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Whistleblower outs ATF and DOJ for allowing gun straw purchases to flow into Mexican cartel's hands. Weapon from "Gunrunner" OP used in recent murder of U.S. Border Agent. Purchases were up 30 AK47s at a time through Arizona dealers. "Operation Gunrunner" began sometime in 2009. Holder and Obama ARE the gun salesmen of the year. REVISION: Make that thousands of guns. My how time flies.

Kinda like this????

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/internet/undercover-web-site-derailed-hosting-firm

Yeah...keep the plates spinning.

Topped by me. Obama: "I didn't authorize it, DOJ Holder didn't authorize it."

Congressman Issa from Cal: "It all boils down to who's lying"

BATFE could never come up with something like this on their own.

^ the ones (full auto and heavy arms) are being purchased from China and Germany.

This is what's known as beurocratic circle jerk finger pointing. The object is to point fingers long enough for your media buddies to maintain a facade of objectivity and make idiots quit caring.

Now this doesn't show on any media radar. Not even Fox. Non-issue? Higher powers? Savoring for some sort of October suprise? FEH!!!

TRUE 'DAT ZR.

Exposed: The secret guns sting that backfired on the US

America's firearms watchdog allowed weapons to flow in, failed to catch ringleaders, then tried a cover-up

By Guy Adams

The lethal fallout from a botched operation by the US Department of Justice which allowed almost 2,000 illegally purchased firearms to be transported from the streets of Arizona to drug gangs in Mexico has been laid bare in a scathing Congressional report, which concludes that it resulted in countless deaths.


A mixture of arrogance, over-confidence, and staggering ineptitude by the Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF] was outlined in a 51-page investigation by two Republican members of a House panel charged with getting to the bottom of what went wrong during a two-year operation called "Fast and Furious".

It tells how, between 2009 and this year, the ATF instructed agents to turn a blind eye to hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles, sniper rifles, and revolvers purchased from gunshops in Phoenix and en route to Mexico. They hoped to eventually recover them from crime scenes and build a complex conspiracy case that might take down the leaders of a major drug cartel.

In the event, the operation resulted in the arrest of a handful of small-time crooks. But it exacerbated an already-huge spike in violence on both sides of the border. Two of the guns allowed to "walk" into the hands of criminals were used in a shoot-out that killed a US border patrol agent, Brian Terry.

The report describes his death as "a preventable tragedy", detailing how many of the ATF agents involved in Fast and Furious began to object to what they saw as the "reckless" nature of the operation, which conflicted with all known protocol and may turn out to have been illegal. But when they raised their concerns, they faced "punishment and retaliation" from their superiors.

It also highlights the symbiotic nature of the deadly drug trade between the US and Mexico, which has resulted in approximately 38,000 deaths since 2007. Cartels make their money smuggling cocaine and cannabis north from Mexico, and simultaneously equip their private armies with assault weapons purchased thanks to America's notoriously relaxed gun laws.

Fast and Furious revolved around so-called "straw" purchases of firearms, in which a buyer purchase military-grade hardware from a gun-store with the intention of illegally passing it to a criminal third party. ATF agents who track suspected straw purchases typically run intensive surveillance operations allowing them to arrest suspects and recover the guns. During the Fast and Furious operation they were instructed to simply let the weapons disappear.

A record was kept of their serial numbers. The idea was that this would later allow agents to link individual weapons to particular crime scenes. Somehow, this was supposed to help the ATF build up a nuanced picture of the complex structure of a major drug cartel, which would in turn lead to high-level arrests. But it wasn't to be.

"Both line agents and gun dealers who co-operated with the ATF repeatedly expressed concerns", about the operation, the report says. "But ATF supervisors did not heed those warnings. Instead, they told agents to follow orders because this was sanctioned from above."

In total, agents watched at least 1,730 guns flood on to the black market, knowing they would be used to commit murders and other violent crimes. Their concerns about the policy were ignored. In one email to field staff printed in the report, ATF supervisor David Voth suggested that staff who objected to his orders would be fired.

"I will be damned if this case is going to suffer due to petty arguing, rumours, or other adolescent behavior," he wrote. "We are all adults, we are all professionals, and we have an exciting opportunity to use the biggest tool in our law-enforcement tool box. If you don't think this is fun, you are in the wrong line of work, period!"

John Dodson, a special agent from Phoenix who eventually blew the whistle on the "flawed" operation, told congressmen his superiors would be "giddy" with delight when "their" guns were found at a crime scene in Mexico, because they believed it "validated" their tactic. With regard to potential loss of life, an ATF boss told him: "if you are going to make an omelette, you need to scramble some eggs."

On 14 December, disaster struck when the US border patrol guard, Brian Terry, was killed during a shootout with suspected illegal aliens on the Arizona border. His killers dropped their rifles to flee faster. Two of the weapons were AK-47s which had been intentionally allowed to walk during Fast and Furious.

Rather than admit to any mistake, the ATF embarked on a cover-up. William Newell, the special agent in charge of the operation, ordered the arrest of 20 of the people agents had been watching buy weapons for months. Then, although not one senior cartel member was arrested, he held a press conference declaring the operation a success.

Newell was then asked if any weapons had been deliberately allowed to end up in the hands of criminals. He replied, "Hell no!" The report describes that statement as untrue and "shocking." It alleges that the Department of Justice continued to attempt a cover-up for several months.

The fallout from the report's publication remains to be seen. It was written by two Republican congressmen, Darryl Issa and Charles Grassley. Some right-wing commentators have suggested that Fast and Furious was sanctioned by the Obama administration in an effort to justify tightening US gun laws. But the White House has said it had no direct knowledge of the operation.






http://tinyurl.com/6846fmy


Now we're going to witness just how far up the food chain this goes...we have Ritchie Cunningham telling America that his boss is Sgt. Schultz and "he knows nothing"...well, I'd agree with that one for once. Owebama was never ready for primetime.

Had Gifford been shot by one they might actually be showing remorse now. Boarder agents never have mattered much to the feds.

It's reported today that their going to fire the current ATF chief. He was a temp anyway. So Bama's thugs think by offering up this guy for cannon fodder the problem will go away. Traver, the gun hating a-hole from Chicago who they hope to appoint, will redirect the scandal back to the public. Thank's to the NRAILA's protest, his appointment is stalled in the senate. Given a certain amount of immunity someone will eventually sing like a bird.

Back in March at a private luncheon with Sara Brady in attendance, when the subject of gun control came up, Obama's reponse was some thing like, "something is in the works, in the backround so as to not draw too much attention."

With this statement it's unlikely Bama knew nothing of the op at that time or at it's inception in 2009.

Owebamma is only responsible for good things....

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/issa-staffer-gunrunner-investigation-points-much-higher-than-atf-director/

Awesome. Hope he doesn't frequently Marcy park....

We're gonna need a lot of body bags.

I sure hope eric holder sleeps well at night.....

...and now might possibly be connected with a similar program out of Florida involving Honduran based MS-13 gangs. They operate throughout central America, Mexico and U.S.

When Ignorance Is the Best Excuse

Eric Holder's only defense of the ATF's "Fast and Furious" program is that he didn't know it existed.

Mike Riggs | July 20, 2011



When Rupert Murdoch went before the British Parliament yesterday to testify about the News of the World hacking scandal, he did not attempt to downplay the severity of his employees’ crimes. Rather, he apologized for the damage done and then said, "I didn’t know of it." When asked who, then, was responsible for the culture of criminality that had developed at News of the World, Murdoch told Parliament, "The people I trusted and the people they trusted."

Even longtime Murdoch haters had to concede that the mogul’s response was brilliant. If he’s telling the truth, the News Corp. owner is guilty only of having trusted the wrong people to oversee his British papers (such as News International chief and former World editor Rebekah Brooks), and of never checking in on things himself. Luckily for Rupert, being a disinterested executive is not a crime. Unforunately for the staff of the shuttered News, this means their boss quite possibly ignored Britain’s largest circulation newspaper into the grave.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Attorney General Eric Holder and his protectors in the Justice Department are using the same defense to keep the DOJ chief from being implicated in the increasingly sordid ATF gunrunner scandal.

Earlier this year CBS discovered that the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Attorneys office in Phoenix had allowed known gunrunners to buy heavy arms, including several .50 caliber rifles, from border state gun shops and take them to Mexico. The program became public when U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry turned up dead near Rio Rico, Arizona, killed by two assault rifles that the ATF had practically shepherded into cartel possession.

That the U.S. government had a hand in Terry's death wasn't just news to his grieving family, it was allegedly news to the government as well.

When the House Oversight Committee began investigating the program, which was known as “Fast and Furious,” it found that border state ATF agents wanted to make arrests related to the program, but were told not to do so. Earlier this month Congress found out why: The FBI and the DEA both had cartel informants whose cover would’ve allegedly been jeopardized had the ATF acted on its intelligence.

This revelation means that three of the biggest enforcement agencies within the Department of Justice knew about a program that one DOJ spokesman described to me as “illegal” and “isolated.” The one person who supposedly did not know is Holder. His first reaction to media reports about the gunrunner program was to “vehemently deny...that ATF has ever knowingly allowed weapons to get into the hands of suspected gunrunners for Mexico's drug cartels." His second and enduring response was to plead ignorance.

"Holder said he became aware of the ATF agents concerns about certain tactics used in Fast and Furious earlier this year,” a DOJ spokesperson told me last week. “That’s when he asked the IG to investigate those concerns.” Holder said the same thing in testimony before the House in March.

After several months of hearings and countless requests for documents and intra-department communications, there’s still no evidence that Holder knew about the program before the rest of us did. Holder’s ignorance is supported by acting ATF Director Ken Melson, who told Oversight that it “would be unusual for other Justice Department officials in Washington to know the details and that the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix was overseeing the program.”

The House Oversight Committee is now trying to find out why. “It’s hard for us to believe that all throughout that year-plus process and even as this program fell apart and became a problem for [the Department of] Justice, that nobody should have told [Holder] something,” Oversight Chair Rep. Darrell Issa told Fox Business Channel host Lou Dobbs last week.

While there’s some evidence that the people Holder trusted—his own Rebekah Brooks, you could say—knew about Fast and Furious, Holder appears to have been genuinely oblivious to the development and implementation of a project that has stained the U.S.-Mexico border blood-red.

Mike Riggs is an associate editor at Reason magazine.




Riiiight...he didn't know. Experience matters and this is Owebama's boy. Holder is a dead man walking.

ATF Manager says he shared Fast and Furious Info with White House - By Sharyl Attkisson

At a lengthy hearing on ATF's controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O'Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O'Reilly is unclear and wasn't fully explored at the hearing.

It's the first time anyone has publicly stated that a White House official had any familiarity with ATF's operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain intelligence. It's unknown as to whether O'Reilly shared information with anybody else at the White House.

Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O'Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: "you didn't get this from me."

"What does that mean," one member of Congress asked Newell, " 'you didn't get this from me?' "

"Obviously he was a friend of mine," Newell replied, "and I shouldn't have been sending that to him."

Newell told Congress that O'Reilly had asked him for information.

"Why do you think he asked for that information," Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked Newell.

"He was asking about the impact of Project Gunrunner to brief people in preparation for a trip to Mexico... what we were doing to combat firearms trafficking and other issues."

Today, a White House spokesman said the email was not about Fast and Furious, but about other gun trafficking efforts. The spokesman also said he didn't know what Newell was referring to when he said he'd spoken to O'Reilly about Fast and Furious.

President Obama has said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized or knew about the operation. Holder has asked the Inspector General to investigate.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20083772-10391695.html

Since we live in a "hi-tech" world, are there shredders that work with hard drives? How about entire servers? Going to be a tough time ringing out info what with a absence of paper. Maybe there's a lone wolf out there whose made hard copies out there of everything and keeping them in a safe deposit box. One can only hope. This mess ain't your fathers Watergate. Where's Deep Throat when you need him.

...this just in...the top 3 screw-ups that rammed this debacle past the AG and the President...they got PROMOTIONS!!!!


They're Peter Principaling these idiots right in front of your eyes in BROAD DAYLIGHT!

See the roaches for what they are!

Is Holder doing a damn thing?

Does the President even care?

I mean he does have a vacation to go on soon and all.

I think they had a "lesson learned" meeting and came up with a few action items.

Let's see, we'll promote you if you throw yourself under the bus. I was afraid this story would die with a whimper. Issa and crew's silence is deafening. So much for that.

Saw this on Foxnews.com today. Coulda' knock me over with a feather.

ATF Death Watch 64: The Gunwalker Cover-Up Continues
Posted on August 26, 2011 by Robert Farago


In ATF Death Watch 63, ATF Special Agent in Charge Dewey Webb and U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy bemoaned the loss of innocent life caused by smugglers sending American gun store guns to Mexican drug cartels. The same activity conducted by the ATF during Operation Fast and Furious. Here’s the punchline: the gun smuggling in question—involving Columbus, New Mexico police chief Angelo Vega [above] and 15 co-conspirators—may have been ATF-enabled . . .


What’s more, the U.S. Attorney’s office has cut a deal with 13 of those charged with illegal firearms purchases and related crimes. The defendants faced 280 years in prison. Each. As part of their plea, the sentences will run concurrently. They’re going down for five to 10 years. In exchange for . . .

Regular readers of this series might suspect that the police chief and his gun smuggling crew caught a break in exchange for their silence on Operation Fast and Furious. Which would presume that they knew that the firearms in question—some 200 rifles and handguns—were amongst those the ATF let “walk” into Mexico. Presuming the firearms were part of the ATF’s stingless sting.

The public information officer whose name appears on yesterday’s celebratory press release ain’t sayin’ if Vega’s straw dogs were buying at the ATF’s behest—whether knowingly or unknowingly. Clock this from lc-sun.news.com:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Texas on has neither confirmed nor denied whether the weapons in Gutierrez’s case were connected with the controversial [Operation Fast and Furious] sting, but said Thursday they were researching the matter.

Still? When asked the same question a month ago to the day, ATF spokesman Daryl Fields said the same thing. Note: the ATF could trace the weapons confiscated as part of the New Mexican case in ten minutes. Here’s an indication that there is, at the least, “overlap”:

Six of the smuggled weapons – three AK-47-type pistols and three pistols nicknamed “cop killers” — were purchased around Jan. 9, 2010, by straw purchasers in Arizona, according to court documents, leading to accusations from defense attorney C.J. McElhinney that the Columbus smuggling case was connected to Operation Fast and Furious.

TTAG’s put in a call to Mr. Fields for clarification. We’d also like to know how many of the guns in the New Mexico case were recovered and how many are still out there, somewhere . . .

In raids, law enforcement seized 40 of the AK-47 type pistols, more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition and 30 high-capacity magazines before they crossed the border, and found another 12 firearms in Mexico that were traced back to the defendants. Three others were found on three dead individuals in an SUV in Juárez, and others were found at a narcotics bust there, according to federal prosecutors.

Yes, well, who was shooting whom with these weapons and why? If the guns were used against Los Zetas, that would be a reasonable indication that the ATF was involved (Los Zetas being our least favored cartel). If drug thugs uses some of these rifles to ice ICE Agent Jaime Zapata inside Mexico, that’s another story.

How about some intel guys? Meanwhile, there’s one non-fed who might know whether or not the New Mexican gun smuggling was connected to the ATF: the ring-leader. Igancio “Nacho” Villalobos. Only he’s not available for interview . . .

The lawyer for one of Villalobos’ co-conspirator told TTAG that he’s seen photographic proof that the ATF had ALL the members of the New Mexican gun running ring under surveillance before the feds swooped down and made their arrests. Strange, then, that Villalobos, and Villalobos alone, managed to escape.

What are the odds? And what are the odds that Villalobos was a running a gun smuggling op in New Mexico that was both independent and parallel to the ATF’s Arizona and Tampa-based gun smuggling efforts?

As we said from the start of Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa’s investigation into the so-called Gunwalker scandal, the pols needs to [find and] interview the people at the sharp end of this black bag job.

While I’m not scanning the skies for black helicopters (yet), Uncle Sam’s minions are circling the wagons, attempting to keep a lid on who know who did what with which gun from what source and why.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is looking like one big ass conspiracy. Here’s the list of people involved with yesterday’s Vega-related high five:

The investigation was conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with assistance from the Comandante Chihuahua State Police in Palomas, Mexico and the Secretariat of Public Security in Juarez, Mexico. The U.S. Marshal’s Service, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, New Mexico State Police, Las Cruces Police Department, El Paso Police Department as well as other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies also provided assistance during the investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Greg McDonald and Steven Spitzer.

Obviously, the agencies involved were compartmentalized. (One of the reasons the Gunwalker scandal broke: the ATF didn’t tell agents at the sharp end why they shouldn’t bust smugglers before American gun store guns crossed the border.) McDonald and Spitzer may not even know the truth about U.S. government-sponsored gun smuggling.

But they might. Congress should ask, before the ATF and their helpers tie-up all the loose ends.

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 8/30/11 12:21 PM EDT
The man who led the controversial Fast and Furious anti-gun-trafficking operation will step down as the interim head of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Justice Department announced Tuesday as it named a new acting director for the agency.

Kenneth Melson, the bureau’s acting director, on Wednesday will move to the Office of Legal Policy, where he will be a senior adviser on forensic science, the department said without making reference to the failed gun-tracking operation that is alleged to have ultimately put guns into the hands of criminals. Dennis Burke, the U.S. Attorney in Arizona who oversaw prosecutions in that state related to the Fast and Furious operation, is also stepping down, the department said.

“Ken brings decades of experience at the department and extensive knowledge in forensic science to his new role, and I know he will be a valuable contributor on these issues,” Attorney General Eric Holder said of Melson in a statement. “As he moves into this new role, I want to thank Ken for his dedication to the department over the last three decades.”

Melson’s replacement is B. Todd Jones, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. Jones “is a demonstrated leader who brings a wealth of experience to this position,” Holder said. “I have great confidence that he will be a strong and steady influence guiding ATF in fulfilling its mission of combating violent crime by enforcing federal criminal laws and regulations in the firearms and explosives industries.”

Melson took the top spot at the ATF on an interim basis in 2009 and oversaw the execution of Fast and Furious, an effort that was aimed at rooting out gun smugglers selling weapons to Mexican cartels. Ultimately, the ATF lost track of as many as 2,000 guns that were sold during the operation, including two that were found near the scene of the killing of a Border Patrol agent.

In a separate statement, Holder commended Burke’s “decision to place the interests of the U.S. Attorney’s office above all else” in stepping down. CBS reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, who worked under Burke on Fast and Furious, will be reassigned to the Civil Division of the Justice Department.

Holder also praised Burke’s work, and said his office’s “quick response to the devastating shootings in January that claimed the lives of several people and critically injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was crucial in arresting and charging the alleged shooter.”

An investigation of the Fast and Furious operation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found emails showing that Melson was regularly informed of the problems with the investigation.

One associate told POLITICO that, despite news stories predicting Melson’s exit since the beginning of the summer, he may have been reluctant to resign due to issues related to eligibility for retirement. Melson started at the Justice Department in 1983 as a federal prosecutor in Virginia.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, initially called on Melson to resign, but reversed course in July, saying that Melson should not be forced out until the facts about the operation were fully known.

In a statement Tuesday, Issa said “the reckless disregard for safety” by the Justice Department “certainly merits changes” in personnel.

But the committee will continue to investigate Fast and Furious “to ensure that blame isn’t offloaded on just a few individuals for a matter that involved much higher levels of the Justice Department,” Issa said. “There are still many questions to be answered about what happened in Operation Fast and Furious and who else bears responsibility, but these changes are warranted and offer an opportunity for the Justice Department to explain the role other officials and offices played in the infamous efforts to allow weapons to flow to Mexican drug cartels.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) voiced dismay that Melson has been reassigned and not forced to step down. Holder, he said, should have requested Melson’s resignation and “come clean on all alleged gun-walking operations.”

In July, there was fresh evidence of distance between Melson and Justice Department leaders when he gave a lengthy interview to congressional investigators outside the presence of and without advance notice to DOJ’s legislative affairs team. In the interview, Melson said he had objected to aspects of DOJ’s plans for handing the legislative inquiries and that he had been told not to tell Congress why mid-ranking ATF officials with responsibility for the Fast and Furious operation were reassigned.

The ATF has been without a permanent director since 2006. The confirmation process for the Obama administration’s nominee, Andrew Traver, the head of the agency’s Chicago office, has stalled under opposition from the National Rifle Association.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62320.html#ixzz1WXIlUMmX