ATF agents: Border weapons operation a disaster
WASHINGTON - Three federal firearms investigators told a House committee 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.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said leaders of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were fully aware of the details of Operation Fast and Furious, which was designed to track small-time gun buyers to major weapons traffickers along the Southwest border.
At a hearing before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said “hundreds upon hundreds of weapons” destined for cartels in Mexico were purchased in Arizona gun shops.
The operation was designed to respond to criticism that the agency had focused on small-time gun arrests while major traffickers eluded prosecution.
Full Story Here:
ATF agents: Border weapons operation a disaster
I was having a conversation this morning with a friend and neighbor that is one of the most well informed gentlemen I know.
We were discussing this debacle known as “Fast and Furious”, “Operation Gun Walker” and also known as “Operation Gun Runner”. I’m pretty sure there are a few other names in use, but we’re not privy to them, and if we were, I’m not sure the names would be fit for publication.
The fact of the matter is this; someone, likely several, perhaps many different individuals within the Obama regime, have made the most incredibly stupid mistake imaginable.
Every news source I can find is pointing this out, and for the most part, are calling it what it is, a disaster.
My neighbor and I were also talking about the possibility that this debacle could easily be the beginning of the end for the Obama administration. More on that at the bottom of the post.
WASHINGTON -Three federal firearms investigators told a House of Representatives committee on Wednesday that they were ordered repeatedly 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.
Full Story Here:
ATF Agents Describe Risky Border Weapons Operation That Was Disaster
A disaster, that is the general consensus around the media and on all Conservative, political and gun blogs.
Wouldn’t you know? Obama and Company claim that they don’t know anything about this and did, in NO WAY, order it to happen.
Obama denies knowledge of controversial operation
Now under increasing fire for the controversial operation, the Obama administration is denying having authorized the mission. During an interview with Univision this week, President Obama said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder knew of the operation, now called “Operation Fast and Furious.”
Responding to reports that the Mexican government has complained about the U.S. operation that allowed guns to illegally cross the international border, Obama said he didn’t inform Mexican President Felipe Calderon because he — the president of the United States — wasn’t informed either.
Ditching the old presidential moniker “The Buck Stops Here,” Obama responded that the U.S. government “a pretty big government” with “a lot of moving parts” SOURCE
Obama and Holder didn’t know? Seriously? That’s the story the Obama regime wants to go with?
Eric Holder is the United States Attorney General, and as such, is in charge of the Department of Justice.
The DOJ is at the head of the column, they administer the DEA, BATFE, FBI, USMS, The National Drug Intelligence Center, The Executive Office for Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, The National Drug Intelligence Center, INTERPOL (U.S. National Central Bureau) and many other branches of the DOJ.
The agencies listed above are the LAW ENFORCEMENT branches of the DOJ. These are the people in charge of keeping America safe, and Eric Holder is their boss. Barack Hussein Obama is Eric Holders boss, and they, Holder and Obama, claim that they know nothing about these operations?
Somehow, I just don’t believe that.
This operation could possibly be a *rogue* operation, but if it is, at the very least, Eric Holder must accept full responsibility for it and the deaths and injuries it has caused.
You’ve heard that old saying, “Heads will roll”? This is indeed one of those times when heads DO need to roll. There needs to be a cleansing within the BATFE and DOJ, there needs to be blame assigned and penalties assessed. Those penalties need to be severe.
Our government, and the anti-gun cabal, has, on innumerable occasions, accused legal, honest, hard working American gun owners and dealers of being the heart of the matter where gun smuggling to Mexico was concerned. American gun owners were vilified, their Second Amendment rights were threatened, they were portrayed as *The Villain* in the governments so-called efforts to stop the ILLEGAL gun trade.
Now, as the facts surface, the hypocrisy of the Obama administration is nothing less than astounding, and the irony of the matter is almost hilarious.
Almost…
IMO Operation Gunwalker was working as planned until word of it leaked out. Using misleading statistics this Administration was able to claim cartels were being armed from gun sales within the US. This had to be the only reason they allowed the guns to walk.
Common sense would tell you that the BATF could not track guns in Mexico because Mexico refuses to cooperate with us in almost all law enforcement matters. Our agents in Mexico are unarmed and do not know who to trust. Mexico wasn’t tracking the weapons because we didn’t tell them or coordinate with them.
Ergo the only reason we had to let the guns walk was to bolster fictitious statistics, but then American agents were killed with those guns. Anyone with a lick of common sense should have seen that coming. Those responsible should be tried for conspiracy to commit murder.
So my readers know, Tex is another *buddy* of mine, and I am aware of some of his background, he is a man that knows from which he speaks…
Tex — Thank you for weighing in on this Sir, your knowledgeable opinion is always welcome!
I don’t know much about the intrigue in this matter. I smell a rat, tho. If I was a BTAF agent, and I lost a close buddy due to some idiotic scheme, I’d start looking under some rocks for the person(s) that concocted that scheme. I would be armed. With the nincipoops that seems to be designing our border arms control policies, it would clearly be self defense.
For BHO & Eric Holder to say they had no knowledge is obscene. During my 26 year career I had the pleasure of having two partners who were from BATF. We worked narcotics and for us to do a simple controlled delivery took an act of congress.
A controlled delivery is taking delivery of contraband from a crook and then transport the contraband to the crook who purchased the contraband. So you are going to tell me that BHO OR Eric Holder did not know! Horse Pucky. We are talking about allowing contraband, in this case weapons, to be transported into Mexico for the purpose of identifying who bought the weapons. That is BS.
Mexico is given Millions in military aid, including weapons of all kinds. What happens to those weapons one might ask, as we all know Mexico is corrupt from one end to the other, and wages are low. So, some of the higher ups in the military sell off those weapons, do you hear main steam media reporting on it? No.
So in my opinion there was no way that this administration did not know, the AG would have had to approve that operation. From the get go, the operation never should have happened in the first place. There was no logic in what they did, they now have the blood of dead agents on their hands.
Bottom line, BHO and Eric Holder are to blame, they are in charge………..
YOUR FIRED
Here’s one that appears to have been missed along the way, from our friends at No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money comes this: Operation Wide Receiver
What we all suspected. When “The Heroes of Ruby Ridge” get involved in anything it becomes a debacle. Will repeat: BATFE needs to be disbanded. They are rotten to the core.
Of course The Walking Turd and his Butt Buddy knew about the illegal operations,, they planned it.
I lay a lot of the blame at the hands of the FFL dealers that were “ordered to stand aside” and allow the illegal gun sales to be completed.
They should have not followed an illegal order, they should have blown the whistle at that time, not wait until after an agent was killed.
That was why the Whistleblower laws were enacted.
Lee, I agree, someone should have said something but the FFL dealers are pretty much at the mercy of BATFE, who could they blow the whistle to??
Maybe I’m wrong but I am thinking the BATFE agents should have taken it to someone, but again, WHO? They work for DOJ, just where do you take those kinds of accusations and charges when your boss is the AG?? It’s not like a patrolman seeing some corruption or graft and taking it to the SGT or LT…
This crap came from the TOP, and I think we ALL know it… Kinda put the Agents AND the FFL Dealers between a rock and a hard place in my opinion…
Well in Texas I would call the Texas Rangers, they have a pretty good record… I am not sure who would be their counterpart in Arizona.
I would call the media, get the story out.
I would file a suit against whoever ordered me to commit an illegal act under threat of punishment.
Stand up and piss back in their faces.
Let me also, Fred, shed a little obvious light here as well, probably telling you something you likely already know: federal law enforcement doesn’t take a piss on a case unless it consults with the local AUSA. Everything works from a warrant; there is almost nothing done from a perspective of what general law enforcement calls a “fresh arrest.” All the USAs won’t go with a case unless it’s tied up just perfectly, the wrapping paper is the right color, the bow is tied exquisitely and there isn’t a speck of dust on its exterior.
Why? Because each and every AUSA wants the obvious: they all want to be appointed to a federal judgeship because it’s for life and it makes them imperial. They only get to be federal judges if their prosecutory record is flawless. You don’t get to be flawless unless you only accept perfect cases and micromanage each and every one.
With that in mind, if there’s an operation involved of a type such as “Fast & Furious” the AUSU most DEFINITELY knows about it. Further, do what I call the “logical extension”: ANY case of that nature, with GUNS, at the BORDER, involving MEXICANS, with such SENSITIVITY, goes right up the Food Chain directly to DC because EVERY LE fed agency is puppeted directly from DC. There is little autonomy in, say, your local FBI RA or its larger field offices. Same for BATFE.
The fact that upper management and, thence, directly into DC and the WH, “didn’t know” what was occurring in Arizona with such an incredibly sensitive op? I call bullshit on that. You don’t FART in federal LE unless everyone up the chain gives the okay. Witness, for simply one example, just one op in little old Waco micromanaged from the AG herself then and — by extension — directly into the White House.
Oh yeah. I call bullshit on that.
BZ
Iit seems that there were some IP web cams set up in Lone Wolf Gun Shop. The acting Director & Asst Dir logged into those cam’s numerous times to watch the guns walk out.
Also from Issa came these damning emails from the blundering duo.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/06/dam-breaks-oh-gunwalker-where-is-thy.html
-The first e-mail from March 10, 2010, to Operation Fast and Furious Group VII Leader David Voth indicates that the two most senior leaders in ATF, Acting Director Kenneth Melson, and Deputy Director Billy Hoover, were “being briefed weekly on” Operation Fast and Furious. The document shows that both Melson and Hoover were “keenly interested in case updates.”
- A second e-mail from March 12, 2010, shows that Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon was so excited about Fast and Furious that he received a special briefing on the program in Phoenix - scheduled for a mere 45 minutes after his plane landed.
-A third - and perhaps the most disturbing – e-mail from April 12, 2010, indicates that Acting Director Melson was very much in the weeds with Operation Fast and Furious. After a detailed briefing of the program by the ATF Phoenix Field Division, Acting Director Melson had a plethora of follow-up questions that required additional research to answer. As the document indicates, Mr. Melson was interested in the IP Address for hidden cameras located inside cooperating gun shops. With this information, Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants.
BZ-I believe this ties in with what you were saying about gift wrapping…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/15/gun-running-sting-blows-up-house-hearings-on-atf-s-fast-and-furious.html
The answer leads to previously undisclosed instructions given by higher-ups inside the Obama Justice Department, which originally denied any role in the burgeoning controversy, The Daily Beast has learned. . .
To date, blame has rested mostly with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives supervisors who approved the strategy in Arizona and Washington. . . . But on Wednesday, The Daily Beast has learned, congressional investigators will disclose that just weeks before ATF supervisors approved the Fast and Furious operation and its controversial tactics, senior Justice Department officials sent a memo to prosecutors and agents on the front lines of the border wars urging that they go beyond their traditional tactics of interdicting guns being purchased by straw buyers and try to make cases against the drug gangs themselves.
All I know is that the corruption runs wide and deep on this one… I sincerely hope that Congress can tie it all together and bring that Kenyan son of a bitch DOWN, and all of his criminal regime with him…
This is a major scandal and we have a dead American on our hands because of this operation and someone has to be held accountable. This should be the undoing of the Obama regime as it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to think that someone high up in the Obama regime didn’t know this was going on. Heads must roll and they must be the heads of those in charge of this disaster and not simply some fall guy.
Jaime Zapata, the ICE agent killed in Mexico was a native of Brownsville, Texas just down the border from where I live. By all accounts he was a brave young man, who wanted to see the rule of law in Texas and to combat the cartels in Mexico.
Knowing how the federal system works, like you Fred, I cannot believe that Holder didn’t know about this and get regular updates. At the very least, he would have to have signed off on the plan.
The agent killed in Arizona was, like Zapata, killed with weapons sold to the cartels in what can only be described as the stupidest operation since Clinton bombed an aspirin factory.
While I know that sometimes “rogue” operations are started, this one involved higher ups and doubtless went to the top meaning Holder at the minimum. I can only hope congressional investigators get to the bottom of this and don’t “drop it” because it is “hot.”
I looked at the linked articles. Damning!
It doesn’t really matter whether or nor Obama and Holder knew about this operation. I think that they DID know. But even if not, this mess happened on their watch and belongs to the Obama administration.
I’m not law inforcement. However, I do know a whole bunch about sewer systems and personnel management. With the exception of a forced main, effluent in a sewer system flows downhill. Nothing downhill happens until something uphill happens. According to the news this morning, it looks to me like Ken Melson is being offered up as a sacrifical lamb. Knowing personnel management as I do, there is no way an “acting” anything will have the authority to put together such a stupid plan as the Fast and Furious plan discussed herein. It must go upstream to the boss……..who is, you say?……..Eric Holder. There is no way that nitwit can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. He had to go to his boss………who is, you say?