Thread: ATF, DOJ Launch Damage Control Over "Gunrunner"

ATF, DOJ Launch Damage Control Effort Over Growing Project Gunrunner Scandal

FIVE MINUTE VIDEO
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4576472/atf- ... ng-scandal

A major scandal is developing around a signature U.S. effort to track and stop the flow of illicit weapons to Mexico, as officials at the Department of Justice close ranks, hoping to cover up an investigation critics say is responsible for an untold number of dead.

The investigation was known as Project Gunrunner -- a joint task force headed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Department of Justice -- that took place in 2010.

It was conceived after the bureau was criticized for not conducting more complex investigations on straw buyers -- people who were allowed to purchase guns legally in the U.S.-- who illegally transport guns into Mexico and sell them to cartels.

So rather than just take down low-level straw buyers here and there, the agency hoped by ‘letting the guns walk’ the sales would lead investigators to cartel members higher up in the organization.

However, whistle-blowers say that never happened.

Already we know the weapons used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were being tracked by Gunrunner, but new documents reveal a much bigger problem.

The questions this morning in Washington are how high does this go and will Congress call for a formal investigation of its own.

"I'm still asking questions and we're getting the runaround from the Justice Department," Sen. Charles Grassley told Fox News.

"They're stonewalling. And the longer the wait, the more they fight, the more egg that they're going to have on their face."

Grassley and others say Gunrunner was a dismal and deadly failure, with ATF intentionally allowing thousands of weapons to be illegally trafficked to Mexico.

Here is how sources say it worked: Arizona gun stores sold weapons to suspected straw buyers -- in some cases - 10 - 20 - 30 - AK-47s to the same person over just a few months.

ATF could have said no, or later seized the guns in an arrest. Instead, owners were urged to sell, even though agents often knew the buyer was a straw for the Mexican cartels.

Records show Gunrunner was aware of more than 1,000 weapons sold from 10 Arizona gun stores to roughly 50 straw buyers. More than two-thirds of those guns have already been recovered at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.

"What people don't understand is how long we will be dealing with this," ATF agent and whistle-blower John Dodson said Tuesday.

"Those guns are gone -- gone. You can't just give the order and get them back. There is no telling how many previous crimes will be committed before we get to them."

Privately, ATF agents say Gunrunner “was out of controlâ€

Makes one wonder whose side "they" are "Really" on.

Grassley has lengthy correspondence and numerous documents he wants to post on the Senate Judiciary website, but sources on the Hill say Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy won't allow it, refusing to call for an independent congressional investigation.

Seems like we should start to put the pressure on our Senators and Representatives to DEMAND an independent investigation. I've sent emails.

And:

"ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at a minimum lessen the coverage of (Project Gunrunner) in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about the ATF."

Good Stories??? Well, let's see....Hmmmm...

Chairman Leahy needs to be bombarded with phone calls.
and be called out for the cover-up he is now being a part of if he refuses to have these hearings. because we americans deserve answers

you got caught

It was not exclusive to Arizona, they were doing the same thing in Texas. There have been other US citizens klilled in both places. David Hartley comes to mind. The smugglers that attacked the Hartley's had automatic weapons.

Project Gunrunner, an ATF operation run amok
This CBS News report from Sunday offers a troubling look at a sting operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that appears to have gone badly awry. The operation allowed thousands of weapons to be purchased by gun smugglers in the United States and taken to Mexico, where they reached the hands of drug-cartel thugs. Some ATF agents deplored the operation, known as "Project Gunrunner," and they begged their superiors to shut the operation down. Those pleas were ignored.

Gun-shop owners recognized a suspicious pattern of purchases (even your most wild American gun fanatic doesn't buy 575 AK-47 assault rifles). They phoned ATF to warn them that something strange was going on. They were told not to worry, ATF had it under control.

But ATF didn't. On Dec. 15, U.S. border patrol officer Brian Terry was shot and killed. Two guns found at the scene were traced directly to the ATF operation.

Now comes a front-page story in The Dallas Morning News that ATF had been allowing a gun-smuggling ring to operate out of North Texas while they monitored them en route to the border. When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was killed on Feb. 15, ballistics tests and a partial serial number traced the weapon used in the shooting to the very North Texas smuggling ring that was under ATF observation.

Tom Crowley, spokesman for the AFT's Dallas division, insists that at no time did weapons involved in the Dallas division's Gunrunner operations ever make it across the border. Still, the fact that known gun smugglers were allowed to keep operating on the streets in North Texas, and that at least one of their weapons was used in an American agent's killing, is chilling.

The alarming part of this story is not that Mexican drug gangs are using North Texas for their operations. This is old news, and the fact is, Mexican drug cartels have operations in every major U.S. city. We will see more and more of this activity in the future. What should worry everyone is that ATF deliberately allowed deadly military-style assault rifles, pistols and even .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifles to cross the border and reach the hands of some of the most crazed mass murderers on the planet.Mexico should be outraged. Americans should be outraged. This kind of insanity has to stop.


http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnew ... nrunn.html

Damage control on 3,000 guns allowed to walk across that border ... oh hell no

the damage will go on for years and years to come.... as those guns commit crimes

What you are referring to here is a Cover Up and against the Law


[b][color=red]ATF Project Gunrunner May Have “Lostâ€

[quote="AirborneSapper7"]Damage control on 3,000 guns allowed to walk across that border ... oh hell no

the damage will go on for years and years to come.... as those guns commit crimes

What you are referring to here is a Cover Up and against the Law


[b][color=red]ATF Project Gunrunner May Have “Lostâ€