Yes, I'll beleive it when I see it too.
Posted on 03/11/2011 2:11:21 PM PST by neverdem
For Immediate Release
March 8, 2011
WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today said that he did not have confidence that the Justice Department Inspector General’s office could produce a report that the public would view as frank and unbiased in its investigation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) policy of letting guns “walk” along the Southwest border—a policy that may have contributed to the death of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent.
In a letter today to Kevin Perkins, the head of the Integrity Committee of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Grassley cited several conflicts that lead him to believe that the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Justice cannot be seen as completely disinterested and independent.
“There are certainly better and more independent ways to conduct this investigation. To have an acting Inspector General’s office lead an investigation like this one just won’t pass the smell test,” Grassley said. “The fact that the Inspector General did not take this whistleblower’s allegations seriously enough to even call him back raises a lot of red flags for me.”
Grassley’s concerns outlined in his letter are:
1. The Inspector General position at the Justice Department is currently vacant. Any acting Inspector General is ill-equipped to take on an entrenched bureaucracy and challenge senior officials with tough questions.
2. The Justice Department Inspector General’s office was made aware of the allegations brought forward by ATF Agent John Dodson shortly after Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death. The Inspector General failed to respond to Dodson’s numerous attempts to contact the office until Grassley’s staff notified the office.
3. ATF officials have cited an Office of the Inspector General report as one of the factors that prompted the shift to a riskier strategy of letting guns be trafficked rather than arresting straw buyers.
Grassley began looking into allegations brought forward by Dodson, and more than a dozen other ATF agents, after the Justice Department Inspector General failed to investigate. The agents indicated that their supervisors kept them from stopping gun traffickers with the normal techniques that had been successfully used for years. They instead were ordered to only watch and continue gathering information on traffickers instead of arresting them as soon as they could. In the meantime, the guns were allowed to fall into the hands of the bad guys even as agents told supervisors that it could not end well. Many of the guns have subsequently been found in firefights along the border, including a December 14, 2010 firefight where Terry was killed.
Grassley’s requests for information have gone unanswered about what transpired at the ATF and the Department of Justice during the time when Terry was killed and the policies instituted during Project Gunrunner that allowed guns to be sold to known straw purchasers and moved across the border without intervention.
-30-
© 2008, Senator Grassley
Go get them Chuck.
Go Hawkeyes! (Senator Grassley is from Iowa).
The DOJ under Holder isn’t going to find any fault with BATF, no way!
Yes, I'll beleive it when I see it too.
He called Obama and the veto "the 900-pound gorilla" and was all over the attempt at Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2006.
In all discussions with friends and legislators I make it clear the border is open because there are tens of billions made smuggling drugs--
--and government officials are complicit: witness "my good freind Johnny Sutton" and his making an example of Ramos & Compean.
New Mexico Governor Susan Martinez undoing Bill Richardson's sanctuary status for the territory formerly known as Mexico del Norte.
Progress.
Oh, I don't know, maybe Obama and Holder have turned over a new leaf since the election and they will do the right thing (/Massive Sarc)
Defund AFT...NOW!
Damn right!
See if you get what you want.
Every one of them at the WH is vacant. What's new?
Obama will find a way to get around this much like he does with everything else.They should be calling janet napolitano to come answer some questions and grill her about what is going on down there at the border.I’d like to see her in the hot seat along with Holder
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.