Rediscovered information on Project Gunrunner leading to misconceptions

"Mike," I wrote to colleague Mike Vanderboegh, people are going ape with the Ogden video and the $10M for Gunrunner--they don't understand that Gunrunner was not kept secret and was actually publicized, is not synonymous with F&F, and that authorizing Gunrunner is not the same as authorizing GunWALKER--as a result, a lot of hysterical and unfounded conclusions are being jumped to that will muddy the waters and discredit people making those arguments--and by default, the real arguments--I don't know if this started because well-meaning people who don't understand the details think they've found something and are trying to be helpful, but the way this is going viral it almost seems like somebody knew which buttons to push to get the gun crowd screaming after something that will be used to ridicule the entire effort as tinfoil ignorance. I think you and I need to address this in some sort of statement.

"I made a stab at it, I continued, "but held off on posting to see what you had to say."

A lot of them are out there concerning Gunrunner, like finding the Ogden video and the $10M funding are proof Obama ordered guns walked. No--those are only proof that a known project was authorized by the government--not in secret, but with press releases and everything.

GUNRUNNER has been well known. For a long time. See those "Journalist Guide" icons in the left margin of my WarOnGuns blog? Guess where I got the cover art to modify from? And Gunrunner is NOT synonymous with Fast and Furious--that was a component strategy presented as a sting op. that turned out to be something else.

FOR REFERENCE:

David Codrea:
MISCONCEPTIONS...

Mike and I are concerned with gunWALKING--where the stated mission was deviated from with the criminal conspiracy we now see unfolding.

Suddenly I am being hit with a wave of tips about the old known stuff like it's being discovered for the first time--for many, I'm sure it is. I don't know if the genesis of that originates from people not knowing the history of this and jumping in to be helpful and spread the word, or if there is intent to sow confusion and misdirection.

Either way, it does not help, and can actually hurt. A lot.

He should tell that to Cong. Issa and Sen. Grassley.

Gun-Running Timeline: How DOJ’s ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ Unfolded
October 2009: The ATF’s Phoenix Field Division establishes a gun trafficking group called Group VII. Group VII initially began using the strategy of “gunwalking,” or allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns, according to a report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case,” the report says. It goes on to say: “Group VII initially began using the new gunwalking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed ‘Operation Fast and Furious.’”
According to the congressional report, the ATF had known that most of the indicted straw purchasers were in fact straw purchasers before Operation Fast and Furious began.
Sen. Chuck Grassley: Guns in ATF sting tied to agent's death
Grassley said he had information that the AK-47s recovered at the shooting scene were traced to Project Gunrunner, an ATF program designed to stem the illegal flow of U.S. guns to Mexico.
Tom Mangan, an ATF spokesman in Phoenix, said he was "not aware of any internal investigation that's going on regarding Project Gunrunner."
At a news conference last week, the ATF and the U.S. attorney's office announced indictments of 34 people in connection with firearms smuggling to Mexico. Bill Newell, ATF special agent in charge for Arizona, said the five separate cases, all part of Project Gunrunner, demonstrate the corruptive reach of Mexican cartels using straw buyers to acquire guns in Arizona for illegal shipment south.
Issa Says He Doesn’t Believe Holder’s Testimony Was Accurate
However, on Dec. 14, 2010, two rifles sold to one of the smugglers that the Justice Department had allowed to buy guns turned up at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Within 24 hours of Terry’s murder, according to an internal ATF email released by Issa, the FBI had definitively traced the rifles found at the murder scene back to Operation Fast and Furious and had so notified ATF.
While Holder told the Judiciary Committee he had “probably” heard about Fast and Furious” a “few weeks” before May 3, readers of the Washington Post heard about it a few months before that, on Feb. 2, when the Post ran a page-4 story that referred to “Fast and Furious” three times by name in describing how guns sold to a smuggler during the operation ended up at the scene of Border Agent Brian Terry’s murder.

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