No matter how you slice it, Operation Fast and Furious is a serious problem for the Obama administration. It’s beyond question that the ATF oversaw the sale of approximately 2,500 weapons to straw purchasers whom they knew were going to pass the guns go criminals. And it’s also beyond question that some of those weapons were used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010. (And it’s also beyond question that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about this mess sooner than he admitted to Congressman Darrell Issa [R-CA] on May 3rd of this year.)
These are big stories. Stories that demand attention, and which could be very damning to the steadily declining Obama administration. Nevertheless, for the most part the mainstream media has stayed far away from Fast and Furious.
But there is one exception, and that is CBS News.
That’s right: While NBC, ABC, and others have looked the other way, CBS News has spent the past few weeks doggedly reporting cover-ups tied to Fast and Furious. They’ve also been asking how far up the chain of command Fast and Furious goes? (In other words – who authorized this mess to begin with?)
For example, on September 1, it was CBS News that broke the story about how the U.S. Attorney’s office in Arizona had tried to conceal the fact that Brian Terry was killed with Fast and Furious weapons. According to CBS News, internal ATF emails showed that former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke asked investigators not to report the link between the murder and Fast and Furious weapons in order to keep from revealing Fast and Furious to the public.
And on September 9th, it was CBS News that reported that in 2010 a weapon from Fast and Furious was discovered in a car that a Mexican national was driving in the Phoenix area. He was apprehended after purposely ramming into police cars and pointing the weapon at police. This report came as a surprise to Congressman Issa and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), because the “Justice Department still [hadn’t] told them about the 2010 Phoenix case” even though “written requests for such information” had been made.
And it was also CBS News that broke the news of the secret Fast and Furious recordings between Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, and ATF agent Hope McAllister. These are the recordings on which Holder’s name, and that of former U.S. Attorney Burke, are repeatedly mentioned.
The bottom line: CBS News deserves credit for breaking with the rest of the mainstream outlets and reporting on this continually developing story.
And since we’ve only uncovered the tip of the iceberg on this one thus far, I’m hopeful that CBS News will continue to do yeoman’s work on this massive (criminal) operation.
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