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The chairman of the House Oversight Committee will use the power of the subpoena to learn if a federal gun-tracking program contributed to the killing of a Border Patrol agent. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to issue a number of subpoenas to federal officials with ties to the controversial program, which was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The move by Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, comes on the tail end of a series of interviews with government officials and witnesses that the panel’s investigators conducted last month. Sources...

Rep. Darrell Issa says he’s had to go directly to the field to get information about Project Gunrunner because the Obama administration has stonewalled on all of the information subpoenas they’ve been sent. But now it’s their turn. Issa says that he’s ready to subpoena people in the Obama administration for hearings this summer. He points out that this isn’t the discovery phase of the process because they know exactly what happened. They now want to know what the administration was thinking by approving a process that sent high-powered weapons to the ‘worst of the worst’ on both sides of...

I was aghast and infuriated when I read the May 29 story from the Times Union Washington bureau, "Bushmaster linked to drug trade." It was so full of anti-gun disinformation that has been proven to either be untrue or half-truths that I had to make sure that I had not inadvertently picked up some far-left publication. The story refers to a federal report that traced 2,921 guns back to the United States between 2006 and 2010. It does not mention that most guns in Mexico come from Central American weapon stashes that were accumulated during the many years of wars...

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives sting operation named Project Gunrunner passed so many guns to border-crossing smugglers as bait to snag high-level Mexican drug cartel leaders — instead of intercepting them as intended — that one was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December. Project Gunrunner had been whitewashed by a 152-page Justice Department Inspector General Review in November, before the Terry murder. But when bloggers including National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea publicly exposed Project Gunrunner and its successor, Operation Fast and Furious, it delivered swift results. Immediately, half a dozen...

Back on February 11th, TTAG pointed out the insanity that was the ATF’s decision to allow 50 caliber rifles walk across the border as part of Operation Fast and Furious. “Senator Grassley recently released documents showing that one of the ATF's stooges, the man who bought the weapons used to kill Agent Terry, purchased two .50 caliber rifles. The main, perhaps only reason Mexican drug gangs would want a .50 caliber rifle: to take out a truck. Or a helicopter. Now you could say .50 caliber rifles don't take out armored personnel carriers or choppers, drug smugglers do. And you'd...

Convicted gun smuggler John Phillip Hernandez of Houston was likely not the kind of customer that Bushmaster Firearms International had in mind when he purchased 14 of their .223-caliber AR-15s at Houston area gun shops in 2006 and 2007. Bushmaster describes the AR-15 rifles, a civilian version of the U.S. military's standard-issue M-16, as intended "for law enforcement, security and private consumer use.“ But the weapons Hernandez and his associates purchased ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel pistoleros, including a Bushmaster .223 that was used to kill four police officers and three secretaries in Acapulco. A Hearst...

Mid-June could potentially bring the first of what may be several hearings on Capitol Hill over Project Gunrunner, but that is not confirmed nor is it presently on the Congressional calendar, a House source said today. "It might not happen," the source said via e-mail. Mike Vanderboegh, the Sipsey Street Irregulars blogger who broke the initial Gunrunner stories with National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea almost six months ago, first reported the possibility of a hearing earlier today. That hearing would be before Congressman Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Issa did recently indicate that hearings into the...

Congressman Darrell Issa (R. CA) threatened Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives has threatened acting head Kenneth E. Melson with a contempt citation for his failure to comply with a Congressional subpoena. "Let me be clear ... we are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice – specifically, of allegations that the reckless and inappropriate decisions of Department officials have created a serious public safety hazard." Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in a letter yesterday to...

Imagine a scenario in which the media outlet most afflicted with Barack Obama Sycophancy Syndrome (BOSS) – the place Chris ‘thrill up my leg’ Matthews calls home – presented a ’smoking gun’ that could implicate the Obama White House in a cover-up akin to that of Watergate but with the added scarlet letter of murder. The notion of such a thing would be like Woodward and Bernstein ignoring Deep Throat. Impossible, right? Yes, unless it did so unintentionally. It looks like that honor may just go to none other than Michael Isikoff who, in September of 2010, wrote about an...

Newly released research indicates that the more pro-gun control the administration, the less likely they are to prosecute the real criminals. A new report from Syracuse University researchers notes that the Obama administration fails to prosecute violent criminals who most likely contribute to gun-related violence. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is supposed to investigate and arrest those who violate federal gun laws (e.g., felons in possession, straw purchasers).Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reports that January 2011 was “the lowest level to which federal weapons prosecutions have fallen since January 2001, when they were 445...

Chris Muir, who produces the popular webcomic Day by Day, features a "Project Gunwalker" storyline in today's strip. Click here to read it. Titled "Good, Bad, and Ugly," the episode spoofs Sergio Leone's famous "spaghetti western" of a similar name, this time placing Attorney General Eric Holder with an executive order against the Second Amendment and a Mexican drug cartel gangster with a "walked" gun in the respective roles of "Ugly" and "Bad." This is (at least) the second foray Muir has taken into a Gunwalker territory. In late March, he compared arming cartels to freeing Al Qaeda rebels in...

When you give guns to the Mexican cartels, they use them to kill people. That is the finding of an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which involved allowing thousands of guns collected through suspicious purchases to walk across the Mexican border. The guns were later used against U.S. Border Patrol agents. You can read more about the scandal from CBS News here. Ever since Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December, the "gunwalker" scandal has been slowly growing. Two guns recovered on the scene of the murder had been deliberately allowed by BATF to...

Senator continues efforts to shine light on ATF involvement in guns smuggled into Mexico. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has sent 10 letters to the U.S. Department of Justice seeking answers about how 1,700 firearms were allowed to be sold and smuggled illegally into Mexico. He's received five letters in response, two of which contradict evidence he's received from whistleblowers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who were involved in Operation Fast and Furious. But earlier this week, the senator, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, had the chance to face the department's head Attorney General Eric...

PITTSBURGH—The National Rifle Association’s CEO Saturday said Attorney General Eric Holder should step down for allowing an ATF operation to occur on his watch that involved the sale of guns to suspicious customers with ties to Mexican drug cartels. The ATF allegedly encouraged gun dealers to sell multiple firearms to known and suspected criminals as part of a broader sting operation to crack down on gunrunning. In a speech to thousands of gun activists here, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre said two assault rifles that the ATF “let walk” were found at the crime scene where a border patrol agent was...

CBS News has learned that House and Senate investigators have descended upon Arizona for their probe into the so-called "Gunwalker" scandal. They're gathering interviews from witnesses, including ATF insiders and area gun shop owners. Sources tell CBS News the congressional investigators are frustrated by what they view as across-the-board stonewalling by government agencies which have refused to provide information in the investigation. Government officials have said they won't provide information while their own investigations are ongoing. "They're investigating themselves," says one source on Capitol Hill, "and then claiming the open investigations preclude them from giving Congress information it needs for...

Evidence continues to mount that contrary to claims on the part of those who would use Mexican drug war violence to justify heavier gun regulation in the U.S., the civilian gun market in this country is at most a very minor player as a source of the criminals' firepower--at least when the U.S. government isn't abetting the process. When the narco-thugs go shopping for firepower, they go south. The latest confirmation of that comes from McClatchy, in "Drug gangs help themselves to Central American military arsenals": Crime groups in cahoots with venal army officers are looting military arsenals in Central...

American gun rights activists, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have “taken off the gloves” following yesterday’s disclosure by CBS News and confirmed by the Associated Press that Mexico has retained a high-profile United States legal firm to possibly sue U.S. gun makers for the violence in that country. The discussion is heating up on two popular gun rights forums, The High Road and Gun Rights Media, and NSSF released a statement this morning that is printed in its entirety below. It is the latest chapter in the growing “Bordergate” scandal, which has infuriated gun rights organizations, including the National...

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)...

Tick, tick, tick. Another Project Gunrunner disclosure deadline approaches for the Obama Department of Justice. And GOP watchdogs are hammering away at yet another stonewall erected by corruptocrat Attorney General Eric Holder. Late last week, Sen. Charles Grassley roasted the DOJ for failing to produce documents he requested in February — and released his own set of damning e-mails between a gun shop owner who had protested the ATF’s dangerous straw purchase scheme repeatedly. Via CBS News’s Sheryl Atkinson: Damning, newly-obtained emails show that a key gun shop owner made explicit concerns in writing last year in the Bureau of...

Devastating e-mail exchanges between a senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix, AZ and a cooperating gun shop operator have been revealed by Senator Charles Grassley in a letter sent late yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder. “In light of this new evidence,” Grassley tells Holder, “the Justice Department’s claim that the ATF never knowingly sanctioned or allowed the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers is simply not credible.” Grassley's press release can be viewed here. CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson is reporting that the information contained in the e-mails is “damning.” The e-mail...