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Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 11-07-2011
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate
Friday, March 25, 2011
As the BATFE faces an increasing array of questions about its activities in the "Fast and Furious" and "Project Gunrunner" programs, the scandal has taken its first political casualty and President Obama has finally commented directly on these problems.
On March 20, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, resigned amid increasing criticisms from Mexican government officials. It was reported that the "Gun Runner" scandal was the last straw for President Felipe Calderon, who has said publicly that he does not trust Pascual.
When questioned by the media during his recent tour of South and Central America, President Obama claimed that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder had approved the investigations that led to hundreds and possibly thousands of firearms ending up in the hands of Mexican criminal cartels. Obama said, "There may be a situation here which [sic] a serious mistake was made" and went on to promise to find out and to hold those responsible accountable.
Congress is not waiting on the President, however, and there are now plans for investigations and hearings by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), along with other members of the committee, urged Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to conduct hearings, which Issa agreed to do. Chairman Issa has contacted BATFE Deputy Director Kenneth Melson and demanded his agency provide details about both "Fast and Furious" and "Project Gunrunner." Please click here to read that letter.
In addition, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has been a leading critic of these BATFE investigations, has again called for more answers, saying his requests for more information have been "stonewalled" by the Obama Administration. Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is now expanding his inquiries to include requests for information from Customs and Border Protection regarding gun trafficking in New Mexico. "No longer can this administration stand idly by and answer every question by saying that the Justice Department Inspector General is investigating," Grassley wrote. "There is too much at stake." Please click here to read Sen. Grassley's release dated March 24th and to find links to his letters to administration officials.
As the BATFE continues to petition for the authority to collect more data on sales of firearms, the growing scandal that has resulted from these two investigative programs raises serious questions about BATFE's procedures and its ability to effectively carry out its duties. The NRA fully supports the actions of Chairman Issa, Rep. Labrador and members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to fully uncover the extent of the mistakes and the damage caused by BATFE's mismanagement of these investigations.
On March 9, NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox sent letters to key leaders in Congress calling for hearings to examine the firearms trafficking investigations tactics employed by the BATFE.
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted an amendment to H.R. 1 offered by Reps. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) and Dan Boren (D-OK) that prohibits the use of federal funds for a new and unauthorized multiple sales reporting scheme proposed by the BATFE. The measure passed the chamber (277-149) with broad bipartisan support.
This week, the NRA-ILA sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner asking Congress to preserve the Boren-Rehberg amendment in the Continuing Resolution relating to federal government funding. Please click here to read the letter.
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=6493
****
Obama Administration Under Mounting Pressure for Botched Gun Trafficking Investigation
By William La Jeunesse
Published March 28, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/28/obama-administration-mounting-pressure-botched-gun-trafficking-investigation/#ixzz1Rm7qxQYq
***
Project Gunrunner update: Issa subpoenas the stonewallers
By Michelle Malkin April 1, 2011 10:36 AM
Our GOP watchdogs are on the job. Project Gunrunner is not just going be swept under the rug by Obama's corruptocrats.
Just in…
April 1, 2011 Contact: Frederick Hill (202-225-0037)
Chairman Issa Subpoenas ATF for 'Project Gunrunner' Documents
Subpoena comes after ATF fails to meet earlier deadline
WASHINGTON. D.C. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today announced the issuance of a subpoena to the Department of Justices' Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for documents related to the highly controversial "Project Gunrunner."
"The unwillingness of this Administration most specifically the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to answer questions about this deadly serious matter is deeply troubling," said Chairman Issa. "Allegations surrounding this program are serious and the ability of the Justice Department to conduct an impartial investigation is in question. Congressional oversight is necessary to get the truth about what is really happening."
On March 16, 2011, Chairman Issa wrote a letter to Acting Director Kenneth Melson of the ATF requesting specific documents related to Project Gunrunner, its "Fast and Furious" component, and records related to the death of Border Agent Brian Terry. ATF failed to meet the March 30th deadline for producing these documents and furthermore refused to voluntarily commit to any date for producing them.
Media reports have raised questions about the handling of operations involving gun trafficking into Mexico specifically the allegation that ATF has had a policy of permitting and even encouraging the movement of guns into Mexico by straw purchasers. This practice may have contributed to the deaths of hundreds on both sides of the border, including federal law enforcement agents. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who has also been pursuing the matter, recently stated, "I'm still asking questions and we're still getting the runaround from the Justice Department, [t]hey're stonewalling."
President Obama recently stated that neither he nor Attorney General Holder authorized this operation. His statement did not specify whether Attorney General Holder was aware of this policy or who did authorize it. The Committee's investigation seeks answers to these questions and the true nature of Project Gunrunner.
Documents subpoenaed and due to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by April 13, 2011, include:
1. Documents and communications relating to the genesis of Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, and any memoranda or reports involving any changes to either program at or near the time of the release of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General report about Project Gunrunner in November 2010.
2. Documents and communications relating to individuals responsible for authorizing the decision to "walk" guns to Mexico in order to follow them and capture a "bigger fish."
3. Documents and communications relating to any investigations conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or any other DOJ component following the fatal shooting of Agent Brian Terry, including information pertaining to two guns found at the crime scene that may have been connected to Project Gunrunner.
4. Documents and communications relating to any weapons recovered at the crime scene or during the investigation into the death of Agent Brian Terry.
5. Documents and communications between ATF and the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) who sold weapons to Jaime Avila, including any Report of Investigation (ROI) or other records relating to a December 17, 2009 meeting "to discuss his role as an FFL during this investigation."
6. A copy of the presentation, approximately 200 pages long, that the Group 7 Supervisor made to officials at ATF headquarters in the spring of 2010.
7. Documents and communications relating to Operation Fast and Furious between and among ATF headquarters and Special Agent in Charge William D. Newell, Assistant Special Agents in Charge Jim Needles and George Gillette, Group Supervisor David Voth, or any Case Agent from November 1, 2009 to the present. The response to this component of the subpoena shall include a memorandum, approximately 30 pages long, from SAC Newell to ATF headquarters following the arrest of Jaime Avila and the death of Agent Brian Terry.
8. Documents and communications relating to complaints or objections by ATF agents about: (1) encouraging, sanctioning, or otherwise allowing FFLs to sell firearms to known or suspected straw buyers, (2) failure to maintain surveillance on known or suspected straw buyers, (3) failure to maintain operational control over weapons purchased by known or suspected straw buyers, or (4) letting known or suspected straw buyers with American guns enter Mexico.
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/01/project-gunrunner-update-issa-subpoenas-the-stonewallers/
***
Hearings Scheduled, Subpoenas To Be Issued In "Project Gunrunner" Investigation
Friday, June 10, 2011
The ongoing and escalating investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Project Gunrunner" program has ratcheted up another notch this week as it was reported that subpoenas will soon be issued to federal officials associated with this controversial program.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will issue the subpoenas in yet another attempt to find out if "Project Gunrunner" contributed to the killing of a Border Patrol agent. Rep. Issa's committee has also announced that two hearings on this disastrous operation will be held next week (Monday from 1:00 -- 3:00 p.m., and Wednesday from 9:30 -- 11:30 a.m.).
"Fast and Furious" was a part of the five-year-old "Project Gunrunner" program that encouraged border-state dealers to sell thousands of guns to suspicious buyers, even after suspecting these buyers were working for Mexican drug cartels.
A June 6 article in TheHill reports that two of the guns from the operation were found at the scene of an Arizona gun battle in December between U.S. law enforcement and members of a drug gang. That exchange resulted in the tragic death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, but officials have not revealed whether the bullet that struck him came from the guns the BATFE was supposed to be tracking. The article also reports that guns from the "Fast and Furious" operation might have been used in an attack on a Mexican government helicopter that was grounded after being fired upon by suspected members of a drug cartel.
Issa has been critical of the Department of Justice, which oversees BATFE, for refusing to provide all of the documents he's requested and for not making available all of the officials he's attempted to interview.
According to the article, Rep. Issa said in a recent interview with Fox News, "We have a slew of subpoenas we expect to be issuing for people here in Washington. What we haven't gotten one bit of is -- here in Washington, far away from the actual investigation and prosecutions that they seem to be using as a façade to protect them -- here in Washington, they're not making one agent available, one hierarchy available, and we will be issuing subpoenas because we have to," Issa said.
Stay tuned to future Grassroots Alerts for new developments.
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=6908
***
Report describes federal agents' state of panic' over gun sales
McClatchy Newspapers | Posted: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 9:00 pm
SEATTLE - Federal gun agents in Arizona - convinced that "someone was going to die" when their agency allowed weapons sales to suspected Mexican drug traffickers - made anguished pleas to be permitted to make arrests but were rebuffed, according to a new congressional report on the controversial law enforcement probe.
Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told congressional investigators that there was "a state of panic" that the guns used in the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in January and two U.S. agents in Mexico a month later might have been sold under the U.S. surveillance operation.
"I used the word anxiety. The term I used amongst my peers is pucker factor," Larry Alt, special agent with ATF's Phoenix field division, told investigators preparing a joint staff report for U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report will be released Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Neither of those shootings was ultimately linked to the "Fast and Furious" probe, though two weapons sold to a suspect under surveillance were found at the scene of the fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales in December.
Terry's family will be among the key witnesses at an oversight committee hearing Wednesday on the ATF operation, under which the bureau allowed purchases of high-powered weapons in an attempt to track their progress into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. According to the report, and numerous interviews with the Los Angeles Times, several ATF agents regarded the operation as dangerous and misguided.
At least 195 of the weapons have been traced to Mexico, found mainly at crime scenes, but ATF agents quoted in the report said more than 1,700 firearms were trafficked "to known criminals or cartel elements south of the border and elsewhere" under the operation.
"I cannot see anyone who has one iota of concern for human life being OK with this," Agent John Dodson told committee interviewers.
In one case, Agent Pete Forcelli told the interviewers, an agent was making insistent calls over the radio, saying that gun traffickers had recognized him and begging for permission to stop the suspects. "But he was told to not stop the car with the guns in it," he said.
Dodson said the target was followed picking up money, buying guns and dropping them off somewhere else but recognized he was being followed and made obvious attempts to evade the surveillance. "I mean, there is a verbal screaming match over the radio about how - what are you talking about? There is no better time or reason to pull this guy over than right now," Dodson related.
Issa and Grassley have been butting heads with ATF supervisors and senior officials at the Justice Department who signed off on the Project Gunrunner operation, which was intended to begin catching the powerful drug cartel traffickers in Mexico and the U.S. who were receiving weapons from the relatively low-level "straw purchasers" who were paid to buy them from U.S. gun dealers.
The two agencies, the Republican congressmen say, have refused to provide documents about the origin, direction and supervision of the operation.
The Justice Department has provided some information, but officials say disclosing their files now could compromise the trial of the traffickers accused of purchasing the weapons found at the scene of Terry's killing, and also that of one of the suspected border bandits, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, 34, who was arrested at the scene of the Terry shootout and faces charges of second-degree murder.
http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-regional/article_615aaaaa-9702-11e0-ba10-001cc4c03286.html
June 15th:
Feds watched as US guns were shipped to cartels
"Three federal firearms investigators told Congress on Wednesday that they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels in a risky U.S. law enforcement operation that went out of control."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43413017/ns/world_news-americas/
***
Obama's the Target of Mexico Gunrunning Probe
by Roger Hedgecock
06/17/2011
Did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), an agency of President Obama's Justice Department, operate a program that deliberately allowed some 3,500 guns bought in the U.S. to be "walked" across the Mexican border and into the waiting hands of the murderous Mexican drug cartels? At first, PresidentObama and Attorney General Eric Holder denied such a program existed.
Four ATF agents who worked in the program, called Operation Fast and Furious, however, answered yes this week in testimony before the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.).
Special Agent John Dodson testified that he was assigned to the Phoenix office of ATF and specifically to Group VII, the designation of the Fast and Furious team. There Dodson found that ATF agents had been following 40 individuals who were known "straw purchasers" of guns for the cartels from federal government-licensed gun shops in the U.S. Gun shop owners who called the ATF with concerns, to report suspicious buyers, were told to complete the sales.
In 2009, Obama, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Dianne Feinstein had all charged that the increasing violence in Mexico was caused by guns purchased too easily in the U.S. They called on Congress to act to tighten gun control laws.
Obama specifically claimed 90% of the weapons in the cartels' hands were purchased in the U.S.sheer nonsense. Of the 100,000 or so guns recovered by the Mexicans at crime scenes at the time, 18,000 were found to be manufactured, sold or imported from the U.S. Of those, 7,900 came from federally licensed gun shops. Of those, up to 3,500 came from Operation Fast and Furious.
Was Operation Fast and Furious an Obama program to create a self-fulfilling prophecy and accomplish a gun control objective? Again the agents' testimony was clear.
Over 10 months in 2009 and 2010, Dodson testified that on an almost daily basis, he was ordered to take notes, record conversations, videotape gun purchases, make reports and track the movements of these straw buyers but nothing more.
With everyone knowing the guns were headed for Mexico and the drug cartels, Dodson and his fellow agents were ordered to not stop or arrest the suspects or impede the flow of weapons.
When the straw buyers handed the guns off to third parties, ATF agents were told to follow the straw buyers, not the third parties who headed for the border with the guns. When the agents objected, they were told to "get with the program" and that "higher-ups" including "senior ATF officials" had sanctioned the operation.
In a Jan. 25, 2011, Phoenix press conference, Special Agent in Charge William Newell was asked whether ATF agents were ever ordered to allow guns to "walk" into Mexico. He answered, "Hell no!"
Leaked e-mail traffic from spring 2010 documents show that ATF management from Acting Director Kenneth Melson on down were personally briefed in Phoenix on Operation Fast and Furious by Newell.
One of these e-mails describes Melson's intense interest in the program, including getting the IP address for the hidden cameras located in a gun shop in Arizona so he could watch the straw buyer buy guns on a screen in his Washington, D.C., office.
Melson later said Fast and Furious was really a sting operation "gone wrong." The agents had been ordered not to stop the little fish (the straw buyers) so that the guns could be traced to the big fish (the cartel bosses).
This lame explanation ignored the fact that ATF agents were ordered to not follow the guns and that ATF had no jurisdiction to take down anyone in Mexico. In fact, no "sting" ever occurred, no arrests of cartel bosses ever happened. ATF made no effort to trace the guns after they crossed the border.
ATF agents feared that one day one of these guns would show up at a crime scene. That day came one night last December when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, armed with a bean bag gun, was killed by an AK-47 armed cartel bandito in the Arizona desert. The serial numbers on two AK-47s found at the site of the shooting identified them as coming from one of the straw purchases that the ATF agents had been tracking but were ordered not to stop.
The Mexican government has linked 150 of its police or military casualties to Fast and Furious guns. As Issa pointed out, referring to a State Department report, in the last year 111 Americans were killed in Mexicovictims of the drug war.
After bloggers started talking about what they called Project Gunwalker, CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson began a series of reports that blew the story wide open. On-air interviews with the ATF agents made Gunwalker a big story on both sides of the border.
At this point, Obama said neither he nor Holder had authorized the program, but admitted "mistakes had been made" and vowed to "hold the responsible parties accountable." Holder ordered an internal investigation.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa) repeatedly sent letters to Holder demanding information. In a February 4, 2011, response letter to Grassley, Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ron Weich described as "false" Grassley's assertion that ATF had knowingly allowed guns to be purchased and walked into Mexico.
Weich, a former aide to Sen. Harry Reid, told Grassley that "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally, and prevent their transportation to Mexico." Challenged on the truth of this statement, the Justice Department says that because the straw buyers themselves did not cross the border but handed the weapons off to third parties, the statement was true. Huh?
In 2009-'10, the ATF agents were ordered to not arrest the "little fish." Following revelations of the Gunwalker program, the Justice Department indicted 20 of the straw buyers who were known to ATF before Fast and Furious began. Then Justice stonewalled answering any more letters seeking information on the program from Issa or from Grassley and refused to respond to Issa's committee subpoenas on the grounds that there was an ongoing criminal prosecution!
Rahm Emanuel, when he was Obama's chief of staff, famously said that no crisis should ever go to waste if it could advance the agenda. Did Obama go Rahm one better, advancing the gun-control agenda by manufacturing a crisis caused by gunrunning into Mexico, where one of the gunrunners was the U.S. government?
Members of the Mexican Congress think the answer is yes and have opened their own investigation. From the Mexican standpoint, Operation Fast and Furious was an act of war on Mexico.
For Americans of a certain age, the next question is, "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44246
****
Hearing On "Fast And Furious" Uncovers Serious Failure At BATFE
Friday, June 17, 2011
The congressional hearings held this week by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that the gun smuggling investigation known as "Fast and Furious" that was implemented out of the Phoenix Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) office was conducted in a reckless manner that led to the illegal sale of thousands of firearms. Many of those firearms ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other criminals, and may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Some of the most important findings of the hearing and the investigative report compiled by the Committee staff include:
BATFE knowingly allowed as many as 2,500 firearms to be sold illegally to known or suspected straw purchasers. One of those purchasers accounted for over 700 illegal guns.
BATFE ordered its agents working the program not to arrest illegal gun buyers or to interdict thousands of guns that were allowed to "walk" into criminal hands.
Senior BATFE officials in Washington were regularly briefed on the operation and approved of the tactics employed.
BATFE agents who opposed the operation and who raised objections were told to "get with the program" and threatened with job retaliation if they continued their opposition.
A number of BATFE agents who were assigned to "Fast and Furious" testified about the operation.
Special Agent John Dodson, in his prepared testimony, stated: "Simply put, during this operation known as Fast and Furious, we, ATF, failed to fulfill one of our most fundamental obligations, to caretake the public trust; in part, to keep guns out of the hands of criminals."
Dodson, along with Special Agents Olindo James Casa and Peter Forcelli each voiced strong opposition to the tactics employed that allowed so many firearms to be sold illegally. In each case, their objections were repeatedly dismissed by BATFE superiors.
In fact, Special Agent Casa testified that BATFE officials sent out an e-mail rebuking those who opposed the plan with thinly veiled threats of professional retaliation. "Based on my eighteen years of experience with ATF," testified Casa, "I did not think the e-mail was an empty threat and took it very serious. It has become common practice for ATF Supervisors to retaliate against employees that do not blindly toe the company line, no matter what the consequences."
Agent Casa stated that agents were ordered not to take action against illegal gun buyers or to seize the firearms. Instead, surveillance was regularly terminated without further action.
Agent Casa went on to describe the operation as recklessly planned and implemented with the purpose of allowing firearms to be illegally trafficked.
Other testimony contradicted the long held position of anti-gun politicians that U.S. gun stores are part of criminal gun trafficking. In truth, gun dealers regularly cooperate with law enforcement and are a crucial ally in fighting gun traffickers.
As Agent Forcelli put it: "The gun dealers were our friends. They helped us make a lot of these cases. … But the problem is then, by getting them mixed up in this thing and encouraging to sell -- encouraging them to sell guns when they decided to stop did not help our reputation with the gun industry."
In total, the witness statements and the findings of the staff report paint a shocking picture of an operation that intentionally allowed thousands of guns to end up in the hands of some of the most violent criminals in North America. It also showed that senior officials of the BATFE, and not just regional or field supervisors, approved of the operation and received regular reports on its progress.
The failure of the BATFE to conduct its law enforcement duties in a responsible manner and the failure of senior leadership to heed the warnings and objections of field agents directly increased the level of violence in the southwest border region and increased the threat by ruthless drug cartels to law enforcement officers and private citizens, both in the U.S. and in Mexico.
The hearings and report also show two additional serious problems.
First, since the story of this reckless operation became known, the Department of Justice has refused to fully respond to congressional inquiries. Both Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee have repeatedly requested full disclosure and been rebuffed. After nearly six months, DOJ continues to stonewall. Chairman Issa pointed out that even the information that was provided to the committee was heavily redacted, with most of the key information blacked out.
This exchange between Rep. Issa and Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich clearly shows the ongoing refusal of the DOJ to cooperate:
Chairman Issa: "Who authorized this program that got people killed? Who here in Washington authorized it?
Weich: "We don't know."
"We don't know" is also the answer Attorney General Eric Holder provided to that same question when asked a few weeks ago. But after six months of scandal and scrutiny, it seems hard to believe the Attorney General still cannot answer this simple question. Or is it that he will not?
The hearings also revealed just how far the anti-gun apologists for the Obama administration will go to change the subject and try to use any crisis to advance their anti-gun agenda.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, attempted to turn the hearings into a discussion of our gun laws. He announced that the Democrats on the committee will hold their own hearings to bring in witnesses that will argue for more gun laws.
Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the reckless misuse of law enforcement authority by the BATFE and the agency's intentional failure to stop the illegal sale of firearms to criminals, Rep. Cummings and other anti-gun politicians still believe that more gun laws are needed. In fact, the investigation of this scandal proves that federal and state law enforcement, including BATFE, have all the tools they need, except the leadership needed to conduct criminal investigations in a responsible manner. Clearly, in the case of operation "Fast and Furious" that leadership failed spectacularly.
For more information on the hearing, please see the following materials:
Joint Congressional Staff Report
Hearing On "Fast And Furious" Uncovers Serious Failure At BATFE
Friday, June 17, 2011
The congressional hearings held this week by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that the gun smuggling investigation known as "Fast and Furious" that was implemented out of the Phoenix Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) office was conducted in a reckless manner that led to the illegal sale of thousands of firearms. Many of those firearms ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other criminals, and may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Some of the most important findings of the hearing and the investigative report compiled by the Committee staff include:
BATFE knowingly allowed as many as 2,500 firearms to be sold illegally to known or suspected straw purchasers. One of those purchasers accounted for over 700 illegal guns.
BATFE ordered its agents working the program not to arrest illegal gun buyers or to interdict thousands of guns that were allowed to "walk" into criminal hands.
Senior BATFE officials in Washington were regularly briefed on the operation and approved of the tactics employed.
BATFE agents who opposed the operation and who raised objections were told to "get with the program" and threatened with job retaliation if they continued their opposition.
A number of BATFE agents who were assigned to "Fast and Furious" testified about the operation.
Special Agent John Dodson, in his prepared testimony, stated: "Simply put, during this operation known as Fast and Furious, we, ATF, failed to fulfill one of our most fundamental obligations, to caretake the public trust; in part, to keep guns out of the hands of criminals."
Dodson, along with Special Agents Olindo James Casa and Peter Forcelli each voiced strong opposition to the tactics employed that allowed so many firearms to be sold illegally. In each case, their objections were repeatedly dismissed by BATFE superiors.
In fact, Special Agent Casa testified that BATFE officials sent out an e-mail rebuking those who opposed the plan with thinly veiled threats of professional retaliation. "Based on my eighteen years of experience with ATF," testified Casa, "I did not think the e-mail was an empty threat and took it very serious. It has become common practice for ATF Supervisors to retaliate against employees that do not blindly toe the company line, no matter what the consequences."
Agent Casa stated that agents were ordered not to take action against illegal gun buyers or to seize the firearms. Instead, surveillance was regularly terminated without further action.
Agent Casa went on to describe the operation as recklessly planned and implemented with the purpose of allowing firearms to be illegally trafficked.
Other testimony contradicted the long held position of anti-gun politicians that U.S. gun stores are part of criminal gun trafficking. In truth, gun dealers regularly cooperate with law enforcement and are a crucial ally in fighting gun traffickers.
As Agent Forcelli put it: "The gun dealers were our friends. They helped us make a lot of these cases. … But the problem is then, by getting them mixed up in this thing and encouraging to sell -- encouraging them to sell guns when they decided to stop did not help our reputation with the gun industry."
In total, the witness statements and the findings of the staff report paint a shocking picture of an operation that intentionally allowed thousands of guns to end up in the hands of some of the most violent criminals in North America. It also showed that senior officials of the BATFE, and not just regional or field supervisors, approved of the operation and received regular reports on its progress.
The failure of the BATFE to conduct its law enforcement duties in a responsible manner and the failure of senior leadership to heed the warnings and objections of field agents directly increased the level of violence in the southwest border region and increased the threat by ruthless drug cartels to law enforcement officers and private citizens, both in the U.S. and in Mexico.
The hearings and report also show two additional serious problems.
First, since the story of this reckless operation became known, the Department of Justice has refused to fully respond to congressional inquiries. Both Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee have repeatedly requested full disclosure and been rebuffed. After nearly six months, DOJ continues to stonewall. Chairman Issa pointed out that even the information that was provided to the committee was heavily redacted, with most of the key information blacked out.
This exchange between Rep. Issa and Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich clearly shows the ongoing refusal of the DOJ to cooperate:
Chairman Issa: "Who authorized this program that got people killed? Who here in Washington authorized it?"
Weich: "We don't know."
"We don't know" is also the answer Attorney General Eric Holder provided to that same question when asked a few weeks ago. But after six months of scandal and scrutiny, it seems hard to believe the Attorney General still cannot answer this simple question. Or is it that he will not?
The hearings also revealed just how far the anti-gun apologists for the Obama administration will go to change the subject and try to use any crisis to advance their anti-gun agenda.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, attempted to turn the hearings into a discussion of our gun laws. He announced that the Democrats on the committee will hold their own hearings to bring in witnesses that will argue for more gun laws.
Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the reckless misuse of law enforcement authority by the BATFE and the agency's intentional failure to stop the illegal sale of firearms to criminals, Rep. Cummings and other anti-gun politicians still believe that more gun laws are needed. In fact, the investigation of this scandal proves that federal and state law enforcement, including BATFE, have all the tools they need, except the leadership needed to conduct criminal investigations in a responsible manner. Clearly, in the case of operation "Fast and Furious" that leadership failed spectacularly.
For more information on the hearing, please see the following materials:
Joint Congressional Staff Report
Hearing Transcript
Written Testimony of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Written Testimony of Special Agent Olindo James Casa
Written Testimony of Special Agent John Dodson
Written Testimony of Special Agent Peter Forcelli
Written Testimony of Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich
News links:
Issa: DoJ should be 'ashamed'
The Hill, June 16, 2011
House Panel Slams 'Fast and Furious' Gun Operation Tied to Border Agent's Death
Fox News , June 15, 2011
Family of Slain Agent Seeks Answers at Gun Hearing
The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2011
Democrats try to channel scandal into gun control push
Daily Caller, June 15, 2011
Deadly U.S. gun operation called 'felony stupid'
CNN Wire, June 15, 2011
Joint Congressional Staff Repoort
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/jointstffreport.pdf
Hearing Transcript
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/hearingtranscript.pdf
Written Testimony of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/CGrassley.pdf
Written Testimony of Special Agent Olindo James Casa
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/SACasa.pdf
Written Testimony of Special Agent John Dodson
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/SADodson.pdf
Written Testimony of Special Agent Peter Forcelli
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/SAForcelli.pdf
Written Testimony of Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich
http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/AAGWeich.pdf
News stories:
Issa: DoJ should be 'ashamed'
The Hill, June 16, 2011
House Panel Slams 'Fast and Furious' Gun Operation Tied to Border Agent's Death
Fox News , June 15, 2011
Family of Slain Agent Seeks Answers at Gun Hearing
The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2011
Democrats try to channel scandal into gun control push
Daily Caller, June 15, 2011
Deadly U.S. gun operation called 'felony stupid'
CNN Wire, June 15, 2011
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JUNE 18, 2011
Obama tossing Melson under the bus?
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/18/obama-tossing-melson-under-the-bus/
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As 'Fast and Furious' Fiasco Unfolds, Obama ATF Nominee Prepares Return to Washington
With the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives facing its worst scandal in decades, the man nominated by President Obama to take over as its next chief is headed to Washington this week to meet with top Justice Department officials.
Andrew Traver was nominated in November by President Obama to become the permanent ATF director, but his nomination has been held by objections from groups that say Traver is hostile to the rights of gun owners.
Nonetheless, Traver's return to Washington Tuesday for a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole could be the first step toward ousting acting director, Kenneth Melson.
Melson has led the agency since April 2009 supplanting a Bush administration acting director who was also unable to get Senate confirmation over the objections of gun rights groups.
But it was during Melson's tenure that the ATF Phoenix office began "Operation Fast and Furious" in the fall of 2009. Fast and Furious was described as an effort to trace and stop the trafficking of illegal guns but instead allowed thousands of guns to get into the hands of Mexican cartel members.
Officials at the Justice Department and the White House say it's "speculative" to conclude that Traver's arrival in Washington is a sign that the Obama administration is looking to oust Melson in the wake of the politically damaging operation.
But The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report Traver's return, said sources indicated that the administration is weighing whether to name him as acting director or choose another interim chief while awaiting Senate action on his nomination.
Fast and Furious has been the center of an investigation by Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The two say they learned about the program after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010. At the crime scene were two guns linked to the Fast and Furious operation.
At an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing last week, three federal firearms investigators testified that they wanted to "intervene and interdict" loads of guns, but were repeatedly ordered to step aside to allow suspected smugglers to carry the weapons over the border.
Grassley said that he wants to know from how high those orders came.
"The president said he didn't authorize it, and that the attorney general didn't authorize it. They have both admitted that quote unquote a serious mistake may have been made," Grassley testified. "There are a lot of questions and a lot of investigating to do, but one thing has become clear already -- this was no mistake."
Click here to read more from The Wall Street Journal.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/19/acting-head-atf-likely-out-after-fast-and-furious-fiasco/#ixzz1Pl3NlZ00
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From the publisher's foreword to "The Last Circle":
The Last Circle is a tale of our time: an era of "high crimes and misdemeanors." These acts are not more heinous, but are simply committed by personages in "lofty" positions, for preeminence bestows deeper responsibilities, stricter standards, and demands honest transparency, especially while dedicating our common weal..... Finding Antony Sutton's books in the late '80s finally gave me some perspective on what my former-OSS/G2/CIA father had originally told me some twenty years earlier about a hidden world behind the curtain: of intelligence agencies, secret societies, war, propaganda, the drug trade, unlimited budgets and the attending undercurrents of corruption. Hubris plumped for a fall....TrineDay has brought many stories of contemporary corruption to press, only to see the system deftly sidestep astounding revelations with disdain, malice and fluffery.
Thomas Jefferson declared, "The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty."
Venturing on the Internet you find the long-suffering aren't remaining quiet, yet the hubbub is kept at bay through spin, lies, and a compliant media, leaving us wandering through a foggy soporific fraud."
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A 'Fast and Furious' border fiasco
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fast_and_furious_border_fiasco_TJPBzp26firXjfdeZitzpL#ixzz1PpeUpGwQ
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REPORT: ATF chief resisting pressure to step down...
'Eager' to testify about botched gun operation...
The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.
Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.
Melson does not want to be "the fall guy" for the program, under which ATF agents allowed straw purchasers to acquire more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers, the sources said.
The idea was to track the guns to drug cartel leaders. But that goal proved elusive, and the guns turned up at shootings in Mexico, as well as at the slaying in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.
"He is saying he won't go," said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. "He has told them, 'I'm not going to be the fall guy on this.' "
Added a second source, who also requested anonymity: "He's resisting. He does not want to go."
Melson has an open invitation to appear on Capitol Hill. So far, he has not been given Justice Department approval to appear before Congress.
This week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he hoped that Melson would give a full accounting of how the gun operation was conceived and carried out.
He also said Melson should resign, and that other senior leaders at ATF and the Justice Department should be held accountable as well.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also is awaiting answers from Melson, and cautioned this week that even if the acting director stepped down, it "would be, by no means, the end of our inquiry."
The Justice Department said it was cooperating with congressional leaders.
"We've been working with the [Issa] committee on interviews, including Melson, and will continue to do that," said Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokesperson.
At ATF headquarters in Washington, officials said Melson "continues to be focused" on leading the agency. His chief spokesman, Scott Thomasson, added, "We are not going to comment on any speculations" about Melson's status as head of the agency.
At a House hearing last week, testimony from ATF agents portrayed Melson as closely involved in overseeing the venture. At one point, according to documents released by Congress, he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed in order to watch some of the illegal straw purchases.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110624,0,7283758.story
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Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 11-07-2011
M.D. Harmon: Project Gunwalker reveals rot buried deeply in D.C.
What do you think should happen to those responsible for a secret plan to obtain high-powered guns from U.S. firearms dealers and furnish the weapons to Mexican drug cartels for the express purpose of killing or injuring innocent people?
Hideous, right? A horrendous plot by despicable people to violate U.S. laws in a conspiracy that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, right?
Now, what if it already has been conceived and carried out and actually has been linked to the deaths of at least one prominent Mexican lawyer and a U.S. Border Patrol agent?
Even worse, right?
Now, what if you found out it was an agency of the U.S. government that did it?
And, to finish off this list of horrors, what if the agency responsible was the specific one charged with enforcing our firearms laws -- the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)?
Well, it is. And that's what's driving Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, aided by Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., and his House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to conduct a full-fledged investigation of what our government called "Operation Fast and Furious."
Also known by the nickname "Project Gunwalker," the plan ran from 2009 until the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in a shootout last Dec. 15. A gun found at the scene was on the plan's tracking list.
Gunwalker was designed to identify gun smugglers and link them to illegal gun purchases in the United States.
However, these specific purchases, which involved somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000 semi-automatic rifles and pistols, were directed by the government with the (apparently forced) cooperation of U.S. firearms dealers, whose licenses to do business are controlled by the BATFE.
USAToday reported last week that Agent John Dodson, testifying to the committee, said that in his entire career, he had "never been involved in or even heard of an operation in which law enforcement officers let guns walk."
He continued: "I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest."
The paper quoted Agent Pete Forcelli, a supervisor in the Phoenix BATFE office, as saying, "What we have here is a colossal failure of leadership. We weren't giving guns to people for killing bear, we were giving guns to people to kill other humans. This was a catastrophic disaster."
The paper also quoted Forcelli, Dodson and BATFE agent Olindo Casa as saying they repeatedly raised concerns to their bosses about the risks associated with Fast and Furious, which was named after a movie in which a civilian drag racer cooperates with the FBI in a sting operation. But, they told Issa's committee, their warnings were dismissed.
And once the guns crossed over into Mexico, BATFE had no way of tracking them unless and until they were found at a crime scene.
That is, these weapons were apparently furnished to known gun-runners in violation of U.S. law for the explicit purpose of being used in a crime, so that a follow-up investigation could disclose their paths from the dealer to the crime scene.
That's how the weapon found at the scene of Agent Terry's murder was identified (the specific weapon that killed him has not been recovered, but it certainly could have been a Gunwalker firearm).
The Justice Department says Attorney General Eric Holder was "unaware" of the plan, which if true makes him totally out of touch, and if false is an indictment of his leadership.
Grassley and Issa said the operation was a failure, netting only 20 low-level suspects.
"Who thought it was a good idea?" Grassley said. "Why did this happen? The president said he didn't authorize it and that the attorney general didn't authorize it. They have both admitted that a 'serious mistake' may have been made. There are a lot of questions and a lot of investigating to do. But one thing has become clear already -- this was no mistake."
Indeed, Issa said top BATFE officials in Washington were briefed weekly on the program.
Justice says it is conducting its own investigation, but with the department so compromised, a special investigator with no ties to the government should be appointed.
Finally, the conservative blogosphere sees a deeper agenda that is worth mentioning. For some time now, Holder and the Obama administration, right up to the president himself, have been linking U.S. gun dealers to illegal sales to Mexican cartels.
President Obama has claimed that "90 percent" of cartel guns seized by Mexican authorities are linked to U.S. dealers.
However, those assertions have been countered by firearms rights advocates, who point out that percentage only applies to the small minority of guns captured from the cartels that can be traced.
Fully automatic machine guns and antitank rockets (which are illegal to sell in the United States) used by the cartels likely come from international arms dealers, while other weapons, including some U.S. guns, are from Mexican military deserters who have joined the gangs in large numbers.
According to Bill McMahon, a BATFE deputy assistant director cited in Investor's Business Daily, the quantity of non-military U.S. weapons found in cartel hands is 8 percent, not 90.
Given the obvious distortion, these sources wonder if Gunwalker didn't also have the goal of driving up the number of weapons traced to U.S. sources to help push the administration's anti-gun agenda.
It's hard to believe our law enforcement officials would lie to support a political scheme.
However, it's also almost impossible to believe they would give guns to drug gangs.
But they did.
M.D. Harmon is an editorial writer. He can be contacted at 791-6482 or at:
mharmon@mainetoday.com
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Fast and Furious Fiasco: Time to Abolish the ATF
Voltaire observed "It's a good thing to kill an admiral now and then to encourage the others." This observation inspires me to suggest that when an agency carries out such a bit of idiotic malfeasance as the ATF's operation "Fast and Furious" with the cooperation of agents at all levels of the spectrum, an operation which resulted , among other things in the murder of a U.S. customs agent and prominent relative of a Mexican official, it's time to dissolve the operation and dismiss all of its employees. To encourage the others.
If there are agents in the Bureau unconnected with this operation who have valuable skills and experience we wish to retain, the successor agencies of the Bureau are free to rehire them. As to the others -- those who went along to get along -- it will encourage federal employees working for an out of control agency to take advantage of the federal whistleblowers procedure and turn in the wrongdoers before such egregious harm comes to pass. It simply is not enough to accede to a pattern of what Darrell Issa calls "felony stupid" conduct and keep your place at the federal table.
A Brief History of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms( ATF)
In its most recent form, the Bureau was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Justice in 2003, a move in accord with the 2002 Homeland Security Act. In one form or another it has existed since 1789, when the Treasury was given responsibility for collecting a tax on imported spirits. It has in time established a laboratory for analyzing alcohol and tobacco products as well as firearms and explosives. It has had a prohibition unit in the 1920's, and since the 1930's has overseen the collection of taxes on firearms.
For decades , until 1972 the alcohol and tobacco tax division was under IRS control. When it was separated from IRS, it took on control over explosives , and shortly afterward the ATF and its lab became involved in arson investigations. If the ATF as it's presently constructed is dissolved, there's no reason why the revenue collection side of the operation shouldn't return to the Department of the Treasury and the firearms and explosives investigations (and laboratory) shouldn't be given to the FBI. As the brief history of the bureau shows, its functions have operated under various organizational models in the past and there is no reason why it cannot be yet again reformulated.
Operation Fast and Furious
Operation Fast and Furious was a bit of nincompoopery worthy of the creative genius of Joseph Heller of "Catch 22" fame; it has all the hallmarks of the ludicrous "Syndicate" of that work. Briefly, the ATF violated the National Firearms Act and the Arms Export Control Act, requiring arms sellers to allow straw purchasers to buy more than 2,000 firearms --including 1,700 AK-47 style rifles and other high powered weapons -- and smuggle them across the border to Mexico. Two of these weapons were found in Arizona at the site of a shootout which took the life of Brian Terry, a Customs and Border Protection agent. Others turned up at the scenes of over 150 murders in Mexico, including a high profile lawyer whose brother was the attorney general of the state of Chihuahua.
The proffered purpose of this operation was to trace the smuggler's trail to the Mexican criminals to track the major Mexican weapons dealers but if that was the purpose it failed to meet its objective. One ATF whistleblower, Vince Cefalu, charges "there is no huge gun-trafficking operation, no Iron Pipeline" of firearms traveling from the U.S. to Mexico -- just lots of buyers who can make a couple thousand dollars selling weapons across the border."
Mr. Cefalu also charges that the Mexican Government and the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico were not apprised of the operation.
Some commentators believe the real purpose of the operation was to provide "evidence" that U.S. arms were behind the gang violence in Mexico to provide a basis for further restrictions on U.S. arms sales, pointing to comments by Hillary Clinton and the New York Times editors on the need for further restrictions to limit the weaponry of the Mexican drug cartels. While the supposition is far from unreasonable, stronger evidence supporting such claims is to date missing.
Who Okayed the Operation?
At the moment, the Department of Justice is trying furiously to protect Attorney General Eric Holder from being implicated in this fiasco. Vince Cefalu says that Holder had to be involved because no one would run an operation this size without approval from the boss, in this case Holder. There are other indications of his involvement. Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa says:
"They had to go to Justice to get money, to get FBI agents [and] all of the other people that helped coordinate this and to get the wiretaps they used," said Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
As for Holder, said Issa, "he should have known. It was his obligation to know." And other committee officials insist "it's quite certain that Kenneth Melson was not the principal architect of this plan."
Much remains to be learned about this fiasco -- and an internal Justice Department whitewash won't get the job done.
The acting Bureau Head Kenneth Melson was expected to resign this week, but as of Friday night he had not and it was bruited about that he wants to testify before Chairman Issa's Committee but Holder is refusing to grant him permission to do so:
ATF Director Kenneth Melson, who was heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious, doesn't look like he's willing to fall on his sword for Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama just yet. In fact, Melson is ready to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee where Rep. Darrell Issa will ask him who above him ordered the operation within the Justice Department. Eric Holder should be very, very worried. Rumors have been swirling around Washington all week that Melson would resign, yet it is now Friday and no resignation has been made. [Snip]
Between the Obama Justice Department submitting 900 pages of black, redacted material to Rep. Issa and now the DOJ stalling to give Melson permission to testify, there is no question the authorization of Operation Fast and Furious goes much higher up in the department than Holder wants us to know about.
Melson was closely involved in the operation and his testimony would certainly be welcome:
At a House hearing last week, testimony from ATF agents portrayed Melson as closely involved in overseeing the venture. At one point, according to documents released by Congress, he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed in order to watch some of the illegal straw purchases.
Aside from the inference of Holder's involvement based on the way such operations are run, there are strong indications of it because of the fast and furious efforts to attack Issa, the stonewalling of the committee by his Department and the false information his aides fed the gullible reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post in an effort to undercut Issa.
Thus, the Washington Post reported (based entirely on anonymous sources) that Issa had been briefed about the operation in April of last year, an event which is unlikely for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the inconsistency of Department of Justice senior officials claiming they were unaware of the operation at all. How could Issa have been briefed on the operation by people who knew nothing of the very operation?
Issa's spokesman, Frederick Hill, said the Department of Justice is the source of these false claims and potshots and that other publications were told of them, reported that to Hill and refused to run these claims. Matthew Boyle in the Daily Caller:
"There are lots of people in the Justice Department who were involved in the gun walking of Operation Fast and Furious," Hill said. "And, I suspect a lot of people, right now, are looking at their mirrors in the morning and wondering if they're still going to have a career six months from now because of the wrongdoing that occurred there. There are people who are clearly in a desperate position at the Justice Department."
The Washington Post also ignored a major part of Hill's statement when writing their story on the matter. "They left the parts out where we told them that a staff member from Ranking Member Cummings's [office], who has been working on the Fast and Furious investigation, was also in that briefing," Hill told TheDC.
That part of his statement walks through how the Wall Street Journal had already debunked the meme, too. "The April 2010 ATF briefing on weapons smuggling by criminal cartels included a staff member of the Democratic staff of the Oversight Committee who has been working for Ranking Member Cummings on the Fast and Furious investigation," the part of Hill's statement to the Post that its reporters ignored read. "This Democratic staff member has never indicated to Republican staff that he had any prior awareness of the gunwalking that took place in Operation Fast and Furious and the recollections of Republican staff who attended this briefing have already been reported in the Wall Street Journal."
I believe there were a lot of people involved at the Department of Justice and I doubt there'd be so much stonewalling and mudslinging were Holder in the clear.
Besides wanting Melson's testimony and a more forthright response to the Committee's document requests from the Department of Justice, Issa wants those agents who did come forward and speak to the Committee to be granted the federal whistleblowers protections they are entitled to by law. CleanUpATF.org. which asserts it is run by ATF agents, claims abuse of agents and mismanagement in the agency is common.
In the meantime, here's Holder's dilemma in a nutshell: If he doesn't fire Melson, the issue will continue to boil on the front burner. If he does, Melson is free to talk to the Committee, and if my suspicions are correct, Melson's testimony will lead to Holder's long deserved downfall as Attorney General.
Clarice Feldman is a former federal prosecutor.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/fast_and_furious_fiasco_time_to_abolish_the_atf.html
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Assault weapons linked to ATF strategy turn up in Valley neighborhoods
Phoenix: The ABC15 Investigators have uncovered new information showing weapons linked to a questionable government strategy are turning up in crimes in Valley neighborhoods.....
embedded video at link
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/assault-weapons-linked-to-atf-strategy-turn-up-in-valley-neighborhoods
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June 28, 2011
'Project Gunrunner' Whistleblower Says ATF Sent Him Termination Notice
Agent Vince Cefalu, a 24 year veteran spoke out about the ATF's gunrunner scandal and says he was served with termination papers last week. House Oversight and Reform Chairman Darrell Issa warned the TSA last week not to retaliate against whistleblowers
foxnews
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is being accused of retaliating against an agent who helped publicize the agency's role in allowing thousands of guns to cross the U.S. border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
The agent, Vince Cefalu, who has spoken out about the ATF's so-called "Project Gunrunner" scandal, says he was served with termination papers just last week, and he calls the move politically motivated.
Cefalu first told FoxNews.com about the ATF's embattled anti-gun smuggling operation in December, before the first reports on the story appeared in February. "Simply put, we knowingly let hundreds of guns and dozens of identified bad guys go across the border," Cefalu said at the time.
Since then, Cefalu's claims have been vindicated, as a number of agents with first-hand knowledge of the case came forward. The scandal over Project Gunrunner led to congressional hearings, a presidential reprimand Obama called the operation "a serious mistake" and speculation that ATF chief Ken Melson will resign.
Yet last week, Cefalu, who has worked for the agency for 24 years, was forced to turn in his gun and badge. Cefalu's dismissal follows a string of allegations that the ATF retaliates against whistleblowers
http://www.hapblog.com/2011/06/project-gunrunner-whistleblower-says.html
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BREAKING: ALIPAC CALLING FOR IMPEACHMENT OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Posted by helen
June 28, 2011
For National Release
Contact: Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
(866) 703-0864 / Press@alipac.us
The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is calling for the impeachment of President Barack Obama for his involvement in the Operation Gunrunner scandal, as well as his recent edict instructing federal employees to establish a form of amnesty for illegal aliens in defiance of the Congress, existing federal laws, and the US Constitution.
http://www.t-room.us/2011/06/breaking-alipac-calling-for-impeachment-of-barack-hussein-obama/
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Dem Lawmaker Decries Illegal Firearms in Rival Panel on ATF's 'Fast and Furious' Operation
The free flow of illegal guns through the U.S. -- which prompted the controversial, now-defunct sting "Operation Fast and Furious" -- undermines the mission of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Thursday.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., held a forum Thursday to rebut what he said is a too narrowly focused investigation and not "real oversight" by the the committee's chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., into the operation, which ended in January after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's corpse was found near two guns purchased under the program.
"As I have stated repeatedly, I believe the allegations regarding Fast and Furious are serious and deserve a thorough, even-handed and full investigation. But we cannot ignore the broader problem and its devastating effects on both sides of the border," he said in a statement. "Real oversight requires us not just to hold hearings, but to convert our findings into action."
Cummings released a report ahead of his forum entitled, "Outgunned: Law Enforcement Agents Warn Congress They Lack Adequate Tools to Counter Illegal Firearms Trafficking." It comes just two weeks after Issa held the latest in a series of hearings on the ATF operation, which was designed to track major weapons traffickers on the Southwest border but resulted in agents being told to let guns "walk" across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Cummings' forum sets up the latest battle between the two top members on the committee, who have fought over a number of issues this year, from federal regulations on businesses to an investigation into the housing crisis to the ground rules over calling witnesses to testify.
Issa questioned Cummings' motive.
"This is a predictable maneuver from a minority that has sought to obstruct the investigation into Justice Department sanctioned gunwalking," Issa spokeswoman Becca Glover Watkins said in an email to FoxNews.com. "It will not affect the committee's continued focus on a reckless operation that has been linked to deaths on both sides of the border."
Issa's hearing focused on how the operation spiraled out of control and who at the Justice Department authorized it. Three federal firearms investigators said they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels.
Issa berated one witness, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weigh, because the Justice Department of which ATF is a component has not turned over documents that Issa has subpoenaed. When Issa demanded to know who authorized the operation, Weich said that question is the subject of an inquiry by the department's inspector general.
Cummings' forum adopted a less confrontational tone and offered a sympathetic ear to the ATF.
Michael Bouchard, a retired ATF assistant director, said one of the ways his former agency strives to prevent crimes is by "disrupting and dismantling large and small firearms trafficking schemes, which put guns into the hands of violent criminals."
"Unfortunately, criminals bent on acquiring guns can be very clever in the methods that they use to circumvent the law and avoid detection," he said. "ATF and law enforcement must continually adjust to the criminal's changing tactics and develop new strategies and tactics of their own."
Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke blamed America's gun laws on the illegal flow of U.S. guns into Mexico.
"Yet as the six-month anniversary of Tucson approaches, we have still seen no change in our nation's weak or non-existent gun laws," he said. "We still have no federal law criminalizing gun trafficking, banning assault weapons and magazines or closing the loopholes in our Brady Background Check system that help arm dangerous killers and supply gun traffickers.
"I ask Congress what we should all be asking ourselves: What are you going to do about it?"
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/30/congressman-highlights-illegal-firearms-in-2nd-hearing-on-atfs-fast-and-furious/#ixzz1QnobVeFM
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he Gunwalker Scandal Made Simple
There are five key accusations against ATF and DOJ made by ATF whistleblowers and other sources within FedGov:
1. That they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.
2. That they allowed or even assisted in those guns crossing the U.S. border into Mexico to "boost the numbers" of American civilian market firearms seized in Mexico and thereby provide the justification for more firearm restrictions on American citizens and more power and money for ATF.
3. That they intentionally kept Mexican authorities in the dark about the operation, even over objections of their own agents.
4. That weapons that the ATF let "walk" to Mexico were involved in the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, as well as at least hundreds of Mexican citizens.
5. That at least since the death of Brian Terry on 14 December, the Obama administration is engaged in a full-press cover-up of the facts behind what has come to be known as the "Gunwalker Scandal."
Sipsey Street Irregulars
Friday, July 1, 2011
More Gunwalker Miscellany
Elijah Cummings gestures with one of his bloody hands. When he ran the Oversight committee he did nothing about ATF abuses.
Politico pimps the Democrats Gunwalker meme: 'Fast and Furious' inquiry broadens
Houston Chronicle: Dems use forum to push tighter gun laws. Lawmakers introduce new legislation and stricter penalties.
Watkins said that though she hadn't seen the discussion at the Democratic forum, the majority believes gun control issues simply aren't relevant to the investigation of Fast and Furious.
"We're really on two different planes here," she said.
From BlueRidgeNow: Did Justice create a false flag operation?
There may be some reason, other than false flag, that high-ranking officials in the Justice Department encouraged the transfer of legally purchased guns to Mexican drug lords, but I can't think of one. If you can, let me know.
John Richardson on Fisking The Obfuscators.
The Obfuscators, otherwise known as the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, issued a report today entitled Outgunned which sought to shift the blame for Operation Fast and Furious from ATF to gun control laws. As I said yesterday, they are merely diversionary tactics to divert attention from the Obama appointees in the Department of Justice (and maybe DHS) who more than likely authorized this project in order to build support for more gun control in America.
It looks like CNN and the LA Times are buying into it which doesn't say much for the intelligence and integrity of much of mainstream journalism. CNN took much of what Rep. Elijah Cummings and the rest of Democrats at the "forum" said as gospel. . .
Just posted on Senator Grassley's website: Focusing on the Facts of the ATF's Flawed Gun Strategy.
Link.
Focusing on the Facts of the ATF's Flawed Gun Strategy
Since January, I've been hounding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice for answers about a deeply flawed policy that allowed guns to be sold to known straw purchasers and then transported across the border to Mexican drug cartels.
Until this week, my efforts to conduct my constitutional responsibility of oversight have been stonewalled by the Justice Department. Finally, the administration agreed to provide me the same access to documents and witnesses that are afforded to the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, and the Justice Department Inspector General.
In the meantime, in an effort to distract from the investigation Congressman Issa and I are conducting, the ATF released selective statistical data that inaccurately reflects the scope and source of the problem of firearms in Mexico and the drug trafficking organization violence. The implication made by the ATF and various press reports that 70 percent of the firearms found in Mexico come directly from U.S. manufacturers or U.S. Federal Firearms Licensees selling guns to drug trafficking organizations is incomplete and misleading. Not only does this paint a grossly inaccurate picture of the situation, but there's also evidence that the U.S. State Department doesn't believe it either.
I received additional documentation from an ATF database of firearms, and learned that the actual percentage of firearms found in Mexico and traced back to U.S. based federal firearms licensees in 2009 and 2010 was only 24 percent. It turns out the discrepancy lies in the fact that most of the firearms found in Mexico may actually have been sold between governments in direct military to military transactions or were exported directly from manufacturers approved by our government. In either case, U.S. gun dealers are the last people who should be blamed.
And, to make the release of the misleading numbers even more egregious, I obtained an unclassified U.S. State Department cable that dispels myths about the source of weapons trafficked to Mexico. The unclassified cable includes sections such as: "Myth: An Iron Highway of Weapons Flows from the U.S." and "Myth: The DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are Mostly Responsible."
When the ATF promotes this kind of misleading data, it distracts from the real questions of our investigation: Why was the ATF was involved in a policy to allow guns to fall into the hands of straw purchasers who were then transporting them to Mexican drug cartels and who approved this reckless strategy? Congressman Issa and I are committed to getting to the bottom of this irresponsible decision, regardless of agency attempts to manipulate the truth.
July 1, 2011
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Justice Department Obstructing 'Fast and Furious' Gun Probe, ATF Director Says
The Justice Department is obstructing the congressional investigation of a U.S. law enforcement operation intended to crack down on major weapons traffickers on the Southwest border, according to the embattled leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Ken Melson, the acting director of the ATF, lobbed the accusation when he sneaked in for an interview with congressional investigators on July 4, two days ahead of his scheduled interview with the inspector general about the operation known as "Fast and Furious," Fox News has learned.
"If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand," Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder. "That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation."
The Justice Department is reportedly looking to oust Melson, who has been acting ATF director since April 2009, as the agency deals with its biggest scandal in nearly two decades. Andrew Traver, who was tapped in November by President Obama to become the permanent ATF director, could be named as acting director until the Senate acts on his nomination, sources have said.
In a separate development, congressional sources have learned that not only was U.S. taxpayer money being used to buy guns that were later sent to Mexico, but the main target of the investigation was actually a FBI informant and former drug dealer who had been deported years ago.
"Fast and Furious" has been at the center of an investigation by Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. The operation began in the fall of 2009 as an effort to trace and stop the trafficking of illegal guns on the Southwest border, but instead allowed thousands of guns to get into the hands of Mexican cartel members.
The two say they learned about the program after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010. At the crime scene were two guns linked to the "Fast and Furious" operation.
At an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing last month, three federal firearms investigators testified that they wanted to "intervene and interdict" loads of guns, but were repeatedly ordered to step aside to allow suspected smugglers to carry the weapons over the border.
Issa and Grassley have urged Holder to cooperate and turn over subpoenaed records that would reveal the scope of the government coverup.
The alleged coverup involves three law enforcement agencies: the ATF, FBI and the DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to sources, unbeknown to the ATF, the target of their operation was a FBI confidential informant, a fact that only became known to them in April of this year after an 18-month investigation that cost millions of dollars of tax dollars.
"They were going after someone they could never have," a source in Washington told Fox News. "The Mr. Big they wanted was using government money to buy guns that went to the cartels. The FBI knew it and didn't tell them."
The confidential informant is a former high-level drug dealer who had been deported by the DEA. The FBI, however, recruited him as a counter-terrorism informant, providing information on potential dirty bombs or Al Qaeda suspects moving through the border region.
The FBI informant was picked up on a DEA wiretap, and forwarded to the ATF.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/06/justice-department-obstructing-fast-and-furious-gun-probe-atf-director-says/#ixzz1RLDVMKNG
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 11-07-2011
The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General
u.s. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:
http://grassley.senate.gov/judiciary/upload/ATF-07-05-11-CEG-Issa-letter-to-Holder-Melson-interview.pdf
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ATF Chief Implicates FBI in Gunrunner Probe
Thursday, 07 Jul 2011 08:59 AM
By Dave Eberhart
Kenneth E. Melson, acting head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), has told Capitol Hill investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking operation were in fact paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, according to a report by sfgate.com.
The ATF reportedly allowed guns to be purchased in the United States in hopes they would be traced to cartel leaders, but the sting went way off course as the seed guns wound up at the scenes of crimes in Mexico and Nogales, Arizona -- where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was gunned down.
Melson said the FBI and DEA kept the ATF "in the dark" about their connections with the cartel informants.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/ATFChiefImplicatesFBIinGunrunnerProbe/2011/07/07/id/402781#ixzz1RRzTpKs2
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Whistleblower Testifies Obama Obstructed Fast and Furious Investigation
Posted on July 6, 2011 by Ben Johnson
he chief congressional investigators of Operation Fast and Furious released explosive testimony from the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that they say indicates the Obama administration tried to stonewall Congress, deny witnesses the ability to testify freely, and fire employees who refused to conceal damning information. According to acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson not only did the Justice Department play fast-and-loose with Fast and Furious, but other government agencies may have known and funded the straw purchasers the ATF program was designed to catch. The agency's investigation, which has resulted in at least two deaths, may have been entirely unnecessary.
Scorn on the Fourth of July
Congressman Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley sent a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday, revealing that Melson gave a transcribed interview on the Fourth of July, with only his personal lawyer present. The news must have come as a shock to Holder. Melson's testimony had been scheduled to take place July 13, with Melson's counsel and Obama administration lawyers from the DoJ and ATF taking part.
According to the letter, Melson testified that the administration had not informed him of his legal right "to attend a voluntary interview with [his] own lawyer… rather than participate with counsel representing the Department's interests."
"We are disappointed that no one had previously informed him of that provision of the agreement," they wrote. "Instead, Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress. This is yet another example of why direct communications with Congress are so important and are protected by law."
(Obstruction of) Justice Department
The Congressmen's recounting of Melson's testimony includes mistakes he admitted making, including not personally reviewing hundreds of documents relating to Fast and Furious until March of this year. "By his account, he was sick to his stomach when he obtained those documents and learned the full story," they write.
In the most stinging passage of the letter, Issa and Grassley accuse the administration of a concerted cover-up:
According to Mr. Melson [after learning about the consequences of the program], he and ATF's senior leadership team moved to reassign every manager involved in Fast and Furious, from the Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations down to the Group Supervisor, after learning the facts in those documents. Mr. Melson also said he was not allowed to communicate to Congress the reasons for the reassignments.
He claimed that ATF's senior leadership would have preferred to be more cooperative with our inquiry much earlier in the process. However, he said that Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress. The result is that Congress only got the parts of the story that the Department wanted us to hear. If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand. That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation. The Department's inability or unwillingness to be more forthcoming served to conceal critical information that we are now learning about the involvement of other agencies, including the DEA and the FBI. (Emphases added.)
Melson's story of the administration seizing control of the agency's communications is reinforced by another whistleblower, Catherine Papoi of the Department of Homeland Security. Papoi testified that Obama officials are "breaking the law by knowingly and intentionally delaying and obstructing the release of agency records" after Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Similarly, a recent survey of 148 Senior Executive Service members conducted by the Government Business Council found career bureaucrats accused the Obama administration of routinely engaging in "politicization of normal agency functions."
In Melson's case, what they covered up was more unthinkable.
Project Gunrunner: Another Obama Stimulus Plan?
Issa and Grassley write the program designed to sell guns to "straw buyers," whom agents hoped would lead them to high-value purchasers across the Mexican border may have taken place after the government had acquired their identities and, in some cases, cut deals with them.
They write:
[W]e have very real indications from several sources that some of the gun trafficking "higher-ups" that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants…The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities…If this information is accurate, then the whole misguided operation might have been cut short if not for catastrophic failures to share key information. (Emphasis in original.)
In the bureaucratic chaos that has persisted ten years after 9/11, the ATF may have tried to learn the identity of criminals other agencies had on their payroll and those funds may have purchased the weapons that killed Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and U.S. Special Agent Jaime Zapata.
As recently as last week, assault weapons from the program had been reported at crime scenes in Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona.
Punishing a(nother) Whistleblower
Monday's testimony suggests Obama officials have taken punitive measures against Melson out of fear he would expose them. The department attempted to leak word the director would be forced to resign over the scandal, but Issa and Grassley reveal that "he has not been asked to resign." However, his employment is much more tenuous after he agreed to shift from a career to a political position. Political appointees lack many of the protections career civil service members enjoy.
This, too, echoes the Obama administration's treatment of other whistleblowers in the past. The Holder Justice Department busted Christopher Coates down from chief of its Voting Rights division to a satellite office in South Carolina, so he could not testify about the department's racial bias following its dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. The DHS demoted Papoi after she contacted Issa. And the administration fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin after he filed two reports that embarrassed the administration's allies.
In an attempt to protect Melson from further repercussions, the letter states: "Given his testimony, unless a permanent director is confirmed, it would be inappropriate for the Justice Department to take action against him that could have the effect of intimidating others who might want to provide additional information to the Committees."
Issa concludes, "Knowing what we know so far, we believe it would be inappropriate to make Mr. Melson the fall guy in an attempt to prevent further congressional oversight."
Despite Obama's most dogged attempts, the truth is coming out about how Agents Terry and Zapata lost their lives and who has their blood on his hands.
http://floydreports.com/whistleblower-testifies-obama-obstructed-fast-and-furious-investigation/
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ATF Scandal Threatens to Bring Down Top Obama Administration Officials
Video and interview transcript at the link.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2011/07/08/atf-scandal-threatens-bring-down-top-obama-administration-officials
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FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011
Attorney General on a razor's edge
Examiner
William Heuisler
Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder is tiptoeing on a razor's edge of incompetence or perjury.
He has once again denied prior knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious (Gunrunner) smuggling guns into Mexico that were used to kill American Agents. President Obama told CBS last week, "My attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun running to be able to pass through into Mexico". (Attkisson, 2011)
But more evidence has surfaced that Holder must have known ATF was smuggling guns into Mexico at least a year before Border Agent Brian Terry was killed in the desert south of Tucson by ATF-smuggled-Operation-Gunrunner-weapons.
The evidence? Senator Charles Grassley last week showed his House Committee an email from Phoenix ATF Agent in Charge, William Newell, about a "Southwest Border Strategy Group" of senior Justice Department officials meeting on October 27, 2009.
The meeting was about Gunrunner, and smuggling guns into Mexico. (Owens, 2011)
Present were:
1) Assistant AG (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer.
2) Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF.
3) William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF.
4) Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA.
5) Robert Mueller, Director FBI.
6) Justice Department Directors of Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force, Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals, and Executive Office for US Attorneys.
7) The chairman of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.
8) The U.S. Attorneys of four southwest Border States. (Owens, 2011)
As detailed in Examiner/Tucson, articles (4/4, 4/29, 6/20, 6/28) Operation Gunrunner was a multi-agency, extra-legal scheme that purchased nearly 2000 firearms from Tucson and Phoenix gun stores that were then smuggled to Mexican drug cartels. ATF agents were ordered by supervisors to let the guns be smuggled into Mexico without notifying Mexican police. Hundreds of smuggled weapons have turned up at crime scenes across Mexico and the US. Along with US Agents, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata, 152 Mexican police and soldiers have been killed with Gunrunner weapons.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunrunner, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within DOJ was briefed on Gunrunner in 2009, including the Chairman of the AGAC, which, by his title, has the primary purpose of advising Attorney General Holder.
AG Holder should have known his AG Advisor, his assistant AG, directors of five of his agencies, and all Southwest U.S. Attorneys were discussing smuggling guns into Mexico in 2009. His declarations of ignorance about Gunrunner place him on the razor's edge of, either admitting gross incompetence, or making false statements to Americans, to Congress, and now even to his President.
Attkisson, S. (2011). CBSNEWS. Obama talks "Fast and Furious" ATF scandal. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20075484-10391695.html
Owens, B. (2011). Pajamas Media. Email confirms "Gunwalker" known throughout Justice Department. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/email-confirm...singlepage=true
http://weeklyintercept.blogspot.com/2011/07/attorney-general-on-razors-edge.html
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Captured Zeta Leader: We've Purchased Weapons From The "U.S. Government Itself"
-->2 Comments
By Mario Andrade
DeadlineLive.info
July 8, 2011
This article was released by Deadline Live on July 6th.
Last Sunday, one of the original seven members of Los Zetas, Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, aka El Mamito, was captured in Mexico. Rejón Aguilar was also known as Zeta 7.
He helped the then Gulf Drug Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas recruit the original Mexican special forces soldiers trained at Fort Benning, Georgia to become the most dangerous criminal organization in Mexico.
In an edited interview with Mexican Federal Police (in Spanish and now posted at YouTube), Rejón Aguilar reveals some interesting information about the origins of Los Zetas, where they get their weapons, and where they buy their drug shipments.
Rejón Aguilar probably knows he's going to be murdered in prison, so he appears to be speaking the truth, perhaps in order to reach a deal with Mexican authorities so they can provide him witness protection.
Los Zetas are the biggest obstacle for the Mexican narco-state. They are their biggest and most dangerous competitors. In the interview Rejón Aguilar reveals that Los Zetas do not trust the Colombians, so they purchase the drug shipments (mostly cocaine) from the Guatemalans.
They know the Colombians are infiltrated by CIA and DEA, so they wait to buy the cocaine using the Guatemalans as decoys to avoid being traced.
Another interesting revelation made by Rejón Aguilar is that Los Zetas have operatives in the U.S. who have purchased (at least in the past) firearms and other weapons from different suppliers including from the U.S. Government itself.'
Last March, the Mexican military raided a Zeta camp at Falcon Lake, where they seized several anti-aircraft shoulder missiles and other weapons.
The following is the (edited) interview transcript translated to English:
Interrogator: What is your name?
Rejón Aguilar: Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, aka El Mamito o El Caballero.
Interrogator: What is your date of birth, where are you from and how old are you?
Rejón Aguilar: June 9th, 1976. I'm 35 years old, and I'm from Sabancuy, Campeche.
Interrogator: What do you do for a living?
Rejón Aguilar: Drug trafficking.
Interrogator: For which organization?
Rejón Aguilar: Los Zetas.
Interrogator: How did you join this organization, and when?
Rejón Aguilar: After I deserted from the army, in 1999, I went to Reynosa and I met (Arturo Guzman) Decena, aka. Zeta 1.
Interrogator: Who created Los Zetas?
Rejón Aguilar: It was Osiel (Cardenas), through Zeta 1.
Interrogator: When they were originally created, how many members were there?
Rejón Aguilar: At first we were seven. Then they brought seven more and added to the original fourteen members.
Interrogator: Were you one of the founders?
Rejón Aguilar: Yes.
Interrogator: Which (rank) number were you?
Rejón Aguilar: Zeta 7.
Interrogator: What happened after Osiel was captured?
Rejón Aguilar: When Osiel was captured, what happened later was that Jorge Costilla Sanchez took control of the organization.
Interrogator: What happened when Los Zetas separated from the Gulf Drug cartel?
Rejón Aguilar: They (the Gulf Cartel) began to do business with La Familia Michoacana, El Mayo Zambada (member of the Sinaloa Cartel, who's son, Vicente Zambada is a DEA operative, according to court documents from his trial in Chicago), with el Chapo Guzman (leader of the Sinaloa Cartel), and people from Jalisco. They created their alliance, and when we broke away, they were already organized and began to kill our people. That's when the organization was split in two: Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.
Interrogator: And this is when the separation began between Gulf and Zetas?
Rejón Aguilar: That's when the separation began.
Interrogator: Are you basically at war with everyone?
Rejón Aguilar: They, the Gulf, created an alliance, and we're at war with El Mayo, El Chapo, La Familia Michoana, and Jalisco. We're at war with all of them.
Interrogator: And you know La Familia is from Michoacan, El Chango Mendez (leader of La Familia who was discovered to be distributing weapons purchased from the U.S. BATF) went to Aguascalientes to dialog with Los Zetas, was he asking you for protection?
Rejón Aguilar: He was trying to reach out to us.
Interrogator: Why?
Rejón Aguilar: To dialog because they killed all his people and he wanted our support.
Interrogator: Would that have been possible?
Rejón Aguilar: In my opinion, who ever betrays you once, can betray you again, so it wouldn't have been a good idea. But I don't know what the commanders would think about that.
Interrogator: And La Tuta (member of La Familia and founder of the Knights Templar)? Is there a relation between him and Los Zetas?
Rejón Aguilar: No. His organization is with the Gulf, so he's our enemy.
Interrogator: That relationship between La Tuta, La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar with the Gulf makes them your enemies?
Rejón Aguilar: Yes, because they're killing our people and we're trying to stop them.
Interrogator: With respect to the relationship between Arturo Beltran (former partner of DEA Operative Edgar Barbie' Valdez who was betrayed and killed by the military) and La Familia, then Beltran falls, then el Chayo falls, later el Chango, what do you think happened in Michoacan?
Rejón Aguilar: Michoacan collapsed because in essence, they didn't keep their word. There was never a deal reached with them. In fact, when Arturo went down, there was a cease-fire, but they (La Familia) broke it, and they went to war against Arturo and sought refuge with el Valencia.
Interrogator: So after that, everyone started to break away and work for themselves?
Rejón Aguilar: Yes. That's when the war started. By that time, we were already working for ourselves.
Interrogator: How did you all begin to work independently?
Rejón Aguilar: Since we no longer had ties with anybody, we began to bring the material (the drugs) ourselves.
Interrogator: How do you obtain the drugs? Which Colombian cartel do you work with?
Rejón Aguilar: I do not know. That's handled by different personnel. But it has always been brought through Guatemala because the Colombians are not trustworthy.
Interrogator: They bring it from somewhere else?
Rejón Aguilar: From Guatemala. It can be bought from Colombia, Panama, or Guatemala. We buy it from Guatemala.
Interrogator: And where do you get your weapons?
Rejón Aguilar: From the United States. All weapons come from the U.S.
Interrogator: How are they brought here?
Rejón Aguilar: Crossing the river. We used to bring them through the bridge, but it's become harder to do that.
Interrogator: Who purchases the weapons?
Rejón Aguilar: They are bought in the U.S. The buyers (on the U.S. side of the border) have said in the past that sometimes they would acquire them from the U.S. Government itself.
Interrogator: And nowadays, who distribute them to you?
Rejón Aguilar: It's more difficult for us to acquire weapons nowadays, but we find ways. But it's easier for the Gulf Cartel to bring them across the border.
Interrogator: Why?
Rejón Aguilar: We don't know why, but they bring them (accross the bridge) in the trunk of their cars without being checked (by Mexican Customs). One can only think that they must have reached a deal with the (Mexican) government.
Interrogator: How often are they smuggled?
Rejón Aguilar: Today it's more difficult so it's more sporadic, like every month, every 20 days, or every month and a half. It's done when ever there's an opportunity.
Interrogator: And the drugs?
Rejón Aguilar: The drugs are handled by a group of accountants. They handle that in private. It's compartmentalized. Only they know how and when it's smuggled to the United States. I suppose, with the way that things are right now, they probably smuggle the drug shipments every two or three months.
Interrogator: How are the drug shipments smuggled to the U.S.?
Rejón Aguilar: They bring it to the U.S. through Laredo, but that's done by a compartmentalized group handled by the accountants. They are responsible for all that.
Interrogator: Let's talk about San Luis Potosi, do you remember the attack on the U.S. ICE agents?
Rejón Aguilar: Yes. They (Los Zetas) were travelling in a caravan of bullet-proof vehicles. They mistook them for other people and cut them off.
Interrogator: What's happening in Tamaulipas?
Rejón Aguilar: In Tamaulipas, there's a war because of the separation of the cartels. But we're on hold because there is too much government (troops) presence.
Interrogator: Tell me about the armored (monster) vehicles. How were they made? How many of these vehicles were under your command?
Rejón Aguilar: Three… five at one time.
Interrogator: And out of these five vehicles, what type were they?
Rejón Aguilar: They were armored trucks typically known as monsters.
Interrogator: Were you ever prepared for being captured?
Rejón Aguilar: One always knows that sooner or later, we will be captured.
Interrogator: Is there someone you would like to ask for forgiveness?
Rejón Aguilar: Like how?
Interrogator: Yes. Like for your actions, or for disappointing somebody, like your children or your family?
Rejón Aguilar: Yes. To my mother, because since all of this happened, I haven't seen her for 17 years.
Interrogator: And knowing that you haven't seen your mother and she's still alive, how do you feel?
Rejón Aguilar: Well, it's hard. It's cruel but oh well…
[url]http://theintelhub.com/2011/07/08/captured-zeta-leader-we've-purchased-weapons-from-the-"u-s-government-itself"/[/url]
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Eric Holder Bragged About Operation Gunrunner In 2009
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/798/978/Eric_Holder_Bragged_About_Operation_Gunrunner_In_2009.html
http://sadhillnews.com/
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Carl Levin defending Project Gunrunner Finding in Feb 2011
http://ttmsoia.andyhill.us/2011/07/09/carl-levin-defending-project-gunrunner-finding-in-feb-2011/
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Another scandal that could take Obama down
Posted: July 09, 2011
1:00 am Eastern
© 2011
Sometimes the news seems stranger than fiction.
Who could dream up a plot line like this?
Several law enforcement agencies of the federal government, including the FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, got together to hatch a plan to sell guns to Mexican drug cartel members at least one of which was later used to murder a Border Patrol agent.
Can't be, right?
Wait a minute. It gets worse. It now appears the money used by the known criminals in Mexico was federal "stimulus" money.
I know. It's a nightmare. It's government gone wild.
Yet that is exactly what the aptly named "Project Gunrunner" seems to have been all about with a scandal and ensuing cover-up big enough to bring down Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
Members of Congress have been trying to investigate, but are getting no cooperation from Holder and the Justice Department. Apparently, the plan of the Obama administration was for the acting director of the ATF to take the fall. His name is Kenneth Melson but he has other ideas.
Melson says he first found out about "Project Gunrunner" also called "Operation Fast and Furious" after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, killed with a gun sold to the Mexican gangs by U.S. law enforcement personnel.
But after checking through the files on the program, Melson said he got "sick to his stomach" by what he found the direct involvement of the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, etc.
While Melson is talking to congressional investigators, Obama's buddy Holder is in full stonewalling mode. He won't give Rep. Darrel Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the time of day.
The Obama administration appears to have put together a sophisticated, inter-agency conspiracy to provide money to Mexican gangsters to purchase guns from the U.S. to kill federal agents, but it is not at all happy about explaining itself to the American people, the press or Congress.
Initially, Holder tried to dismiss the operation as a botched sting run by ATF to track and stop cross-border arms-trafficking. But that story is a dead letter after secret testimony provided by Melson on July 4 to congressional investigators.
Melson wanted to testify earlier, but Holder stopped him. Holder pressured Melson to quit his job and go away. But he's not having any part of that.
He may have become Obama's worst nightmare after Jerome Corsi.
Try to picture this: Holder, the FBI, Homeland Security, DEA and ATF all get together to run a sting operation at least partly in a foreign country. Is it even conceivable that Obama would not have to be informed of such a plan? Not likely. This was an operation with international consequences. If Obama didn't know, whose fault is that.
And then we get into the question of what really might have motivated such an elaborate plot. Is the explanation we've received really plausible?
Or is it more likely that the ideologically driven Obama administration, which detests the constitutionally protected right of every American to own and bear firearms, was actively participating in a diabolical political program to put U.S. guns into the hands of Mexican gangsters as part of a false flag operation that would be used to seize the guns of U.S. civilians?
The old line is that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Maybe not in this case. What could Holder be so afraid of revealing that he would lie to Congress (a crime in itself) to conceal? Chances are it's pretty bad probably worse than my scenario.
Just so you don't think I'm making this up, here's what ATF investigators told members of Congress last month that they wanted to "intervene and interdict" large numbers of guns at the border, but were ordered to step aside and let them fall into the hands of the drug cartel.
"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals this was the plan," John Dodson, an ATF agent, told the panel. "It was so mandated."
Agent Olindo James Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."
Do you see why I say this is another scandal that could bring Obama down?
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=320129
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 11-07-2011
Obama Orders Launched Fast and Furious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PNhYk9NuNc&feature=player_embedded
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ATF Fast & Furious: Worse than a nightmare
Ginny Simone of NRA News interviewed Congressman Darrell Issa, who's leading the ATF Fast & Furious investigation in Congress. I highly recommend listening to the 11:30 interview. The Congressional report is shows how government can overstep its bounds and become dangerous. Here's some excerpts.
It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
Page 18: [Congressional finding]
"The Department of Justice has repeatedly and steadfastly denied that any guns were walked under Operation Fast and Furious. According to the narrowest possible interpretation, a gun is walked only when an ATF agent physically places an AK-47 into the hands of a straw purchaser and then lets that straw purchaser walk out of sight. Conversely, every single ATF field agent interviewed stated that guns are walked when ATF has the opportunity to interdict illegally purchased weapons, yet chooses not to even try."
Straw purchasers spent thousands per transaction
Page 27: [Special Agent John Dodson, the original whistle blower]
"Well, every time we voiced concerns…But every day being out here watching a guy go into the same gun store buying another 15 or 20 AK-47s or variants or . . . five or ten Draco pistols or FN Five-seveNs . . . guys that don't have a job, and he is walking in here spending $27,000 for three Barrett .50 calibers …and you are sitting there every day and you can't do anything…"
No regard for lives lost
Page 38: [Dodson, speaking about ATF supervisors in Phoenix and their disregard for lives lost due to Fast & Furious]
"[T]here was a prevailing attitude amongst the group and outside of the group in the ATF chain of command… I was having a conversation with Special Agent [L] about the case in which the conversation ended with me asking her are you prepared to go to a border agent's funeral over this… because that's going to happen. And the sentiment that was given back to me by both her, the group supervisor, was that…if you are going to make an omelette [sic], you need to scramble some eggs."
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/06/18/atf-fast-furious-worse-than-a-nightmare/
*******
he Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
Organized crime is hijacking Canadian highways: RCMP intelligence report
By: Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
Posted: 07/6/2011 4:10 PM | Comments: 1 (including replies) | Last Modified: 07/6/2011 9:33 PM
OTTAWA - Sophisticated criminals are using special compartments built into tractor trailers to smuggle cash across borders, says the RCMP.
A Mountie intelligence report obtained by The Canadian Press warns that organized crime is exploiting the trucking industry to move money, drugs and people.
"Moving large amounts of cash may be the pinnacle of success for these criminal organizations, demonstrating a high level of trust and elevated status," the RCMP found.
Customized compartments fashioned into tractor trailers are used to conceal contraband, yet increasingly specialized ones are being used to hide cash, the report says.
A declassified version of the report, completed last year, was recently released under the Access to Information Act. Portions considered too sensitive to release were withheld by the RCMP.
"Criminals are operating with a rapidly expanding trucking industry that is challenging to regulate and includes cross-border movement of goods," says the RCMP assessment of the threat, dubbed Project Stall.
Cocaine is the most common illegal commodity intercepted in commercial trucks entering Canada and marijuana is most often nabbed domestically, says the report.
The trucking industry moves more than 70 per cent of goods into Canada from the United States and employs 400,000 people. Almost three-quarters of the cross-border traffic passes through points in Ontario and Quebec, which have close to 31,500 owner-operators.
The report notes truck traffic is expected to expand significantly over the next decade on North American Free Trade Agreement corridors.
It describes a complex web of relationships between governments, regulatory bodies and transportation and trucking associations.
"Criminal groups conceal their illicit activities through layers of company ownerships, name changes and, transfers and closures," says the report.
Stolen or fraudulently acquired FAST passes which streamline the often time-consuming process of crossing the border "demonstrate the vulnerability of these measures" to organized crime, it adds.
The elaborate means by which good are transferred through a number of shipping, receiving and transport companies further confuse efforts to pinpoint crime.
Some companies are formed for the sole purpose of transporting illicit goods, and even move the same legitimate cargo back and forth between distribution points as cover for their crimes.
Payments for the movement of goods are a "relatively small cost of doing business" for crime groups but a significant incentive for drivers. The report suggests a driver might be paid $28,000 to take $12 million of cocaine from California to Montreal.
If cargo is lost, stolen or seized, the transporter is expected to provide compensation or risk extortion, beatings, kidnapping or murder, the RCMP says.
Organized criminals will also use bribery and blackmail "to force some people in our industry to do things that they otherwise wouldn't do," said David Bradley, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
In some cases, entire cargo loads are purloined by criminal groups, with the proceeds spent on drugs and weapons.
"We are seeing these crimes becoming more violent and more brazen, and we're concerned about our drivers that are out there," Bradley said in an interview.
The alliance is concerned that cargo theft is largely viewed as a victimless crime since losses are usually covered by insurance.
Increased competition and stricter security and environmental requirements are combining to squeeze out smaller companies and their drivers, the RCMP report says.
"This is an enriched opportunity for organized crime to offer financial incentives to supplement flagging incomes," it adds.
"If larger companies are all that remains in terms of cross-border movement of trade, then criminal groups will find new ways in which to exploit these businesses."
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/br.../125103714.html
And Seymour's "The Last Circle" showed that the US DOJ was in cahoots with organized crime....
*******
On page 347 of "The Last Circle" note is made of information received from FBI agent Thomas Gates. The first section notes conversations between Robert Booth Nichols and Robert Maheu, former CEO of Howard Hughes Enterprises in Las Vegas. The second indicates the role of DEA agent Keith Bodine as a source for Danny Casolaro's investigation of PROmis, money laundering and drugs, as well as specific detail about the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [FINCEN]. Another report noted the Judiciary Committee receipt of information in possession of an ABC Nightline news reporter looking into the Casalaro death. Yet another report indicated that FBI agent Thomas Gates had been investigating the involvement of board members from the Music Corporation of America with the Gambino and Buffalino crime families. Gates further indicated that "high-level Department of Justice officials" had a close working relationship with the board of directors of MCA Corporation. Gates said he had learned this from FBI wire taps on MCA. He said that the wiretaps disclosed that "high-level DOJ officials were tied to illegal activities of MCA." Gates said the investigation of Bob and DOJ ties to MCA was shut down by the DOJ and subsequently sealed by the DOJ. [Page 348]
On pages 354:
"What could be more demoralizing to those men and women who serve and protect them to capture on tape (actual voice recordings), members of the Gambino and buff Leno crime families, in collusion with the Department of Justice and US Atty. Gen., the highest law-enforcement authority in the nation, arranging the shutdown and ceiling of an FBI investigation of MCA...."
"I [Cherie Seymour] asked a direct question to [Richard Stavin, an investigator with the Los Angeles organized crime task force]… "Can you please confirm that the FBI wiretap revealed a conversation between Eugene Giaquinto [board member of MCA and Gambino associate] and Martin Bacow [board member of MCA and Gambino associate] and Martin Bacow in which "Giaquinto told Bacow that he would call Edwin Meese and have the FBI's investigation stopped." Stavin, replying to what is in the public record, confirmed it in an e-mail.…"
On page 368:
"One intercepted conversation, taken from the FBI wiretaps, revealed a conversation in which Giaquinto told Martin Bacow that the computer printouts being delivered to him by his "government man" would show connections to companies they own, stockholders, and other companies as well as indictments and other ongoing investigations. Giaquinto also discussed the printouts in the context of an ongoing IRS case.… Again, it appeared that the prosecutor's internal reports to the DOJ were circling back to Giaquinto via Robert Booth Nichols."
On page 371:
The following excerpt credited to Kathleen Sharp's 2004 book, Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood included this passage which corroborated Thomas Gates and Richard Stebbins information to the judiciary committee in March 1992: (provided to Sharp by a source who wished to remain anonymous)
In May 1988, Giaquinto learned about the government investigation of him. "He went ballistic," said my source. MCA's executive Giaquinto had had enough. "I'm calling Meese and getting this thing stopped right now," he said.
"Sure enough," wrote Sharp, "after Giaquinto dropped Meese's name, the three cases against MCAthe payola, video cassettes, and record investigationsbegin to lose steam." Years later, Marvin Rudnick told Sharp that "this is a cover up that goes all the way to the top... snip
Bill Hamilton believed, after more than 22 decades of research, that the modified version of his PROmis software had been used for money laundering of drug profits to fund unauthorized intelligence operations, and he was convinced that part of the reason that the FBI wiretaps of MCA Executives connected with the Mob and Robert Booth Nichols were shut down was because the FBI and the prosecutors had bumped into an intelligence operation involving Promise. Hamilton believed that when the operation began to unravel due to the FBI probe, resignations Followed at various levels within the Justice Department and the White House.…"
The Chronology of Events Offered by Hamilton Is Printed on Page 372.
Page 373 Includes the sworn statement taken from FBI Special Agent Thomas Gates on March 25 and 26th 1992 which states that
"Mr. [Danny] Casolaro claimed he Had found a link between the Inslaw matter, the activities taking place at the Cabazon Indian Reservation [which included the provision of weapons to the Contras] , and a Federal investigation in which Special Agent Gates had been involved regarding Organized Crime influence in the Entertainment Industry."
The depositions of Rudnick and Stavin and detailed their Strikeforce findings. On Page 478 of Kathleen Sharp's 2004 Book, Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood, she wrote: "Stavin discussed the ties between Giaquinto and Robert Booth Nichols. Stavin believed That MCA was helping the government by offering the cover of its offices around the world."
As of this writing, David Margolis Is still serving in the Attorney General's Office, according to an Article Entitled," David MargolisWhy He Matters" at the Who Runs Go.com/Washington Post Website which reminded readers that Margolis' current position in 2010 was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Atty. Gen. Eric Holder. Margolis was described as "… the Justice Department's Highest Ranking Career Official" under Eric Holder. (Holder Assumed the Office of US Atty. Gen. Serving under Pres. Barrack Obama Beginning in February 2009).
An excerpt from the article reads as follows: "… In 2010, Margolis drew scrutiny for his decision to spare from punishment two Bush Administration lawyers who authored memos justifying the use of enhanced interrogation methods on suspected terrorists. After criticism from civil libertarians, Margolis was defended in a letter signed by 17 former top Justice Department officials, including Attorney Generals from both political parties dating back to the Administration of Pres. George HW Bush.
"As Associate Deputy Attorney General, Margolis serves as a key advisor to the Department's senior political appointees. He also fills other roles, including overseeing the interview process for potential US Attorneys, disciplining Federal prosecutors when necessary and vetting FBI Officials. According to a lengthy 2006 Legal Times profile, Margolis once described His "eclectic" role to an incoming attorney general in this way: "I'm the departments cleaner. I clean up messes." [The Source Is Given as "Margolis Is the DOJ's Ultimate Inside Man"", Legal Times, September 2006.]
Margolis's career history as listed at the website included "Deputy Assistant Attorney General (19901993); Senior Official, Organized Crime Section, Criminal Division (19761990)."
A reminder Is made at this point of the videotaped admission by admitted mob hit man Jimmy Hughes that the murder of three people In the Cabazon/Octopus Murders was a "government ordered hit".
Despite this admission, Hughes was released without prejudice after he had been extradited from Florida to California to stand trial.
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 13-07-2011
Issa, ATF Agent Warn of ATF Cover-Up
Monday, 11 Jul 2011 04:16 PM
By Martin Gould and Ashley Martella
Eric Holder's position as attorney general is getting more tenuous as pressure grows on him to resign over the gunrunning scandal that saw weapons fall into the hands of Mexican drug lords.
The actions of his Department of Justice are the subject of a congressional obstruction of justice investigation into the scheme, said Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"It is very clear that people were being discouraged from speaking to us," Issa told Fox News' Sean Hannity.
And he said that much of the documentation provided by the DoJ has been useless. "If it wasn't already available on the internet, it generally is an all-black page of redaction to where it is of no value."
Issa said that Holder should have known about the schemes, Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunrunner, which saw thousands of weapons end up in the hands of violent Mexican drug lords.
"It is almost impossible to believe that everyone, including CBS News and many newspapers and Fox, had reported on Fast and Furious, yet Eric Holder still didn't know anything about it."
He added, "If Eric Holder knew any significant time before he said he knew just a couple weeks before he testified before the Judiciary Committee then he's in very serious trouble.
"But I think he's in serious trouble in a different way, he should have known about this, not just this past February, but a year earlier.
That view was echoed by a serving agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview.
"Eric Holder did not have any means or interest in containing this and he needs to be held accountable," said agent Jay Dobyns, who warned, "There are more crimes coming. These guns that were released don't have an end life. AK-47s and assault weapons are built to stand the test of time.
Dobyns, who shot to fame when he infiltrated the Hell's Angels for the ATF said the DoJ has been involved in "a huge cover-up" over the Fast and Furious scandal.
Under the schemes, "straw buyers" were allowed to buy about 2,000 weapons, even though agents knew they would end up in the hands of Mexican cartel leaders. The plan was to track the guns so they would lead to the drug kingpins. But the plan went disastrously wrong and most of the guns disappeared. Weapons involved in the scheme have been linked to numerous murders in Mexico and the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who died in December.
Story continues below video.
Dobyns said, "They don't want this case and the details of it and the flawed strategy being exposed to the public I hold Eric Holder accountable for that because he is the attorney general, he is the leader of the Department of Justice, he oversees the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"He either knew about it and didn't do anything to stop it or he didn't know about it and then why are you asleep at the wheel when something like this is taking place?' "
Just last week, Jesus Rejon Aguilar, an alleged founder of one of the most violent cartels, the Zetas gang, admitted to Mexican authorities, "All the weapons are bought in the United States," adding, "Even the American government was selling the weapons."
Aguilar was arrested on July 3. Among his alleged crimes is the murder of U.S. immigration officer Jaime Zapata, who was killed in February while on special assignment near San Luis Potosi in central Mexico. "Whatever you want, you can get," Aguilar said in a videotaped interrogation with Mexican authorities.
Dobyns said ATF acting Director Kenneth Melson, who has told Congressional investigators that the DoJ tried to stop him giving evidence, also has to bear his share of the blame.
"Acting director or not, this is his baby," said Dobyns, who wrote the New York Times bestseller "No Angel" about his Hell's Angels investigation. "This took place on his watch.
"A U.S. Border Patrol agent called Brian Terry was murdered with guns that passed through an ATF operation. ICE agent Jaime Zapata was murdered with guns that allegedly came through this case. Hundreds of Mexican civilians, police officers, police chiefs have been murdered. A Mexican police helicopter was shot down with a gun that came through our control," he pointed out.
Dobyns said Melson's comment that he "felt sick to his stomach" when he learned the full extent of the schemes was "insulting."
"It should be a little bit worse than that. It should be worse than a little bit of a sickening, nauseating feeling for him," he said. "That is not good enough."
Dobyns said ATF has a culture where mistakes are covered up rather than investigated. "It's institutional arrogance," he said. "The people that run the agency believe they are above the law, they believe they can do whatever they want."
And he said current agents have no faith in the current leadership, which makes it even more imperative that Holder, Melson, and others at the top should be forced out if they won't resign. "There are leaders that are committed to the mission, that know how to get the mission done. Unfortunately, those guys get buried.
"New blood with a sense of purpose and knowledge of what takes place on the street needs to be put in place." When that happens, he said the enthusiasm of officers will return. "They want to go do their job, they just want to do it the right way."
Last week, Issa and his Senate counterpart, Charles Grassley of Iowa, warned Holder not to fire Melson, as he had come forward with information that seemed to implicate the DoJ in a cover-up over the twin gunrunning schemes.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/issa-dobyns-atf-holder/2011/07/11/id/403209?s=al&promo_code=C980-1
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 13-07-2011
Bilirakis questions Holder, Melson on Tampa gunwalking allegations
Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea
WASHINGTON, DC: Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) wrote a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth Melson expressing "deep concern about reports that [ATF and DOJ] have participated in multiple acts of gun walking,' purposely allowing firearms to pass from straw purchaser into the possession of criminals and other dangerous third party organizations."
"These reports," Bilirakis writes, "raise troubling questions about the motives, intentions, and competency of the ATF and DOJ."
"In recent days," he notes, "it has come to light that the ATF and DOJ may have participated in the act of gun walking' beyond the acts conducted within the scope of "Operation Fast and Furious'…and that similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF's Tampa Field Division."
Referencing his membership on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Bilirakis asked for answers to the following questions, including whether ATF Tampa and DOJ "allowed weapons to be trafficked to Honduras." Click here to see the complete letter and questions.
A point of clarification by Mike Vanderboegh, one of the two online journalists who broke the Tampa/Honduras gunwalking story, involves the appearance that Operation Castaway was necessarily the cover used for the trafficking. In an update filed today, Vanderboegh notes:
You will note the question mark in the header of the first story after "Part of Operation Castaway?"
Here is the exact wording:
"Whether the allegations of our source refer to the on-going Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O'Brien has allowed the 'walking' of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field Division's Operation Fast and Furious. That Operation Castaway involved arms smuggling to Honduras is also certain."
This is careful language for a reason. We asked the question because although other sources suggested it might be related to Operation Castaway we could not confirm it. We went with what our central source (who was closest to the source of the story than anyone else) said, which was that although he was certain of gunwalking to Honduras he was not certain it was a part of the Castaway operation.
Our second story, my analysis piece on "Why Honduras?" and my letter to Melson included nothing about Castaway.
Elsewhere on the Internet and in the mainstream media, others made the connection to Castaway, which may have been related to a combination of this language in the DOJ press release on Castaway, "Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation…
Advertisement
Sources have reconfirmed to these correspondents that regardless of any Castaway connection that may or may not be established, they stand by the gunwalking allegations.
Also see:
Vanderboegh's Sipsey Street Irregulars post (includes complete transcript)
A Journalist's Guide to Project Gunwalker' Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner.
Note to newcomers to this story: "Project Gunrunner" is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. "Project Gunwalker" is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed "walking" surfaced.
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/bilirakis-questions-holder-melson-on-tampa-gunwalking-allegations#ixzz1S0yAsCu4
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 13-07-2011
Eric Holder, You've Got Mail
Some interesting letters from Congress to the Attorney General.
by John Hayward
07/12/2011
The overflowing mailbox of Attorney General Eric Holder includes a few interesting letters from Congress.
One of them comes from Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), who represents the 9th Congressional District, right next to Tampa. Bilirakis wants to know more about "Operation Castaway," the latest revelation in the Gun Walker saga of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The Congressman writes:
In recent days, it has come to light that the ATF and DOJ may have participated in the act of "gun walking" beyond the acts conducted within the scope of "Operation Fast and Furious." Recent reports have suggested that Project Gunrunner may not have been limited to weapons trafficking to Mexico and that similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF's Tampa Field Division, and the Department of Justice's Middle District of Florida through an operation known as "Operation Castaway.
As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, I find it troubling that the United States government would willfully allow weapons to be acquired by dangerous criminal and drug trafficking organizations, in direct contravention to our strategic and national interests.
Bilirakis is not exaggerating when he talks about "dangerous criminal gangs." The Honduras connection might have put Gun Walker weapons into the hands of MS-13, widely considered one of the most vicious and powerful gangs in the world. Here is how the FBI describes them:
They perpetrate violence - from assaults to homicides, using firearms, machetes, or blunt objects - to intimidate rival gangs, law enforcement, and the general public. They often target middle and high school students for recruitment. And they form tenuous alliances...and sometimes vicious rivalries...with other criminal groups, depending on their needs at the time.
Congressman Bilirakis leaves no doubt where he stands, after getting a belly full of Operation Fast and Furious, and wondering if Operation Castaway will prove to be more of the same:
It is my belief that the ATF and the DOJ operated in an extremely misguided manner in allowing guns to walk across the border and end up in the possession of dangerous criminal organizations. These actions have already resulted in the loss of human life and property. I hope that you would agree that we must not allow flawed programs to continue to operate to the detriment of the safety and security of the United States of America.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Holder's least favorite pen pals, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) of the House Oversight committee and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), wrote to ask Holder if his department has been coaching Gun Walker witnesses:
We have recently learned that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has afforded potential witnesses for the Committee's investigation into Operation Fast and Furious access to a shared drive on its computer system replete with pertinent investigative documents, including official ATF e-mails.
Although our staff has been advised the Department has since terminated access to this document cache, we write to seek additional information relating to this egregious decision. We also ask that you promptly self-report this matter to the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
You are not in a happy place when the chairman of House Oversight thinks you have engaged in "egregious" behavior. Issa and Grassley explain why this is bad:
Allowing witnesses access to such documents could taint their testimony by allowing them to tailor their responses to what they think the Committees already know. Additionally, witnesses who gain access to documents they have not previously seen could alter their recollection of events. This practice harms not only our investigation, but also the independent investigation that you instructed the Inspector General to conduct.
All in all, it's just another brick in the stonewall.
John Hayward is a staff writer for HUMAN EVENTS, and author of the recently published Doctor Zero: Year One.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44808
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 13-07-2011
"Operation Castaway": Did ATF Sell Guns to Honduran Gangs Too?
The "Project Gunrunner" case is now pointing towards possible ATF sales of weapons bound for Honduras, including a reported 1,000 guns to members of the ruthless MS-13 gang. The program may be a spinoff or in some way related to "Operation Castaway," and in reports it sounds remarkably similar to "Operation Fast and Furious."
Last week, the Blaze reported on the controversy surrounding "Operation Fast and Furious," an offshoot of the Project Gunrunner program. The Attorney General is under scrutiny after allegations that the ATF knowingly allowed straw buyers in the US to purchase weapons bound for Mexican drug cartels and "let them walk," meaning they dropped surveillance on the buyers and lost track of the weapons.There are also accusations that as part of the Project Gunrunner program, ATF agents told gun store owners to sell to suspected criminals, against the owners' objections, and that there was a top down ATF policy that accepted the weapons would cross international boundaries.
Now, there may be even more questions for the AG coming from Congress, as "Operation Castaway" or a similar area program may have placed weapons in the hands of MS-13, an international criminal syndicate.
New reporting in Examiner links the tactics and procedures of the "Fast and Furious" with "Operation Castaway," and claims that Castaway may have delivered weapons to the notoriously violent MS-13 gang in Honduras. The Examiner's post cites this September 2010 press release, from the Department of Justice, Middle District of Florida, to link Tampa ATF operations with the Project Gunrunner fiasco. Examiner also claims that
"Virginia O'Brien, Special Agent in Charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source."
Though a connection between the Gunrunner scandal and the Tampa ATF operation described above has not been definitively established, the Examiner is already accusing the Tampa ATF of a cover-up, writing:
"There are emails in existence where O'Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project Gunrunner. From a first person source she is sh*tting herself trying to cover it up."
The political stakes for this case in Washington are high, and pressure is mounting on the Department of Justice and the Obama administration to fully explain Project Gunrunner to Congress. Thegatewaypundit has a post linking a Fox News video that lays out the fight on Capitol Hill currently underway, including rumors that a special prosecutor is being requested. Others, such as Congressman Darrell Issa and Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, just want a straight answer. Sen. Grassley is on camera stating "Either they were ignorant, or they were lying to us.
Congress gave the ATF $21 million in 2009, including $10 million in stimulus funds, and a year later the ATF was given $37 million more to expand Project Gunrunner.
In May, District Attorney Holder stated before Congress that he learned of the "Fast and Furious" program over the last few weeks.'
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/operation-castaway-did-atf-sell-guns-to-honduran-gangs-too/
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 15-07-2011
ATF Florida Gun Probe Earns Congressional Scrutiny in Wake of 'Fast and Furious'
By Judson Berger
Published July 14, 2011
FoxNews.com
Several lawmakers are questioning the Obama administration about whether the controversial "Fast and Furious" gunrunning probe may have had a cousin in Florida that resulted in guns being trafficked to Central America.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., penned a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder and ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson inquiring about a program known as "Operation Castaway." Other top lawmakers are also starting to look into it, though ATF claims the program was above board and not similar to Operation Fast and Furious at all.
The Justice Department says Castaway was an anti-gun trafficking operation handled by an ATF division in Florida. It resulted last year in a slew of convictions for defendants the department claimed provided firearms linked to violent crimes around the world. But in light of questions surrounding the Fast and Furious probe out of ATF's Phoenix division, Bilirakis questioned whether Castaway bore the same suspicious hallmarks.
Fast and Furious came under fire for allegedly allowing guns to "walk" across the Mexico border in an attempt to track their migration into cartel hands. Weapons tied to the program were found at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry's murder last year.
Bilirakis expressed concern about reports that the strategy "may not have been limited to weapons trafficking to Mexico."
He asked Holder and Melson whether "similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF's Tampa Field Division" and a Justice Department office, via Castaway.
Bilirakis' letter specifically asked whether the Tampa division participated in a "gun walking" scheme allowing guns to go to Honduras. He also asked whether ATF or DOJ know if any of the firearms ended up in the hands of the "notorious" MS-13 gang -- a violent gang spread across Central America, Mexico and the United States.
Court documents from the Operation Castaway takedown claim that at least five firearms from the illegal sales of the main suspect ended up later being connected to crimes, several in Puerto Rico. One pistol was recovered in Colombia after being used in a homicide.
But an ATF official told FoxNews.com that the investigation, which targeted Florida gun dealer Hugh Crumpler III, did not appear to be designed like Fast and Furious. Though Justice and ATF have not yet formally responded to Bilirakis, the official explained that ATF got involved in the Crumpler case after the fact, and was not using the investigation to track firearms sales across international lines.
"We became involved with Crumpler at the first opportunity of realizing that criminal activity was afoot," the official said. "Once we were able to put our case together, establish probable cause ... then at that point, we did so at the soonest opportunity to stop the illegal activity."
The official noted that the case is "complete," though two fugitives are still at large.
The 2010 plea agreement suggests ATF agents monitored him for just a few months before taking him in -- it does not describe any long-term effort to track firearms outside U.S. borders.
The lengthy court document states that the ATF noticed Crumpler's numerous purchases in a national firearms database -- it turned out he was later selling them at gun shows. According to the plea agreement, the ATF had an undercover agent buy from Crumpler and later observed the suspect at several gun shows in late 2009, selling to numerous buyers without a license. At one point, he told an undercover agent that he knew the firearms were making their way to Honduras.
By early 2010, ATF agents were seizing guns sold by Crumpler and within weeks confronted him, putting a stop to the operation.
Despite ATF's claims, the issue is starting to pop up on the radar screen of other lawmakers, including those leading the charge to find out more about Fast and Furious -- Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
"Senator Grassley is looking into the allegations and trying to get some firsthand information from people involved," Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine told FoxNews.com.
Bilirakis apparently was alerted to Castaway by news reports, as well as calls received by his office.
An article on Examiner.com initially claimed the Tampa division was "walking guns" to Honduras in a way similar to Fast and Furious.
Bilirakis spokesman Creighton Welch said his boss saw the report, but also received "several calls from folks who I guess you could say were familiar with the situation in Tampa."
He declined to go into further detail about where the tips were coming from.
"We're placing a lot of firearms in potentially the wrong hands," Welch said. "There are a lot of unanswered questions for a potentially very dangerous situation."
Bilirakis was joined by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., in writing a separate letter seeking similar answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton.
"We find it extremely troubling that the United States government would willfully allow weapons to be acquired by dangerous criminal and drug trafficking organizations, in direct contravention of our strategic and national interests," they wrote.
However, Crumpler's attorney told The Tampa Tribune that ATF agents "closely monitored" his client's activity, and he didn't think the guns made their way to Latin American criminals during the course of the probe.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/atf-florida-gun-probe-earns-congressional-scrutiny-in-wake-fast-and-furious/#ixzz1S8PYXZce
Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011) - Ed Jewett - 15-07-2011
Guns Gone Wild -- ATF's Good Intentions Gone Bad
By Mark Alexander · Thursday, July 14, 2011
Obama's Solution: New Gun Control Measures
"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition." --James Madison
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Obama's ATF Political Folly
In January of this year, Federal Judge John Roll, a Republican nominated by President George H.W. Bush, was among six citizens murdered by a psychopath in Tucson. Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was among 14 wounded in that attack.
Predictably, Barack Hussein Obama and his Leftist cadres in the Democrat Party were quick to convert the Tucson tragedy into political fodder to formulate a new round of "common sense" gun control legislation. Indeed, Obama claimed the Tucson assault should "at least be the beginning of a new discussion on how we can keep America safe for all our people." He went on, "I believe that if common sense prevails, we can get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way [to confiscate guns]."
But Obama's nefarious plan to undermine the Second Amendment was well underway many, many months prior to the Tucson murders -- and well below the radar. In fact, anti-gun activist Sarah Brady said that Obama told her, "I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control]. ... We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar." (So much for "the most transparent administration...")
Why would Obama want to be so clandestine with his anti-2A agenda?
In recent decades, Democrats have suffered serious electoral and judicial setbacks when trying to enact gun control measures. Given the lack of broad support for such measures, Obama is silently advancing the Socialist agenda to disarm Americans and, ultimately, neutralize our ability to defend Essential Liberty.
In March of this year, I detailed insider accounts regarding Project Gunrunner, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation begun in 2005, which originally had the objective of tracking weapons transfers between the U.S. and Mexico in order to expose Mexican drug cartels.
However, in early 2009, the Obama administration determined that the original purpose of Gunrunner could be altered in order to provide a new mandate for implementing their gun control rationale: Stopping the flow of "assault weapons" into Mexico. To facilitate that agenda, Attorney General Eric Holder authorized operation "Fast and Furious," that set into motion an ATF plan to encourage and enable "straw purchase" firearm sales to arms traffickers, and allow the guns to make their way into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartel assassins.
Holder determined that he could manufacture a case that guns purchased in the U.S. were responsible for all the violence in Mexico. Then Obama could use that "evidence" to make the argument that, in order to stem the violence, more stringent gun control measures were necessary, starting incrementally with restricting gun sales in Border States. As Demo Rep. Carolyn McCarthy put it, "[Obama] is with me on [gun control], and it's just going to be when that opportunity comes forward that we're going to be able to go forward."
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Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry
The "opportunity" was moving forward unabated until one of the ATF's Fast and Furious guns was used last December to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and other guns were used in the February ambush of Immigration and Customs Agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila by Los Zetas Cartel soldiers in Mexico. Agent Zapata was killed in that assault.
I should note here that in all accounts from my sources within ATF, clearly the agents involved at the tactical level of Gunrunner and F&F were under the impression that these operations were legitimate efforts to identify transit lines between the U.S. and members of Los Zetas and other Mexican drug cartels.
However, at the strategic (high-level management) levels of the ATF in Arizona and Texas, it was well understood that Holder had a scheme to use this operation to jumpstart Obama's gun control scheme. (In a March 2010 ATF memo, agents reported that the managers in charge of Fast and Furious were "jovial, if not giddy" over news that ATF guns were associated with murders in Mexico.)
There is new evidence that Holder even used "stimulus debt" to launch "Operation Castaway" in Florida -- putting guns into the hands of the world's most brutal transnational gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) -- to generate additional "supporting evidence" for Obama's gun control mandate.
Recall if you will, the Democrat's efforts to bring down the Reagan administration because Oliver North was secretly running a clandestine operation selling arms to Middle East bad guys so they could kill other Middle East bad guys, and then used some of the sales proceeds to fund the good guys in Central America fighting against Marxists south of our border. There is no such Democrat angst evident now in response to Obama's ATF political folly, even though the guns in this case are being turned on U.S. agents and civilians.
Obama and Holder are moving forward with their subterfuge with no concern about rebuke. Moreover, they are doing so as if agents Terry and Zapata were still walking the line.
Last Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced, "The president directed the attorney general to form working groups with key stakeholders to identify common-sense measures that would improve Americans' safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights. That process is well underway at the Department of Justice with stakeholders on all sides working through these complex issues. And we expect to have some more specific announcements in the near future."
Well underway, indeed. Lost amid the din of all the extra-constitutional federal tax-n-spend debates this week, Obama spared Democrat congressional action on gun control by unilaterally circumventing the Second Amendment via an Executive Order. You guessed it -- he decreed new restrictions on gun sales in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Holder's Deputy Attorney General, James Cole, claimed that Obama's EO would help the ATF disrupt illegal weapons trafficking networks between the U.S. and Mexico.
Meanwhile, there's a growing list of serious crimes committed in the U.S. with ATF guns that were thought to be in Mexico.
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Parents of Agent Jaime Zapata
As Obama ramps up additional gun control measures, I would remind him that the first shots of the American Revolution were fired in response to the government's attempt to disarm American colonists, specifically to capture and destroy arms and supplies stored by the Massachusetts militia in the town of Concord.
As reflected in James Madison's words regarding the "ultimate authority" for defending liberty, our Founders fully understood that to secure Liberty, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
As Madison's Supreme Court appointee, Justice Joseph Story, wrote in his 1833 "Commentaries on the Constitution," "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
The Second Amendment was and remains "The Palladium of Liberties."
Those who are foolishly willing to compromise Essential Liberty to pursue Obama's illusion of safety, in the timeless judgment of Benjamin Franklin, "deserve neither liberty nor safety."
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2011/07/14/guns-gone-wild-atfs-good-intentions-gone-bad/