Posted on 06/18/2011 4:35:40 AM PDT by stevie_d_64
The Justice Department is expected to oust the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a troubled federal antitrafficking operation that has grown into the agency's biggest scandal in nearly two decades.
Moves toward the replacement of Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, could begin next week, although the precise sequence of events remains to be decided, these people said.
The shakeup shows the extent of the political damage caused by the gun-trafficking operation called Fast and Furious, which used tactics that allowed suspected smugglers to buy large numbers of firearms. Growing controversy over the program has paralyzed a long-beleaguered agency buffeted by partisan battles. The ATF has been without a Senate-confirmed director since 2006, with both the Bush and Obama administrations unable to overcome opposition from gun-rights groups to win approval of nominees.
In November, President Barack Obama nominated Andrew Traver, the head of the ATF's Chicago office, as permanent ATF director. The nomination stalled in the Senate after the National Rifle Association said Traver had a "demonstrated hostility" to the rights of gun owners.
Traver is set to travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the people said. The administration is weighing whether to name Traver as acting director or choose another interim chief while awaiting Senate action on his nomination, they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You have an excellent point regarding the media’s role.
"Antitrafficking" my ass. The point of the operation was to traffic US arms into Mexico, to create a(nother) pretext for undermining the RKBA.
I concur with the "how convenient to have a scapegoat" sentiment. Pretty much the entire federal government is against the RKBA, both GOP and DEM factions. Can't have the people being in charge of themselves, and even worse, in charge of the government.
He needs to go, and take the rest with him....
More people Killed from F&FGate. NO ONE COULD answer if someone ordered to CEASE operation F&F. Is it still on going?
Obama’s second official denial that he authorized F&FGate
‘We Don’t Know’ Isn’t good enough from justice dept
It's clear that both Holder and Napolitano are soon to be looking for new jobs...and maybe be charged with crimes.
And, as you state above, the only question now is whether Issa can get the goods on personnel in the White House.
It's time for a Special Prosecutor to run in parallel to the House investigation. It's also time for ads on TV and Radio from un-named, but interested parties.
Leaping under the bus for zer0, huh. Probably ordered to do so.
No mention of any "Mexican official" in the WSJ story. What are you talking about??
Not so. Look at the DOJ website. Though, on another vein, I do wonder why the Dept of Education search warrant story disappeared.
ordinarily, i would concur with you....this is just too big to be ignored..the msm has tried, but even they can see this is just too big....oh no, this will bring down this entire administration, and not because the msm helped, like in watergate, or even “ it is just about sexgate” .... it will come down because even the dilusional cannot deny it’s existance..... the end is near, and fubo sees it...he cannot even start a war to get out of this..he is toast
Yeah, I agree that it’s big but I don’t think anything less than stabbing Zero in the back will knock Holder off that seat.
F&F is going to keep giving for a long, long, long time.
The family of the deceased must, must sue the feds for compensation.
Issa and the good guys smell blood and I doubt they will be satisfied with the carcass of the acting director.
Janet Napolitano
We all had a good laugh because the fullscale war taking place just across the border in Mexico required THOUSANDS of firearms, and if we, the USA, were the primary source, then every single gun rounded up should have been traceable to us.
What we had were a very small number of weapons in a very larger war and that just didn't seem right.
It's pretty obvious the ATF scheme was to pump enough guns into that war that the number recovered and traceable to the US would jump to far higher numbers.
Even the WarshPost writers seemed to find it difficult to deal with the very small numbers they had been given to work with. Eventually one of them would have arranged to write a story about how it seemed quite propagandistic.
The fact NO WarshPost writer came up with an article critical of the ATF lack of cooperation ("If they had more guns they shoulda' told us") suggests THEY KNEW more was coming.
That's where whistle blowers come into the picture. ATF had not yet pumped the numbers, but the MSM types were molified for the moment. Then, all at once there's a killing ~ but the initial concern was that the border patrol agent was required to fire beanbags at his killers first.
I think that problem triggered a whole lot more interest than anyone had planned on ~ and that's where the whistleblowers show up.
Fur Shur none of the ATF field agents want to be held responsible for murdering a border patrolman, and there they were, being blamed for it ~ because one whale of a lot of people knew those two rifles had been recovered at the scene of the murder.
The first time I read through the WarshPost gunrunning stories I knew they were either whacked out Leftwingtards who thought a handful of guns is all you need for a war, or somebody had something he or she wanted covered up.
Some stories are, after all, too good to be true.
I look forward to some of the "Posties" being indicted in this one.
Even if he goes (more likely re-assigned) the Obama ‘Justice Department’ will make sure another fanatical Obamatron fills the open slot.
Once caught, their cover story of wanting to track thousands of weapons purposely let loose in MX stunk to high heaven.
Ditching Melson will not be enough. More scalps.
The agency could just disappear!
And having Melson leave does NOT exclude him from subpoena or prosecution. This little operation is not just the one that was “outed” as another FR post has pointed out. The whistleblower characterized it as being the “one run out of the Phoenix office”. Implication is there are other ops out of other offices, like TX, NV CA any border state including FL!
This is really VERY big- impeachment material (hence Carney’s flat denial that the prez authorized it— he may not have, but he needed real “proof” that US guns are going to Mexico— so the UN ban can be installed- world govt).
Fall Guy #1: Kenneth Melson
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