The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran the once-secret program known as Operation Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which have been used in an unknown number of crimes.

The lost guns have been linked to violence on both sides of the border, including the murder of a federal agent (Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona. In that case, the guns—assault weapons known as AK-47s—were traced through their serial numbers to a Glendale, Arizona dealer that led to a Phoenix man the feds repeatedly allowed to smuggle firearms into Mexico.

While this illegal government operation spiraled out of control, high-ranking officials at the DOJ were “absentee managers” who failed to provide leadership, according to congressional investigators. In a lengthy report made public this week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee outlines a shameful management breakdown at the DOJ, which is responsible for supervising the ATF. “In fact, Fast and Furious had many enablers among the senior levels of the Justice Department,” the report says.

Making things worse, high-ranking DOJ officials with inside knowledge of the flawed gun-running scheme have refused to provide Terry’s family with accurate information. “Brian Terry’s family is still seeking answers 21 months after his death,” the report says, yet “two senior officials very close to the Attorney General who each had detailed knowledge of Fast and Furious, have been unable and unwilling to provide the Terry family any answers.”

Specifically, the report names Attorney General Eric Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Monty Wilkinson, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler and Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel as well as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Dennis Burke. On dozens of occasions they repeated these lines when asked about the gun-running operation: “Did not recall” or “did not know.”

Last month the DOJ Inspector General issued its own 512-page report finding that four high-ranking agency officials, including Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, knew about Fast and Furious yet took no action. Weinstein quickly resigned after the IG’s report was released, but Breuer remains in his office.

During testimony before a congressional panel, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that the Obama White House obstructed his investigation into the botched gun-running sting by, among other things, refusing to provide internal communications crucial to the probe. Horowitz also blasted senior leadership at both the DOJ and ATF for doing “little in the immediate aftermath of Agent Terry’s shooting to try to learn how two weapons that had been purchased 11 months earlier by a previously identified subject of Operation Fast and Furious ended up at the murder scene.”

Judicial Watch launched an investigation into Operation Fast and Furious last summer and this month JW sued the DOJ and ATF for records requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) back in mid-July, 2011. Last fall JW obtained internal government documents that show the number of crimes connected to the gun-running experiment is significantly higher than the administration has chosen to disclose.  

“Obama 2016” Distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures to Manage National Distribution Campaign

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the nation’s largest government watchdog organization, and Victory Film Group announced today the release of a new documentary film, “The District of Corruption,” which puts the spotlight on Judicial Watch’s epic battle against government scandal, secrecy and corruption through the last three presidential administrations (see trailer here). Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon, the writer/director of “Occupy Unmasked” and the Sarah Palin film “The Undefeated,” and produced in association with Constant Motion Entertainment, the Judicial Watch film will be released nationally by Rocky Mountain Pictures, the distributors of the documentary sensation, “Obama 2016.” The movie “The District of Corruption” will be available in select theaters on October 26:

• Old Mill Playhouse, Lake Sumter Landing Market Square, 1000 Old Mill Run, The Villages, FL
• AMC Lennox Town Center 24, 777 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH
• Edwards Greenway Palace Stadium, 3839 Weslayan Street, Houston, TX

The movie trailer, ticket, and theater information is available at www.districtofcorruptionmovie.com.

“The District of Corruption” chronicles the ongoing battle to clean up government corruption in Washington, DC, focusing intensely on Judicial Watch’s efforts to counter the unprecedented corruption and secrecy of the permanent political class. The film comprehensively exposes the Obama administration’s current scandals, including: Operation Fast and Furious; crony capitalism; Solyndra and other “green energy;” federal bailouts and earmarks; ACORN and voter fraud; illegal alien amnesty; and threats to the integrity of the 2012 elections; as well as new attacks on government transparency and accountability.

“The District of Corruption” features interviews with Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, Director of Investigations and Research Chris Farrell and Director of Litigation Paul Orfanedes, as well as some of the conservative movement’s most influential and cutting-edge voices, including J. Christian Adams (Election Law Center), Matthew Boyle (The Daily Caller), Mike Flynn (Breitbart.com), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Vern McKinley (author, Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts), Anita Moncrief (former ACORN insider), Katie Pavlich (Townhall.com), Kerry Picket (The Washington Times), Peter Schweizer (Author, Throw Them All Out), Mark Tapscott (The Washington Examiner), and Matthew Vadum (Author, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayer).

Judicial Watch is also partnering with Movie to Movement, the grassroots group that helped turn out box-office-busting numbers of movie goers for the “Obama 2016.”

“The District of Corruption” is a companion piece to the New York Times best-selling book, “The Corruption Chronicles, Obama’s Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government,” by Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, which was released in July by Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions.

“For too long, our nation has suffered through a massive expansion of government power and corruption, the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This fall will see more than a few fictional portrayals of today’s Washington in theaters.  This movie is the unvarnished truth. The American people are tired of Washington corruption from both parties—that’s why Judicial Watch is the largest grassroots watchdog group in the nation. Our new partnership with Stephen Bannon, the nation’s preeminent conservative filmmaker, will educate the American people by giving them the truth about Obama’s corrupt machine and the longstanding problem of bipartisan corruption in Washington, DC.”

“In the long-running battle to save our country from the big government corruption and crony capitalism that now threatens its very foundations, Judicial Watch is the tip of the spear,” said Stephen K. Bannon. “This film does not pull a single punch. It is brutally honest. And it name names – from both political parties. Importantly, however, the movie also provides a reason to hope. This is a movie for the ages and is an incisive history of DC corruption over the last two decades. Our examination of the current crisis within the Obama administration is the most comprehensive narrative yet.”

Judicial Watch has filed 950 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and more than 90 lawsuits against the Obama administration on issues ranging from Obamacare to the continued funding of the criminal ACORN network; from tracking Wall Street bailout money to the unconstitutional use of czars; and to the attacks on the integrity of our nation’s elections. This documentary follows historic lawsuits against the Bush administration over secrecy issues, one of which ended up before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Stephen K. Bannon is the award-winning filmmaker behind critically acclaimed documentaries and feature films such as: “In The Face of Evil, Still Point in a Turning World,” “The Undefeated,” and The Tea Party Trilogy: “Generation Zero,” “Fire From the Heartland,” and “Battle for America.” Mr. Bannon is the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News, a former Naval Officer and Goldman Sachs investment banker, a co-founder of the National Tea Party Federation, and is a frequent speaker at Tea Party conventions and conferences.

About Judicial Watch (www.judicialwatch.org): Judicial Watch Inc., a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.  Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. The motto of Judicial Watch is: “Because no one is above the law!”

About Victory Film Group (www.victoryfilmgroup.com): Victory Film Group, via subsidiary Victory Films, develops, produces and distributes documentaries and films that address today’s leading political, socioeconomic and cultural issues, while incorporating the conservative perspective. Victory and its founders have written, directed and released five films, which are considered among critics as one of the best conservatively themed collections in film history.

About Constant Motion Entertainment (www.constantmotioninc.com): Constant Motion Entertainment (CME) is a full-service, award-winning entertainment company specializing in film and television production, special events and publishing.

It wasn’t enough for Eric Holder to earn the accolade of being the nation’s first sitting Attorney General to be found in criminal contempt by Congress for stonewalling the investigation of a disastrous experiment conducted by his office. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, the project allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons. Many of the guns have been linked to serious crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

Judicial Watch has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the various agencies that operate under it for records related to the Fast and Furious. As part of that ongoing investigation, last fall JW obtained internal government records that show the number of crimes connected to the failed gun-running venture is significantly higher than previously disclosed. This led to the broader congressional probe that Holder has impeded.

As the House publicly admonished him, Holder was at a fancy Disney resort in Florida praising a Latino civil rights group—League of United Latin American Citizens LULAC— best known for accusing a Mexican fast-food eatery of a “hate crime” for using a Chihuahua in a commercial. In the 1990s a top LULAC official accused the food chain of the hate crime by saying that “Mexican Americans are treated like dogs, they have to work like dogs, and now they’re being portrayed as dogs.”

Yet there was the country’s top law enforcement officer praising about 1,000 LULAC delegates at an upscale Disney resort, repeatedly chanting “all for one and one for all” in both English and Spanish. Holder bragged that his DOJ has filed more civil rights cases than in any previous period in the nation’s history and he highlighted an ongoing witch hunt against an Arizona sheriff known for cracking down on illegal immigration.

“I want to assure communities in Arizona and around the country, and you, that the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously enforce federal prohibitions against racial profiling and ethnic discrimination,” Holder told the crowd. He also assured that his department is pursuing “careful, thorough and independent” assessments of voter identification laws that Democrats assert discriminate against minorities.

He continued: “On these and other critical issues, you’ve succeeded in bringing a diverse range of partners together. You’ve proven the power of unity – and the virtues of diversity.  And you’ve breathed new life into the old adage that – more than 80 years ago – gave voice to LULAC’s mission and vision: Uno para todos, todos para uno.

This enduring ideal – of all for one, and one for all; and the common understanding – that, here in the United States, we rise and fall as one people, and that we will only succeed if we work together as one nation – has been at the heart of the success we’re gathered to celebrate today – and to advance. ”

The U.S. Border Patrol agent undoubtedly got his idea from a failed government project, dubbed Fast and Furious, that put U.S.-sold weapons in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran the once-secret program that allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which have been used in an unknown number of crimes.

The lost guns have been linked to violence on both sides of the border, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent (Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona. In that case, the guns—assault weapons known as AK-47s—were traced through their serial numbers to a Glendale, Arizona dealer that led to a Phoenix man the feds repeatedly allowed to smuggle firearms into Mexico.

Judicial Watch has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the ATF for Fast and Furious records and has already obtained internal government documents exposing a high number of crimes connected to the experiment. For instance, a Fast and Furious firearm (7.62mm Romarm/Cugir) was involved in aggravated assault against a police officer in Arizona and in Mexico the weapons have been used in a number of violent crimes. 

This week’s news of a Homeland Security agent getting busted only adds insult to injury. The Border Patrol officer (Ricardo Montalvo) from El Paso was arrested and charged for buying ammunition and firearms, such as AK-47 pistols, favored by Mexican drug cartels. The idea, according to a federal indictment cited in a news report, was to smuggle the goods to Mexico.

Ironically, the case is being investigated by the ATF, the same federal agency that masterminded the shameful Mexican gun-running operation in the first place. Issued by a grand jury, the 20-count indictment says Montalvo and his girlfriend were engaged in a conspiracy as “straw purchasers” who bought nine firearms, 20,000 rounds of ammunition and four flare launchers.  

Known as Fast and Furious, the federal experiment allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,700 guns which are believed to have been used in an unknown number of crimes.

In the past year lost guns have been linked to violence on both sides of the border while top administration officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, insist they knew nothing about the reckless operation. Among the first reports to surface; that Fast and Furious weapons were used to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent (Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona. The assault weapons known as AK-47s were traced through their serial numbers to an Arizona dealer the feds repeatedly allowed to smuggle firearms into Mexico, according to a mainstream newspaper.

This week the same publication published a scathing article that paints a clown-like portrait of the agency—Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—charged with running the program. It turns out that the ATF stumbled upon a top drug-cartel suspect targeted by its unscrupulous gun operation but let him go after he “pledged to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators.” 

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Seven months after launching the Fast and Furious operation, federal agents caught their main suspect in a remote Arizona outpost on the Mexican side, according to internal documents obtained by the newspaper. The drug lord, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta, had 74 pounds of ammunition and nine cell phones hidden in his German-made sports car. 

So what did the feds do? The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after Celis-Acosta promised to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators. Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico and later slipped back and forth across the border, illegally buying more American weapons and financing others. It’s all in the government records. You can’t make this stuff up.

Eventually Celis-Acosta got arrested, but the damage had been done and the government gun operation had spiraled out of control. Nearly 2,000 firearms have disappeared and scores have surfaced in Mexican crime scenes. Not surprisingly, the ATF refuses to explain why it didn’t arrest this drug lord when it had him the first time. An ATF spokesman quoted in this week’s story said: “Due to the fact that the criminal case is still ongoing in the courts, and the inspector general’s office is still investigating, we cannot comment about this.”

Judicial Watch is investigating the genesis of the Fast and Furious operation and has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the ATF to obtain records. Both agencies have refused to provide even the most basic information about the program and neither has responded by the statutorily mandated deadline.

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Known as Fast and Furious, the failed program was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which are believed to have been used in an unknown number of crimes.

In the past few months several media reports have linked the lost guns to violence on both sides of the border while high-ranking officials in the Obama Administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, insist they knew nothing about the reckless operation.

Among the first reports to surface; that Fast and Furious weapons were used to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent (Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona in mid December. The guns—assault weapons known as AK-47s—were traced through their serial numbers to a Glendale, Arizona dealer that led to a Phoenix man the feds repeatedly allowed to smuggle firearms into Mexico.

But details like these have surfaced slowly as the administration scrambles to decide what version of facts it chooses to give Americans. What’s certain is that federal agents lost track of high-powered rifles and other guns, which have been recovered in violent crimes, both in the U.S. and Mexico. A few days ago, the nation’s Assistant Attorney General (Ronald Weich) admitted that Fast and Furious weapons had been used in at least three violent crimes in the U.S. and eight others in Mexico.

The crimes were outlined by Weich in a letter, obtained by Judicial Watch this week, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. It was a response to the Vermont Democrat’s months-old request for details of crimes associated with guns from the now infamous operation. Besides the Border Patrol agent’s murder, a Fast and Furious firearm (7.62mm Romarm/Cugir) was involved in aggravated assault against a police officer in Arizona, Weich tells Leahy in the letter.

In Mexico the ATF has reported eight events in which guns purchased under Fast and Furious have been recovered in violent crimes, Weich writes. Among them were four firearms used for “kidnap/ransom,” two in homicides and one used during a violent exchange between cartels. A separate stash of Fast and Furious weapons was recovered in various parts of Mexico after being involved in “non-violent crimes,” according to Weich’s assessment.

For instance, 10 guns were retrieved in Atoyac de Alvarez after the Mexican military rescued a kidnap victim. Another 10 Fast and Furious weapons were also identified in Durango following a confrontation between Mexico’s military and an “armed group.” An additional 10 rifles were found in Chihuahua after the kidnapping of two people and the murder of a Mexican public official’s family member.

More than likely, this is only the tip of the iceberg. House investigators have formally asked the Obama Administration to hand over “all records” involving the scandalous gun program and the White House and Justice Department’s role in the matter, including that of top administration security officials. Expect some serious stalling on the part of the “most transparent administration in history.”

In June a congressional oversight committee offered a snippet of what those records may expose. In a report titled “The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents” the committee includes alarming testimony from ATF agents directly involved in the operation. For instance, ATF agents predicted the gunwalking experiment would lead to deaths and that one operation supervisor was “delighted” that walked guns showed up at crime scenes in Mexico.