Matthew Boyle observes that the Eric Holder tape released by Breitbart.com today provides the motive underlying the Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Attorney General apparently gave the go-ahead to an operation that funneled guns to the drug cartels – guns later used in the murder of U.S. citizens. Motivation for Fast and Furious has always been unclear – it surely was not a simple sting operation – and critics have long suspected that the program was designed to stir up anger at gun distribution inside the U.S. in order to provide support for gun control.

The tape shows a young Holder, circa 1995, talking about gun control and explaining, “What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we’ve changed our attitudes about cigarettes.”

Writes Boyle, “The revelation that Holder wanted to ‘brainwash’ people into being ‘anti-gun’ appears to be supported by what Congress and the American people have learned about Operation Fast and Furious.”