Operation Fast and Furious was not a strictly local operation
conceived by a rogue ATF office in Phoenix, but rather the product of a
deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of the Justice
Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking
ring. This strategy, along with institutional inertia, led to the
genesis, implementation, and year-long duration of Fast and Furious.
Shortly after he took office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. delivered a series of speeches about combating violence along the southwest border. He focused specifically on fighting Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and in the fall of 2009, the Justice Department released a document crystallizing the Attorney General’s vision, entitled “Department of Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels.”
As part of this new strategy, the Department of Justice made a tactical decision to shift its focus from arresting straw purchasers to identifying members of large illegal trafficking networks. These investigations would involve multiple federal agencies, and local U.S. Attorney’s offices would coordinate them. In October 2009, the Deputy Attorney General led a newly created Southwest Border Strategy Group designed to ensure the effective implementation of this strategy.
The ATF Phoenix Field Division received the Department’s new strategy favorably. Leaders of the Phoenix Field Division believed that the new strategy allowed agents to witness illegally purchased weapons being transferred to third parties without interdiction, even if lawful interdiction was possible. Consistent with a desire for a new emphasis on prosecuting gun trafficking cases, at around the same time, Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, assigned a prosecutor to a dormant firearms trafficking case out of the ATF Phoenix Field Division known as Operation Wide Receiver. Under prior Department leadership, Wide Receiver was not prosecuted, in part due to the reckless tactics used in the investigation. Both Breuer’s resurrection of the prosecution and the Department’s new strategy, however, provided the imprimatur for the Phoenix Field Division to create Operation Fast and Furious.
Read more: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2951990/posts
Shortly after he took office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. delivered a series of speeches about combating violence along the southwest border. He focused specifically on fighting Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and in the fall of 2009, the Justice Department released a document crystallizing the Attorney General’s vision, entitled “Department of Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels.”
As part of this new strategy, the Department of Justice made a tactical decision to shift its focus from arresting straw purchasers to identifying members of large illegal trafficking networks. These investigations would involve multiple federal agencies, and local U.S. Attorney’s offices would coordinate them. In October 2009, the Deputy Attorney General led a newly created Southwest Border Strategy Group designed to ensure the effective implementation of this strategy.
The ATF Phoenix Field Division received the Department’s new strategy favorably. Leaders of the Phoenix Field Division believed that the new strategy allowed agents to witness illegally purchased weapons being transferred to third parties without interdiction, even if lawful interdiction was possible. Consistent with a desire for a new emphasis on prosecuting gun trafficking cases, at around the same time, Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, assigned a prosecutor to a dormant firearms trafficking case out of the ATF Phoenix Field Division known as Operation Wide Receiver. Under prior Department leadership, Wide Receiver was not prosecuted, in part due to the reckless tactics used in the investigation. Both Breuer’s resurrection of the prosecution and the Department’s new strategy, however, provided the imprimatur for the Phoenix Field Division to create Operation Fast and Furious.
Read more: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2951990/posts
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