TTAC Armed Intelligentsia contains a number of lawyers. So correct me if I’m wrong. Aiding and abetting the sale of a firearm to a known criminal is illegal. If the criminal uses one of those the firearms in a murder, the person who knowingly supplied the weapon to a felon could be charged as an accomplice. If so, under that definition, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is guilty of “criminal activity”—seeing as the ATF conspired with American gun stores and/or gun purchasers to allow/encourage illegal firearms sales to known criminals. Of course, that’s not what the ATF is talking about in the above headline. Not yet. At the moment, it’s all about Clifford Dean Posey (via hamptonroads.com) . . .
A special agent from Chesapeake with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives pleaded guilty in Richmond on Monday to five charges related to the theft of firearms, cigarettes and money.
Clifford Dean Posey, 43, faces up to 20 years in prison on the most serious wire fraud charges when he is sentenced at a later date in the Richmond federal court.
Posey admitted that while investigating illegal cigarette traffickers last year he sold thousands of dollars worth of cigarettes and pocketed the money. He also admitted taking firearms in ATF custody and trying to sell them.
Posey’s greatest crime: not wangling a transfer to the ATF’s Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, the initiatives that enabled thousands of guns to flow from Bob’s Gun Store to the Sinola Drug Cartel.
Yesterday, Senator Grassley uncovered and released ATF and DOJ damaging emails. They reveal that the Department of Justice’s denial of the “walked guns” program was a porky pie. Grassely wrote a letter bringing this to the DOJ’s attention, asking for an explanation—other than “none of us want to go to jail.”
While Grassley’s rooting around, and God knows we’re rooting for him, let’s play twenty questions . .
1. Were any of the so-called straw-purchasers working directly or indirectly for the ATF?
2. Did the ATF recruit gun smugglers, either knowingly or unknowingly (for the smugglers)?
3. Did the ATF pay any money to any gun smugglers at any time for any reason (i.e. the gun purchase itself)?
4. Did the ATF know what, how, when, where and to whom the guns were going? Did they directly or indirectly influence any of those variables?
5. Did the ATF work with any other federal agencies to enable the smuggling?
6. If so, which agencies, what did they know and when did they know it?
7. Specifically, did the ATF “clear a path” for the gun smugglers?
8. How were the guns/buyers monitored?
9. Was there a locator chip installed in any of the weapons? If so, by whom, when and where?
10. When exactly did the ATF cease monitoring the guns whereabouts?
11. How many smugglers were involved in Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious?
12. How many agents?
13. How were the agents assigned and what were their instructions?
14. What was the overall command structure—from field agents to the DOJ.
15. How were the cases structured?
16. Did the ATF have any contact with any member of the Mexican government relative to these initiatives at any time during either programs’ duration?
17. How did the ATF rate the success or failure of the program?
18. What did the AYF tell the gun stores that served as a “jumping off point” for gun smugglers? What promises were made in exchange for cooperation?
19. Are Agent Terry and ICE Agent Zapata the only Americans killed by Mexican criminals using guns smuggled under the aegis of the ATF?
20. Who let the dogs out? Who? Who who?
