Gunwalker Morning Roundup: Obama's 'I am not a Crook' Moment; Melson Chickens Out; "The AG is going to have to say what he knew & when he knew it."

"Run! Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me! I'm the Gunwalker Man!" Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson's future as a children's book.

T.L. Davis on "Barack Obama's 'I am not a Crook' Moment" at American Thinker.

Excellent question at Elm Tree Forge: "Why, Mr. Melson, did you chicken out?"

Which is the same question raised at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: "ATF refuses to appear before Senate (in Spanish)."

And at IntelDaily.com "Mexico: 230,000 Are Displaced by the 'Drug War'”

As the toll mounted in Mexico, anger continued over Operation Fast and Furious, a US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) program that allowed some 2,000 firearms to enter Mexico illegally in what appeared to be a bungled effort to trace the activities of US gun smugglers in the US Southwest. Many of the weapons presumably ended up being used by Mexican drug traffickers [see Update #1070]. In a Mar. 22 interview with the Spanish-language Univision television network, US president Barack Obama told correspondent Jorge Ramos: “Well, first of all, I did not authorize it. Eric Holder the attorney general did not authorize it. He’s been very clear that our policy is to catch gun runners and put them into jail.” Ramos asked Obama if he had been informed. “Absolutely not,” the president answered. “There may be a situation here which a serious mistake was made, and if that’s the case, then we’ll find out and we’ll hold somebody accountable.”

But a number of top US officials certainly knew about Fast and Furious. Darren Gil, the lead ATF official in Mexico at the time of the operation, said to CBS News on Mar. 25 that his supervisor told him that ATF director Kenneth Melson was aware of the program and that knowledge of the program wasn’t limited to the Treasury Department, which operates the ATF. “Not only is the [ATF] director aware of it, DOJ’s aware of it,” the supervisor said, referring to the US Department of Justice.

Gil, who retired from the ATF in December, said he was instructed not to tell his Mexican counterparts about Fast and Furious. Gil says he warned his supervisor: “When is this case going to shut down? The Mexicans are going to have a fit when they find out about it.”

And Matthew Boyle at The Daily Caller observes "Issa jumps into gunrunning scandal documents requests after State Dept. stonewalls Sen. Grassley."

“It will be up to the Attorney General to say whether he knew or not,” Issa said. “Right now, the president’s word about what somebody else knew would not be acceptable. As much as we love the president, we can accept him at his word – he didn’t know. The Attorney General is going to have to say what he knew and when he knew it – and, if he didn’t know, who in his hierarchy did know and when did they know it?”

Issa gave Clinton until 5 p.m. on April 12 to provide the documents.

And over at Democratic Underground a collectivist breathes an anxious concern. "rl6214" says --

I hope there isn't some email or recorded phone call that would show the president had any knowledge of it at all.

You just keep hopin', r16214.