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Justice depart gun running & stone walling

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BuzzKill:
Anybody else following this story? Anyone else even aware of it?

http://www.c-span.org/Events/C-SPAN-Event/10737422186/

Justice Officials in 'Panic Mode' as Hearing Nears on Failed Anti-Gun Trafficking Program

By William La Jeunesse

Published June 10, 2011

| FoxNews.com


Officials at the Department of Justice are in "panic mode," according to multiple sources, as word spreads that congressional testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington, D.C.

The operation was supposed to stem the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexico by allowing so-called straw buyers to purchase guns legally in the U.S. and later sell them in Mexico, usually to drug cartels.

Instead, ATF documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms knowingly and deliberately flooded Mexico with assault rifles. Their intent was to expose the entire smuggling organization, from top to bottom, but the operation spun out of control and supervisors refused pleas from field agents to stop it.

Only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died did ATF Agent John Dodson blow the whistle and expose the scandal.

"What people don't understand is how long we will be dealing with this," Dodson told Fox News back in March. "Those guns are gone. You can't just give the order and get them back. There is no telling how many crimes will be committed before we retrieve them."

But now the casualties are coming in.

Mexican officials estimate 150 of their people have been shot by Fast and Furious guns. Police have recovered roughly 700 guns at crime scenes, 250 in the U.S. and the rest in Mexico, including five AK-47s found at a cartel warehouse in Juarez last month.

A high-powered sniper rifle was used to shoot down a Mexican military helicopter. Two other Romanian-made AK-47s were found in a shoot-out that left 11 dead in the state of Jalisco three weeks ago.

The guns were traced to the Lone Wolf Gun Store in Glendale, Ariz., and were sold only after the store employees were told to do so by the ATF.

It is illegal to buy a gun for anyone but yourself. However, ATF's own documents show it allowed just 15 men to buy 1,725 guns, and 1,318 of those were after the purchasers officially became targets of investigation.

Arizona gun store owners say they were explicitly told by the ATF to sell the guns, sometimes 20, 30, even up to 40 in a single day to single person.

And those orders, from at least one ATF case agent, are on audio recording.

"We would say, 'Do you (the ATF) want us to stop selling, is there something we should do here?'" Brad DeSayes, owner of J&G Gun Sales in Prescott, said. "And they would say, 'No, no, no, keep selling - just tell us after the fact.'"

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, holds a hearing Wednesday into Operation Fast and Furious.

The hearing is billed as "Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes," and the following are among the details expected in testimony:

- The ATF allowed and encouraged five Arizona gun store owners to sell some 1,800 weapons to buyers known to them as gun smugglers.

- It installed cameras inside the gun stores to record purchases made by those smugglers.

- It hid GPS trackers inside gun stocks and watched the weapons go south on computer screens.

- It obtained surveillance video from parking lots and helicopters showing straw buyers transferring their guns from one car to another.

- It learned guns sold in Phoenix were recovered only when Mexico police requested "trace data," which is obtained from their serial number.

The first witness in Wednesday's hearing is Sen. Charles Grassley, who will describe what his investigative team learned from four months of interviews and thousands of documents. He will be followed by three members of Brian Terry's family, three ATF agents and Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, who only months ago insisted the agency did not let guns go south to Mexico, a claim contradicted by field agents in Group 7, the actual agents who ran the operation in Phoenix.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06 ... z1PAleSaqx

Oversight Panel Investigates Controversial Gun Program
Will look at Justice Dept. and Subpoenas
semiautomatic hand gun

semiautomatic hand gun

Oversight hearing: Live at 1pm (ET) on C-SPAN Networks

Washington, DC
Monday, June 13, 2011


The top lawmaker on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a public hearing on a failed program intended to curb the illegal flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels.

The program, Operation Fast and Furious, was initiated under Project Gunrunner, which was operated by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agency. Fast and Furious allowed gun stores near the Mexican border to sell semiautomatic weapons in bulk to Mexican dealers. U.S. government officials hoped to track the guns to the drug cartels and prosecute them.

Chair of the Committee, Darrell Issa (R-CA) said the Department of Justice is refusing to provide the committee with information; therefore he plans to issues a “slew” of subpoenas. The hearing examines the constitutional role of the Justice Department to respond to subpoenas.

Issa said the hearing will look at "the constitutional questions raised by both the Department of Justice's refusal to comply with a Congressional subpoena as well as the withholding of documents from a Congressional subpoena."

Two officials with the Congressional Research Service and a legal scholar who has investigated several government corruption cases will testify.

Issa has already scheduled a second hearing on the issue for later this week.

Updated: Sunday at 7:32pm (ET)

Ursus:
The United States government - involved in illegal arms trafficking. Mm. What a surprise.


(NOT!)

BuzzKill:
Well - if the Justice Department and the ATF says to sell the guns to the drug cartels - sell in bulk and sell semi-automatic to the drug cartels - then it is legal to sell semi-auto-matic guns in bulk to the drug cartels. I guess. . .

 It seems that they intended to curb the flow of illegal guns into Mexico by flooding the market with legal guns - I guess - it makes no sense but thats how I read it.  They wanted to sell the guns to see who bought the guns - as if they don't know - it's just crazy.  

Apparently, it wasn't illegal - just massively stupid. Now that Congress wants to investigate this massive act of stupidy the Justice Department is stonewalling: "Department of Justice's refusal to comply with a Congressional subpoena as well as the withholding of documents from a Congressional subpoena" And this, I would think, is illegal. It sure would be if I were doing it; but then again - the bulk sale of semi-automatic guns to drug cartels would also be illegal if I did it.  

What I find most frustrating about this story is the fact no news group is covering it with any meaningful amount of coverage. Instead we get obsessive coverage on that dam fool's hard luck photos - or a murdered child  - or an ex-gov's love child or their email.

It all seems more and more like a distraction campaign. Its as if the news is produced primarily to keep people from learning or caring what is going on.  The public has become conditioned to accept that anything of importance gets 24/7 coverage. If there is no such coverage the public tends to assume that it isn't important or even true. This is disturbing.

heretik:
Not to get off point but heroin trafficking went up in the "Golden Triangle" when we went to war in Vietnam and Cambodia and again when we supported war in 1979-1980 in Afghanistan and again today in Afghanistan. The CIA use whatever is available to gain favor with the locals and to move their agenda. The CIA also needs to pay their way, since most of what they do is off the books (so to speak).
Buzz this will be news for the week but I sincerely doubt this whole fiasco will gain any traction in the judicial system.
Arming the Drug Cartels, Mexican citizens must be just loving this....Grrrrrrr!

I know you mentioned the ATF ect...but something tells me more is here to this story, then local Gov't agencies.    ;)

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "BuzzKill" ---Apparently, it wasn't illegal - just massively stupid.
--- End quote ---
A good point. And a poor choice of words on my part. I had wanted to emphasize the gun trafficking part, evoking the Iran-Contra affair.

If the government decides it wants to do something, they will find some way to make that activity "legal," even if it isn't legal, and will never be legal, for anyone else.


--- Quote from: "BuzzKill" ---It all seems more and more like a distraction campaign. Its as if the news is produced primarily to keep people from learning or caring what is going on.  The public has become conditioned to accept that anything of importance gets 24/7 coverage. If there is no such coverage the public tends to assume that it isn't important or even true. This is disturbing.
--- End quote ---
It *IS* a distraction campaign! So is the reliance on and necessity of two incomes for many families to survive. People are being stressed to the limits, with no time to think, bombarded with BS and propaganda, with most news coverage having a seriously skewed perspective and/or corporate agenda.

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