President Barack Obama has never apologized to Mexican President Felipe Calderon for the 300 civilians murdered with weapons the United States provided to Mexico’s drug cartels, but on Sunday he found time to place a call to Afghan president Hamid Karzai apologizing for deaths caused by an American soldier this weekend in Afghanistan.
The Daily Caller asked the White House why Obama hasn’t similarly apologized to Calderon for the murders that resulted from the U.S. policy of providing weapons to the Mexican cartels. Obama spokesman Eric Schultz did not answer.
The Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” program — organized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and overseen by the Department of Justice — sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers, or people who legally purchase guns in the United States with the intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else. This tactic is known as “gunwalking.”
At least 300 people in Mexico were killed with weapons provided by Fast and Furious, including U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. The identities of the Mexican victims are unknown. Allegations are now surfacing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered with weapons the Obama administration allowed to “walk” into the hands of drug cartel members.
It’s been more than a year since Terry was murdered with weapons his own government gave to his murderers, but not one government official has yet been held accountable.
A total of 118 U.S. House members have either demanded Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation, expressed no confidence in his job performance via a formal House resolution, or both. Joining the 118 House members who have taken action on Holder over the gunwalking scandal are three U.S. Senators, two sitting governors and all of the major GOP presidential candidates.
House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, who’s led the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, told TheDC recently that he thinks the “[Department of] Justice has blood on their hands” and that Holder owes an apology to Mexico.
Neither Holder nor Obama has made such an apology to the Mexican government.
In a statement on this weekend’s Afghanistan tragedy, Obama said he wanted “to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible.”
Schultz didn’t answer when TheDC asked him if Obama supports the same goals with regard to Fast and Furious.
The Obama administration has instead stonewalled Congress on the issue, refusing to reply to subpoenas from Issa. Out of 80,000 pages worth of documents Issa has lawfully subpoenaed, the DOJ has only provided about 6,000 or 7,000 pages to Congress. The DOJ has, however, given all of those documents to its internal investigator, the Inspector General.
Holder has not provided any legal reason as to why he’s withholding these documents from Congress and the American people, but the attorney general has claimed that he’s not covering anything up.