Eric Holder's exoneration by Fast and Furious report strains credibility

Can we believe that information on the disastrous gun-trafficking operation repeatedly reached the AG's office but not the AG?

Jim Geraghty

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 September 2012 17.31 EDT



Picture it: US federal prosecutors and agents, deeply frustrated over an inability to stem violence related to the drug trade and Mexican cartels, decide to pursue a bold strategy to go after arms trafficking on the US-Mexican border.

Under the plan, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will permit known gun traffickers to make "straw purchases" – legal purchases of firearms in significant quantities to be resold to criminals on the other side of the border. This sort of purchase-monitoring had been used before, but the existing law enforcement policy was to intercept the arms shipments shortly after purchase or transfer. Under the new approach, the guns will "walk" – into the hands of the cartel buyers, allowing investigators to identify how the firearms were being paid for and transported to Mexico – and set up major prosecutions of the cartels in the future.

But the more significant busts never come. Instead, more than 2,000 firearms – mostly AK-47 style rifles and FN Herstal 5.7mm caliber pistols – flow across the border into the hands of the cartels. No arrests or indictments are made. The agents on the ground start complaining. The guns start showing up at crime scenes in Mexico.

Only when gunman use the weapons to murder a federal law enforcement agent, US Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry, does the program get shut down and arrests of the "little fish" suspects occur...

Mayor of NJ's capital arrested in corruption probe

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press – 38 minutes ago

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Federal agents arrested the struggling mayor of New Jersey's capital Monday on corruption charges, alleging he agreed to accept bribes in connection with a proposed parking garage — actually a fake project created by authorities trying to snare him.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, his brother Ralphiel and convicted sex offender Joseph Giorgianni, a Mack supporter who owns a Trenton sandwich shop, were each accused of a single charge: conspiring to extort the undercover informants who pulled them into the scheme...

...The charges against Mack, a 46-year-old Democrat, did not come as a surprise in the city.

He's been accused of hiring unqualified cronies to city positions, made deep cuts in the police department and overseen a chaotic City Hall as officials fled their jobs soon after he took office in 2010.

Gun-fired grief: Coalition aims for stronger background checks

May 10, 2011
By Alex Zdan

Standing with families of victims of gun violence and a massive clock counting deaths from firearms, public officials gathered at City Hall yesterday morning to demand stiffer background checks for gun buyers.

Trenton was the last stop for participants in a national Fix Gun Checks tour before the group rolls into Washington, D.C.

Mayor Tony Mack saw the timing as significant. "We were the turning point in the Revolution, and we are hopeful this will be the turning point for changing gun laws in America," Mack said.

Fix Gun Checks is sponsored by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, of which Mack is a member. The organization wants background checks for sales at gun shows and a national background check system containing the names of people who should be prohibited from buying firearms...

Trenton gun violence rally: Mother of slain victim speaks on closing loopholes

Monday, May 09, 2011
By L.A. PARKER

TRENTON - RaChele Miller did almost everything to protect her son from city violence, but her safety program failed in September 2005.

Miller remembered that fateful night Monday when she joined Mayor Tony Mack, faith leaders, politicians, community leaders, activists, plus friends and family members of victims of gun violence during a rally to close loopholes in our nation’s background check system...

...Mack pushed for an initiative by state legislators to "do everything possible to fix the national gun background check system."

"While we are aggressively implementing initiatives to safeguard public safety in Trenton, illegal guns are trafficked here from states with weak gun laws - states like Virginia and Georgia. Lives are in jeopardy in Trenton and throughout the U.S. from the absence of common-sense federal gun laws."...

Mexican police arrest border agent's alleged killer in Fast and Furious case


Mexican police have arrested a suspect in the killing of US border patrol agent Brian Terry, whose murder highlighted a botched federal gun-smuggling string known as Operation Fast and Furious.

Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza is one of the five men who allegedly killed Terry in December 2010 during a shootout in Arizona near the Mexican border. One is on trial in Arizona and the other three remain fugitives. Sanchez was arrested Thursday in Sonora state.

Two guns found at the scene were bought by a member of a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation. Critics have knocked US federal authorities for allowing informants to walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with weapons, rather than immediately arresting suspects.

In Operation Fast and Furious and at least three earlier probes during the administration of President George W. Bush, agents in Arizona employed a risky tactic called gun-walking – allowing low-level "straw" buyers in gun-trafficking networks to leave with loads of weapons purchased at gun shops. The goal was to track the guns to major weapons traffickers and drug cartels in order to bring cases against kingpins who had long eluded prosecution under the prevailing strategy of arresting low-level purchasers of guns who were suspected of buying them for others....