Posted on 07/18/2011 6:42:35 AM PDT by GlockThe Vote
Congressional investigators probing the controversial "Fast and Furious" anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at least six Mexican drug cartel figures involved in gun smuggling also were paid FBI informants, officials said Saturday.
The investigators have asked the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration for details about the alleged informants, as well as why agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the Fast and Furious operation, were not told about them.
The development raises further doubts about the now-shuttered program, which was created in November 2009 in an effort to track guns across the border and unravel the cartels' gun smuggling networks. The gun tracing largely failed, however, and hundreds of weapons purchased in U.S. shops later were found at crime scenes in Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This is like Obama’s own little Iran-Contra - except this is worse.
Except the MSM is silent
BTW - love your tagline.
And still not a peep from Drudge...
“And still not a peep from Drudge...”
Not that Climategate even slightly compares to Gunrunner but Drudge is missing the unbelievable cooling trend in the west too.
Drudge should drop the round the clock “feels like 100” stories and post a few more “POTUS conducts war on the second amendment under the radar screen” stuff.
This was Holder using ATF to take a fall through the FBI setting them up.
I have said this since day one as everyone here was screaming disband the BATF .. As I tried pointing out, you would be left with the FBI to investigate all duties of ATF if they were disbanded. People were okay with that here though and jumped all over me.
In reality, you have had no FBI agents come forward, they are doing just what the Justice Department wants even now. However many BATF agents have been removed, fired or punished for whistle blowing trying to expose this.
FReepers need to wake up. Just because BATF deals with the second amendment rights they are treated as a group that should be disbanded. In reality, that agency is far more approving of guns in lawful owners hands than FBI would ever be.
Be careful what you wish for .....
>BATFE allowed firearms to be sold to FBI informants with money from the Stimulus Plan.<
You don’t get it. The BATF didn’t know that they were FBI informants.
The FBI knew that it was buying from BATF though and that their informants were bring guns to cartels.
And yes stimulus money was used.
BATF was set up to take the fall for the operation. Thank god the agents there have morals and blew the whistle or the FBI would have gotten away with it.
>So the BATFE was conducting a sting on undercover FBI agents, who were conducting a sting on gun dealers?
That’s how I read it.<
No.
Justice had the FBI use it’s informants to buy guns illegally and bring them to mexico.
BATF did not know that the people buying the guns were FBI informants.
There was no sting involved. FBI and Justice were going to play this off as some high level gun tracking operation if ever caught. But it fell apart when BATF said .. there is no way to track these guns and exposed it.
It was nothing more than Holder making sure that a lot of guns ended up in cartel hands, a lot of crimes were committed.
That the weapons could be tracked back to the United States and then Obama could prove his claim of 90% of all guns were coming from the us for more gun control
Issa is nailing this to the cross on them.
The FBI was not conducting anything against gun dealers. They just wanted to use their informants to buy guns and illegally send them to drug cartels. Meanwhile have BATF unwittingly catalog them so justice could identify the weapons after a crime was committed.
Got it?
>How could the AFT be said to have pulling off the Fast and Furious scam, and NOT KNOW the background of the sewer slime they were controlling.
This stinks, but then anything ATF touches is crap. Proof once again; like attacts like.,
your not getting it ..
The only people that BATF were “controlling” were the gun sellers - the gun shops. They were only keeping track of weapons sold. That was it. Nothing more.
The FBI were the ones who were pulling the dirty here. Using informants not in the federal registry as required by policy if not law. To buy guns with federal money and sell them to drug cartels.
>And still not a peep from Drudge...,
that is what scares me. ... WHY is he so quiet?
Nachum, I don’t think you’ve pinged this one. Munz has several excellent comments.
Very interesting. Thanks.
The interesting factoid is that the FBI and ATF offices in Phoenix are just across the hall from each other. I would think they are very familiar with each other.
Perhaps the BATFE did not know, but higher-ups at DOJ must have known this was going on!
>Perhaps the BATFE did not know, but higher-ups at DOJ must have known this was going on!<
100% - they orchestrated the whole thing.
See when an operation goes on, you might think that they do the operation then notify Justice. but you would be wrong.
they don;t make a move without justice and much of the time Justice gets the information then sends other’s out to do their bidding.
federal system is far different than local or state systems. The DOJ runs everything, they are in on every move.
>The interesting factoid is that the FBI and ATF offices in Phoenix are just across the hall from each other. I would think they are very familiar with each other.<
You could probably cut the tension between the two with a knife. Both agencies historically hate each other. The FBI is constantly “adopting” the higher profile cases and “taking over” when it will look good for the Bureau. They use BATF when it is convenient - then cut them out when it comes time for the cameras.
The door does not swing both ways - in DOJ - the FBI are considered the golden boys. They play ball with DOJ much nicer.
You really think that they would be on good terms and talking with each other after such a history like that? Not likely
And since this was a cross-border operation, we should expect the State Department was informed as well!
>And since this was a cross-border operation, we should expect the State Department was informed as well!<
Correct - also please remember that DHS ordered the Boarder patrol not to do interdictions on the boarder. They were ordered to stand down and stop checking people during the hight of this.
So DHS was involved.
Now, is it even plausible that DHS, The State Department and Justice were involved in such discussions and decisions without pResidential knowledge and approval?
I am thinking .. no. What do you think?
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