Cleared!

I thought I'd write about this, because nobody else is talking about it AND THEY SHOULD BE...!

The Republicans spent a larger part of the early summer trying to demonize the Attorney General...Even threatening to sue him and yesterday he was cleared of all of their ridiculous charges...But this is not in the news...It's buried....

The long-awaited report on the U.S. government’s controversial gun-trafficking operation known as “Fast and Furious” released yesterday found no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder knew of the botched effort to trace the flow of guns to Mexico’s drug cartels prior to its public unraveling in January 2011.

This report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz said there is "no evidence that ...Attorney General Holder was informed about Operation Fast and Furious, or learned about the tactics employed by ATF in the investigation" before Congress began pressing him for information about it in early 2011.

Hear that Republicans ? Hear that Rush? Hear that Sean, Hear that Michelle Malkin???
The way they have demonized this man the past year has been shameful.

The inspector general did determine that the acting deputy attorney general, Gary Grindler, received a briefing about the ill-fated gun-tracing operation in March 2010, but that the briefing "failed to alert Grindler to problems in the investigation."

The report also concluded that the operation was "seriously flawed and supervised irresponsibly" by federal officials in Arizona, who allowed it to continue in hopes of scoring a big case against a gun-trafficking organization despite obvious problems. No one in Arizona, at ATF headquarters in Washington or at the Justice Department acted to end the operation until two weapons that were allowed to flow into Mexico were found at the scene of a shootout where a federal border agent, Brian Terry, was killed in December 2010.

"Fast and Furious" was an attempt to trace the flow of guns from the US into Mexico. ATF agents were instructed to allow suspected gun runners for the Mexican cartels to take guns into Mexico, because local ATF officials and local prosecutors believed they could then follow the weapons to the cartel higher-ups in Mexico. It didn't work that way, and roughly 2,000 guns were lost, most of them AK-47-type rifles, the report said.

Even after two of the trafficked guns showed up at the scene of Terry's death, senior ATF leaders did little to find out what went wrong. Instead, the report said, Kenneth Melson, then the acting ATF director, seemed more concern that agents were leaking information to the news media about the botched operation.

Attorney General Holder, in a statement issued immediately after the report's release, said its "key conclusions are consistent with what I, and other Justice Department officials, have said for many months now," that senior Justice Department officials were unaware of the "flawed strategy and tactics" that dated back to the administration of George W. Bush and made no effort to "cover up information or mislead Congress about it."

Attorney General Holder also announced that Kenneth Melson, who was transferred out of the top job at the ATF last year, was retiring, effective immediately. A second Justice Department official, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, has already resigned. The report said Jason Weinstein failed to tell Attorney General Holder about problems with the Fast and Furious operation.

In all, 14 current federal employees were singled out in the report for potential disciplinary action.

The report's publication seemed to do little to end the bitter rivalry between Holder and Rep. Darrel Issa, the California Republican who was among the first to question the Fast and Furious operation.

"It is unfortunate that some were so quick to make baseless accusations before they possessed the facts about these operations -- accusations that turned out to be without foundation and that have caused a great deal of unnecessary harm and confusion," Eric Holder said in his statement.

"I hope today's report acts as a reminder of the dangers of adopting as fact unsubstantiated conclusions before an investigation of the circumstances is completed," he said.

Of course..not to be out done...The Republicans, who are having a very bad week this week are still going to try to spin this their way...

In his own statement, Represenative Darrell Issa said, "Contrary to the denials of the attorney general and his political defenders in Congress, the investigation found that information in wiretap applications approved by senior Justice Department officials in Washington did contain red flags showing reckless tactics and faults Attorney General Eric Holder’s inner circle for their conduct.It’s time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs," Issa said.

In the words of Yosemite Sam....."Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shadddddup!"