The “Gunwalker” scandal–in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (and Really Big Fires) stands accused of enabling gun smuggling, arming the men who murdered a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent—continues to bubble on the back burner. The Department of Justice has responded to a request from Senator Grassley of Iowa for clarification on the ATF’s involvement in the murder weapons. Click here to download the doc, which contains a seemingly unequivocal denial . . .
The allegation described in your 27 January letter—that ATF “sanctioned” or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico—is false.”
Yes, well, this letter was written by lawyers. A careful reading of that single sentence reveals a DOJ loophole. Or two.
We know for a fact that the ATF knowingly allowed the sale of weapons to straw purchasers. Indeed the scandal first started to take shape when a Houston gun dealer went public with the allegation that the ATF had done just that. Lone Wolf Trading, the Arizona gun store in the center of the latest “enabling” allegations, has also admitted that it “worked closely” with the ATF. So how could the DOJ claim otherwise?
Read the wording carefully: ” . . . a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico”. If the straw purchaser handed the weapons to someone else who transported them to Mexico, then this statement remains true. Clever eh?
And how about the word “knowingly.” It raises the specter of plausible deniability. In fact, this denial letter form the basis of a classic stonewall, with just enough wiggle room to save a career or two should the SHTF. Meanwhile, the DOJ is telling a United States Senator to fuck off.
We also want to protect investigations and law enforcement personnel who directly conduct them from political influence, For this reason, we respectfully that Committee staff not contact law enforcement personnel seeking information about pending criminal investigations, including the investigation into the death of Customs and Border Patrol [ED: that’s “Protection”] agent Brian Terry.
Somehow I don’t think Grassley will be deterred from pursuing the truth about the ATF, Project Gunrunner and the weapons that took an agent’s life. Nor should he be. We shall see.
That would make the BATFE&RBFs “unindicted co-conspirators” in this conspiracy.
While I agree it ain’t over, the wagons are circling and it’s winding down.
Based on the last 30 years of scandals, the plausible deniability angle is put in play. Next the PR machine makes it all the fault of ‘unforseeable circumstances’ and acknowledges that ‘mistakes were made’.
The death of Agent Terry will be systemically sidelined, the family will be encouraged to keep quiet. Since Terry wasn’t a NFL star who gave up a lucrative contract to get shot by his own troops, it’s not a story that the MSM will have any interest in.
Meanwhile the the few voices questioning this are drowned out by the large flock of maguffins about how the ‘heroic’ BATFE agents are the only thing keeping those nasty brown people from delivering kilos directly to your child’s backback, and the psychos from shooting us all with machine guns. Not to mention all the crime (that doesn’t really) happen in Arizona committed by them thar illegals. Gotta stop ’em now, or soon they’ll be taking over the Mall of America!
12 months from now the very mention of this story will label you as someone who is paranoid, as it was ‘no big deal’ and one or two agents were punished by reassinging them to another overpaid cushy BATFE gig.
+1
The foxnews.com article also states that:
Grassley had told the Justice Department in an earlier letter that a buyer purchased three assault rifles with cash more than a year ago in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, and two of those guns were used in the shootout that took Terry’s life. His letter didn’t elaborate on the possible role of federal agents in the sale of the guns, and it couldn’t be determined if the purchases were part of a sting operation.
Which our AI will recognize as another Clintonian contortion as GunWalker was not a sting operation to begin with. It was a tracking operation.
I guess it all depends on what your definition of “is” is.
This kind of thing might be why Ron Paul was one of the few people to vote against a “sure-thing” House bill to honor the DOJ. Some of his words from June 24, 2010:
“I voted against this resolution because of the Justice Department’s history of violating individual rights…. . It is the Justice Department that prosecutes American citizens for violating unconstitutional federal regulations even in cases where no reasonable person could have known their actions violated federal law…. history shows that the unconstitutional usurpations of power and abuse of rights goes back at least almost a hundred years….”
First sentence after title should read:
“Well, duh. Were you waiting to hear them say ‘My bad’?”
I am very dissapointed about the lack of mainstream media coverage this is getting.