Barack Obama Says ‘Fast And Furious’ Began Under Bush: Problem Is, That’s Not Exactly True

The “Fast and Furious” scandal is the speck in the eye of the Obama administration. It exists in the periphery, and comes back to haunt the president from time to time because it’s one of those situations where we never got the full story. Asked about the scandal at the Univision forum on Thursday, President Obama told a big fib when he claimed that the program began under President George W. Bush.

“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration,” the president said. “When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”

It actually started in October of 2009, nine months into Obama’s presidency, notes ABC News.

You could make an argument that the Bush administration laid the track for the “Fast and Furious” program, as there were previous attempts to “walk” guns over the border in order to trace them, but this particular “field-initiated program” was executed under the Obama administration, and that is an important difference.

White House Spokesman Eric Schultz is already doing damage control, saying, “The President was referring to the flawed tactic of gun-walking, which despite Republicans efforts to politicize this issue, began under the previous Administration and it was our Attorney General who ended it. In fact, this week’s IG report affirms this and if Republicans still have any legitimate questions about Fast and Furious, the 450-page report answers them. In light of this thorough report and Congress’s 16 month-long investigation, Republicans have no excuse to keep wasting time and taxpayer resources on politically-motivated, election-year attacks.”

Except the fact that most of our questions on “Fast and Furious” go unanswered and Attorney General Eric Holder was suspiciously protected from further investigation by executive order. The pursuit of truth? Yeah, what a waste of time.

Note: The final paragraph in this article previously suggested that Eric Holder had been “pardoned” by President Obama’s executive order. In strictest terms, this is patently false. The executive order issued by the president prevented the release of requested documents, effectively “protecting” Holder from further scrutiny. It was not a “pardon” because Holder had not been convicted.