Saturday, February 11, 2012

FOX's William La Jeunesse interviews former DEA manager. How stupid do the administration, the federal law enforcement bureaucracy and the Issa Committee which is pretending to seriously investigate this scandal truly think we are?

Former DEA Chief: 3 Other Federal Agencies Knew About Operation 'Fast and Furious'.
Now, read this story and tell me when some adult in the Congress is going to point out that this has all the hallmarks of a compartmentalized clandestine operation directed from above and not "bureaucratic stupidity and mismanagement"?
While criticism surrounding Operation Fast and Furious has so far focused on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, three other federal agencies knew about the operation and some of their agents tried to stop it, according to the former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tucson.
Tony Coulson, the DEA’s agent in charge of Southern Arizona during Fast and Furious, says many federal field agents knew the ATF was walking guns to Mexico, but supervisors told them to back off when they objected.
“Clearly, we went too far,” Coulson said. “The question we had among rank and file law enforcement was, ‘When is someone going to call ATF on this, when is someone going to tell them to stop?’”
Coulson’s remarks jibe with what is already known about the operation. The DEA, the FBI and ICE, also known as Immigration Customs and Enforcement, all played roles in the investigation.
Coulson said those agencies share the blame since top officials knew, but did little to stop, the gunrunning effort. Coulson is among the first senior public officials, current or former, who admit knowing about the botched operation.
Coulson claims he raised objections to then-DEA chief Elizabeth Kempshall, but was told it was taken care of. After attending a meeting with ATF agent in charge Bill Newell, Coulson said that’s when he and other agents “knew (Fast and Furious) was not some sort of benign, pie-in-the-sky publicity stunt. Guns were actually getting in the hands of criminals.”
According to Congressional testimony and documents obtained by Fox News, the other agencies involved include:
• ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement assigned agent Layne France to work alongside ATF in the operation. Sources say France replaced ICE senior agent Ed Hamel, who objected to the ATF ‘gunwalking’ strategy.
As a member of the Fast and Furious task force, France received copies of all ATF investigative reports, and sources say France knew the operation in detail. Congressional investigators want to know who at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security saw France’s reports, and how much he reported up the chain of command about the operation.
“I don’t think ICE can get away from the fact they were there side by side with ATF. They were not willing participants. This was something they were told to do, but they were still there,” Coulson said.
Sources say ICE agents who interdicted and seized weapons on the Mexican border got in a battle with ATF over tactics. Coulson says ICE agents stationed at Arizona ports of entry were told by supervisors to let the issue go, because ‘people above their pay grade’ had already signed off on the operation.
That version of events is supported by a document obtained Thursday by Fox News. Twice in 2009, ICE was forced to halt gun investigations because their inquiries conflicted with Operation Fast and Furious. ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office told ICE “not to interfere” because Fast and Furious took priority.
Sources say ICE Director John Morton ordered an internal review of ICE involvement in Fast and Furious after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
An ICE official said the agency could not comment on the latest claims due to an ongoing investigation. ICE officials admit they knew about Fast and Furious, but claim the agency did not know about the controversial “tactics” involved until they were reported in the media.
• DEA
The Drug Enforcement Administration actually helped initiate Fast and Furious when one of its own targets, suspected drug dealer Manuel Celis Acosta, began to acquire guns for the Sinaloa Cartel. The DEA invited ATF to take over the weapons phase of that investigation.
The two agencies shared the same floor and same ‘wire room’ in Phoenix, where agents listened to suspects' conversations on court-approved wiretaps. The DEA also had initiated an investigation into the “money men” behind Fast and Furious – two cartel associates in the El Paso-Juarez area -- but deliberately did not tell the ATF. However the names of the two high-level cartel contacts were written “frequently” on call logs inside the wire room, according to a congressional memo, but ATF agents failed to notice. This information was available in January 2010, one year before Fast and Furious was finally taken down.
• FBI
The FBI had also opened an investigation of the two high-level cartel associates targeted by the ATF. The FBI designated both men national security assets but didn’t alert the ATF. In exchange for one individual’s guilty plea to a minor count of “Alien in Possession of a Firearm” both men became FBI informants and are now considered ‘un-indictable,' according to a congressional review of the situation.
When the ATF learned the FBI knew, but shielded their informants, Agent Jim Needles called it “frustrating.” Attorney General Eric Holder said he would “look into” the lack of information sharing. However, sources who have attended classified briefings say the two are both are still inside the cartel and their identities cannot be compromised, suggesting the FBI will likely escape congressional scrutiny, despite their awareness of the tactics used in Fast and Furious.
Just how stupid do they think the cartel is? They can read the papers and watch the news, too, you know. Does the FBI really think we'll believe that the cartels have not figured out who these bright boys are? Especially since they have already been described as brothers, one missing an arm? So if they are blown to the cartels, how can the FBI credibly hide behind that idiotic fiction?
It amounts to this: how stupid do the administration, the federal law enforcement bureaucracy and the Issa Committee which is pretending to seriously investigate this scandal truly think we are? And how stupid do they have to be to believe THAT?!?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How stupid? They don't care. Period. The fact is...the people that do care are a very small percentage of the population, and the Gov knows the rest of the population ARE terminally obtuse.

Mike, I understand the importance of the F&F. Unfortunately, it is small potatoes compared to the overall picture of conspiracy and corruption in the US GOV/CORPORATE CARTEL. In that light, I offer you the big picture, and it is bigger than you can possibly imagine.
Dillon Reed and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits

http://dunwalke.com/

For your readers, I submit, once you understand the scope,depth and history of the cesspool, believe me, you will never be the same. After reading Katherine Austin Fitts book, I embarked on a five year journey of personal enlightenment. I thank her daily for her courage. You will too.

btw, as one example..try REX 84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aKGYugdSb0

Anonymous said...

So we're supposed to believe that this idea was all hatched by some underlings and that somehow, these "rogue" low level bureaucrats were able to dictate policy regarding their operation to the FBI, DEA, ICE and the DOJ?

Really? That's what we're supposed to believe?

It's pretty obvious that this was coordinated at a very high level and if these slapdicks get off, then it PROVES our system in its current iteration is not capable of salvage.

In short, if very high up people aren't prosecuted......it signifies that our government has lost all legitimacy and we cannot use the soap, ballot or jury box to affect change.....we're down to the last one.

God help us.

Ashrak said...

For this latest excuse to stick, it can only then mean that the ENTIRE Department of Homeland Security "reorganization" of government that DEMOCRATS demanded is PROVEN to be a 100% failure.

So then, in getting Eric, Hillary, Robert, Barry out of trouble, they then have to place the responsibility and the entire LEGISLATURE, especially the Democrats, for a HUGE waste of money that only, then, made things worse and made government "officials" LESS accountable in the end and of course made us less "safe".

I believe that coordination is the Key to the GunWalker lockbox. Republicans are making people look to wiretaps application, and Justice is stonewalling, in order to make people focus on them so that they avoid the common sense "if-then" scenario presented by the latest Sgt. Schultz excuse.

Sure, there might be some smoking gun points in the applications, some "robosigning" if you will, but the real proof is right there in plain common sense sight.

Either

the department of Homeland Security is a success and stovepiping of information, the lack of sharing information, was eliminated

or

It was made even more easy to hide information from other agencies, bureaus and departments to the degree that it facilitated the "rogue" elements the ability to coordinate among themselves at low levels while keeping the ENTIRE leadership out of the information loop.

Seriously, this idiocy has to stop. It is time Occum's Razor do some serious cutting of the tomfoolery that exists in "government" today.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Issa needs to call Agent Coulson to testify.

W W Woodward said...

The government is thumbing its collective nose at all Americans.

While I was working at the Dickens County Correctional Facility and watching federal inmates I heard time after time, "They told me they were the US government and that they could do anything they wanted to me and there was nothing I could do about it."

That's exactly what they think of YOU TOO!!
[W3]

Anonymous said...

Depends on who you are including in the "we". Rest assured that no matter how stupid they think some subset of the American population is, there will exist a subset that will prove their estimate correct.
Those ladies interviewed outside the stadium in Detroit lined up to get some money from Obama's "stash" were certainly not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Now, if they think that all of us are as stupid as they would like or hope or need us to be for them to get away with reshaping America into what they've been hoping for since the Wilson administration, then things are going to get a lot more exciting for everyone concerned.

Dedicated_Dad said...

W W Woodward said...

The government is thumbing its collective nose at all Americans.

While I was working at the Dickens County Correctional Facility and watching federal inmates I heard time after time, 'They told me they were the US government and that they could do anything they wanted to me and there was nothing I could do about it.'

That's exactly what they think of YOU TOO!!"

We all knew that was LITERALLY - though not LEGALLY - true before.

Now, it is the official law of the land thanks to "NDAA 2012."

Would someone please tell me WHAT F*CKING COUNTRY IS THIS?!