David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner
December 28, 2011
“Angry former ATF chief blames subordinates for Fast and Furious,” Richard A. Serrano of the Los Angeles Times reported in his Christmas Eve gift to the administration.
The story is he didn’t know, and he’s sticking to it. And if Ken Melson didn’t know, how could Eric Holder?
Now the new acting Bureau head, B. Todd Jones dutifully carries the meme forward:
[W]eak management structure has given some field agents a license to operate independently of Washington.
Except field agents at CleanUpATF, the website dedicated to exposing and correcting agency waste, abuse, corruption and fraud, aren’t buying it:
Mr. Jones - if the above is accurately quoted and accurately attributed to you, then to borrow a line from Mr. Grassley "You may be ill-served". You may not have been here long enough to know that ATF does not operate that way. Agents need multiple layers of approval to even begin such an operation, even one that does not encourage and allow sales to known traffickers with no intention of maintaining control or observation of the firearms. If you have been advised otherwise, you may want to consider other sources for your orientation to the agency because you will have no shortage of employees testify contrary to your assertion and be able to back it up with specific examples.
Here's hoping there was a misunderstanding or miscommunication during the interview. We don't need any more classic oversight hearing moments with an employee being asked "Are you lying or are they lying?"
Here's one sure way to tell if the CYA higher-ups are serious: Will they dare help prosecute their allegedly wayward underlings, and risk them telling what they know? Or will they just point fingers down the ladder, all the while insisting no crimes have been committed, and counting on that to keep those being blamed (but not prosecuted) from lawyering up and spilling their guts?
Not that Serrano bothered to question the narrative, while he continued to spread another:
Under the program, devised to help agents follow weapons from gun stores to Mexican cartel leaders, about 2,000 firearms were lost.
How one “devises” a program that completely omits the part where weapons are followed from gun stores to cartel leaders, and then expects any other result, is left unexplored. Evidently, to paraphrase a fundamentalist bumper sticker, Serrano said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Although I always thought children’s Christmas stories involved elves, not Underpants Gnomes.
But that’s the talking point those still foisting the “botched gun sting” myth (that would be pretty much all of the establishment media, the administration and all the Democrats in both houses of Congress) want spread. So much so that regressive attack dog sites like TPMMuckraker and Media Matters routinely insult those who point to growing evidence that the government was looking for walked weapons to be found at crime scenes and traced back to U.S. gun stores as “insane paranoid[s]” and purveyors of “far-fetched conspiracies.”
The problem for them is, and they should be called on it every time they purposefully lie to cover crimes resulting in the brutal murders of U.S. law enforcement agents and untold hundreds of Mexican nationals, is that the allegation did not originate with “right wing bloggers” or Republicans, or the NRA.
Do you know where it started?
From one of several insider sources who have proven consistently reliable throughout investigations by this correspondent and Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, who informed us back in early January:
Coming next will be more info on what the agents refer to as the Phoenix ATF office ‘walking across’ ARs and AKs to pad their statistics.
You might want to ask the snotty regressives out their busily spreading their lies if the people who have brought information to light and risked retaliation from the like of the “innocent” Mr. Melson are insane paranoids prone to far-fetched conspiracies. You might also want to ask them how many insider sources they have when they come up with their attack pieces designed to shield their political champions and subvert the truth, and ultimately the attainment of justice.
And by that I mean actual whistleblowers, not administration talking point dispensers relying on leftist media shills.
Also see:
A Journalist’s Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner. Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
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