No one got murdered in Watergate

The circles are tightening around the Obama administration over Operation Fast and Furious, the misbegotten and abortive program to smuggle weapons to know Mexican drug lords, presumably to track where the weapons went.

Now,

Republicans are calling for his resignation in the wake of Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation that may have inadvertently contributed to the death of at least one federal agent.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for an independent investigation of Holder, and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants to have Holder testify again before Congress. ...

The torrent of scrutiny comes after a series of internal Justice Department memos were released this week and show that Holder was informed about the existence of Operation Fast and Furious last year.

Holder testified in May before the House Judiciary Committee that he did not learn about the operation until earlier this year. Officials with the DOJ say Holder was referring to when he learned about the controversial tactics, known as “walking” guns into the hands of known and suspected criminals, that were employed by the operation.

Elsewhere, a majority of sheriffs of the Arizona Sheriffs Association voted to call upon the president to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Fast and Furious.

At a Phoenix news conference, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said the sting operation, which allowed an estimated 2,000 firearms to reach narcotics cartels in Mexico, was a betrayal that should lead to the removal of Attorney General Eric Holder and possible criminal charges against those responsible.

“I believe that this is a much larger scandal than what took place in Watergate,” said Babeu, who is president of the Arizona Sheriff’s Association.

And nobody got killed in Watergate. But as for F&F:

ATF whistleblowers first exposed the practice after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a December shootout with banditos near Nogales, Ariz., involving a pair of semi-automatic rifles that traced back to Operation Fast and Furious.

Attorney General Holder has furiously defended his truthfulness in letters to members of Congress, reaffirming his earlier testimony that he was unaware of F&F until this year.

An independent counsel is basically the same as a special prosecutor. The difference is that the former is authorized under different statutes than the latter. GovInfo has an excellent summary.

HT: Wintery Knight

Update: "Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home."

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.