Today Obama spoke ever so carefully concerning Eric Holder and his involvement in Project Gunrunner.

“My attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun-running to be able to pass through into Mexico,” Mr. Obama said. “I’ve made very clear my views that that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we’ve got to find out how that happened.  As soon as the investigation’s completed, I think appropriate actions will be taken.”

Obama owns Eric Holder in this remark.  “My attorney general …”  But more questions are raised than answered.  If Holder had not ordered it, and Obama himself doesn’t think that Project Gunrunner “would [be] an appropriate step by the ATF,” then what does it mean when their own report claims that?

Initially implemented in our four primary Southwest border field divisions, Project Gunrunner has evolved into a national strategy … Over the past few years the White House, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and even the U.S. Northern Command have developed various strategies and policies designed to leverage the full capabilities of the U.S. Government in this effort. It is essential that our efforts support the strategies and policies of the President and the Attorney General and where possible, complement the strategies of other agencies.

[ ... ]

… over the past few months enforcement strategies (and other guidance) that address firearms trafficking to Mexican cartels have been developed and released by the White House and the Department of Justice. It is essential that ATF efforts support strategies promoted by the White House and Department of Justice. An examination of these and other strategies reveals similarities among the strategies, but also suggests that some revisions to ATF’s current strategy are necessary.

When everyone else is responsible, no one is responsible, which in fact might be the Obama strategy.  The ATF field agents and mid-level managers had better be looking for gainful employment.  At least for the moment, Obama is defending Holder.

Prior:

Defendant’s Attorney Seeks Discovery in Project Gunrunner

ATF’s Kenneth Melson to Testify Before Congress

Project Gunrunner Update: FoxNews, LA Times and Washington Post

Washington Post Wrong on Issa Knowledge of Project Gunrunner

Gunrunner Investigation Points Much Higher Than ATF Director

Replacing Kenneth Melson At ATF Is Not Enough

The Deepening Project Gunrunner Scandal

Senators Feinstein, Schumer and Whitehouse on Halting U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico

Project Gunrunner: White House and DoJ Knowledge and Oversight

From The Daily Caller:

Texas criminal defense lawyers are investigating the Justice Department’s Fast and Furious investigation of cross-border gun smuggling, using routine “discovery” rules that allow defendants to look for flaws in prosecutors’ evidence, statements and purpose.

“As the lawyer for Jose Sauceda–Cuevas, I’ve got to look at every possibility,” including agency misconduct, that would help him in the courtroom, said David Dudley, a Harvard-trained criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles.

The U.S. Attorney for the Arizona district is charging Dudley’s client with 25 counts related to gun trafficking. The charges include 10 false statement made during gun purchases, five identity theft charges, five counts for felony possession of a gun, and “five counts of Illegal Alien in Possession of a Firearm,” according to a May 19 press statement.

“The defendant orchestrated straw purchases of over 110 assault rifles and pistols in a multi–state enterprise to provide weapons for the drug war” in Mexico, the statement said.

The case is one in set of prosecutions covering 17 defendants charged in five separate cases that involve more than 300 weapons, most of which are “AK–47–type rifles and automatic pistols that were recovered in Mexico, Arizona and Texas,” read the statement.

[ ... ]

Dudley is working with another client’s attorney to launch the discovery investigations. But neither will get to investigate the investigators unless the trial judges approves their request for discovery.

“I have no idea” if the judges will grant discovery, Dudley said. But, he said, “I assume [prosecutors] will anticipate that we will look at every possibility for our client.”

“Anything he files in court, we’ll respond to appropriately in court,” said Robbie Sherwood, a spokesman for the Arizona prosecutor, based in Phoenix, Ariz.

“I think there’s a pretty good chance of getting discovery if they show it is relevant to a defense,” said Dick DeGuerin, a Houston-based lawyer who persuaded the federal government last year to quit its gun-trafficking investigation of the Carter’s Country, a four-store chain of hunting shops in Texas.

“Orders from either a Justice Department official or from supervisors in ATF to allow the sale to go forward … will be relevant” to a defense, he said. “It certainly might be used in mitigation” of a tough sentence.

The abbreviated charges outlined above track with the original indictment of Jose Sauceda-Cuevas.  I would be willing to place a wager on the term “automatic pistols” (in both the article and the indictment) being false information, and that the pistols are in fact semi-automatic.  At least part of Dudley’s defense will be that Mr. Sauceda-Cuevas attempted to do something illegal, and would have been denied that chance had the gun shop owners been allowed to do what they wanted to do in the first place, which is refuse to sell.  As it was, illegaility on the part of the ATF played a role in Sauceda-Cuevas’ crime[s].

Entrapment has been successfully argued in similar and other circumstances.  Without knowing the outcome of the case, it is true that Project Gunrunner has not only placed weapons in the hands of criminals in Mexico, it has also made the case against legitimate targets such a firearms trafficker less certain.  The consequences of Project Gunrunner just keep rolling.  We are only at the tip of the iceberg.

Prior:

ATF’s Kenneth Melson to Testify Before Congress

Project Gunrunner Update: FoxNews, LA Times and Washington Post

Washington Post Wrong on Issa Knowledge of Project Gunrunner

Gunrunner Investigation Points Much Higher Than ATF Director

Replacing Kenneth Melson At ATF Is Not Enough

The Deepening Project Gunrunner Scandal

Senators Feinstein, Schumer and Whitehouse on Halting U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico

Project Gunrunner: White House and DoJ Knowledge and Oversight

The only thing worse than being wrong about something of great importance is being right about something of great importance and not being able to crow about it because the reality is so awful.

So when conservatives warned that Obama’s naive policy of the “open hand” of diplomacy to the mad mullahs of Iran was a quick path to a nuclear Iran, there is absolutely no joy in seeing these predictions take place before our very eyes.

First there was the news some weeks ago which we covered in the post, “Game Over.” That post dealt with the estimation of an Iranian nuke perhaps as soon as this Fall.

Those in denial insisted that Iran was still at least one year or more away from developing its own nuclear weapon and that Iran could not field even a missile of 2000 km range until 2015 at the earliest.

Now comes the news via Newsmax and Ken Timmerman that the Iranians have successfully tested three, different missile technologies, two of which appear to directly relate to nuclear weaponization.

Iran has made dramatic progress in its ballistic missile programs over the past year, unveiling three new missiles it claims are already in production, including an innovative design that could be a “game-changer” if used against U.S. aircraft carriers, an Israeli expert widely considered one of the world’s top authorities on Iranian missile programs says.

Also significant were three unannounced tests of longer-range missiles most experts believe were designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

The longer-range missiles are the Shahab-3 and the Sejiel-2.   The Shahab-3, modified, can strike up to 1600 km away, more than enough to hit major U.S. military bases in the region as well as Israel.   The Sejiel-2 is a solid-fuel rocket that has a 2,000 km range.  These missiles were tested several times, secretly, which is odd behavior for the regime:

In the past, Iran has announced all of its missile tests, often with great fanfare, even when they were a failure, said Uzi Rubin, the father of Israel’s “Arrow” anti-missile program.

One of the unannounced missile tests involved a variant of the Shahab-3, which has been successfully test-fired many times since it was first flown in 1998 and is now in active deployment with Revolutionary Guards Air Force units.

Because the missile has been tested successfully so many times, Rubin believes failure was not why the longer-range missile tests were kept quiet. “I believe it was policy,” he told a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill hosted by the National Defense University Foundation.

The latest United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, which passed in June 2010, expressly forbids Iran from conducting tests of “nuclear-capable” missiles.

“The fact that Iran did not disclose those tests is tantamount to admitting they were of nuclear-capable missiles,” Rubin said.

In October 2010, Iran carried out an unannounced test of its Sejil-2 missile, sometimes known as the “Ashura.” The Sejil is a solid propellant missile with a range of approximately 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) that was first flown successfully in November 2008.

So the despots of Iran are taking enormous pains to have at least two, reliable missile systems ready that, by all accounts, can carry a nuclear warhead.  Not only that, the despots now have missiles (although not, presumably, in any great quantity as yet) that can directly threaten large parts of Europe.

The map below, while outdated, nonetheless shows the effective coverage of a 2,000 km-range missile based in Iran.

Funny.  That missile defense system that the U.S. had promised to provide to eastern European allies like Poland and the Czech Republic would have come in handy.  Too bad Obama caved in to the Russians and decided that Iranian missiles posed no threat to Europe.

Or as Timmerman puts it:

Both China and Russia are believed to have intervened with the U.N. Security Council to suppress the report by the U.N. experts panel investigating violations of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran.

Uzi Rubin believes the Obama administration has abstained from revealing Iran’s recent long-range missile tests “in support of Russia’s claim that Iran cannot threaten Europe.”

The lack of an Iranian missile threat was a key justification used by the Obama White House to cancel plans in early 2009 to deploy missile-defense radar and ground-based interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Cancelling U.S.-made missile defense in Europe was a major demand of the Russian government, and was touted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a key factor in her “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations.

Rubin also speculated that the Obama administration “wants to say that sanctions are working, so if they say that Iran’s missile tests have been successful, they wouldn’t look too good.”

But not to worry.  According to the story and headline in The Washington Post on this subject, a “senior” Revolutionary Guard commander promised that Iran won’t manufacture missiles with ranges beyond 2,000 km.

Growing up, I had an almost morbid fascination with the time period between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II.  I could never understand how Great Britain, France and the U.S. allowed Germany to violate the clear terms of the armistice by re-arming, taking control of the Rhineland and stoking again the fires of militarism.  Hitler and the Nazis seemed like such an obvious threat.  How could the victors of World War I put their collective heads in the sand to such an absurd degree?

Now I am beginning to understand.

No one seems to be paying any, real attention to the steady, remorseless march of the Mad Mullahs to deploy nuclear weapons.  We hear nothing from the President– of course not, that would serve only to point out his international fecklessness even further.  We hear nothing from the Government Media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, except a dry note on a back page.  There is no worry.  No reaction.   No sense of crisis.  Indeed, from my recollection of the last Republican debate, not a single candidate mentioned the threat of Iran.  We have time for Libya and Egypt and Syria and even a tiny, terrorist outpost called Gaza, but the real menace to peace in the 21st century is completely ignored.   Worse yet, there are serious political leaders, people aspiring to the presidency, who are openly calling for defense cuts and a pared down military capability.

Another hard lesson learned that will cost us dearly in the near future.

The Daily Beast is reporting that a deal has been brokered between Congress and the administration concerning testimony in the Project Gunrunner scandal (and illegalities).

The head of the embattled federal agency that combats gun trafficking has agreed to talk with Senate investigators, a potentially important breakthrough as Congress tries to determine whether higher-ups in the Obama administration knew about a controversial sting that let assault weapons flow across the border into Mexico’s drug wars.

The testimony—expected next month from Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—was brokered as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa’s Charles Grassley. Grassley and his fellow Republicans were given full access to ATF documents, Melson, and other key witnesses; and in return, Grassley agreed to release three Obama administration nominees he had been blocking, according to correspondence obtained by NEWSWEEK and THE DAILY BEAST.

Grassley had been fighting to get full access for months. He finally got it with a letter Leahy wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting access for both his staff and Grassley’s investigators to the evidence and witnesses in the gun-sting investigation. In return, Grassley agreed to let proceed the nominations of Jim Cole to be deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco to be assistant attorney general for national security, and Virginia Seitz to be head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the letter shows.

So in order to get access to investigate the various illegalities and corruption involved with Project Gunrunner, Senator Grassley had to agree to open the floor for nominations from the same adminstration who gave us Kenneth Melson at ATF and Eric Holder at Justice, and who wants to give us Andrew Traver at ATF, so that they can fill the ranks of the executive branch of government with more people who would presumably do more of the same kind of thing (note that David Codrea finds Traver’s fingerprints on Project Gunrunner).  We simply cannot have any confidence at all in this administration’s nominees.

We’re pulling weeds in a very sick and dying garden, and the time has come for a complete overhaul as called for by the Beaufort Observer.  They’re right.  Sometimes an organization becomes so corrupt that it’s no longer effective simply to revamp it from within.  It must be dismantled from without.  This post by Vincent Cefalu seems to indicate a very ailing organization, with maladies that cannot be treated with a few medicines, even if those medicines include a new director.  If that new director is Andrew Traver, we will have gone from bad to worse.

As we move forward with this investigation, the corruption will become ever more manifest, and the ATF should be expected to body slam whistleblowers and participants in its own demise.  This all just gets worse and worse.

UPDATE: Make sure to check out what Congressman Issa says he found out on his recent trip to Mexico.  This operation could never have succeeded, and the folks at ATF knew it, all the way to the top.  Not only does the ATF not have any jurisdictional authority in Mexico, the Mexican authorities were intentionally uncooperative.  The scandal deepens even further.

Prior:

Project Gunrunner Update: FoxNews, LA Times and Washington Post

Washington Post Wrong on Issa Knowledge of Project Gunrunner

Gunrunner Investigation Points Much Higher Than ATF Director

Replacing Kenneth Melson At ATF Is Not Enough

The Deepening Project Gunrunner Scandal

Senators Feinstein, Schumer and Whitehouse on Halting U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico

Project Gunrunner: White House and DoJ Knowledge and Oversight

Glenn Reynolds links a Fox News report on the illegal termination of ATF whistleblower Vince Cefalu.  This news is a couple of days old, but this interesting (and heretofore unknown) fact is revealed in the report.

Cefalu first told FoxNews.com about the ATF’s embattled anti-gun smuggling operation in December, before the first reports on the story appeared in February. “Simply put, we knowingly let hundreds of guns and dozens of identified bad guys go across the border,” Cefalu said at the time.

Indeed.  So Fox News first learned of this illegality in December.  Actually, David Codrea was among the first to report on this back in December of 2010.  But if Fox News learned of this in December, why did they wait to begin reporting on the corruption?  Why did ABC News report on this in early February, and then several days later CBS News (all around the same time that Fox News began running reports on gunrunner)?

Next, take note of an editorial in the LA Times.

Congress is rightfully angry that the operation went awry, and it should demand an explanation. The ATF must be held accountable and must provide answers.

But it is worth noting that the ATF is charged with an impossible mission: enforcing weak laws in a nation awash in firearms, where even the most modest attempts to regulate or prevent mass straw purchases invite accusations of infringements on 2nd Amendment rights from the gun lobby.

Consider that in 2006 the ATF came under congressional scrutiny for attempting to crack down on straw purchases at Virginia gun shows. That operation had been launched in response to a rise in homicides in the state. Agents traced about 400 guns recovered from crime scenes back to Virginia gun shows, according to congressional testimony. ATF officers who attended the shows and conducted residency checks to verify that interested buyers provided accurate information were later accused of harassing legitimate gun owners.

If Congress wants to stop mass straw purchases and stem the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels, it ought to begin by confirming a permanent ATF director. The agency has been rudderless for nearly five years, largely because the National Rifle Assn. has publicly opposed nominees, including President Obama’s pick, Andrew Traver, who currently heads the ATF’s Chicago field office.

Federal lawmakers might also consider limiting the number of guns an individual can buy. In California, for example, a person can only buy one handgun a month.

The ATF should be held accountable for Fast and Furious, but Congress and the White House are responsible for letting the agency drift, and for failing to adopt sensible laws to prevent mass straw purchases.

The editorial board for the Washington Post must have had a conference call with the editorial board of the LA Times.

THE GUN RIGHTS lobby has spent considerable time and energy in pursuit of one goal: crippling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). It has largely succeeded — and with dire consequences.

Concerned to the point of paranoia about the erosion of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, the National Rifle Association and far too many lawmakers have fought against virtually every proposal to empower the bureau to better track and crack down on illegal firearms. They have won reductions in the ATF’s already meager budget. They have restricted the bureau’s ability to share information with other law enforcement agencies. They have kept the bureau rudderless for the past six years by blocking confirmation of new directors. And they continue to fight new rules that would allow the bureau to track bulk sales of long guns that have played a major role in the drug-fueled violence in Mexico.

Now, the very critics who have tied the bureau’s hands are expressing outrage over a novel, and we would agree questionable, ATF operation intended to curb gun smuggling into Mexico.

[ ... ]

Lawmakers should give the ATF the tools it needs to fight illegal gun trafficking. They should enact stronger penalties for straw purchases and craft a federal gun-smuggling statute; close the gun-show loophole, which allows buyers under certain circumstances to purchase weapons without a background check; resuscitate the ban on assault weapons; and give the ATF the authority to collect data on multiple sales of long guns in border states. The Senate should move quickly to confirm a director for the long-leaderless bureau.

So according to the LA Times and the Washington Post, the problem is the NRA and the fight to protect second amendment rights, and the remedy is to close a gun show loophole through which the Mexican drug cartels do not purchase firearms, and enact stronger penalties for the very illegality in which the ATF was themselves engaged.

Sounds a bit like Senator Feinstein’s talking points, no?  And it also sounds a bit like the Justice Department fed them this perspective, just like they fed the Washington Post incorrect information on Congressional knowledge of Project Gunrunner.