Impeach McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor Today: Member of Obama DOJ met with Arizona gun dealer in May 2010 re Gunrunner/Fast & Furious concerns. 7 months later US citizen Brian Terry was killed

Friday, July 8, 2011

Member of Obama DOJ met with Arizona gun dealer in May 2010 re Gunrunner/Fast & Furious concerns. 7 months later US citizen Brian Terry was killed

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Update: Fast and Furious started under Obama and is part of the ATF Gunrunner program started under Bush. A CBS News report describes a late 2009 Obama activated Gunrunner program in which weapons were sold to suspected criminal elements. In May, 2010, A DOJ official (an Assistant US Attorney) met with an Arizona gun dealer concerned that lives were in danger from ATF's Gunrunner program. 7 months later agent Brian Terry was murdered. Serial numbers on 2 weapons found at the scene matched 2 the ATF program had sold a year earlier (Dec. 2009). Such sales are alleged not only in Arizona but in Tampa, Fla. (walking guns to Honduras), and possibly elsewhere.

4/14/11, "Gun shop owner expressed concerns early on in "gunwalker" scandal," CBS News, Sharyl Attkisson

"Damning, newly-obtained emails show that a key gun shop owner made explicit concerns in writing last year in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' "gunwalking" scandal.

Starting in late 2009, ATF allegedly directed an undetermined number of Phoenix-area gun shop owners to go ahead with sales of thousands of assault rifles and other weapons to suspicious buyers. Insiders claim ATF knew the buyers were connected to Mexico's drug cartels, but let the guns "walk" onto the street anyway in a misguided attempt to obtain intelligence. ATF and the Justice Department have denied that.

Investigators from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) obtained the emails this week.

In an April 13, 2010 email, the unnamed gun shop owner told ATF he was worried how he'd be viewed if the guns he sold ended up in the wrong hands....

Two months later, on June 17, 2010, the same gun shop owner again wrote ATF's Supervisor Voth again after he saw a Fox News report about firearms and the border. The gun shop owner called the report "disturbing" and stated "When you [Voth], [the Assistant U.S. Attorney], and I met on May 13th [2010],"...

("the U.S. Attorney's office which is part of the Justice Department")

(continuing, CBS News): "I shared my concerns with you guys that I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys... I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents' safety because I have some very close friends that are U.S. Border Patrol Agents in southern AZ."

This was six months before Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down near the Arizona border.

Two assault rifles that ATF had allegedly let "walk" were found at the scene.

The gun shop owner also stated there were "one or two" occasions on which his employees witnessed and recorded with surveillance cameras an exchange of money between a suspect and another individual on the premises; but the dealer said ATF officials wanted him to proceed with this so-called "straw" purchase. Buying a weapon for personal use and then transferring it to somebody else

is against the law.

In his letter, Grassley told Attorney General Holder: "In light of this new evidence, the Justice Departments' claim that the ATF never knowingly sanctioned or allowed the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers

is simply not credible."...

In response to a question about the alleged gunwalking, President Obama has said a "serious mistake" may have been made, and that neither he nor Holder authorized any such operation. Holder has said the Inspector General is investigating."

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2/23/11, "Gunrunning scandal uncovered at the ATF," CBS News, Sheryl Attkisson

"Then, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. The serial numbers on the two assault rifles found at the scene matched two rifles ATF watched Jaime Avila buy in Phoenix nearly a year before. Officials won't answer whether the bullet that killed Terry came from one of those rifles. But the nightmare had come true: "walked" guns turned up at a federal agent's murder."...

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6/24/11, "Federal ATF chief said to resist pressure to step down," LA Times, Serrano

"At a House hearing last week, testimony from ATF agents portrayed Melson (a DOJ official) as closely involved in overseeing the venture. At one point, according to documents released by Congress, he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed

in order to watch some of the illegal straw purchases."

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7/7/11, "Too bad to check: Project Gunrunner was funded by … the stimulus," Hot Air, Allahpundit

"You’ll find complete PDF and text versions of the final stimulus bill right here. Scroll down to page 16 (of 407!) in the PDF version and behold:

For an additional amount for ‘‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

And to think, you guys say the stimulus didn’t produce anything. It produced guns for Mexican drug cartels, didn’t it? Says Ben Domenech, in a stroke of perfect black humor:

“Shovel ready.”...

(Michelle Malkin) was all over the stimulus angle to Gunrunner back in March. But since only recently has this story really begun to bubble, replete with growing big-media interest, stuff we already knew is becoming stuff we forgot and then remembered and became horrified at all over again. ...(Obama) was asked about Operation Fast and Furious at the time — which is under the umbrella of Gunrunner — and insisted that neither he nor Holder authorized it. In that case, I’m really looking forward to finding out which member(s) of Congress decided to earmark $10 million for Gunrunner and what they thought would be done with the money. Someone in the executive branch must have requested the funding for the ATF. Who?

See what happens when Congress doesn’t read the bills?"

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3/24/11, "President Obama on Project Gunrunner: A 'Serious Mistake' May Have Been Made," TPM Muckraker

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3/30/11, "Project Gunrunner: Obama’s Stimulus-Funded Border Nightmare," MichelleMalkin.com