The only botched part of it is that it generated whistle blowers willing to tell the truth about it.
The cover up after the fact is the corruption.
It’s pretty corrupt that they would use this plan as a means and cover for their anti gun laws. They were spouting off how 90% of guns in Mexico came from the US just before this operation started. They told dealers to sell the guns, told the agents to let them go over the border when they wanted to stop the trucks. They knew people would be killed, why...so they could tally numbers and say they were from illegal gun purchases and tighten control. That alone is corruption. Their lies and cover up is more corruption.
Nah——there is nothing legal about any part of it. The basic idea was illegal and corrupt. The guy who thot it up is corrupt because he (whoever) was looking for a way to skirt a whole bunch of laws to make the gun bidness look bad. If they wanted to actually trace guns they should have been putting trackers in the ones sold to Mexican public agencies-——that’s always been the biggest part of the Mexican gun issue.