Janet Napolitano at UCLA

Gary Fouse, fousesquawk:

The Burkle Center at UCLA has posted the video of Janet Napolitano's dry, boring speech at UCLA last month. If you are having trouble getting to sleep tonight, watching this is better than counting sheep. Otherwise, just skip to about the 36 minute mark and watch the No-borders Dreamers stage their chant and walkout followed by my question regarding Fast and Furious. This is where Janet takes umbrage at me rolling my eyes at her non-answer.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/news/article.asp?parentid=125738

Napolitano's answer was not only evasive; it was dishonest. She refers to the concept of "controlled delivery" in equating what ATF did in Fast and Furious with controlled deliveries as conducted by DEA. In the latter, agents are able to conduct a continuing surveillance on drugs that are either seized or still under surveillance up to the point where the ultimate intended recipient takes delivery, at which point, they can be arrested. Of course, this also applies to other contraband. This is clearly not what happened in Fast and Furious, nor was it even intended to do so. How can you arrest the intended recipients of guns in Mexico when the surveillance ends either at the US gun store or at the Mexican border? If you are watching guns purchased in the US (under surveillance) cross into Mexico, and the Mexican police are not involved -or even advised, where is the control? Who is going to be arrested? That was clearly not the goal. What was the goal? The only reasonable answer is that if the guns show up at shootings in Mexico, they can be traced back to the US and the administration's claim that 80-90% of guns in Mexico originate in the US is validated. Next step? Tighter control on gun sales and ownership. If you think that is a wild conspiracy theory, provide me with one that is more reasonable.

In addition, Napolitano refuses to go into her conversations with DOJ, either because according to her own testimony before Congress, there have been none, or there is something to hide in those contacts. By her own non-answer to my question, she shows herself to be complicit in a government cover-up of an operation in which (according to some reports) her own DHS had a supporting role.

Keep in mind as you watch her answer, this is a government head who has seen one, if not two of her own agents murdered by guns involved in Fast and Furious.