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| Post Number: 11
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Grinning_Dragon 
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 05 2011,11:19 pm |
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Senator Grassley's latest letter to Holder & Melson. 5 Pages and 10 Attachments of damning documents. These guys are gonna need a real good lawyer.
March 3, 2011
Via Electronic Transmission
The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Kenneth E. Melson, Acting Director
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
99 New York Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20226
Dear Attorney General Holder and Acting Director Melson:
It is has been over a month since I first contacted Acting Director Melson about serious whistleblower allegations related to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) operation called “Fast and Furious”—part of the broader “Project Gunrunner” initiative. Several agents alleged that ATF leadership encouraged cooperating gun dealers to engage in sales of multiple assault weapons to individuals suspected of illegally purchasing for resale to Mexican cartels. These agents were motivated to come forward after federal authorities recovered two of the Operation Fast and Furious guns at the scene where a Customs and Border Patrol Agent named Brian Terry was killed.
In response to my letter, the Department of Justice (DOJ) denied that ATF would ever knowingly allow weapons to fall into the hands of criminals, or let firearms “walk” in an operation. On February 9, I wrote to DOJ and attached documents that supported the whistleblower allegations about the guns found at the scene of Agent Terry's death.1
My office continues to receive mounting evidence in support of the whistleblower allegations. For example, attached are detailed accounts of three specific instances where ATF allowed firearms to “walk.”2 In all three instances, the suspect asks a cooperating
1 Letter from Senator Grassley to Attorney General Holder. February 9, 2011. Accessed at http://judiciary.senate.gov/resourc...TF.pdf.
2 ATF Reports of Investigation (ROIs) detailing ATF Phoenix Field Operations from May 8-June 1, 2010. (Attachment 1)
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defendant to purchase firearms at a gun dealer who was also cooperating with the ATF. So, two of the three participants in the transactions were acting in concert with the ATF. Yet, the ATF allowed the suspect to take possession of the firearms in each instance. In one case the suspect said that he “assumed the only real risk in their trafficking arrangement when he [REDACTED] „erase(d) the (serial) numbers‟ from the firearms and „take (transports) them…‟”3
The whistleblowers did not wait until a federal agent was killed before voicing their concerns internally. Several agents in the Phoenix Gun Trafficking Group (Group VII) voiced their opposition to the ATF‟s handling of the case internally first. Group Supervisor David Voth sent an email on March 12, 2010 about the “schism developing amongst our group.”4 His response to dissent within the group was to invite those who disagreed with the strategy to find another job:
Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case and they also believe we (Phoenix Group VII) are doing what they envisioned the Southwest Border Groups doing. It may sound cheesy, but we are “The tip of the ATF spear” [sic] when it comes to the Southwest Border Firearms Trafficking.
We need to resolve our issues at this meeting. I will be damned if this case is going to suffer due to petty arguing, rumors, or other adolescent behavior.
… If you don’t think this is fun, you’re in the wrong line of work— period! This is the pinnacle of domestic U.S. law enforcement techniques. After this the toolbox is empty. Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day.5
Two weeks later, on April 2, 2010, Voth sent an email to Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley and Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) George Gillett with the subject, “No pressure but perhaps an increased sense of urgency.”6 In the email, he reiterated support for the strategy, but cited increasing levels of violence as a reason to move more quickly. Voth wrote:
Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during the month of March alone, to include numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles. I believe we are righteous in our plan to dismantle this entire organization and to rush in to arrest any one person without taking in to [sic] account the entire scope of the conspiracy would be ill advised to the overall good of the mission.
PAGE 3
acknowledge that we are all in agreement that to do so properly requires patience and planning. In the event, however, that there is anything we can do to facilitate a timely response or turnaround by others, we should communicate our sense of urgency with regard to this matter.7
Voth also acknowledged in a May 3, 2010 email to his group that “April was the second most violent month during the Calderon administration with 1,231 executions.”8 ATF personnel in Mexico reportedly noted the increased violence and contacted ATF Headquarters to express concern over the Operation Fast and Furious strategy of allowing the weapons sales to proceed.
ATF Headquarters was fully aware of the strategy. A copy the Operation Fast and Furious case summary sent to ATF Headquarters states:
This OCDETF [Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force] case is a large scale firearms trafficking case with the firearms being recovered in the Republic of Mexico or on/near the US/Mexico border (El Paso, TX, Nogales, AZ, Douglas, AZ, etc.) To date over 1,500 firearms have been purchased since October 2009 for over one million ($1,000,000.00) cash in over-the-counter transactions at various Phoenix area FFLs. [REDACTION] There are many facets to this investigation but ATF is attempting to not only secure a straw purchase/dealing in firearms without a license case against various individuals but more specifically to make the bigger connection to the Mexican Cartel/Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) obtaining these firearms for the best possible case and the most severe charges when it is time to Indict [sic] this case.9
Dismantling the Mexican drug cartels is a worthy goal. However, asking cooperating gun dealers to arm cartels and bandits without control of the weapons or knowledge of their whereabouts is an extremely risky strategy. ATF leadership did not allow agents to interdict the weapons in this case. Instead, agents simply monitored the purchases of “suspect guns” and entered them into a database of firearms “suspected to eventually be used in criminal activity.”10 Over the course of this investigation, weapons allowed to walk were ending up in Mexico and along the Southwestern border. The ATF was well aware that this was happening. For example, in November 2009, four 7.62 caliber weapons were recovered in Naco, Mexico just two weeks after being purchased by one of the ATF‟s suspects in Glendale, Arizona.11 Also, in July 2010 a Romanian AK-47
variant—the same model found at the scene of Agent Terry‟s death—was recovered in Navojoa, Mexico.12
In light of this evidence, the Justice Department‟s denials simply don‟t hold water. On February 4, 2011, the Department claimed that the ATF did not “knowingly” allow the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers and that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation into Mexico.”13 Clearly those statements are not accurate. These documents establish that ATF allowed illegal firearm purchases by suspected traffickers in hopes of making a larger case against the cartels. ATF was not alone. The U.S. Attorney‟s office appears to have been fully aware and engaged in endorsing the same strategy.
Congress needs to get to the bottom of this.
After close of business last night, I received a one-page response to my letters of February 9 and 16.14 The response asks that I direct to the Inspector General any individuals who believe they have knowledge of misconduct by Department employees. You should know that just after Agent Terry died in December, at least one whistleblower contacted the Office of Inspector General before contacting my office. Despite reporting the allegations multiple times by phone, Internet, and fax, no one contacted the whistleblower until after my staff contacted the Acting Inspector General directly on February 1.
I have received no documents in response to my February 16, 2011, request. Last night‟s DOJ reply cites the Justice Department‟s “longstanding policy regarding pending matters” as a reason for withholding documents “relating to any ongoing investigation.”15 However, as you know, that policy is merely a policy. It is not mandated by any binding legal authority.
There are many instances where the Justice Department and its components choose to provide information about pending investigations to Congress. These examples are not always officially documented, but often occur when there are particularly egregious allegations of government misconduct or there is an extremely high level of public interest in an investigation. Getting to the truth of the ATF whistleblower allegations in this case is extremely important to the family of Brian Terry and should be important to all Americans. There is no reason to wait the unknown number of years it might take for all of the trials and all of the appeals to be exhausted. The time for truth is now.
In addition to providing the documents I previously requested, please explain how the denials in the Justice Department‟s February 4, 2011 letter to me can be squared with the evidence.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary
cc:
The Honorable Patrick Leahy, Chairman, United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Honorable Alan D. Bersin, Commissioner, United States Customs and Border Protection
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 12
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 05 2011,11:36 pm |
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More hits to the worthless JBT club aka batfe.
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) sent a letter—signed by sixteen additional Senators—to the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) opposing an enormous power grab by bureaucrats in the Obama administration.
The BATFE filed an “information collection request” with OMB to require federally licensed firearms dealers in the four states bordering Mexico (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) to report to the agency sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles to an individual within five business days if the firearms are larger than .22 caliber and can accept a detachable magazine.
BATFE sought approval by January 5, 2011, but that request has been delayed. Nevertheless, the agency is attempting to take this action without the specific authority to do so, and in fact, is acting contrary to federal law which prohibits the collection of such data.
Furthermore, BATFE—which has a long history of violating gun owners’ rights—is also is bypassing the people’s elected officials in Congress.
The Obama administration and anti-gunners in Congress have for several years been blaming U.S. gun owners and firearms dealers for the violence on the Mexico border. But America’s Constitution and the Second Amendment are not the cause of Mexico’s violence.
John Cornyn (TX)
Tom Coburn (OK)
Jim DeMint (SC)
Jeff Sessions (AL)
Mike Enzi (WY)
John Thune (SD)
David Vitter (LA)
Mike Crapo (ID)
John Barrasso (WY)
John Ensign (NV)
John Boozman (AR)
Rand Paul (KY)
Jim Inhofe (OK)
James Risch (ID)
Saxby Chambliss (GA)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Its time for congress to defund and disband the batfe.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 13
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 05 2011,11:45 pm |
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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Project Gunrunner” scandal exploded with yesterday’s follow-up report on the CBS Evening News by Sharyl Atkisson, coincidentally – or perhaps not – on the same day ATF announced a major gun and drug bust in Portland, OR and Southwest Washington.
The CBS “Gunrunner” story, which focused on the ATF’s Phoenix office’s alleged mishandling of an operation dubbed “Fast and Furious,” and news coverage of the Northwest arrests came just hours after Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley sent a 31-page letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Kenneth E. Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, telling them that “Congress needs to get to the bottom of this.”
Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.—CBS Evening News, Sharyl Atkisson
But how does the above revelation by CBS square with Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich’s Feb. 4 letter to Sen. Grassley, in which Weich insisted that the senator’s assertion “…that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchase who then transported them into Mexico—is false?”
Despite expanded press attention to the controversy, Grassley appears to be alone in his probe of an ATF operation gone horribly wrong. His solo effort prompted one ATF insider to observe “There needs to be five or six (member of Congress) on this.” The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has renewed its call for public action to pressure Capitol Hill to get involved.
To date, there has not been any interest shown by either of Washington State’s two anti-gun senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, or Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, even though it appears the ATF allowed hundreds of firearms to enter the black market and travel to Mexico, where they have been reportedly recovered at various crime scenes. Two of those guns showed up at the scene where Border Control agent Brian Terry was killed in December. All four are Democrats who support gun control. Grassley is ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Northwest Democrats could be more interested in the local story. ATF agents arrested at least 36 people, confiscated 77 firearms including a machinegun and sawed-off shotgun, and seized a variety of illegal drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, psilocybin, Oxycontin, ecstacy and marijuana, according to KATU and KGW in Portland.
The timing on this roundup may please the ATF for reasons other than rounding up bad guys. According to independent blogger Mike Vanderboegh, whose investigative work with my colleague, National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea, actually dug up the Gunrunner scandal, the Portland arrests are just what ATF is looking for.
Vanderboegh intercepted a memo from Scot L. Thomasson, ATF public information chief, which encourages local “good news” to offset Gunrunner coverage.
Holder has asked the Justice Department Inspector General to investigate, which Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, had demanded several days ago. Likewise, Melson last night called for a review by a “multi-disciplinary panel of law enforcement professionals” following the CBS expose, which interviewed whistleblower ATF Agent John Dodson, who risked his career to come forward.
(ATF Agent John) Dodson said in an interview that “with the number of guns we let walk, we’ll never know how many people were killed, raped, robbed … there is nothing we can do to round up those guns. They are gone.”—Public Integrity.org
Sen. Grassley, in an interview with CBS’ Atkisson, asserted that he is being stonewalled.
One ATF source reacted to that assertion by observing, “Silence is an admission of guilt in the federal government.”
There is no indication that an investigation or inquiry will lead to what some in ATF believe should be a “house-cleaning” of the Phoenix office as there was in Texas following the 1993 Waco debacle. There certainly appears to be a problem in Phoenix that may, at the very least, require an attitude adjustment.
An e-mail sent to field agents nearly one year ago by David J. Voth, group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, criticized the expressions of concern about “Fast and Furious” from his agents. He contended that the ATF operation should be “fun.” That e-mail was one of the attachments to the letter Sen. Grassley sent yesterday to Holder, excerpted here:
I don’t know what all the issues are but we are all adults, we are all professionals, and we have a (sic) exciting opportunity to use the biggest tool in our law enforcement tool box. If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work – period! This is the pinnacle of domestic
U.S. law enforcement techniques. After this the tool bag is empty. Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day…We need to get over this bump in the road once and for all and get on with the mission at hand. This can be the most fun you have with ATF, the only one limiting the amount of fun we have is you!—e-mail from David J. Voth, group supervisor, Phoenix Group VII
The “Fast and Furious” controversy is not, said the source, connected with the arrest of three Dallas, TX-area men this week in connection with the slaying of another federal agent, Jaime Zapata, last month in northern Mexico.
That case, said the ATF source, demonstrates the difference between ATF operations in Texas and Phoenix. In Texas, the suspects were stopped in November with 40 unmarked guns near the border crossing in Laredo and their guns were confiscated.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the operation, said that 1,765 guns were sold to suspected smugglers during a 15-month period of the investigation. Of those, 797 were recovered on both sides of the border, including 195 in Mexico after they were used in crimes, collected during arrests or intercepted through other law enforcement operations.—Los Angeles Times
The source could not understand why the U.S. Attorney’s office in Dallas did not charge the men at the time. Instead, all three were arrested on Monday after a gun recovered at the Zapata crime scene was traced back to one of them from a transaction last Oct. 10 in Forth Worth.
The Portland operation also looks like ATF worked things correctly. Instead of allowing guns to “walk,” agents moved in and bagged the bad guys, their illicit guns and their drugs. More than 60 indictments were handed down by the U.S. Attorney in Portland.
More than 30 people were arrested in Arizona in January and charged in sweeping indictments with gun running and other offenses. However, those arrests came far too late for Agent Terry, and for countless other victims of Mexican drug cartel violence, it appears.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 14
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grassman
Group: Members
Posts: 3858
Joined: Mar. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 06 2011,7:45 am |
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Sounds like a Mafia bunch to me. Also being paid $100,000 a year salary!? Could fix a few roads with that. Maybe pay a few teachers. Our govt is so self serving. Way to many separate entities. It all becomes keeping their branch alive at all costs.
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git er done!
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| Post Number: 15
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 08 2011,10:18 am |
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(CBS News)
WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.
He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?
"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.
Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.
Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.
"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."
Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.
ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."
Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.
So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.
Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets... the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.
One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles."
Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. "I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two," he said. "The more our guys buy, the more violence we're having down there."
Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.
Their answer, according to Dodson, was, "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."
There was so much opposition to the gun walking, that an ATF supervisor issued an e-mail noting a "schism" among the agents. "Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case...we are doing what they envisioned... If you don't think this is fun you're in the wrong line of work... Maybe the Maricopa County jail is hiring detention officers and you can get $30,000 ... to serve lunch to inmates..."
"We just knew it wasn't going to end well. There's just no way it could," Dodson said.
On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague.
According to Dodson, "They said, 'Did you hear about the border patrol agent?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And they said 'Well it was one of the Fast and Furious guns.' There's not really much you can say after that."
Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry's murder.
Dodson said, "I felt guilty. I mean it's crushing. I don't know how to explain it."
Sen. Grassley began investigating after his office spoke to Dodson and a dozen other ATF sources -- all telling the same story.
The response was "practically zilch," Grassley said. "From the standpoint that documents we want - we have not gotten them. I think it's a case of stonewalling."
Dodson said he hopes that speaking out helps Terry's family. They haven't been told much of anything about his murder - or where the bullet came from.
"First of all, I'd tell them that I'm sorry. Second of all, I'd tell them I've done everything that I can for them to get the truth," Dodson said. "After this, I don't know what else I can do. But I hope they get it."
Dodson said they never did take down a drug cartels. However, he said thousands of Fast and Furious weapons are still out there and will be claiming victims on both sides of the border for years to come.
Late tonight, the ATF said it will convene a panel to look into its national firearms trafficking strategy. But it refused to comment specifically on Sharyl's report.
Statement from Kenneth E. Melson, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:
"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will ask a multi-disciplinary panel of law enforcement professionals to review the bureau's current firearms trafficking strategies employed by field division managers and special agents. This review will enable ATF to maximize its effectiveness when undertaking complex firearms trafficking investigations and prosecutions. It will support the goals of ATF to stem the illegal flow of firearms to Mexico and combat firearms trafficking in the United States."
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 16
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 08 2011,10:21 am |
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ATF memo after CBS report: "We need positive press"
Courtesy of CBS News:
March 4, 2011 10:31 AM
CBS News investigates "gun walking" allegations -- that ATF let thousands assault rifles and other weapons get into the hands of criminal suspects -- ATF bosses have remained largely silent. We've had ongoing requests for information and on camera interviews with both ATF and the Department of Justice since prior to our first report which aired Feb. 22.
A similar lack of response has been reported by Senator Charles Grassley, who has asked for documents and briefings from ATF. Now, we learn that after our Feb. 22 report, ATF's Chief Public Affairs officer sent an all-call internal memo to ATF Public Information Officers in an effort to "lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF."
The memo asks ATF PIO's to "Please make every effort in the next two weeks to maximize coverage of ATF operations/enforcement actions/arrests at the local and regional level" in hopes it would drown out the "negative coverage by CBS News."
At the time, the memo noted "Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled."
However, last night, CBS News continued reporting on this issue and will be staying on the story.
Read the full ATF internal memo below:
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Public Information Officers:
Please make every effort for the next two weeks to maximize coverage of ATF operations/enforcement actions/arrests at the local and regional level. Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week and upcoming events this week, the bureau should look for every opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled.
It was shoddy reporting , as CBS failed to air on-the-record interviews by former ATF officials and HQ statements for attribution that expressed opposing views and explained the law and difficulties of firearm trafficking investigations. The CBS producer for the story made only a feigned effort at the 11th hour to reach ATF HQ for comment.
This week (To 3/1/2011), Attorney General Holder testifies on the Hill and likely will get questions about the allegations in the story. Also (The 3/3/2011), Mexico President Calderon will visit the White House and likely will testify on the Hill. He will probably draw attention to the lack of political support for demand letter 3 and Project Gunrunner.
ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week, in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF. The more time we spend highlighting the great work of the agents through press releases and various media outreaches in the coming days and weeks, the better off we will be.
Thanks for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any significant operations that should get national media coverage, please reach out to the Public Affairs Division for support, coordination and clearance.
Thank you,
Scot L. Thomasson
Chief ATF Public Affairs Division, Washington, DC
Desk 202-648-XXXX
Cell 206-XXX-XXXX
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 17
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 08 2011,10:30 am |
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The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."
There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:
It's just not true.
In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.
What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."
But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.
"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.
A Look at the Numbers
In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.
But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.
In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.
So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:
-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.
-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.
-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.
-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.
-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.
'These Don't Come From El Paso'
Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.
"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."
Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."
Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.
The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.
"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Boatloads of Weapons
So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?
Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.
The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.
In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.
Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.
"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."
"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 18
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
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Posted on: May 05 2011,9:17 am |
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‘IF HOLDER IS SO IGNORANT ABOUT GUNRUNNER SCANDAL, HE SHOULD RESIGN’
BELLEVUE, WA – Following a second day of Capitol Hill hearings in which he professed little or no knowledge about the controversial Project Gunrunner, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today called for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder.
“For the second day in a row, Attorney General Holder has stated on the record that he didn’t know about one of the most egregious government scandals in memory,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This country cannot afford the luxury of having its top law enforcement officer confess ignorance of an operation that may have allowed thousands of guns to be illegally exported to Mexico. This operation happened on his watch, and apparently right under his nose, and apparently cost the life of at least one law enforcement officer.”
Gottlieb called it an “outrage” that Holder has been unable to answer critical questions about the bungled operation, conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ATF whistleblowers have told Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) that Project Gunrunner, and its off-shoot, Operation Fast and Furious, apparently funneled nearly 2,000 guns into the illicit gun trafficking pipeline to Mexican drug cartels.
“It is simply unbelievable that the attorney general can act as though he never heard of an operation that has been exposed on national television by CBS News,” Gottlieb stated. “How could he not know, almost six months after the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, that guns recovered at the scene are linked directly to the Gunrunner sting?
“Holder is either monumentally stupid,” he added, “or he is telling a monumental lie. Either way, it is obvious that Holder is either hiding something or he is hiding from something. For the attorney general to not know about Gunrunner and its direct link to the Terry slaying is a sign of gross incompetence.
“It’s time for Eric Holder to go home and write his memoirs,” Gottlieb said.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 19
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: May 05 2011,9:23 am |
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foxnews.com reports that Senator Grassley has uncovered a smoking gun in the ongoing investigation into the brain-dead initiatives known as Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. “An internal memo from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives shows that U.S. officials allowed criminals to buy 1,318 guns worth nearly $1 million, even after they knew that the buyers were working for Mexican drug cartels, and that the agency’s effort to stop the guns had ‘yielded little or no results.’” click here for memoNote: that’s the number of guns allowed to flow down the so-called “Iron River” after the ATF IDed the so-called straw purchasers—and did bugger all to stop them. In total, 15 suspects purchased 1725 firearms. Now don’t get me wrong . . .
That’s not a hell of a lot of firearms. The Mexican drug cartels have tens of thousands of weapons, including some extremely serious crap (to use the technical term). They have fully automatic machine guns, grenade launchers and grenades. Although the ATF-enabled firearms include a Barrett 50-cal or ten, the walked guns are a drop in the ballistic ocean.
It’s also true that the drug cartels are not relying on Bob’s Gun Stores to git ‘er done. “‘Er” in this case meaning murder, mayhem, the complete subversion of the democratic process, terror, drug pushing and more murder and mayhem. The vast majority of weapons in the drug lords’ arsenals come from military “seepage” and South American bad guys (a.k.a,, good guys, at least when the sales are made).
That said, it’s extremely doubtful that this is a full accounting of all the firearms that the ATF knew about or could have known about or should have known about or should have prevented from leaving American gun dealers—if the ATF had been doing what it is paid to do.
And it is absurd to the point of Senatorial apoplexy that the U.S. government would add even a single gun to the narco-terrorists’ supply. The idea that the federal agency in charge of preventing illegal firearms sales and gun smuggling allowed illegal firearms sales and gun smuggling to secure funds to stop illegal firearms sales and smuggling is quite literally nuts. And yet this the ATF did, with the full knowledge of one Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States.
Holder is busy trying to evade responsibility for this fiasco, a DOJ-approved program that armed drug thugs who murdered not one but two federal law enforcement agents, killed by bullets fired from ATF-enabled firearms. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Grassley’s investigators have tightened the metaphorical noose around Holder’s neck, but good. As have Representative Issa. Here’s what Issa’s staff have unearthed so far:
– U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke was in full agreement with the investigative strategy of allowing the transfer of firearms from gun stores to straw buyers.
– Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer knew about and even approved a wiretap application for suspects targeted in Operation Fast and Furious over a year ago. Issa on Wednesday released documents from Assistant Attorney General Breuer, head of the Criminal Division and a former White House counsel to President Bill Clinton that show he approved Operation Fast and Furious wiretaps.
link to documents
A second document shows that Burke supported the strategy “to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place … in order to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators who would continue to operate and illegally traffic firearms to Mexican [Drug Trafficking Organizations].”
This is also bad news for the current head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Janet Napolitano. Mr. Burke worked with Ms. Napolitano when she was Arizona’s Attorney General. When Napolitano became Governor, Burke was her Chief of Staff. It seems entirely reasonable to believe that whatever Burke knew about the ATF’s gun enablement, Napolitano knew it too. When he knew it.
So Holder and Napolitano are now fighting to remain in power, at least until Barack Obama gets a second term in office (God forbid). At which point, Obama will drop the cabinet-level appointees like a drug peddler dumping a bag of meths during a drug raid. Is it possible we’re looking at a strange echo of Watergate (as Brad Kozak suggested) whereby a scandal simmers through a presidential election, until the Commander-in-Chief is cornered, vilified and, yes. forced from office?
It doesn’t really matter. While focusing on the political soap opera is the natural human tendency, there are far more important issue at stake than whether or not President Obama has surrounded himself with incompetent lying bastards. More specifically, the size and structure of the U.S. federal government. Even more to the point, whether or not the ATF itself will take one to the back of the head.
This is, after all, the ATF Death Watch, not the Obama Administration Death Watch. For the former to occur, the Agency must be discredited along with the players who made a mockery of any legitimate effort to prevent illegal firearms sales. Not that I think the ATF is capable of such a thing. As I’ve said before, as far as I can tell, the ATF’s “successes” rely exclusively on entrapment. But no one is making that point, present company excluded.
For the ATF to disappear down an FBI or IRS-shaped rathole, as it should, two things must happen simultaneously. First, the public must become aware of, and dissatisfied with, the corruption that typifies their work. The botched massacre at Waco was the wake-up call. Gunwalker is—or could be—the breakfast of former champions. In that sense, the theater surrounding “nailing” the Obama administration pencil pushers responsible is a good thing, not a bad thing.
At the same time, a Republican president must take office. One who campaigns on a platform pledging to eliminate entire federal departments. And then does it. Including the ATF. That, my friends, would require a serious popular backlash against Uncle Sam’s profligate ways and some serious stones from the candidate him or herself. And/or a financial meltdown the likes of which we’ve already seen. Or the continuation of same. Or, gulp, something worse.
The first part of this process is unfolding in front of our eyes. The $1.5 billion per year ATF is busy making a case for its own demotion and dissolution. You could even say they’ve already made that bed. All they need is someone to force them to lie in it. And that’s happening right now. The second part, well, a week is a long time in politics. There are a whole bunch of them before we see which Republican gets the nod, and whether he or she is man/woman enough to off the ATF.
At the moment, I wouldn’t bet on it. But just as the Ghostbusters never crossed their proton streams, until they did, no President or Congress has ever killed a fully-fledged federal agency. Until they do. And if they do, the ATF is surely smack dab in the middle of those cross-hairs.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: May 05 2011,9:28 am |
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CBS discovers Grassley's postscript to Holder letter & provides us all with a big belly laugh. Melson & Breuer to take short walk in Ft. Marcy Park?
A strongly-worded letter from Republican oversight members of Congress to Attorney General Eric Holder today came with an unusual handwritten notation at the bottom. Penned in blue ink by his signature, Sen. Charles Grassley's (R-Iowa) writes: "PS: You should check to see if you are getting accurate information from your staff. You might be ill-served."
The letter to Holder from Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) accuses Holder's Justice Department of sending a letter "containing false statements" regarding the initial inquiries into ATF's gunwalker scandal.
"You may be ill-served" What a hoot! This is Grassley's tongue-in-cheek invitation to throw Melson and Breuer under the bus, and that's when the serious truth leakage begins because they'll use the Nuremberg defense, "I was only following orders." And they will have proof of it.
Grassley, knowing everything that he knows from the whistleblowers and leaked documents, has a very good idea of how involved Holder is in all of this -- up to his eyeballs. Worse, Holder knows that he knows. I'd be surprised that if, when he saw the postscript, Holder didn't ball the letter up and throw it across the room with a string of curses.
The only thing that can possibly, maybe, save Holder now is for the Gunwalker men, Melson and Breuer, to go happily skipping hand-in-hand like little kids down the path in Fort Marcy Park to their own perdition, following the Sicilian prescript that "Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead."
Holder is toast and this is Grassley's way of reminding him of it. What he is really saying is, "Sooner or later we will have your subordinates under oath. Got a fall-back plan for THAT?"
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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