“To this day, I strongly believe that we were doing our best to have the greatest impact on a very serious problem — firearms trafficking to Mexico. We were trying to cut off the head of the snake.” William D. Newell, former special agent in charge of the ATF’s Phoenix office continuing to defend Fast and Furious.

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25 COMMENTS

  2. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

    That goes for government drones too.

  4. “We were trying to cut off the head of the snake.”… even though we didn’t track any of the weapons or make any other effort to find the “head.”

  5. The DEA laundered money for the cartels, the ATF lost track of guns that went to them, and two of the FBI’s informants that were straw purchasing were not prosecuted because of their protected lapdog status.

    All federal law enforcement agencies, except maybe perhaps the US Marshals, should be abolished.

    • +1 Might add Treasury Agents charged with dealing with counterfeiting and Revenue Agents dealing with imports; both areas are enumerated to the Federal Government. Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives are not.

  6. That is doing your best?!? There didn’t appear to be any attempt at tracking the guns. If they could talk, the 300+ dead Mexicans would say that ‘your best’ was pathetically inadequate. It’s equally pathetic that you are still employed by our government.

  7. I just can not believe that this man is still employed. The tactic doesn’t seem to be that bad of an idea…..a crap ton risky, but still if there was follow thru. If you did actually track the guns, it would not be subject to so much anger. We could look upon this operation and say” Oh well, just didn’t work out the way we hoped”

    Problem is that there was little to no effort to track them….and the question of “WHY” was there no effort to track them? Thats the one that gets everyone upset.

  8. Trying to cut off the head of the snake? Sounds like Newell was trying to commit suicide.

  9. Of course there’s the problem that from my understanding the guns were generally being recovered at crime scenes in the hands of dead or wounded low level lackeys, not exactly any closer to the head of the snake than the strawpurchasers were.

  12. How does supplying criminals with firearms that you do not have the jurisdiction to recover, assisting these in the murder of Federal Law Enforcement officers in the line of duty and the ongoing slaughter of American citizens justify the expansion of a branch of government that is just supposed to collect taxes on alcohol, firearms and tobacco?????

    I am waiting…….

    • I would like to suggest the obvious possibility that spooks are doing something that’s classified, like when they imported cocaine into the US in the 80’s. The fact that Mexico is widely considered to be a failing state, similar to Pakistan, is like a big fat sore thumb pointing right at the CIA. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, so maybe someone out there can fill in the blanks better than I can.
      It brings to mind the Iran-contra thing:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_contra

      • If that were the case, it is possible to go behind closed doors and discuss it with certain members, but instead they would rather deny deny deny..

      • Given that the FBI and the DEA were involved, and despite the attempt to coordinate the various intelligence entities under Homeland Security, no one knew what anybody else was up, throwing in some more alphabet soup seems a particularly reasonable proposition. The only agency that would have jurisdiction to look for guns in Mehico would be CIA. There is precedent–Iran-Contra–of illegal activities performed for politically sensitive reasons.

  13. So William ‘Cadaver’ Newell started F&F? No one higher up the food chain? Right…

  16. When will all these politicians swallow their useless pride and admit that there is no way to ever win a war on drugs without stopping the demand or LEGALIZING IT? The only reason there are rich gangs that are willing and able to use guns to fight eachother is that drugs are illegal; just as government did with alcohol. LEARN YOUR LESSONS and quit having us pay for your lunacy.

  17. If you ever find yourself in an ATF interview or incident just apologize and tell them you were just trying to do good.

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