(New York Post) — Don’t look now, but the real action in Washington this week isn’t the partisan wrangling over the debt ceiling but something — literally — even more incendiary: Operation Fast and Furious, which seems about to explode right in the face of Attorney General Eric Holder — and maybe other administration officials, too.
In a letter to Holder released yesterday, Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley accused the Justice Department of blocking their investigation into the burgeoning scandal (which has resulted in the deaths of at least two American agents and countless Mexican civilians), muzzling the ATF and involving other federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, in funding the crackpot scheme.
“The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities,” they wrote.
“It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.”
That’s the key to this mess — and the reason that Operation Fast and Furious might turn out to be the biggest Washington scandal since Iran-Contra.
As Issa and Grassley note in their letter, had the other agencies shared information — theoretically the goal of the post-9/11 revamp of the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies — “then ATF might have known that gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ had already been identified.”  (read article)
In related news..(Sipsey Street Threepers)  Source claims ATF’s Tampa SAC walked guns to HONDURAS! Part of Operation Castaway? Exclusive Report by David Codrea & Mike Vanderboegh.
A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. It may not look like it, but that chair he’s sitting in just became the latest hot seat of the Gunwalker Scandal.
Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source.
On 21 September, 2010, A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida issued a press release on Operation  Castaway:

United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton, Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of central and northern Florida Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operations, and Susan McCormick, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations, Tampa Field Office announce the initial results of Operation Castaway, an intensive and wideranging Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (“OCDETF”) firearms trafficking investigation conducted by ATF, ICE, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and the Miami-Dade Police Department. ATF describes Operation Castaway as the most significant firearms trafficking investigation in Central Florida history.
According to court documents, a group of defendants connected to Hugh Crumpler, III, were involved in a major international gun trafficking operation. . . . Firearms like those involved in this investigation are often smuggled through Honduras and other Central and South American countries before being used in violent crimes in Mexico and other countries in the region. A
number of the firearms trafficked by the defendants in Operation Castaway have been linked to violent crimes around the world.

The  press release concluded, “This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Bishop Ravenel and E. Jackson Boggs. Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation.”
SAC  O’Brien was previously the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, was later promoted to the Deputy Assistant Director of ATF, but then stepped down to the position in Tampa. Whether the allegations of our source  refer to the on-going Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O’Brien has allowed the “walking” of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field  Division’s Operation Fast and Furious. That Operation Castaway involved arms  smuggling to Honduras is also certain.
“This is confirmed as accurate,” the correspondence continued. “There are emails in existence where O’Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project
Gunrunner.”
“From a first person source she is shitting herself trying to cover it up,” the report stated.
No one from ATF is available at this late hour to approach for comment. This information has also reportedly been disclosed to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Member Charles Grassley for follow-up and investigation.  (visit article/site)
Hat Tip to AnnBarnhardt (aka IamDagny) who also provides this summation:
Whoopsie. I guess the “home office” did know all about Gunwalker, told other offices about it, and set up similar schemes with other ATF offices.
Multiple points:
1. Don’t kid yourselves. This Obama regime gunwalking business is obviously going on all over the country. Don’t think for a second that it was “just Tampa” in addition to the Mexican border. I would look for more ATF field offices to be revealed as virtual weaponry depots for enemies of the United States.
2. Now we know why Hillary Clinton and Obama were falling all over themselves to support and prop-up the Honduran Marxist dictator-wannabe, Manuel Zelaya back
in 2009. I never could figure out why they would create such blatantly unflattering, pro-Marxist optics for the Obama regime for a small country like Honduras. Now it all makes perfect sense. Zelaya attempted to overthrow the Honduran constitution and install himself as dictator for life, a la Hugo Chavez. The Honduran Congress AND Supreme Court followed their Constitutional Rule of Law to the letter and removed Zelaya. Within hours Obama and Clinton were threatening Honduras and demanding that the Marxist dictator Zelaya be re-installed. Now we know why. Obama and Clinton were arming Zelaya and were coordinating with Zelaya to run arms through Honduras. Presumably the deal was that some of the arms would stay with Zelaya and most would move into Mexico
from the South. Then, Obama and Clinton could “find” U.S. guns in Southern Mexico and Central America, and thus use these optics to bolster their false contention that “90%” of Mexican guns were sourced directly from the U.S. “See?   U.S. guns are all the way down in Chiapas State and Guatemala. U.S. guns are everywhere! The Second Amendment simply is not feasible any longer!”
3. Mexican president Felipe Calderon has also parroted the Obama/Clinton fake statistics claiming that “90%” of the guns in Mexico came from the U.S. This strongly implies that the Obama regime colluded with Mexico City on this Gunwalker action with the objective of using the resulting bloodshed to suspend the Second Amendment and disarm the people of the United States.
THIS IS TREASON. This is the epitome of treason. The Obama/Clinton machine has directly coordinated with outside governments to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, and has facilitated the invasion of the United States by a  de facto non-uniformed Mexican military in the form of narco-gangs, who, it is argued, are the real power in Mexico City already.
4. This is also textbook SEDITION. In attempting to create optics that implicated the Second Amendment to the Constitution as being responsible for arming narco-terrorists and the resulting mass murder, the Obama/Clinton machine has engaged in attempted insurrection against the established lawful order, namely the Constitution. They have subversively attempted to stir up rebellion against the Constitution by fraudulently stirring up commotion against the Constitution. This “commotion” took the form of the calculated murder of hundreds of Mexican civilians, law enforcement officers and regular military and the murder of at least two U.S. law enforcement officers.
5. Obama personally acknowledged these acts of treason and sedition when he told Sarah Brady on March 30, 2011 that gun control in the U.S. was coming, but that “we have to go through a few processes. Under the radar.”  Nothing short of criminal arrest and trial is morally acceptable for Obama, Jarrett, Hillary Clinton and Holder.  (read more)