In late 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder authorized raids against marijuana dispensaries in California, where medicinal marijuana is legal, in an effort to create a distraction from the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, a new book set for release Tuesday claims.

“Eric Holder, Obama’s embattled Attorney General, was under mounting pressure from Congress to explain the botched Fast and Furious sting operation, whereby two thousand assault rifles and other firearms were sold to suspected traffickers for the Mexican drug cartels,” Martin A. Lee writes in “Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical, Recreational and Scientific.”

“It was intended as an intelligence-gathering ploy, but U.S. agents lost track of most of these weapons.”

In an excerpt obtained and published by the left-wing news and opinion website TruthOut.org, Lee describes the Fast and Furious scandal — including how it led to the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry — and how Holder “stonewalled” Congress for months, “disavowing any knowledge of the caper despite documentation showing that high-level Justice Department officials aided the surveillance mission.”

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