article at above link)

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Earlier this month (October 2011) came this -

http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/186381-issa-holder-qdisingenousq-on-gun-program

Issa: Holder being ‘disingenuous’ on Fast and Furious program

By Bernie Becker – 10/09/11

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Sunday called Attorney General Eric Holder’s contention that he didn’t know about a gun-tracking program gone wrong until this spring “disingenuous on its face.”

Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, also said his panel would be issuing new subpoenas in its investigation of “Fast and Furious” this week.

He added that the House Judiciary Committee, on which he also serves, would ask Holder to testify to “clear the record.”

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Below this is the letter Issa sent back to Holder, but this first –

Issa to issue new Fast and Furious subpoenas

Published: 6:41 PM 10/09/2011

House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa announced plans Sunday to issue more subpoenas to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department in the ongoing Operation Fast and Furious congressional investigation.

“We want to know: what did they know and when did they know it,” Issa said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But, more specifically, we have to understand, at what level did the authorization come? It wasn’t an ATF operation — they were part of that.”

“It was a joint operation, the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] knew more than ATF knew,” Issa continued. “And, of course, these are all part of the Department of Justice, and as we’re beginning to see, and we’re not talking about Eric Holder at this moment, people at the top of Justice were well-briefed, knew about it and seemed to be in command and controlled funding of this program.”

“Any law enforcement person who’s been asked under oath, or not under oath, comes back and says, ‘this wasn’t the right way to do it,’” Issa told Fox News. “Well, when did they know it wasn’t the right way to do it and why did they keep doing it?”

Last week, briefing memos surfaced showing that Holder was personally informed about the details of Operation Fast and Furious as early as July 2010. Holder received at least five written briefings containing Operation Fast and Furious details last summer and was sent another detailed memo in November 2010. Emails between other top Justice Department officials show they were concerned about the consequences of allowing a significant number of guns to “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels via “straw purchasers.”

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Issa Responds to Holder Letter With Matching Gusto

By Mike Levine

Published October 10, 2011

FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/10/issa-responds-to-holder-letter-with-matching-gusto/

Despite a federal holiday, the lawmaker leading a congressional investigation into “Operation Fast and Furious” launched his latest salvo Monday against Attorney General Eric Holder, insisting it’s time for the nation’s top cop to “come clean to the American public about what you knew, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable.”

“Whether you realize yet or not, you own ‘Fast and Furious,’” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a letter to Holder. “It is your responsibility.”

The reply comes three days after Holder responded in his own letter to questions over whether he misled Congress in May when he told lawmakers he “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

A week ago, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, distributed five memos from July and August 2010 addressed to Holder, citing the gun-running investigation by name.

In his letter Friday, Holder said his remarks on “Fast and Furious” have been “truthful and accurate,” adding, “I have no recollection of knowing about ‘Fast and Furious’ or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it. … Prior to early 2011, I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation.”

But Issa insisted in his latest response that “the current paper trail … creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.” The chairman laid out a series of instances that he said shows high-level knowledge of “Fast and Furious.”

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Here is Issa’s letter to Holder -

http://www.disorderedliberty.com/leadership/written-text-chairman-darrell-issas-100911-response-attorney-general-holders-100711-letter-house-committee-oversight-government-reform-operation-fast-furious/

Dear Attorney General Holder:

From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.

Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.

To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt.

Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.

Your letter dated October 7 is deeply disappointing. Instead of pledging all necessary resources to assist the congressional investigation in discovering the truth behind the fundamentally flawed Operation Fast and Furious, your letter instead did little but obfuscate, shift blame, berate, and attempt to change the topic away from the Department’s responsibility in the creation, implementation, and authorization of this reckless program. You claim that, after months of silence, you “must now address these issues” over Fast and Furious because of the harmful discourse of the past few days.[1] Yet, the only major development of these past few days has been the release of multiple documents showing that you and your senior staff had been briefed, on numerous occasions, about Fast and Furious.

The Mexican Cartels

A month after you became Attorney General, you spoke of the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel in particular. The cartels, you said, “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.”[2] You promised that under your leadership “these cartels will be destroyed.” [3] You vowed that the Department of Justice would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.” [4]

Under your leadership, however, Operation Fast and Furious has proven these promises hollow. According to one agent, Operation Fast and Furious “armed the cartel. It is disgusting.” [5] Fast and Furious simply served as a convenient means for dangerous cartels to acquire upwards of 2,000 assault-style weapons. On top of that, the Government of Mexico was not informed about Fast and Furious. In fact, DOJ and ATF officials actively engaged in hiding information about Fast and Furious from not only Mexican officials, but also U.S. law enforcement officials operating in Mexico for fear that they would inform their Mexican counterparts. This strategy is inapposite and contradicts the promises you made to the American people.

Your September7, 2011 Statement

On September 7, 2011, you said that “[t]he notion that [Fast and Furious] reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that at this point I don’t think is supported by the facts and I think once we examine it and once the facts are revealed we’ll see that’s not the case.” Unfortunately, the facts directly contradict this statement.

Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, clearly a member of the Department’s senior leadership, knew about Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In fact, I have learned that the amount of detail shared with Breuer’s top deputies about Fast and Furious is simply astounding.

For example, Manuel Celis-Acosta was the “biggest fish” of the straw purchasing ring in Phoenix. From the time the investigation started in September 2009 until March 15, 2010, Manuel Celis-Acosta acquired at least 852 firearms valued at around $500,000 through straw purchasers. Yet in 2009, Celis-Acosta reported an Arizona taxable income of only $15,475. Between September 2009 and late January 2010, 139 of these firearms were recovered, 81 in Mexico alone. Some of these firearms were recovered less than 24 hours after they were bought.

This information, and hundreds of pages worth of additional information, was included in highly detailed wiretap applications sent for authorization to Breuer’s top deputies. It is my understanding, the Department applied to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona for numerous wire taps from March 2010 to July 2010. These wire tap applications were reviewed and approved by several Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals, including Kenneth A. Blanco, John C. Keeney, and Jason M. Weinstein. Breuer’s top deputies approved these wiretap applications to be used against individuals associated with the know drug cartels. As I understand it, the wire tap applications contain rich detail of the reckless operational tactics being employed by your agents in Phoenix. Although Breuer and his top deputies were informed of the operational details and tactics of Fast and Furious, they did nothing to stop the program. In fact, on a trip to Mexico Breuer trumpeted Fast and Furious as a promising investigation. [6]

Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney general and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach:

“I had pulled out all Patino’s—and ROIs is, I’m sorry, report of investigation—and you know, my stomach being in knots reading the number of times he went in and the amount of guns that he bought.” [7]

At the time of his briefing in March of last year, Grindler knew that Patino had purchased 313 weapons and paid for all of them in cash. Unlike Melson, Grindler clearly saw nothing wrong with this. If Grindler had had the sense to shut this investigation down right then, he could have prevented the purchase of an additional 407 weapons by Patino alone. Instead, Grindler did nothing to stop the program.

Following this briefing, it is clear that Grindler did one of two things. Either, he altered you to the name and operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case your May 3, 2011 testimony in front of Congress was false; or, he failed to inform you of the name and the operational details of Fast and Furious, in which case Grindler engaged in gross dereliction of his duties as Acting Deputy Attorney General. It is fair to infer from the fact that Grindler remains as your Chief of Staff that he did not engage in gross dereliction of his duties and told you about the program as far back as March of 2010.

In the summer of 2010, at the latest, you were undoubtedly informed about Fast and Furious. On at least five occasions you were told of the connection between Fast and furious and a specific Mexican cartel—the very cartel that you had vowed to destroy. You were informed that Manuel Celis-Acosta and his straw purchasers were responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels. Yet, you did nothing to stop this program.

You failed to own up to your responsibility to safeguard the American public by hiding behind “[a]ttorneys in [your] office and the office of the Deputy Attorney General,” who you now claim did not bring this information to your attention. [8] As a result of your failure to act on these memos sent to you, nearly 500 additional firearms were purchased under Fast and Furious.

The facts simply do not support any claim that Fast and Furious did not reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Actually, Fast and Furious did reach the ultimate authority in the Department—you.

Your May 3, 2011 Statement

On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.

In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with fast and furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.

The February 4, 2011 Letter

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this intransigence is that the Department of Justice has been lying to Congress ever since the inquiry into Fast and Furious began. On February 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transport into Mexico.” [9] This letter, vetted by both the senior ranks of ATF as well as the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, is a flat-out lie.

As we understand it, in March 2010, top deputies to Lanny Breuer were informed that law enforcement officers intercepted calls that demonstrated that Manuel Celis-Acosta was conspiring to purchase and transport firearms for the purpose of trafficking the firearms from the United States into Mexico. Not only was ATF aware of this information, but so was the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information was shared with the Criminal Division. All of these organizations are components of the Department of Justice, and they were all aware of the illegal purchase of firearms and their eventual transportation into Mexico.

These firearms were not interdicted. They were not stopped. Your agents allowed these firearms purchases to continue, sometimes even monitoring them in person, and within days some of these weapons were being recovered in Mexico. Despite widespread knowledge within its senior ranks that this practice was occurring, when asked on numerous occasions about the veracity of this letter, the Department has shockingly continued to stand by its false statement of February 4, 2011.

Mr. Attorney General, you have made numerous statements about Fast and Furious that have eventually been proven to be untrue. Your lack of trustworthiness while speaking about Fast and Furious has called into question your overall credibility as Attorney General. The time for deflecting blame and obstructing out investigation is over. The time has come for you to come clean to the American public about what you knew about Fast and Furious, when you knew it, and who is going to be held accountable for failing to shut down a program that has already had deadly consequences, and will likely cause more casualties for years to come.

Operation Fast and Furious was the Department’s most significant gun trafficking case. It related to two of your major initiatives—destroying the Mexican cartels and reducing gun violence on both sides of the border. On your watch, it went spectacularly wrong. Whether you realize yet or not, you own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.

Sincerely,

/s/Darrell Issa

Chairman

Notes

1. Letter from Att’y Gen. Eric Holder to chairman Darrell Issa et al (Oct. 7, 2011) [hereinafter Holder Letter].

2. Statement by U.S. Att’y Gen. Eric Holder, Attorney General Eric Holder at the Xcellerator Press Conference (Feb. 25, 2009), available at http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090225html [hereinafter Holder Statement].

3. Associated Press, Mexican cartels’ drugs, mayhem hit U.S. cities, Feb. 26, 2009, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29389404/ns/world_news-americas/t/Mexican-cartels-drugs-mahyem-hit-us-cities/.

4. Holder Statement, supra note 2.

5. Transcribed interview of ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico Carlos Canino at 25.

6. Id., at 22–23.

7. Transcribed interview of Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson at 42.

8. Holder Letter, supra note 1.

9. Letter from Ass’t Att’y Gen. Ronald Weich to Senator Charles Grassley (Feb. 4, 2011).

This is the pdf of the letter with official letterhead, from which I can’t seem to copy.

http://www.foxnews.com/interactive/politics/2011/10/10/issa-responds-to-holder-letter-to-house-oversight-panel/

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October 17, 2011

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/17/justice-department-accuses-issa-mischaracterizing-evidence-in-probe-operation/?test=latestnews

Justice Department Accuses Issa of ‘Mischaracterizing’ Evidence in Probe of Operation Fast and Furious

By Mike Levine * Published October 17, 2011

The Justice Department is accusing the Republican congressman who is leading an investigation into “Operation Fast and Furious” of “mischaracterizing evidence” and “maligning” federal law enforcement officials by questioning Sunday whether the FBI was trying to cover up the existence of a third gun at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder last year.

“The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder are false,” the department said in a statement Monday.

This comes one day after Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, appeared on a Sunday morning news show and noted that a now-public FBI ballistics report labeled two guns tied to “Fast and Furious” as “K2″ and “K3,” but “there’s no ‘Ticket 1.’”

“One weapon has a ‘2,’ one has a ‘3,’ on it. There’s no ‘1,’” Issa said on CBS. “When agents who were at Brian Terry’s funeral made statements to his mother indicating that there were three weapons, when the two weapons that they have tested don’t conclusively match up [to the bullet that killed Terry], then you look and say, ‘Well, was there a third weapon at the scene?’”

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For more on that please enjoy this article:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/gunwalker-the-missing-3rd-gun-at-brain-terry-s-murder-scene