Gunwalker’ Feint Shows Administration Still Stonewalling

by:David Codrea 
“Obama relents in fight over Fast and Furious documents,” Politico reported. “Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.”
“The Obama administration has decided to turn over more internal documents in a long-running legal fight with House Republicans over executive privilege and a botched gunrunning probe called Fast and Furious,” The Wall Street Journal echoed. “A Justice Department spokesman said the agency ‘believes the information being provided to the committee, along with material previously disclosed, fully satisfies the committee’s interest in understanding the department’s response to congressional inquiries regarding Operation Fast and Furious.’”
“Obama Administration Finally Complies with Judge’s Order to Provide Fast and Furious Documents to Congress,” The Blaze assured readers. And the talking point was parroted on cites as supposedly diverse as The Atlantic, Breitbart, CNN and TownHall.com, and numerous other media outlets.

At long last a victory for truth and justice, right? Not so fast.
“Justice Dept. fails to turn over all Fast and Furious docs,” The Washington Examiner noted. “The Obama administration failed to adhere to a court-ordered Friday deadline to turn over all subpoenaed documents to Congress about the government’s role in the 2009-2011 Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, prompting immediate complaints from Congress.”
This is where I generally invite Gomer to weigh in.
In fact, even had all subpoenaed documents been surrendered, the truth would have still remained elusive.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers,” author Thomas Pynchon noted in “Gravity’s Rainbow.” And too many “right” questions have not been asked.

Among them:

• What’s the deal with Kevin O’Reilly? This is the guy who was Director of North American Affairs of the National Security Council, a body that includes the president (Obama) and secretary of state (at the time, Hillary Clinton) among its statutory members, and who had an office in the White House. The Phoenix ATF SAC Bill Newell surreptitiously sent him GRIT (Gun Runner Impact Team) information with the caveat “You didn’t get these from me.” Conveniently, he got reassigned it a State position in Iraq where he was out of reach of Oversight, he declined speaking to the Inspector General, Counsel to the President Kathryn Ruemmler ultimately blocked his giving testimony to Oversight.
• What’s the deal with State under Hillary and an apparent violation of the Arms Export Control Act? As U.S. Code includes provisions for “principals” who “induce” or “willfully cause” offenses, presumably those who did not physically walk guns but nonetheless induced lawbreaking were in violation. So did sanction walking guns to Mexico, and if not, why haven’t those who facilitated it been prosecuted?
• What’s the deal with Eric Holder testifying in May he had only heard about Fast and Furious a few weeks prior, when emails reveal his aide Monty Wilkinson told former disgraced Arizona federal prosecutor Dennis Burke “I’ve alerted the AG” the night Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed? 

There’s plenty more, but why go through the effort of repeating what Mike Vanderboegh and I devoted ourselves to reporting when there’s no chance most will ever even acknowledge it, let alone act on it? Besides, it’s all still here.
If that sounds cynical, it’s merely a resigned acceptance of the way things are likely to remain, especially with most of the media happily spreading the word that all is well while no one responsible for a cynical, evil operation resulting in untold deaths, with untold deaths yet to come, will likely ever be prosecuted. And, case in point on journalistic happy talk, note the WSJ reference above to the “botched gunrunning probe.”
The thing that was botched was getting caught.  There was no “sting” possible when gun were simply allowed to disappear over the border with no attempt to follow them.
The motive a confidential insider source asserted early on:

Coming next will be more info on what the agents refer to as the Phoenix ATF office “walking across” ARs and AKs to pad their statistics and especially the one that may have killed the BP agent.

“Pad their statistics.”That puts in perspective how the goal was to “prove” U.S. guns, particularly “assault weapons” (as Holder prematurely let slip) were “responsible” for cartel violence, another lie the antis were pushing with everything they had at the time. By “salting the mine”  with walked guns that would then be recovered next to bodies and traced back to U.S. gun shops, the case could be made that “something must be done.”

And they’d have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for that darned rip crew.
Don’t expect the mainstream media, and even Republican politicians, to relentlessly investigate the truth of any of these claims. With a few notable exceptions, they didn’t do anything but ignore and obfuscate while the iron was hot, and there is no incentive to resurrect “yesterday’s news” now.  Just don’t be surprised to see a new headline pop up at any time letting us know another walked gun has been recovered from a bloody murder scene.