US officials lost track of the weapons, which have since been linked to a series of deaths involving drug cartels as well as the murder of border patrol agent Brian Perry last December.
“...lost track of...”
Presumes there were ever any effort to track them in the first place!
Reminds me of a spoof song by Tom Lehrer way back when: "Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department says Werner Von Braun..."
The cover up will likely entail the creation of a "department" that is fully responsible. Problem will be that is has no manpower assigned against it...
That just won't fly. We already have several ATF field agents on record saying that they were ordered to stand down and let the guns go.