Mike Hits Another Homerun

Mike Vanderboegh of SipseyStreetIrregulars must be on the mend from his recent surgery and attendent health problems. He's just hit another homerun in the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. He's found definitive links between a murdered ICE agent and Operation Fast and Furious

Slain ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata who was killed in an ambush in Mexico in 2011 was the investigating officer into a seized shipment of firearms headed to Mexico. What makes this significant is that 50 out of the 80 guns seized were guns that walked due to Operation Fast and Furious. The Department of Homeland Security has long denied that Zapata had any connection to Operation Fast and Furious.

Congressional investigators permitted to view Department of Homeland Security documents related to the Fast and Furious operation have located and seen an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Report of Investigation (ROI) from August 2010 describing 80 weapons seized in an arms smuggling interdiction between Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas. Of these weapons, the majority (approximately 50) were noted to have come from Operation Fast & Furious in Arizona, purchased by Uriel Patino and Jacob Chambers. The ROI was written and signed by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot dead in an ambush at a fake roadblock in San Luis Potosí, Mexico on 15 February 2011. At the time of the report, Agent Zapata was assigned to the Laredo office.

Two of the weapons found at the murder scene were later traced back to Texas -- One was purchased in August 2010 near Houston on behalf of accused drug dealer Manuel Gomez Barba, and the other in October 2010 by a Dallas trafficking ring that included Otilio Osorio and his brother Ranferi. Much like Fast and Furious, both groups had been under ATF surveillance for many months, although ATF officials in Texas later denied that any gunwalking happened in their state. United State Senator John Cornyn has pressed Eric Holder and DOJ for details on any gunwalking in Texas. So far, he has been met with denials or silence.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Department of Justice have long denied that the case of Jaime Zapata had anything to do with Fast and Furious. The discovery of this ROI by Zapata, "puts the lie to that (expletives deleted) by Napolitano and Holder," according on source who spoke with this reporter on conditions of absolute anonymity.

Multiple sources including current and former employees of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have confirmed this explosive new revelation in the Fast & Furious investigation. Said one source, "I think (DHS) is covering up something big." He added, "I feel betrayed."

I wonder what Ms. Napolitano has to say about this. I've long considered her to be vying with Eric Holder for the bottom of the barrel in Obama's cabinet.