ATF Whistleblower Speaks Out
Jun 30, 2011 - 6:15 - Vince Cefalu, who's being pushed out by the agency, discusses the botched gun operation
Posted on 07/07/2011 5:34:57 PM PDT by Kaslin
Scandal: The ATF's acting director spills the beans on a program involving multiple agencies that not only supplied guns to Mexican gangs and drug cartels but may also have used taxpayer dollars to buy them.
The official story that Fast and Furious, also known as Project Gunrunner, was merely a botched sting operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives designed to track and stop cross-border arms-trafficking collapsed this week in secret testimony by ATF acting director Kenneth Melson.
Unwilling to be made a scapegoat in the affair, which resulted in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry using one of the trafficked guns, Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, testified behind closed doors on Monday before two congressional oversight committees. He appeared with his own private attorney, rather than lawyers from the Department of Justice. His explosive testimony needs to be heard loudly and publicly.
According to a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Melson testified that he learned the full details of the operation only after Terry's death made the operation public and he reviewed internal documents — documents that have been withheld by DOJ — that made him "sick to his stomach."
ABC News reports that Melson wanted to appear before oversight committees earlier, but Eric Holder's Justice Department sought to delay his testimony. Pressured to resign and unwilling to take the fall, Melson seized the opportunity to tell his story.
"If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand," the letter said. "That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Pass the popcorn...
Has anyone on the RAT side yelled “Racism!” yet?
When that happens, we’ll know we’re close to the target.
Only hope the Pubbies have the stones to fully investigate this debacle.
IMPEACHMENT TIME!!
“At an oversight hearing last month, three federal firearms investigators testified that they wanted to “intervene and interdict” the guns at the border, but were repeatedly ordered to step aside and let the traffickers proceed.
“Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan,” John Dodson, an ATF agent, told the panel. “It was so mandated.”
Agent Olindo James Casa said that “on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms.”
Gunrunnergate is a little more euphonious I suppose. Why did it take so long for this one to be -gated?
Follow the money, multiple ATF field offices were engaged in Gunwalking, most recently a Tampa Office was implicated running guns through Honduras. No wonder the WH was so eager to prop up a marxist dictator down there, when their legislature removed him for attempted “electioneering”. where did the money go?
middle east?
While this wouldn't have greatly hindered Mexican gangsters from getting guns they intend to commit their crimes with, there's something sickening about America willingly contributing these weapons when it could have refrained or stopped it -- plus interdicting the guns would also have caught a number of runners which were allowed to just waltz back into Old Mehico scot free.
Great list Nachum, I’m keeping one too.
Keep up the good work!!
I bet this is what 0bama was referring to when he told the Brady Campaign that he was doing some things under the radar to implement gun control.
Negligent homicide and high crimes and misdemeanors is what it is.
Now we know another reason that Napalitano/Obama didn’t want our troops on the border.....they knew that Obama was arming the Mexican drug cartels to the teeth with assualt weapons! Our troops might have gotten in the way of Obama arming the marxist revolutionaries and drug cartels in Mexico and South America if they were there in force.
On Operation Castaway (ATF/Tampa-> Honduras -> Mexico) :
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?D=2011-07-07&ID=325949
ATF Special Agent in Charge Virginia O’Brien was previously the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, was later promoted to the Deputy Assistant Director of ATF, but then stepped down to the position in Tampa. Whether the allegations of our source refer to the ongoing Operation Castaway remains at this hour unclear, but our source is certain that O’Brien has allowed the “walking” of straw-purchased firearms to Honduras using the same failed strategy as the Phoenix Field Division’s Operation Fast and Furious.
Thanks davetex. Feel free to ping or pass along any fresh information.
Fox News interview with senior agent Vince Cefalu. He has been terminated and says about 30 other agents have been terminated due to their opposition to operation Fast and Furious. Says DoJ was intimately involved.
The fact that you felt the need to ask that question speaks for itself.
With the linguini spined, weepy golf partner of Obama, (Speaker Boehner) as the leader of the House pubbies, what are the Republicans worth in the way of manliness and guts? And when you factor in the plethora of RINOS, this scandal, which should be one of monumental proportions, will be like a little wind in the air, ruffling a few leaves and then departing without an afterthought. The effeminate Republicans will shun attacking Obama, and the media will concoct and support the coverup.
The biggest laugh of all, at this point in the scandal, is that the media "think" the cost of the 2,500 fire arms given to Mexico "may have been" taxpayer money, but they're not certian. The Obama government is the most corrupt, rotton-to-the-core government we've ever had, and the majority of Americas, (whites), are still too timid to attack Obama's corruption and ineptness because he's half black. Osama succeeded in making the American people terrorized and paranoid, and Obama knows how to do that too.
I think one point that is being lost here is that, from BATFE reports, they were unable to connect a single straw buyer to any Mexican drug cartel.
These firearms may have ended up in someone else’s hands.
Gun control ping
It is OBVIOUS the Community Organizer himself is behind this idiotic plan, isn't it?
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