Thread: Report points to Clinton-era gunwalking

From June 29,2012, added to archives.


Report points to Clinton-era gunwalking

FAST AND FURIOUS
JUNE 29, 2012
BY: DAVID CODREA

The first official identified by name in the Fast and Furious gunwalking investigation has been tied to a similar Minnestoa operation in 1996 where “more than 150 guns flow[ed] into the Twin Cities underworld,” Kevin Diaz of the Star Tribune reported yesterday. Identifying supervisor George Gillett, Jr., who is now a cooperating witness in House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigations, Diaz reveals “Gillett was a street agent tracking gun store sales to ‘straw buyers’ working for suspected gang members. Some of those guns turned up in drug busts and crime scenes, including one that was found at the scene of a deadly shootout in north Minneapolis.”Gillette was first identified as a central figure in the Fast and Furious investigation by a post on CleanUpATF, a whistleblower website aimed at exposing agency corruption, which was first reported by Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars in late December, 2010.

A poster using the screen name “1desertrat” wrote "Word is that curious George Gillett the Phoenix ASAC stepped on it again. Allegedly he has approved more than 500 AR-15 type rifles from Tucson and Phoenix cases to be “walked” to Mexico. Appears that ATF may be one of the largest suppliers of assault rifles to the Mexican cartels! One of these rifles is rumored to have been linked to the recent killing of a Border Patrol Officer in Nogales, AZ. Can anyone confirm this information?”

Longtime Gun Rights Examiner readers will recall 1desertrat was the subject of an email exchange between ATF Chief Counsel Stephen R. Rubenstein and then-Acting Director Kenneth R. Melson, using Orders and Standards of Conduct as the mechanism for possible retaliatory action.

Current Acting Director B. Todd Jones is also from the Minneapolis office, Diaz reminds readers, who, in "dealing with acrimony" certainly has been aware of the "gunwalking" technique," as was controversial former Phoenix Group VII Supervisor David Voth, albeit he was “was not around during the controversial Minnesota case.”

This is not the first time gunwalking in the Midwest has been reported. Gun Rights Examiner published an exclusive report last September providing documents indicating both ATF and the FBI allowed Indiana “crime gun” sales that, as with much of the reporting done in this column and by Vanderboegh, was ignored by the mainstream press, as has been their normal pattern.

It does lead to some interesting questions, particularly for those demanding to expand investigations to include the Bush-era “Operation Wide Receiver” program and his then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey. The Twin Cities operation took place under Janet Reno’s watch under President Bill Clinton.

That in turn makes speculation on Hillary Clinton and the State Department’s awareness of and involvement in Fast and Furious more understandable, especially recalling that former National Security Council official and current State employee Kevin O’Reilly has been placed out of Oversight Committee reach by assignment to Iraq and White House Counsel refuses to allow him to cooperate. It also leaves unanswered questions about why International Traffic in Arms Regulation implications have not been explored for ATF/Department of Justice complicity in apparent willful violations of ITAR provisions, which would have presumably occurred unless State had provided them with an exemption.

Report points to Clinton-era gunwalking - National gun rights | Examiner.com



Suggested by the author:

ATF Counsel email to Melson on Gunwalker-Terry murder link preceded intimidation
Exclusive Report: Documents indicate ATF, FBI allowed Indiana ‘crime gun’ sales
Why is White House blocking ‘Gunwalker’ testimony from former NSC director?
Will Gunwalker export violations bust criminal investigation wide open?


Read at ALIPAC
http://www.alipac.us/f12/atf-whistle...ettled-262881/

http://www.alipac.us/f12/key-figure-...-congr-223314/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/atf-agent-sp...runner-224022/

http://www.alipac.us/content/wh-aide...-subpoena-992/

Article from the StarTribune June 28,2012

'Fast and Furious' gun sting had '96 precedent in Minnesota

Key ATF agent faced similar questions here.
Article by: KEVIN DIAZ , Star Tribune
Updated: June 28, 2012 - 10:28 AM

WASHINGTON - A key figure in the federal gun-tracking operation that is under fire for helping to put sophisticated weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartels also played a central role in a similar sting involving Twin Cities gangs a decade ago.
George Gillett Jr., a supervisor in the federal operation in Arizona known as Fast and Furious, is now a cooperating witness in the congressional investigation that could lead to an unprecedented contempt citation against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

As a leader in Fast and Furious, congressional sources say, Gillett has been instrumental in determining who in Washington provided oversight for the operation and whether top federal officials had sanctioned such gun stings before.

The Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) initially denied that they had approved the controversial "gun-walking" tactics allegedly used by Gillett and other Arizona agents investigating gun-trafficking networks along the Mexican border between 2009 and 2010.

Interim ATF Director B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, was brought in by President Obama to guide the agency through the political turmoil. He has acknowledged ATF "mistakes." But an ongoing standoff over Justice Department documents has sparked a classic Washington clash between Obama's claim of executive privilege and congressional Republicans' accusations of a White House cover-up.

Calling the Arizona operation "reckless," a House report blamed ATF for failing to make arrests in suspicious gun sales and stop the flow of weapons before they reached the border. Instead, congressional investigators allege, the ATF, with the backing of Holder's Justice Department, allowed nearly 2,000 weapons to disappear from view in a "hapless plan" to connect suspicious gun store sales in Arizona to a Mexican drug cartel.

As for dismantling a Mexican drug cartel, the House report said, "ATF never even got close."
'Must never recur'

Law enforcement officials say the Minnesota and Arizona operations, while unrelated, raise similar concerns about allowing guns to fall into criminal hands -- sometimes with deadly results.

In 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was fatally shot by Mexican bandits who used two AK-47-style rifles traced back to the Arizona program. The incident spawned the congressional probe and set off a storm of recriminations at the Phoenix ATF office, where Gillett was the assistant special agent in charge.

Many of the same questions were raised about ATF operations in the Twin Cities in 1996, when Gillett was a street agent tracking gun store sales to "straw buyers" working for suspected gang members. Some of those guns turned up in drug busts and crime scenes, including one that was found at the scene of a deadly shootout in north Minneapolis.

Gillett, now reassigned to Washington, declined to comment publicly on his role in the congressional investigation. He was one of two agents from the Minnesota ATF office who played supervisory roles in Fast and Furious. The other was David Voth, a younger group supervisor who was not around during the controversial Minnesota case that saw more than 150 guns flow into the Twin Cities' criminal underworld. Jones, who was named interim ATF director last year, was not directly involved in the aborted Minnesota gun sting, which ended in August 1996 at the urging of then-U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug. But as Lillehaug's No. 2 at the time, Jones dealt with the resulting acrimony among the U.S. Attorney's Office, the ATF and the Minneapolis Police Department.

Now Jones is the Obama administration's point man on restoring trust in the ATF, leading an agency split over Terry's death.

Agents-turned-whistleblowers have told Congress that their warnings were dismissed by Gillett, Voth and other supervisors.

According to congressional investigators, Gillett faced his own fears of reprisal from ATF higher-ups and asked that his cooperation with Congress be officially disclosed.

In a statement to the Star Tribune, Jones said Holder "has acknowledged that certain tactics utilized in Operation Fast and Furious were unacceptable and must never recur."

Echoes of Minnesota

The allegations in Arizona echo criticisms of the ATF's Minnesota operation. Mark Koscielski, a federally licensed firearms dealer and south Minneapolis gun store owner, was fighting the city over zoning at the time. He also was cooperating with Gillett and other ATF agents in tracking gun sales to suspected gang associates -- often young women with no felony records who could easily pass criminal background checks.

The issue in both the Phoenix and Minneapolis operations was one of tactics: Whether to seize firearms from criminals as soon as possible or let them "walk" to identify higher-ups in trafficking networks.

Advocates of gun-walking in both operations argued that there was little point in "landing" suspected straw buyers until they had made illegal transfers. Far from providing weapons to criminals, Koscielski said, the ATF was merely keeping an eye on legal sales, however suspicious, in order to see where they went. Unlike drugs, one detective noted, in most jurisdictions "guns are not in and of themselves contraband."

Congressional investigators led by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, take a different view of the Arizona operation. "The volume, frequency and circumstances of these transactions clearly established reasonable suspicion to stop and question these buyers," they wrote.

Koscielski, who has since retired to Arizona, said be believes that Gillett and other ATF agents involved in the disputed gun stings in Minnesota and Arizona are victims of the bureaucratic principle that "(blame) runs downhill." Contrary to the depiction of rogue ATF agents, Koscielski said he believed Gillett and others were responding to pressure to build bigger criminal cases for prosecutors. "The U.S. attorneys were running these cases," he said. "George has a total commitment to his job," Koscielski said of Gillett. "He's not afraid to jump a fence or roll in the mud to get these guns off the street."

In Minnesota, Lillehaug, who went on to become Sen. Al Franken's recount attorney, ultimately decided the risks outweighed the benefits.

"Rather than reducing sales, guns were sold in numbers greater than the ATF and the Minneapolis Police Department could safely track and control," Lillehaug said.

ATF whistleblowers in Arizona, some of them reportedly holding personal grudges against Gillett and Voth, told congressional investigators that they thought Fast and Furious had the full backing of ATF headquarters. A March 2010 e-mail from Voth, nine months before Terry died, addressed the "schism" developing in the Phoenix office.

Mostly along party lines

"Whether you care or not, people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case," Voth wrote. "It may sound cheesy, but we are 'the tip of the ATF spear' when it comes to Southwest Border Firearms Trafficking."

Some agents have since said the rift had more to do with petty rivalries than with tactical differences.

Either way, Fast and Furious ended two months after Terry died, leading to the reassignments of Gillett, Voth and other law enforcement officials, including ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson.

The congressional dispute has fallen largely along party lines, but at least one pro-gun Democrat, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, has said he supports the Holder contempt citation that seeks more information. The move also has the backing of the NRA, which suspects the Obama administration of using the furor over Fast and Furious as a cover for a hidden gun-control agenda.

Meanwhile, as Congress and the Justice Department's inspector general investigate the ramifications of Fast and Furious, gun traffickers continue to face few legal obstacles in obtaining large-quantities of high-powered weapons, so long as the buyers they send into stores and pawnshops have clean records. With or without the knowledge of ATF agents like Gillett, Koscielski said, "the guns are going out the door."

Kevin Diaz is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau.


Star Tribune

The Global Mafia runs guns; Clinton, Bush, Obama and the Fed. Govt have the American Citizens so dumbed down they think its ok.

These are Racketeering Violations that are covered under the RICO Act

It doesnt matter if they are Republican or Democrat

these are Felonys and each one of those guns that crossed the border can get the normal person 10 - 20 years behind bars

Clinton - Global Mafia Asset (49 Clinton Associates died mysteriously) and no one went to jail

Bush - Global Mafia Asset

Obama - Global Mafia Asset

America has Stockholm Syndrom; thats the only way to explain it

Pistol in Mexico is tied to ATF agent in Minn. gun sting


Article by: KEVIN DIAZ , Star Tribune


Updated: January 9, 2013 - 10:49 PM



Gun bought by George Gillett Jr. was near scene of deadly shootout.


WASHINGTON - A semi-automatic pistol found near the scene of a gun battle in Mexico where five people died, including a Mexican beauty queen, has been traced to a former federal gun agent in Minnesota who was part of the government's controversial Fast and Furious border gun-tracking operation.

The Justice Department's inspector general has confirmed that it is investigating allegations that an FN Herstal Five-seven handgun tracked from the area of a Nov. 23 shootout in Sinaloa was linked to George Gillett Jr., who oversaw Operation Fast and Furious from October 2009 to April 2010.

Gillett played a central role in a similar Twin Cities gun sting a decade ago that was shut down after several government-tracked guns were connected to violent gang crimes. He later worked in Arizona and has offered himself as a witness in the Republican-led congressional probe of Operation Fast and Furious, which led to a U.S. House contempt vote in June against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The new probe, confirmed in a Dec. 21 Justice Department letter obtained by the Star Tribune, focuses on alleged purchases of at least three firearms by Gillett while he was the assistant special agent in charge of the Phoenix field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). He has since been reassigned to Washington.

While the ATF has been criticized for losing track of U.S.-sold guns trafficked in Mexico, Gillett's case represents the first time that a weapon recovered south of the border has been tied to an official with the ATF. The powerful Five-seven was limited to military personnel and law enforcement until 2004. The ATF has said the weapon is a favorite of Mexican drug cartels, and those smuggled across the border can command top dollar in Mexico.

Gillett, a former street agent tracking so-called straw gun buyers in the Twin Cities, said Wednesday that on the advice of counsel, he could not comment.

More ties to Fast and Furious

The investigation comes amid heightened congressional scrutiny of arms trafficking and gun crimes in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut.

ATF records show that Gillett's gun was one of at least two recovered in the vicinity of the fatal shootout between the Mexican military and drug cartel members in Sinaloa. The other was an AK-47 traced to Uriel Patino, a leading suspect in the Fast and Furious operation, which has been linked to the 2010 shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Congressional Republicans rallied around Terry's death, which they blamed on lax ATF oversight within the Obama administration.

But some law enforcement officials point to gun laws that make it difficult for federal agents to interdict legally purchased weapons until they "walk" into the criminal underworld.

In Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF was faulted for mistakes in a "gun walking" operation tracking nearly 2,000 weapons that eventually disappeared or fell into the wrong hands along the Mexican border in 2009 and 2010. An earlier inspector general report found Gillett's supervision "seriously deficient."

The latest revelations involve Gillett's own personal guns, allegedly purchased using inaccurate addresses. ATF records show that in two of the gun purchases, which include the pistol found in Sinaloa, Gillett listed the address of the Phoenix ATF office. On the third, he listed the address of a local shopping center.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, singled out Gillett in a Dec. 19 letter to the inspector general's office, noting that it is a felony offense to falsify a federal gun transaction record known as Form 4473. Grassley, one of the leading congressional investigators in the Fast and Furious case, emphasized that many of the suspected gun runners arrested in the operation were charged with lying on the form.

"This information's implications and its ability to undermine public confidence in the integrity of ATF operations cannot be overstated," Grassley wrote to the inspector general. "Your office needs to work swiftly."

'I didn't do anything criminal'

The pistol found in the Sinaloa gunfight was purchased at Legendary Arms, a Phoenix gun store, on Jan. 7, 2010, while Gillett was the No. 2 man of the local ATF office. The gun is listed in an ATF trace requested by Mexican authorities as being involved in an attempted homicide.

The suspected drug battle took the lives of five people, including a Mexican soldier and Sinaloa beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez. Mexican officials said she likely was used as a human shield by the drug traffickers when they burst out of a car in a hail of bullets.

Gillett acknowledged in an interview with CBS News last month that the Belgian-made pistol found in Sinaloa was his but that he had advertised it on the Internet and sold it legally for about $1,100 a year before to a U.S. citizen in Arizona.

"I didn't do anything criminal," Gillett told CBS. "I've been a gun collector all my life."

According to Grassley's office, Gillett and other ATF officials involved in the Fast and Furious case are under review by the ATF's Professional Review Board. An ATF spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Gillett is one of two agents from the Minnesota ATF office who played supervisory roles in Fast and Furious. The other is David Voth, who once described the operation as "the tip of the ATF spear" in U.S.-Mexico firearms trafficking.

Voth, however, was not involved in the controversial Twin Cities' gun-tracking operation, which was shut down in 1996 at the request of then-U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug, who became concerned about the ATF's ability to track and control the guns.

At the time, the ATF operation was focused on a south Minneapolis gun store run by Mark Koscielski, a cooperating witness who was simultaneously battling residents and city officials trying to close his business.

Lillehaug's top assistant at the time was B. Todd Jones, now Obama's interim ATF director. In a prior statement to the Star Tribune, Jones called the tactics used in Fast and Furious "unacceptable."

http://www.startribune.com/local/186252532.html?refer=y

Insane.... it never ends with this criminal faction in the Federal Government

Exposed, they seem to baring their teeth. JMO