Last week, Congress chastised U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to fire anyone for creating and implementing Operation Fast and Furious. Why would he? As this series has shown, the ATF’s black bag “guns for goons” operation was part of a government-wide conspiracy. The DEA gave cash to “straw purchasers” (and laundered cash for the cartels), the FBI subverted their firearms background check system, ICE let ATF-enabled guns cross the border and so on. If Eric fired employees with knowledge of these activities, the whole house of cards could come tumbling down. “Obama Administration implicated in Mexican drug smuggling, money laundering, gun running, torture and murder.” So, as the Brits say, Mum’s the word. Only murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s Mum had something to say about that . . .
Josephine Terry’s Facebook page after Holder’s testimony [above] clearly indicates her frustration and fury at the DOJ’s stonewalling on the circumstances surrounding her son’s murder by drug thugs wielding weapons enabled by the ATF. It’s been more than a year since her son was gunned down, and the AG is still saying that he’s waiting for the Inspector General’s report on Fast and Furious before taking any action.
The Terry family deserves better, as do the families of all the Mexicans murdered by cartel members using ATF-enabled weapons. (The marginalizing of the gun running op’s Mexican victims by Holder, the Oversight Committee, the Mexican government and the mainstream media is particularly disgraceful.) And yet, strangely, Mrs. Terry’s indignant post is toast. Tin hat time. It may have something to do with this [via fronterasdesk.com]:
The family of a Border Patrol agent murdered in Arizona reached an agreement with prosecutors late Tuesday to withdraw from the criminal case against the man accused of buying the weapons that may have killed the agent.
Agent Brian Terry’s family had requested to be designated crime victims in the case against Jaime Avila. The defendant is charged with buying the rifles that were found at the location where the agent was shot to death. Avila bought the weapons with the full knowledge of U.S. law enforcement in a gunwalking scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, according to records.
The Terrys withdrew their request after prosecutors in the case agreed to work with them informally. The request would have opened the possibility of turning the smuggling case into one against the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
What does “work informally” mean? Is the family negotiating a huge payout in exchange for their silence and, perhaps, off-the-record admissions (standard CIA practice BTW)? Are we to assume that the DOJ coverup on Fast and Furious continues to the point where Uncle Sam will pay off all concerned, including every ATF agent involved and the Terry family? I’d consider that a safe bet.
After all, the entire investigation into F&F has focused on who was responsible for the program—not why it was created, how it was implemented and who participated. No one’s asking WTF the Obama administration relationship with Mexican narco-terrorists. So you could say, the coverup is right on track.
Yes, but—
F&F is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It’s hard to imagine that someone in the alphabet soup of federal agencies that participated in extra-legal U.S. foreign policy won’t step forward to reveal the truth about the Obama administration’s complicity in the deaths of thousands of Mexicans and Americans (if we’re counting the deaths related to the illegal U.S. drug market). It’s even harder to imagine that anyone would care.
But not impossible. Americans believe their government should be held accountable for its actions. At some point, someone will make the calculation that it’s better to rat out their paymaster rather than rot in prison or end-up like U.S. Border Patrol Agent Terry (provided Congress or the courts find their spine and resist coercion). After all, necessity is the mother of the truth.
Robert,
Thanks for keeping the F&F government conspiracy and criminal act in the public spotlight. I’ve reflected a few times how Watergate was treated as a national crisis of epic proportions by the mass media and social gatekeepers. Fast and Furious, however, is being marginalized as much as the mass media and the gatekeepers can even though hundreds of innocent people have already been murdered.
The Terry family has filed a $25 million claim against the federal government. In the claim, the family states the “[t]he love and companionship of a beloved son, warrior and American hero like Brian is impossible to quantify, but it is worth at least that much.”
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/01/20120201slain-border-agent-family-files-lawsuit.html
the thing that was so galling about the events of this past week was that holder tried to turn it around and demanded credit for “keeping Americans safe”. i guess it is no fun when the lens of scrutiny is turn on him and not the CIA. what a pathetic cry baby. what is even worse was elijah cummings’ defense of this man. This situation makes me sick.
F&F was an orchestrated effort by the Obama administration to ‘prove’ that America’s unchecked gun laws are the cause of all the problems in Mexico.
Of course, one would have to be an idiot to believe that argument, but they were banking on all the idiots who voted for them before, and other morons, to swallow it.
Even if Agent Terry had never been killed they should all go to jail for such a scheme. But they won’t. If that group gets another four years, you haven’t seen anything yet.
oh you mean under the bush administration? does operation wide receiver ring a bell?
Don’t get me wrong, there is legitimite criticism for President Obama. Unfortunately, the accusation that Fast and Furious was started by Obama’s administration is just plain untrue.
One thing that always bugs me about what little reporting the MSM has is they always say “found at the scene” rather than “used to murder” about the guns used to murder Agent Terry. I thought CSI style ballistic fingerprinting was infallible and could identify what weapon fired the fatal shot from the smallest bullet fragments.
Somehow, the current administration has managed to reduce my trust of the Feds below what Nixon, Carter & Clinton have already done.
We are a nation currently run by organized criminals.
We make decisions, and the government institutes programs, based on probabilities. “What outcomes can we reasonably expect if we execute this action program?” Often there are multiple likely outcomes, some long-tail, some quite likely. It seems to me quite clear that ATF, DoJ, woud have seen at least three outcomes as having some likelihood. The guns smuggled through ATF’s encouragement could end up in a cartel jefe’s holster, or be found as murder weapons in one of the god-forsaken border towns, or could have actually made a round-trip to or past the border for murderous purposes. Of those outcomes, and given the very rare capture of the jefe of any cartel or its chief lieutenants, the most likely would have been the later-mentioned murder scene outcomes. In other words, that is what ATF knew to expect when it carried out the program. It had nothing to do with cartel leaders. There was at best a very very low probability these guns would end up in the leadership’s hands. Past leadership members have been found, typically with high-end heavily-inlaid 1911’s and Hi-Powers. If they were found with AK-types, those guns were full-auto and therefore would not have come from an Arizona dealer. The intent had to be, given the probabilities, to find these weapons at routine drug-transaction and intimidation murder scenes. No other expectation would be, before the fact, reasonable.
There is quite another possibility, namely that the guns would never be found. I think that’s the outcome that ATF really wanted.
Why would they really want not to find them anywhere? I haven’t taken my vitamins yet.
Ropingdown, I think you hit it. The weapons had to be found, to prove the river of iron myth, right?
It seems so to me, and found at murder/shooting scenes. Otherwise what could ATF/DoJ announce? “Yesterday we found 3 extremely lethal American-made assault derringers lying in a remote arroyo twenty miles south of Chijubabi, Mexico. Obviously this situation, just leaving guns here and there, is extremely dangerous to the Gila lizards, and the horrendous gun smuggling must be stopped, even if that requires restricting US gun sales in a reasonable fashion, such as 1 gun per family per decade. “
“One gun per family per decade” So forget the 2nd amendment?? Then they win, the Obama Gun Grabbers WANT YOU TO GO FOR GUN CONTROL BECAUSE OF THIS SCAM! The plan is perfect to back their gun control efforts, creating legislation that restricts our rights even further, adds even MORE regulation, gives the government even more unstoppable powers, and takes away even more freedom….Idiot
The ATF was arming the Sinaloas, so they would not want the guns traced.
Thank-you all for sharing the outrage I felt over this unconscionable, inexcusable and evil series of events created by the U.S. Government. Not to imply my personal disgust was in any way not shared previously by anyone else.
I don’t know what “working informally” with Brian Terry’s Family means either, and I cannot imagine what kind of a deal could be worked with them that would ever resemble anything like “justice” for Brian Terry and the hundreds of Mexican Citizens and others murdered as a result of this rotten scheme.
Thank-you, Mr. Farago, for keeping this matter in focus.
We live in the fantasy world of Obamatopia where the Tea Party is bad and government gun running is for the better good.
Issa and Grassley are trying but it’s an up hill slog when the highest law enforcement officer in the land is a huge part of organized criminal activity and is politically connected to the administration like an evil troll doing the bosses bidding.
It’s simple really: The lying bastards trotted out one after the other to tell the woeful tale of the bad American gun dealers sending uncountable amounts of high grade weaponry to the Mexican cartels and how they needed to take our rights away in order to fix the problem. The usual crap; “We’re the government and we’re here to help.”
That must have been when they thought they could create some plausible case to take more of our freedom with their malicious, organized criminal activity.
Issa and Grassley are trying
They have yet to convince me that they aren’t merely trying to impress the home folks. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all political theater. I’ll change my mind when I see results, but I’m not holding my breath.
+1
Let’s face it; our federal government has become more of a crime syndicate than a body governing in the best interests of its citizens. We really don’t operate as a Constitutional republic anymore, and the rule of law is being replaced by the rule of men, and the redistribution of wealth through influence peddling, Crony Capitalism, and the welfare state.
I’m not sure what the true motives and objectives were behind Fast and Furious. The entire operation doesn’t make sense on the surface, which means there was probably a nefarious purpose or method to the madness. My guess is that the Obama administration wanted these guns to walk so they could justify stricter gun sale laws through federal mandates. There is no doubt in my mind that the criminals that reside in “Mordor on the Potamac” are intent on confiscating our firearms. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in Germany circa 1933.
when they come for our guns just remember we know where they live and we can come for their guns.
It’s pretty obvious that not one of you guys is a lawyer, cause if you were, you would realize how stupid most of these comments are. Let me make it very very simple. The MURDER case against AVILA has NOTHING to so with Fast & Furious. For the purpoess of establishing his guilt, it DOES NOT MATTER if he fired the gun that killed Terry, or even, under the felony-murder rule, whether he even fired a gun. The simple fact is that he was there during a shootout, and every smuggler involved is guilty of mutliple crimes. and that is ALL that the prosecutor needs to prove. He does nto need to prove where the gun came from; in fact, he doesn’t even have to produe the murder weapon because the circumstances are sufficient to establish his death in a gunfight at which Avila was presnt. Think about it, in how many criminal cases have you heard about the prosecutor trying to trace the weapon to its source? Like NEVER–the only interest in tracing a firearm is to determine whether there were other illegal transactions involving that weapon, whether it was theft, illegal sale, involvement in other crimes, etc. The guy who sold the gun (Lone Wolf) is not a defendant in the Avila case, and never will be. The ATF is not a defendant, and never will be. The issues of F&F will be dealt with completely outside of the scope and proof in the Avila murder trial.
With this in mind, it is OBVIOUS why the Terry family is sitting on the sidelines. They have no interest in the proof of Avila’s guilt–that is most definitely NOT the justice they seek, since they do not want Avila to be “solely” responsible for the death. It is pretty obvious that she’ll never get a nickle out of Avila, and her son is worth far more than the amount that they have already received from the ferderal workers’ compensation system. Notwithstanding the well-worn saw in 2A circles that it is not the gun that kills but the person who wields it, Terry’s Mum wants to prove that the federal government is somehow responsible for the death, and has filed a $25 million dollar tort claim against various federal agencies and individuals, which claim is a necessary precursor to the civil rights suit she will be filing if and when her claim is denied. That’s the case where the “action” will be.
Now let me ask THIS question, and I will be interested to see the responses. The United States government is the world’s largest exporter of military arms and munitions, including ammunition, explosives, rockets, bombs, tanks, jets, and you name it. We have supplied arms to dictators like the Shah of Iran, Noriega of Panama, the various rulers of Phillipines, the mujahaddin fighting the Russioans in Afganistan, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and on and on. Is the United States Government complicit with the government/regime/strongman/warlord/etc who uses those weapons when someone dies? Is the US governemt therefore guilty of international terrorism, murder and/or genocide when arms it has produced and sold end up killing people?
“Is the United States Government complicit with the government/regime/strongman/warlord/etc who uses those weapons when someone dies? Is the US governemt therefore guilty of international terrorism, murder and/or genocide when arms it has produced and sold end up killing people?”
Yes, they are complicit if they sold/supplied the weapons to someone they knew was a criminal. Especially if they knew, as they must have, that the weapons would likely be used for murder. The same laws apply to me if I sell a gun to someone I know or
should know is a criminal.
Is this true even if the purchaser at the time is recognized as the legitimate ruler of the country (like the Shah and Noriega for example)? Which government is “criminal”? Is Assad’s government “criminal” because it seeks to hold onto power? What about the Iranian religious leadership? The point is that it is often history that determines which regines are criminal and which are not–and as they say, the victors write the history. In this situation, then, any given government at any given moment may be engaged in “criminal” activities, as judged by those who come after. Further complicating this issue is sovereign immunity–unless the government is toppled, the government officials are generally immune from criminal sanction. And then we always get back to the same old question–is it the provider of the weapon who bears the guilt or the person who used the weapon unlawfully? If both are guilty, how can we not justify the international ban of arms trading? [I am not suggesting we do, I am just asking the consequential question.]
It’s pretty obvious that not one of you guys is a lawyer
Actually, I am a lawyer — and it’s obvious that you are not.
Allright smart guy, tell me how any evidence of or regarding F&F will ever be admitted in the Avila murder trial? From a legal perspective, mind you. It isn’t something the prosecution has to prove, nor is it a defense to the murder charge, is it? Please demonstrate your legal prowess.
Well, Ralph, I infer from your silence you have no answer.
Insofar as lawyers and our broken buy your way out justice (using that word lightly) system is concerned, who the F cares anymore. You’ll get a fair shake if you can afford it otherwise you’re screwed.
Truth and justice are no longer synonymous. Case in point: A jackass like Eric (hitman) Holder running your lawyer show.
What does “work informally” mean? Well, let me give you one possible meaning. When dealing with the government at any level, the playing field is anything but level. Even at the level of a city government, things are done that tend to persuade someone to go in a different direction. Years ago I filed a lawsuit against a rather large city for being fired in flagrant violation of the city’s own career service rules and regulations. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind or my attorney’s that I would win. Since numerous employees had been fired under the same circumstances, the city knew that when my suit was won a major class action suit would follow. Let’s make a long story short; the city got to me through having a neighboring city’s police department threaten my son with some very serious trumped up charges which, the police chief explained to me, would be immediately dropped if I was willing to “work with them” and drop my lawsuit. So, the next day I sent my son to another college out of state and withdrew my lawsuit. End of story, but my definition of “work informally”. It left a very bitter taste in my mouth, but family does come first and you have to know when to fold’em.
Mark, you’ve made the mistake of confusing the US government dealing in arms with other governments and the US government using small business owners, in this case gun shop owners, to make illegal purchases of firearms in hopes, for reasons that still elude me, that those weapons will end up in the hands of violent drug cartels south of the border.
I’m afraid I’m forced to agree with others who believe that perhaps the current administration wanted to use F&F as a way to instigate some type of gun purchase limitations, or stricter screening rules for gun purchases for US citizens. I hate believing that, but until I get some kind of rational reason for F&F, it’s what I feel compelled to believe.
No, not at all. I was posing a different question, related to the issue of whether it is the weapon that causes the crime or the user. Andthe point I made was that the simple act of sellnig a firearm, or “allowing” the sale of a firearm, does not necessitate a conclusion that the seller was complicit in the ultimate crime. For example, is it fair to say that Lone Wolf was “complicit” in the alleged criminal activities of the man who shot Agent Terry? You have to remember that in F&F the transactions were technically “legal” unless a straw purchase was proved–the buyers were “qualified” to purchase all of these weapons, but it was their intent to transfer to others unlawfully that made the transaction illegal. Nothing that Lone Wolf did was done without government approval, and therefore has no criminal ramification. Why should he be liable to the Terry family?
Now as to your latter point, I have no argument nor made any comment. Either the program was designed for the purpose of increasing restrictions or was at the least used as an excuse for tighter regulation along the border, something Calderone has been after for some years.
Imagine if Agent Terry had never been Murdered. If F&F were never uncovered that is. At this point Chuck Schumer would be holding hearings on why so many guns from the U.S. were found at crime scenes. And really, who “leaves” a weapon at a crime scene?
We’d have dozens of Spanish translators giving us tales of woe. More sanctimonious blathering why we need to bring back the “assault weapons ban”. More media schlubs calling semi-autos “machine guns”. There would be at least a dozen gun grabs rammed through by “signing statements” w/o Legislative approval. Another Gun Czar. Gun round-ups ala Great Brittian would be in the works.
Ok, you can see where I’m going w/this.
I’m just ashamed that my Gov’t (even though I didn’t vote for this Chicago thug style crew)….had to Murder a Brave public servant to get this out in the open.
They sent a Courageous man to his death armed w/a “bean-bag gun”, like a lamb to slaughter.
Just an fyi. Avila didn’t shoot terry. He wasn’t at the scene. He never even traveled to Mexico.