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RUSH: This Fast and Furious thing, folks, we’re talking about a potential impeachable offense here with the selling of guns to Mexico.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yesterday morning there was a stunning development in Congress’ investigation of the Justice Department Fast and Furious gunrunning program. You remember this. This is where ATF allowed a criminal element to purchase AK-47s and other weapons and ammo at Phoenix gun stores, Arizona gun stores; and then take them across the border into Mexico. The theory, or the stated objective here, was to track this stuff back to Mexican drug lords so we could find out who they are and how they were using the stuff and all that, and it turned out the weapons ended up being used to kill Americans, and I’m gonna tell you right now. As Isaid the first time I mentioned this whole story to you, I will guarantee you — well, it’s gonna be hard to guarantee it, but I am “confident.”

I’ll put it that way: I am confident. This is a government-run program. It’s out of the Justice Department, Eric Holder; and that means it’s Obama. It will never get up to Obama, but don’t doubt me on this. This was an attack on the Second Amendment. The purpose of this was to have it all go wrong, have American guns (sniveling liberal impression) “because they’re so widely available; you can go into any gun store in America and buy an assault rifle,” quote, unquote; end up owned by Mexican drug lords. (Gasp!) We were supposed to be so appalled and outraged by that that the American people would clamor for gun control. That’s what they were trying to do; nobody’s gonna ever convince me otherwise. Nobody.

But the PowerLine guys reported: “This morning, there was a stunning development in Congress’s investigation of the Justice Department’s ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-running program: it was revealed,” and this is big, “that on July 4, Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Obama [regime’s] intended fall guy in the scandal, broke ranks with his superiors. Without their knowledge, he gave an interview to Darrell Issa’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, accompanied only by his personal attorney. While a transcript of that interview is not yet public, it is clear that he blew the whistle on senior officials in the Justice Department.

“This morning, Issa and Senator Charles Grassley released a letter that they sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder. It is explosive, to say the least. You should read it in its entirety; here are some excerpts: ‘Yesterday, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson participated in a transcribed interview regarding Operation Fast and Furious and related matters with both Republican and Democratic staff. He appeared with his personal counsel, Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods LLP. His interview had originally been scheduled through the Justice Department to occur on July 13 in the presence of DOJ and ATF counsel.

“‘As you know, however, under our agreement Department witnesses who choose to attend a voluntary interview with their own lawyer are free to exercise that right rather than participate with counsel representing the Department’s interests. After being made aware of that provision of our agreement, Acting Director Melson,'” the ATF guy, “‘chose to exercise that right and appeared with his own lawyer,'” not ATF lawyers, not DOJ lawyers. “‘We are disappointed that no one had previously informed him of that provision of the agreement. Instead, Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress. …

“‘Mr. Melson said that he told the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) at the end of March that the Department needed to reexamine how it was responding to the requests for information from Congress. According to Mr. Melson, he and ATF’s senior leadership team moved to reassign every manager involved in Fast and Furious, from the Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations down to the Group Supervisor, after learning the facts in those documents.’ … The evidence gathered by Issa’s oversight committee suggests that the Obama [regime] may actually have financed the purchases of firearms by known criminals, which then wound up in the hands of Mexican gangs and were involved in murders, including the murder of an American border patrol agent:

“‘The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons [out of the country] but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities,” may have bought those weapons, “may have financed those engaging in” buying these weapons. “‘While this is preliminary information, we must find out if there is any truth to it. According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers, which we now know were substantially delayed by the US Attorney’s Office and Main Justice.’ …

“The full transcript of Melson’s testimony, when released, will be a fascinating document. In the meantime, it appears clear that the Fast and Furious scandal reaches to the very top of Barack Obama’s Department of Justice.” So the acting director of ATF decides, “I don’t want to wait for lawyers from the DOJ and the ATF. I’m gonna get my own and I’m gonna go testify privately,” which he did on July 4th. He said apparently taxpayer dollars were used to buy these weapons that ended up in Mexico. Now, from HillBuzz: “Mexico is [ticked off]… The more that is known about the Fast and Furious fiasco, the more apparent it is that the US screwed up and allowed 2500 assault rifles and revolvers to be transported into Mexico by thugs.

“These guns were supposed to be traced to high level mob-type gun traffickers (and drug cartel members) but for some reason….ATF agents just sat back and let the bad guys be bad guys and in the process, numerous people were murdered with these weapons (including a US border patrol agent…RIP Brian Terry ). Now Mexican officials want the ones responsible for Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunrunner) to not only be tried in the US but also in Mexico. ” So this program, folks — and you know why they did this. All this talk about tracking the movement of Mexican drug cartel members and so forth, yeah, it sounds good, but this?

I know liberals. I know it sounds like something where you think, “They would never go that far. Come on. Don’t say that.” Folks, this is really not that bad compared to things they’re totally capable of and have done — and I tell you, I believe that one of the primary objectives here was to get the American people so upset that they would clamor for more gun control. I think that’s what they were trying to do. Andrew Breitbart’s website, big government, a post here by AWR Hawkins: “Which Was Worse: Watergate or Operation ‘Fast and Furious’? — After The Washington Post broke the news of the Watergate break-ins in 1972, the Nixon administration circled the wagons. And in 1997 – a full 25 years after the fact – Katherine Graham, who was with The Post in 1972, vividly recalled how ‘Nixon began making threats of economic retaliation against the paper.’ According to Graham, Nixon bullied the paper, sought to silence it, and launched a ‘campaign to undermine public confidence in [it].’ …

“Judging from what Graham said, it appears that Nixon wanted to be sure people understood that if they continued to pry into Watergate or talk about Watergate or break news about Watergate as it unfolded, there would be harsh ramifications. (Keep in mind – Nixon had nothing to do with planning Watergate. Only with covering it up once he learned of it after the fact.) Honestly folks, Watergate provided the Left with such a singularly sweet opportunity to bring down a Republican president that they’ve never gotten over it. … No one died during the Watergate break-ins or as a result of Nixon’s cover-up. Switch gears and jump to 2009, and the ATF’s special operation ‘Fast and Furious.’ An operation with which you’re all familiar by now, where upwards of 2500 guns in Arizona were sold to ‘straw purchasers’ under the assumption that those guns were going to end up in the hands of Mexican cartel members who could then be arrested.”

You know the rest of the story. Worse than Watergate. Here, people died.

END TRANSCRIPT

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