Politics

Hume: Obama handling of ‘Fast and Furious’ reminiscent of scandal-plagued Nixon DOJ

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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Although it hasn’t gotten much mainstream media attention, the Operation Fast and Furious scandal could rank up there with the Nixon administration cover-up of the Watergate break-in, according to Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.

During the web exclusive “Panel Plus” segment of “Fox News Sunday,” Hume said that this scandal begs the question of what Obama Attorney General Eric Holder knew about Operation Fast and Furious and when did he know it. (Allen West: Obama must remove Eric Holder, or he’s complicit with Fast and Furious cover-up)

“This is a real scandal,” Hume said. “And once again, we have the classic question of what did the attorney general, for example, know? When did he know it?”

Hume likened Obama’s handling of the scandal to that of Nixon’s handling of Watergate, which ultimately resulted in Nixon’s resignation.

“This Obama Justice Department reminds me of nothing so much as the Nixon Justice Department,” he said. “You have the scent of high-level knowledge of serious wrongdoing and you have the smell of cover-up and I think the stench of cover-up on this gun-running operation is very strong indeed.”

Operation Fast and Furious was a program in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department allowed guns to be taken into Mexico via “straw purchasers,” or people who were eligible to purchase guns in the United States, but were doing so with the known intention of trafficking them into Mexico. The ultimate goal of the operation appears to have been to track the gun market of Mexico’s drug cartels though the firearms traffickers were permitted to purchase in the U.S.

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