Gunwalker case hits the fan on Tuesday

The Obama people want to claim that they are no worse than the Bush administration. The “Wider Receiver” program gave direct notice to the Mexican authorities so that they could try to track the guns when they went to the Mexican side of the boarder. "Fast and Furious" made no such attempt to notify the Mexican authorities in anyway. "Fast and Furious" made no serious attempt to actually trace the guns and what is worse they knew that the guns weren't being traced. The Bush officials might have learned that Mexican police weren't up to tracing the guns, but at least they had a plan to try to have the guns followed. "Fast and Furious" gave out the guns, but agents and middle level people complained that the guns weren't being traced. From the WSJ:

Top Justice Department officials have settled on a strategy for explaining a botched gun-trafficking probe that includes blaming the now-ousted U.S. attorney in Phoenix.
The department has spent much of the year dealing with questions about federal agents' use of investigative tactics that resulted in the smuggling of firearms into Mexico. The issue is coming to a head Tuesday, when Attorney General Eric Holder is set to answer questions at a Senate hearing.
A hostile reception likely awaits from Republican lawmakers, who have pushed to make Mr. Holder accountable. More than 30 have called for him to resign.
At issue is a tactic that was employed by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to allow suspects to buy and transfer firearms in the hopes of landing big-time smugglers.
In the 2009-10 Operation Fast and Furious, suspects were allowed to buy about 2,000 firearms, hundreds of which remain unaccounted for.
An earlier operation called Wide Receiver, conducted in 2006-07 under the Bush administration, let suspects buy more than 400 firearms.
Mr. Holder and the Justice Department's criminal division chief, Lanny Breuer, have condemned the practice and said they wouldn't have permitted its use in the Fast and Furious operation. . . .

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Gunwalker case hits the fan on Tuesday
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