Yesterday, a federal judge struck down President Obama’s claim of Executive Privilege over documents related to operation Fast and Furious – the ATF program that allowed Mexican drug thugs to purchase firearms at U.S. gun stores. Today we learn that “A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.” The information is potentially explosive – although the mainstream media doesn’t get it. Here’s why . . .
After Fast and Furious was exposed, the ATF claimed they created the secret, extra-legal program to catch Mexican gun smugglers. The ATF told Congress that they instructed gun stores to allow known criminals — some 2000 guns over a ten-month period — to purchase firearms in order to catch the “big fish.”It was a failed “sting.” The claim had no credibility whatsoever.
ATF agents were directly and specifically ordered NOT to follow the guns sold to cartel members in U.S. gun stores, or make ANY arrests when the original purchasers passed the weapons to others within the cartel. In fact, the ATF didn’t make a single arrest related to the guns that they let “walk” into Mexico.
The results were as you might expect: cartel members used the guns to kill people. When a Sinaloa “rip crew” shot and killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry with ATF-enabled firearms, Fast and Furious became a national scandal. Who knew about F&F and when? The Obama administration stonewalled. Hence the claim of Executive Privilege on F&F paperwork and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holders’ Contempt of Congress citation (for withholding documents).
So . . . what was the point of Fast and Furious? This is the central mystery.
Two competitive but not mutually exclusive theories have emerged. First, F&F was designed to create support for a renewed assault weapon ban in the U.S. See? An “iron river” of “assault rifles” is fueling Mexican cartels! Ban them! Second, the ATF was arming the Sinaloa cartel, either as a counterweight to Los Zetas or some other sort of quid pro quo. The .50-cal confiscation adds weight to the second theory.
A astounding 34 of the 2000+ guns the ATF let walk south were .50-caliber rifles (most remain missing in action). That’s a lot of serious hardware. Aimed at our “friends” in the Mexican military, apparently.
Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that ‘El Chapo’ would put his guardsmen on hilltops to be on guard for Mexican police helicopters that would fly through valleys conducting raids. The sole purpose of the guardsmen would be to shoot down those helicopters, sources said.
Again, ATF agents didn’t intercept or follow the guns when they were purchased or when they left the United States. BIG GUNS. Did the ATF know that the boss himself was getting a fiddy? Did El Chapo, in fact, “special order” the gun with the ATF’s knowledge dare-I-say blessing? How exactly did El Chapo get an F&F gun?
When someone inside the U.S. commits a high-profile crime (e.g., the San Bernardino terrorist attack), the media wants to know: how did they get the gun? In the case of El Chapo’s .50-cal, crickets chirping. And yet this one rifle could be a thread that investigators could pull to reveal the truth about Operation Fast and Furious. The problem is, no one’s pulling . . .