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tv   Hannity  FOX News  September 5, 2011 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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your way, we're open 24 hours! >> montel is going to have the mom and pop shop and willie will have the huge 50,000 square foot store called wil-mart. >> bill: in five years it is going to be think outside the bun. >> yeah! >> bill: dennis miller everybody that is it for this special edition of the factor. as always thank you for watching. i am bill o'reilly. please always remember the spin stops right here because we are definitely for you. we weren't giving guns to people who were hunting bear. we were giving guns to people who were killing other humans. >> when did you first know about the program called fast and furious? >> i probably heard about fast and furious for the first time over the last few weeks. >> why did this obama
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administration purposely allow the illegal transfer of more than 2,000 weapons that they knew, according to this memo, were going to mexico? >> guns we saw these individuals buy would turn up at crime scenes in the united states and mexico is >> who authorized this program that was so felony stupid that you got people killed? >> it was relayed that they didn't have to explain to me. i was to do as i was told. >> are they lyle or -- lying or are you lying? >> sir, we did not let guns walk. your entitled to your opinion, not to your facts. >> what you have here is a colossal failure in leadership from within atf, the united states attorney's office and doj. >> this is one of the most shameful moments in our government's history. >> this is one of the saddest days. >> this is the moe, curly and larry show. and we are looking for larry. >> we will not rest until
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every person responsible for all of this, no matter where they are, are brought to justice. >> sean: welcome to this special edition of hannity. tonight we investigate operation fast and furious. the controversial program initiated by the justice department's bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. it grew out of the border initiative call project gun runner. when the program began under the bush administration in 2006, the purpose was to reduce firearms and explosives related to violent crime associated with mexican criminal organizations operating in the u.s. and mexico by preventing these organizations if unlawfully acquiring and trafficking firearms and explosives. for the program that began with the best of intentions expanded after president obama took office and veered sharply off course. empower activity that it set
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out to suppress in 2009, congress gave the atf, 21.9 million dollars to support and expand the program called project gun runner. one of the offshoots of the program was operation fast and furious which was run out of atf's phoenix, arizona field division. it incorporated a new strategy which allowed suspects to 7w%g0i away with illegally purchased guns in the hope that the straw purchases would lead law enforcement to bigger fish in the networks. >> it was then that this turned ugly. what we had was a toxic and deadly combination of incompetence, bureaucratic malfeasance and an anti-gun agenda. this sense that they needed to do everything in their power to smear gun dealers and blame them for the problem. >> more than 90% of the guns recovered in mexico come if the united states, many from
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gun shops that line our shared border. >> the gun dealers themselves were warning these top officials things had gone wrong. >> obvious that the largest supplier to the mexican gun violence is not the dealers. they are using dealers as the scapegoats. >> sean: the atf an the sale of -- allowed the sale of 2220 firearms. 590 have been linked to criminal activity, including the december 2010 murder of border agent brian terry who was killed by suspected operatives of a mexican dug smuggling organization. internal atf e-mails confirmed that two of the weapons found at the scene had been purchased earlier that year as part of the fast and furious program. >> there are dead americans as a result of this failed reckless program. >> i take great exception to
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what you just say. the notion that this justice department is spoken able for those deaths that you mentioned, that assertion is offensive. >> sean: january 2011, senator , ranking member of the judiciary committee sent a letter to the acting atf director writing: >> sean: the assistant attorney general responded by calling grassley's allegation false. in february, another innocent american loses his life. 32-year-old ice agent jamie zapata was gunned down on a mexican highway by members of a dangerous drug cartel. officials traced one of the weapons used to a sale in
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texas that likely took place under the operation, although officials will not confirm it. president obama was asked about the operation for the first time by spanish tv network univison. >> the president: there may be a situation in which a serious mistake was made. if that is is the case we'll find out and hold somebody accountable. >> sean: may 3rd, attorney general holder testified before the house judiciary committee. >> when did you first know about the program? >> i'm not sure about the exact date i probably heard about fast and furious for the first time over the last few weeks. >> sean: 2009 arms trafficking conference in mexico, holder delivered a speech not only acknowledging project gun runner but bragging about its expansion saying: >> it is ironic when the dam first broke, eric holder
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promised to get to the bottom of the problem. we know now that rick holder has been the source of the problem all along. >> sean: june 13th, first hearing on operation fast and furious was held by the house oversight . at the hearings committee chairman darrell issa grilled the an is -- at assistant ag. >> you said atf makes every effort to interdeck -- interdict weapons. isn't that statement false now with what you know? >> obviously, there have been allegations that call into serious question -- >> documents now provided lets you know that statement was false? >> that's why you are investigating and we're investigating. >> sean: testifying were three atf agents involved with fast and furious.
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>> prior to coming to phoenix i never heard of an operation which law enforcement officers let guns walk. the idea is unthinkable to most law enforcement. i and other field agents repeatedly raised these concerns with our supervisors. in response we were told we did not understand the plan. >> sean: july 4th, facing mounting scrutiny over the botched operation and calls for his resignation, melson appeared secretly before congressional investigators from the house oversight committee and senate judiciary committee where he testified that mistakes were made by atf and officials withheld information to protect political appointees at the top of the department. in a joint letter written following the meetings issa and grassley argued, if his account is accurate atf leadership appears to have been muzzled while the doj sent false denials and buried its head in the sand.
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as recently as july 26th, the head of the atf's phoenix office told congress he discussed the case with a white house national security staffer as early as last september. an admission that once again directly calls into question president obama's repeated denials that neither he nor attorney general holder had any prior knowledge of operation fast and furious. >> guns, drugs, money. those are the commodities of the cartel enterprises. >> sean: heads are finally starting to roll. justice department has announced acting atf director kenneth melson and u.s. attorney leaving their posts. assistant u.s. attorney has been reassigned to a lesser position. the "los angeles times" reports that newly's supervisor and william mcmahon the atf's deputy director of
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operations in the west are being transfered from arizona to washington to be, you guessed it, promoted. >> next, the disturbing details of what happened to border patrol agent brian ♪ [ male announcer ] you never know when a moment might turn into something more. and when it does men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment's right. ♪ [ man ] tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity.
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of the colored part of the eye which is likely permanent. eyelid skin darkening may occur which may be reversible. if you experience eye problems or have eye surgery, consult your doctor. common side effects include itchy eyes and eye redness. i trust latisse® and i use it too. my lashes changed as i got older. now i use latisse®. more than double the fullness in 16 weeks. are your lashes thinning as you get older? why wait? ask your doctor about latisse® from allergan, a company with 60 years of eye care expertise. >> sean: the fast and furious story might have never come out had it not been for one major national tragedy. like many parts of this story it all started near the mexican border.
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for cartels crossing the border is the beginning. stepped up enforcement near cities has pushed them into remote areas like arizona's canyon, a dangerous smuggling corridor 14 miles north of the fence. >> the terrain is rough. not driveable by vehicle, not driveable by atv. the violence in that area is very high. >> sean: much of the canyon looks more like afghanistan than the united states. >> there are numerous canyons -- he >> sean: this rugged landscape the cartels wage war against each other on american soil. >> you got the mules that are packing the drugs. they are armed. then you've got the people that are going to rip them off. sean it is called smuggler's paradise hot -- hot spot for armed cartel rip crews. >> rip crews are aiming at
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ripping off drug loads from their competitors. they are the most dangerous kind of criminals one can encounter on the border. most have former military backgrounds from the mexican army. they sign up with the drug traffickers to do these kinds of remoter attack cal operations. >> they don't have any problem assaulting peep, shooting people. >> if they -- if they go back into mexico without their merchandise they are going to get killed that is what is making it so tough for us to fight it on this side. >> violence against other groups in particular violence against border patrol agents and other law enforcement agencies. >> sean: december 14th, 2010 border patrol agent brian terry was part of a small tactical team working to track rip crews. >> agent terry's team infiltrated on foot into an
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area off this canyon and set up an interdict zone of a known narcotics trafficking and rip crew trail. keep in mind, brian and his team of special operations were working in the dark of night this is truly rough terrain. >> sean: they soon encountered a group of at least five men, each armed with automatic weapons. a fierce shootout ensued. >> in the end, one mexican national, a member of a rip crew who they wounded and brian terry was dying. >> last night, border patrol agent brian a terry was shot and killed in the line of duty as he encountered several suspects. >> brian terry's life of service to god, family,
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country and corp, is a life well lived. [ bagpipes ] >> our stronghold along that border was agent terry's final stand. >> it doesn't get easy$hp. i do not relish as chief of the patrol handing out folded flags to surviving family members. >> sean: it was to have been terry's last night of work before going home to michigan for a christmas vacation. >> brian did come home that christmas, we buried him not far from the house that he was raised in, just prior to christmas day. >> there are times when you can't hold back the tears, because it is like losing a son, a nephew. i felt like a true son of the united states of america was lost that night. >> sean: at the scene agents arrested a man and recovered
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3a k 47 weapons. two purchased in arizona by a man who was unsurveillance as part of the fast and furious operation. he was arrested the next day. >> when first hear about weapons purchased through operation fast and furious? >> mostly on tv, media, newspapers. i never got a call until it was brought out in the newspapers. i just was flabbergasted. i didn't believe it at first. >> sean: ballistic tests could not identify the weapon but lawmakers were outraged. >> brian terry's loss was regrettably and preventable. >> what makes his death so shocking to his family is that he did not die on a foreign battlefield. not iraq or afghanistan but in the desert outside of arizona. eight meantimes -- 18 miles
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inside of the u.s.-mexican border. his killers were not taliban or al-qaeda. but a small group of mexican drug cartel bandits heavily armed with ak-47 assault rifles. >> sean: the family is not just left to grieve but also to look for answers. >> every one of the men and women involved in fast and furious, based on my experience are men and women of good faith who wanted to do the right thing. but they hadn't fully thought about the consequences of their actions. and that inablility to look into the future to understand the risks that they were taking, is their down fall. and maybe, although we don't yet know, the reason for brian terry's tragic death. >> sean: very sad, very unnecessary story. if you would like to help the terry family and the families
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of other fallen border patrol agents go to borderpatrol foundation.org. next william la jeunesse takes us inside mexico to explain where those guns end
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>> sean: welcome back.
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fox news correspondent william la jeunesse has been closely following the story since it broke. he uncovers who knew what, when and where the guns ended up once they crossed into mexico. >> we weren't giving guns to people who were hunting bear. we were giving guns to people who were killing other humans. >> that is insane. you would never think that because atf does not do that. if i had known that was in fact occurring, i would have call atf headquarters. >> reporter: most agents didn't know about fast and furious. those who did, followed orders. >> it was relayed to me they didn't have to explain anything to me. i was to do as i was told. >> reporter: agent dodson blue the whistle. this lawyer the brother of former state attorney general tortured and killed, 21 dead in a shootout.
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helicopter down near mexico city. all crimes committed with guns sent to mexico with u.s. government consent. >> guns we saw these individuals buy would turn up at crime scenes in the united states and mexico. yet, we still did nothing. >> reporter: nothing while fast and furious guns showed up in the hands of cartels. >> it confirms what many mexicans believe that there's this conspiracy, from the united states, to sell guns to mexico. >> reporter: conspiracy or poor judgment in letting guns walk? >> fast and furious was unique. in the past a suspected straw buyer would be an ed in the parking lot or down the street. in fast and furious these stores were recruited by the atf and u.s. attorney's office, multiple sales approved. no arrests and no surveillance outside the store. >> reporter: a handful of young thugs known as straw buyers buy thousands of guns.
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>> a straw buyer is a kid 18 to 25, maybe up to 30-years-old who needs a couple hundred extra bucks and knows somebody that knows somebody that has a way to make extra bucks. they back in the store fill out a form, buy the rifles and gives it to the guy. >> reporter: he represents manuel an cast tahoe recruited -- manuel acosta, who recruited straw buyers. they alone purchased 290 against. out of 20 fast and furious defendants 19 were back on the street within hours of their arrest. alfredo, my name is william la jeunesse, i'm a correspondent with fox news. is there anything you want to say to those people who have been harmed by the guns that you bought? >> he's not going to say
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anything. you have to talk to his lawyer. >> reporter: together the group bought 2,000 weapons while agents watched cameras, installed by the atf inside gun stores. >> were they told go ahead for sale? >> that's part of the problem. >> we would say is there anything we should be aware of? >> no, continue to sell them. >> reporter: more than one gun store panicked aschenbaches of fire amounts flew off their shelves. i'm looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not going south or in the wrong hands. in response the atf lied, assuring the dealers their guns would not so -- would not see mexico. >> how many hundreds or thousands of weapons that you allowed to be purchased, knowing they were going to
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mexico? >> the purchase was being done by a criminal organization. >> you allowed it, not? >> reporter: agent newly authorized the operation. he believed sending guns south would expose the network from the gunman and money man in mexico to the smugglers, transporters and straw buyers. >> they purchased over 1,000 firearms some of the purchases were procuring them at lots of 10 to 20 at a time. at the same time 200 firearms in the investigation were recovered in the united states and mexico. >> i could not believe someone in atf would let firearms wind up in the hands of criminals. >> reporter: mexican police found the guns at 122 crime scenes fromee wanna to appear call poe. -- from tijuana to acapulco. how many in mexico were killed or injured as a result? hundreds offs say. the exact number is not known. why? when mexico attempted to trace
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those guns, the united states said the information did not exist when it did. which is why many here feel betrayed. >> i obviously feel violated. i feel my country's sovereignty was violated. >> reporter: he heads mexico's judicial committee saying the u.s. broke international law by sending guns south. >> this program is just absurd. especially because human life were put in danger. >> how many weapons do we have in the united states or in mexico that are out there that are results of fast and furious that we do not know where they are? >> in the ballpark from 1,000 to 1500, 1800 still. >> what is your best guess how many are in mexico, how many in the united states? >> i'd say 2-1, mexico versus u.s. >> reporter: mexico wants to extradite those responsible. >> it will be important that in the united states they are
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prosecuted or at least there is some repercussions in terms of not only those who were involved, but those who allowed this to happen. >> when did you first know about the program officially called fast and furious, to the best of your knowledge, what date? >> i'm not sure of the exact date i probably heard about fast and furious for the first time over the last few weeks. >> reporter: targets include three atf agents. u.s. attorney supervised in phoenix. in washington acting atf director and assistant u.s. attorney general brewer are believed to have approved the program. at the attorney general holder and president obama claimed they knew nothing. some investigators believe otherwise. acting atf director melson
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took a demotion at the department of justice. dennis burke resigned. the person accountable for day-to-day operations assistant u.s. attorney hurley was reassigned to a lesser job. >> sean: we dive into the issue who knew what, when and would -- could ♪ or wrong way. every baby plays by his own rules. and they need a diaper that lets them do it. adapt at theaist, legs and bottom ♪ for all the freedom to play their way. pampers. it's time to play.
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>> sean: to date president obama and his attorney general holder have been able to avoid much of the blame for the deadly failures of the atf's controversial gun running operation. as new details emerge the scandal is beginning to shine a light on the justice department and the white house. >> american people deserve prompt and complete answers to the questions surrounding this operation. >> letting guns walk is not something that is acceptable. >> this is one of the most shameful moments in our
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government's history. >> this is one of the saddest days in my six months in congress. >> special agent newell what were you thinking? >> this is the moe, curly and larry show. we are looking for larry. >> there are more questions than answers when it comes to who is responsible and who should be held accountable for the failed experiment known as operation fast and furious. not only does the attorney general deny having any knowledge of this gun running scheme, he denies the operation played any role in the debts of -- in the deaths of terry anza pat >> notion this justice department is responsible for those deaths that you mention that an -- that assertion is offensive. >> what if it is accurate? >> eric holder has a long history of scandalous decisions of mismanagement and of deadly decisions. i think the people who put him in that appointment in the
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first place bear blame they have to answer for their bad decisions. look, whener -- with eric holder the writing was on the wall there was no question that you were going to get anything other than an obstructionist corrupt-0-crat. the justice department has ignored subpoenas. >> sir, if you are going to count pages like this as discovery, you should be ashamed of yourself. the pages go on like this forever. you've given us black paper instead of white paper. how dare you make an opening statement. how dare you make an opening statement of cooperation. we've had to subpoena again and again. >> stonewalling is the obama way. it certainly has been the eric holder way of dealing with this controversy that's why republicans whistle-blowers, investigators, journalists have to continue to push. >> who authorized this program
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that was so felony stupid that it got people killed? >> sean: chairman of the house oversight committee, california republican darrell issa has been one of holder's most outspoken critics. >> the justice department continues to withhold key information and has inappropriately interfered with this investigation. let me be clear the justice department is not our partner in this effort. they are the subject of this investigation. their continued interference will not be allowed to derail the committee's work. >> sean: house oversight committee report describes in great detail the type of interference incount ared -- encountered: >> it is no surprise that a former clinton official is getting clintonesque about his
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alibis and his rationalizations how this program got out of control. but but it is a case of parsing definitions and -- >> sean: now the question is whether holder's clinton-like evasion will help him as his former boss did in the 90s. >> there's a teflon counting around so many of the top obama officials. the question is for the american people will you allow that coating to stand after you know what has gone on? after you know the hell that brian terry and his family had to go through? when people decide in 2012 who they want running the white house they will decide if they want somebody like president obama who put eric holder in place. >> sean: we may not need to wait until 2010 tell. the. now even the white house's knowledge of and involvement in fast and furious is being exposed.
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july 26th, for the first time special agent in charge, bill newell revealed he informed a top national security official at the white house about the operation in september 2010. >> [ unintelligible ] >> how many times did you talk to him about in case. >> the specifics of this case? i don't think i had one specific conversation with him about the specifics of this case. >> could you take the word specific out and answer the general, did you talk to him about this case? >> i might have talked to him about this case, yes. >> sean: o'reilly is the first aide to president obama to publicly be accused to have knowledge of this operation. what is unclear is whether he shared this information with anybody inside the white house. >> coming up, one of the people most responsible for
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>> sean: welcome back. as you have seen throughout this hour, we probably would not know much about fast and furious and the controversy if it were not for the tireless pursuit of the facts by senator charles grassley and congressman darrell issa chairman of the house oversight and government reform committee. congressman issa joins us now. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for covering this story, it is so important we get it right and behind us, meaning they don't do it again. >> sean: this is the point here. all these guns go out on the street. i want to make sure our facts right, still missing, 1600 unaccounted for, right? >> roughly 1600. they will turn up over the next decade, i'm sure. >> sean: we have two dead agents as a result. you and i discussed at one
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point congressman, there would have been a very simple way, because of technology, to track this. i have a friend who has an 18-year-old son who got a speeding ticket. the way now he monitors his son's driving he puts a gps in the car and he goes on every time he drives he's able to look at the gps data, is what you call it and see when the kid was driving. where he was driving. how fast he was driving. and you would think they could put that in the guns and that would bring us to where they wanted to go, wouldn't it? >> absolutely. there's technology that would be better than that. one that sat there dormant waiting for a signal for months. when you turned it on you could find out where i was and it wouldn't be detectable. all of those kinds of things were not part of this plan. this plan was let them have the guns. see them at the scene of the crime and think you can connect the dots.
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clearly that was fallacy. and the limited amount of arrests 19 out of 20 for the straw purchasers. they never rolled up the kind of people they said they were going to. because this program never could have lead to that. >> sean: do you interpret this to be a cover-up? >> i do. because they don't want us looking at the political appointees who were part of the straw decision process. whether it was attorney general -- deputy attorney general lanny brewer or the u.s. attorney locally or a poll say that reversed what president george w. bush had said. george w. bush fired u.s. attorneys who would not enforce gun laws. this u.s. attorney in phoenix wasn't enforcing gun laws. yet, they were authorized and overseeing a program to let high powered weapons walk to mexico. there's something wrong with both of those circumstances. >> sean: you did point out, i read a comment you made. that the president, you feel is kind of parsing his words
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specifically. and gave a clintonian answer. can you explain that? >> well, when he says, did not authorized, as far as he would go. i don't expect the president to have authorized a specific investigation or program. i don't expect the attorney general necessarily to have authorized every aspect of this. but i would be shocked that the attorney general was not briefed on how u.s. agent or two u.s. agents died. on the day that gabrielle giffords was shot, there were e-mails flying everywhere. people were concerned this was a fast and furious weapon that shot her. that kind of panic doesn't stay just at the local level. it goe»ññ up and down. it is one of the reasons that the stonewalling they are doing and the cover-up just makes us believe this was more than it seems even now. it seems like enough that people's heads should roll. we should have new safeguards to make sure this could never happen again. >> sean: you are talking about
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a crime, am i correct? >> there's no question, lying to congress is a crime. telling us things that aren't true, which occurred are a crime. the biggest crime was breaking faith with the american people. now one of the biggest crimes is, if you will, new set of rules, forcing additional gun databases for weapons sold and justifying it based on gun violence that they helped that's where you start saying i'm not going to promote a conspiracy. but you have to wonder, couldn't you find a better time to suggest that you need more gun recording we are looking at your helping so many guns promote gun violence. >> sean: as they've stonewalled and delayed sending you documents, e-mails, correspondents, as they've sent you redacted things you have back what they will whistle-blowers. so you compare with the two
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documents, so you know what they are up to. >> absolutely. >> sean: you also have agents that are showing up that want to tell you the truth. they are not showing up with justice department attorneys, they are showing up with their own attorneys. do you feel like you have fully gotten to the both of this why it? >> no, but we wouldn't have gotten where we've gotten if it wasn't for very brave men who have come forward and risked their jobs, their careers to give us information as whistle-blowers. i'm very proud of all the people who have come forward without the justice department attorneys. so they can tell us what they really believe. they've been pretty candid. they've been candid because atf and for that matter the other law enforcement agencies were involved in this the fbi, dea and others, they don't do business this way. this was anomaly created maybe locally, but promoted by political appointees at a high
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level that should have known better and should never have allowed this to happen. right now we have no faith they wouldn't allow it to continue. >> sean: unbelievable. congressman thank you for your time. any precedent for the scandal like the one inside the justice department? a look back at the children for era controversies involving the atf. and how watergate ♪ [ male announcer ] the most headroom per dollar of any car in america. from $10,990. the all-new nissan versa sedan. innovation upsized. innovation for all.
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>> sean: the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms is at the center of the fast and furious scandal. the organization is no stranger to controversy. its involvement with operations gone awry goes back to the days of president clinton. it may be the watergate scandal of the 70s that is most similar to the events unfolding at the doj today. >> i know all of you join with me in praying for a peaceful and sure and quick conclusion to the events. >> sean: the atf was involved in two clinton era controversies synonymous with botched operations. >> the agents involved in ruby ridge should have been terminated. >> the ruby ridge pitted randy
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weaver on a remote mountain with his family. he was accused of illegally selling shotgun to agent. >> inappropriate conduct by the atf. >> sean: in august of '92 federal agents laid siege to the weaver home. after a u.s. marshal doing surveillance on the property was shot and killed and left weaver's 14-year-old son dead. days later a sharpshooter shot weaver's wife in the head as she cradled their 11-month-old baby. fbi agents engaged in an illegal cover-up and the chief of the violent crimes section spent a year in prison for trying to destroy the bureau's internal report on ruby ridge. less than a year after, in april of 1993, came the atf's raid on the branch davidian compound in waco, texas where
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members of an obscure religious cult led by david koresh were illegally hoarding firearm and explosives. >> allowing the status quo to remain was not going to lead to an ultimate peaceful resolution and eliminate risk to the safety of the innocent children in the compound the public at large or the agents at the scene. >> sean: after an hour long shootout four atf agents were dead, 15 wounded and six cult members died. a stand off ensued, lasting 51 days until janet reno decided it needed to end. the cult members were told if they refused to come out, tear gas would be inserted into the compound. >> we have what appears to be a fire going on right now. >> sean: both sides blamed the other for the ensuing fire which took the lives of dozens of branch davidian, including children. >> there are two stories about which side caused monday's
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inferno that took 86 lives. the fbi insist cult members started the blaze as part of a suicide pact at the direction of david koresh. >> sean: many accused reno of negligence for signing off on the operation with some calling for her resignation. >> surprise bo be a mild word to say that anyone that would suggest -- that the attorney general should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves. >> sean: two atf agents were terminated. attorney general reno kept her job. in the scope of american politics, the fast and furious scandal may bear the most resemblance to watergate. >> what did the president know? when did he know it? >> sean: while watergate began with a small group inside president nixon's reelection campaign it spread through the executive branch up to the president himself. >> i began by telling the president there was a cancer growing on the presidency.
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>> people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. well i'm not a crook. >> sean: congressional hearings have made it clear that the fast and furious scandal has spread quickly from the phoenix office to the top of the department of justice. >> when did you first know about the program? >> i probably about fast and furious over the last few weeks. this has gotten a great deal of publicity. >> there are dead americans as a result of this failed and reckless program. i would say it hasn't gotten enough attention. >> there's an investigation that is underway. >> sean: 19 people involved in watergate wound up behind bars. so far, 12 justice department officials have been implicated in the fast and furious scandal. it remain to be seen what the consequences will be for their actions. watergate may provide guidance

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