The Obama administration gunrunning scandal that allowed weapons to fall into the hands of drug cartels, known as Operation Fast and Furious and implicated in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry (and also reportedly ICE Agent Jaime Zapata), is probably more far-reaching than originally thought.
Although the media has tried to downplay the Fast and Furious scandal — and it didn’t come up in Wednesday night’s first presidential debate — Spanish-language network Univision is on the case.
A few weeks ago, in one of the few instances where a journalist asked President Barack Obama a tough question , Univision reporter Jorge Ramos asked the president if Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired because of about 100 Mexicans who might have been killed as a result of Fast and Furious in addition to Agent Terry (see video below). In response, Obama falsely claimed the program started under his predecessor George W. Bush.
According to an ABC News report on the Univision investigation, which aired Sunday evening, the approximately 2,000 Fast and Furious weapons might have been used in murder, kidnappings, and at least two massacres in Mexico and included 57 additional previously unaccounted-for guns.
Univision also reported that, when a notorious drug cartel leader known as El Diego was taken in custody last summer by Mexican police, he had Fast and Furious weapons on his person.
Investors Business Daily comments on the recent Univision report:
“The special, put together by Univision’s investigative unit and aired as a special edition of Univision’s ‘Aqui y Ahora’ (‘Here and Now’) identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juarez in January 2010.”
“In addition to fueling increased gun violence in Mexico, guns from Fast and Furious previously unreported by congressional investigators found their way into the hands of drug traffickers across Latin America in countries such as Honduras and Colombia, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.”
The Obama administration has repeatedly stonewalled the efforts by an investigating committee in Congress to get the bottom of this scandal, and the US House of Representatives has already voted to hold Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the investigation.
A recent report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General on Fast and Furious is seen by many as a whitewash and resulted in only two relatively low-level government officials (one in the DOJ) losing their jobs. The Inspector General also testified before Congress that the White House was uncooperative in the investigation. Earlier this summer, the president claimed executive privilege to protect thousands of Fast-and-Furious-related documents from being turned over to Congress.
Watch a portion of the Univision Fast and Furious report (subtitled in English):
Watch Univision’s Jorge Ramos ask President Obama if Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired: