NRA: Obama's Routine Executive Privilege Claim Proves Our Crazy Fast And Furious Conspiracy Theory
June 22, 2012 3:22 pm ET by Timothy Johnson
Since President Obama asserted executive privilege earlier this week over a set of Department of Justice internal documents, the National Rifle Association has been quick to claim that the president's action is proof at last for the organization's insane conspiracy theory that Operation Fast and Furious was actually designed as a nefarious plot against the Second Amendment.
But the NRA's "evidence" could not be more lacking, as the documents over which Obama asserted executive privilege were generated after the conclusion of the failed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operation. A June 19 letter sent from the Justice Department to Obama which asked the president assert his privilege clearly states that the request only covers documents "from after February 4, 2011 related to the Department's response to Congress." Fast and Furious was terminated in January 2011. The documents deal with how DOJ handled congressional inquiries into the program, not its authorization.
That NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre has not actually seen the documents in question did little to temper his belief, expressed on NRA News, that the contents of the privileged documents prove that he was right about the Obama administration all along.
LAPIERRE: There must be something in those papers that just really stinks that they would be willing to walk into this briar patch and bust this whole issue out in the open.
GINNY SIMONE, NRA NEWS HOST: Do you think just maybe it has to do with what the NRA, and many others, have been talking about from the start? That this was planned, that this was about advancing an anti-gun agenda that this president had? Your thoughts?
LAPIERRE: Well my thoughts are that this was an attack on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. That that's what Fast and Furious really was about. The fact is that's what they are trying to hide. That's what I believe is in these papers that they don't want out, is proof of that.
[...]
The president is trying to fog the issue. He's trying to say "I'm not attacking the Second Amendment." I believe what's in these papers is proof that this administration was attacking the Second Amendment. They knew exactly what they were doing. This was about putting these guns down there in Mexico and then why they found them at crime scenes going, "Aha, we need more gun laws in the United States." And that's what I believe is in these papers. And that's why I believe the president has joined with the attorney general to cover this whole thing up.
In an editorial for The Daily Caller, NRA's chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, echoed his boss' sentiments about Obama's exercise of executive privilege:
Moreover, Obama's decision to invoke "executive privilege" to hide these documents from the American people is a tacit admission that what the National Rifle Association has been saying since day one is true. Namely, that the inconceivable crimes committed under operation "Fast and Furious" were designed to support the Obama administration's gun-control agenda.
No members of leadership at the NRA have ever offered any hard evidence to prove this theory. The closest thing offered to a coherent thought on this subject has been the suggestion that because some Obama administration officials have supported gun violence prevention measures in the past, that Fast and Furious must comprise the means to enact such policies. Media Matters has previously noted this "evidence" is merely speculative.
All while not notifying the Mexican government, putting several thousand weapons in cartels hands (a drop in the bucket in their supply) vs several dozen lost on the first operation, and arresting and prosecuting how many less than the previous operation, lol. Man that REALLY did something to curtail that there violent cartels, the supposed goal of the second operation.
Government rarely does anything without something to gain.
Care to enlighten everyone what there was to gain from an operation they knew would fail before it started, and was intentionally set up to fail as only the absolutely incompetent would not have a tracking system, not notify the Mexican authorities, allow the weapons to actually cross the border when no controls existed for tracking in Mexico, and then not make any arrests (except for a double agent cartel member CI whom they turned loose), unless they were directed to do so. You know, that DIFFERENCE in this current adminsitrations Fast & Furious stingerless operation (vs the first) as directed by the current adminstration!
Yet you can prove all those BATF agents involved are incompetent, then they all should have been fired. But amazingly, more than a few, have received promotions, except for the whistleblowers, imagine that. Uh there are usually two reasons for reward such as a promotion, actual excellent job performance, which negates the incompetence thingy, or they are good ass kissers who skillfully play the political game and do or appear to accomplish what their boss directed them to. Care to prove which of these reasons the people (BATF) accomplished to acquire their new job promotions, LOL!
Besides, since there is no national security issue here, they have nothing to hide, well uh apparently they do. Yet you few infer that noooottthhhiiinnnnggg is going on, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, you guys are hilarious!
Where there is smoke, there is combustion, just not necessarily open flame, yet.
I wouldn't call the seeping drug war and border crime to not be an issue of national security.
Here's a list of his uses.
...should have their guns taken away by the government.
Starting with the NRA lunatics.