Gunwalker Scandal Miscellany. Gunwalker T shirt; Worse than Watergate; "Under the radar" no more; The Empire "strikes back" with a bitchy limp wrist.

At David Codrea's War on Guns.

At Big Government: Which was worse? Watergate or Operation Fast and Furious?

New York Post OpEd: 'Fast & Furious' gets hotter for Holder

Don't look now, but the real action in Washington this week isn't the parti san wrangling over the debt ceiling but something -- literally -- even more incendiary: Operation Fast and Furious, which seems about to explode right in the face of Attorney General Eric Holder -- and maybe other administration officials, too.

Also known as Project Gunrunner, the Arizona-based operation was supposed to be a sting, under which the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is part of the Justice Department, allowed "straw purchasers" to transfer weapons from gun shops in Arizona to Mexican drug cartels to trace and halt crossborder arms-trafficking.

That's the official version, anyway -- but it's crumbling, fast.

The ATF's acting director, Kenneth Melson, has been singing like a canary to congressional investigators as he pushes back against administration pressure for him to resign and take the fall for something that, at the very least, had to include the US Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and possibly the Homeland Security Department. . .

That's the key to this mess -- and the reason that Operation Fast and Furious might turn out to be the biggest Washington scandal since Iran-Contra.

As Issa and Grassley note in their letter, had the other agencies shared information -- theoretically the goal of the post-9/11 revamp of the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies -- "then ATF might have known that gun trafficking 'higher-ups' had already been identified."

So if the identities of the Mexican criminals were known to the feds, what was the point of Project Gunrunner -- and why is Holder so desperately trying to stonewall by withholding hundreds of documents from Congress?

Law-abiding gun owners and dealers think they already know. With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here -- they don't -- many suspect that "Fast and Furious" was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun control by executive fiat.

"I just want you to know that we're working on it," Obama was quoted as saying to gun-control advocate Sarah Brady in March. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

Unfortunately for the administration, this one's out in the open now.

Matthew Boyle at The Daily Caller: Justice Department snipes back at Issa, Grassley

Attorney General Eric Holder’s deputies hit back at allegations of investigation stonewalling made by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, late Wednesday.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich accused Issa and Grassley of ginning up controversy and claims their allegations of the Department of Justices ’s transparency failure aren’t true.

Weich’s July 6 letter was an official DOJ response to Grassley’s and Issa’s July 5 letter to Holder detailing the key findings from a secret transcribed interview with acting ATF director Ken Melson on July 4.

“We are puzzled by your criticism of the Department for its efforts to facilitate the Committee’s access to documents and witnesses,” Weich wrote. “Indeed, those concerns seem flatly inconsistent with statements that Chairman Issa has made on this subject in the recent past.”

Weich goes on to cite a comment from Issa at a June 15 hearing, when he said the DOJ had a “breakthrough” when it came to producing documents and other information.

“Yet, just a few weeks later and notwithstanding the Department’s continuing production of documents, that ‘breakthrough’ has been re-characterized as an effort to prevent the Committee from receiving the information it requested,” Weich wrote.

A key takeaway from Melson’s secret July 4 testimony is that the acting ATF director told investigators about the existence of a number of new documents and many more pieces of information he said the administration is withholding. Also, the top Congressional Republicans said Melson told their investigative team that senior Justice Department officials in the Obama administration were attempting to prevent him from testifying or helping Congress find the facts about Operation Fast and Furious.

Another key takeaway from the secret testimony were that Melson acknowledged to investigators that agents had witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without following the guns afterwards. Straw purchasers are people who could technically legally buy guns in the U.S. but their intent was to turn around and sell them to drug cartels in Mexico.

Issa and Grassley also say Melson clarified for investigators was that the ATF group carrying out the mission of Operation Fast and Furious was placed under the direction of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office. The U.S. Attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke, is a political appointee of the Obama administration.

In addition to attacking Issa and Grassley for their transparency criticisms, Weich contends the top Congressional Republicans “fail[] to note” that Melson conducted a non-transcribed three-hour interview with investigators on July 3, a day before he conducted his testimony without DOJ officials present. Weich also jabbed Issa and Grassley for accusing the Justice Department of not informing Melson he had a right to testify without DOJ officials appearing with him.

“We believe that Acting Director Melson was aware of his right to private representation,” Weich wrote, adding that lower-level ATF employees have requested legal representation from private counsel. “[I]t seems unreasonable to suppose that Mr. Melson did not did not understand what appears quite clear to his subordinates.”

Well, there take that, says the limp-wristed Weich, and I'll stick my tongue out at you too.



Ronald Weich as a youngster.

A gift to the evil bad guys of the cartels from the ATF PR machine desperate for good publicity: Undercover tips of the trade.

There are some ATF street agents plenty pissed about this PR stunt.

Meet Omar. He’s a bad man who wants good guns. He’s got razor-cut hair styled like an Aztec warrior, fierce black eyes behind his Dolce & Gabbanas, plenty of gold on him. He’s got an iPod clipped to his Armani jacket lapel, the earbuds hanging around his neck, like he’ll just tune you out if he wants to. He stands in the blazing sunlight in a parking lot of a Barstow strip mall with two men who have what he wants—MAC-10 machine guns, AK-47s, M16s, all full automatic, all in very good condition and all illegal to own, of course, in most states, including California. He told these men he represents “Nicaragua.” They told him they don’t care. Not their problem.

Omar watches as the gun dealers lean over the trunk of his Trans-Am. They begin to count the $15,000 cash and test the five pounds of cocaine he will trade for the weapons. He looks bored. In fact, Omar is anything but bored. His heart is pounding, his palms are damp, and it feels like he’s roasting in the infernal desert sun. The Smith & Wesson five-shot in his waistband seems to weigh a ton.

In fact, Omar is not even Omar at all. He’s an Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) undercover agent named John Torres, and what he’s thinking is, As soon as these guys can count to fifteen thousand, test the coke borrowed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and bring me my guns, then I can say the bust words and we’ll take them down.

Honduras? Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras? 1. The national scope of the Gunwalker Scandal & 2. Because that's where some of the action is.

"It's just another little garden-variety act of war between hemispheric friends. What's the big deal?"

"Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras?" asks a reader. That's easy.

First, and this is important to understand: the Tampa operation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Project Gunwalker" was a national strategy, not a Phoenix aberration. The "major media" has been slow to understand this. They have ignored the fact that the Houston Field Division had to have played a supervisory role in known straw buying incidents in Dallas and Columbus NM as they are in their area of operations, not Phoenix's. Original reporting on this subject from Texas has been pitiful.

Second, Honduras is where the action is.

As Borderland Beat reported back in November of last year, Honduras: Mexican Cartels Work Closely with Street Gangs.

Attorney General Roy David Urtecho says that street gangs in his country are seeking to establish direct business contacts with Colombian and Mexican cartels and they have also tried to take over all drug smuggling operations in the Central American nation of Honduras.

The gangs known as MS-13 and M-18, have recruited over 70,00 youths who have traditionally been the lookouts and sicarios for the capos, but they are now making an effort to take formal control of the drug trade within their own country.

Commenting at an international forum on law enforcement, Urtecho says that the Sinaloa cartel is one of the main groups that maintain a heavy presence in the area, and states that his country is an imprtant gateway for Colombian drugs to enter Mexico and the United States. He went further to say that Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán has stayed in Honduras at various times and continues to do so to this very day.

Writing at Insight on 14 April, Patrick Cocoran has more: Mexican Cartels Expand into Honduras

Honduran officials report that Mexican drug traffickers are expanding their activities in the country and forming links with local bosses in four different provinces, fuelling concerns that organized crime is overwhelming the region.

According to Prensa Latina, Security Minister Oscar Alvarez said that the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas have been detected in Ocotepeque, Copan, Colon and Atlantida. The four northern states form much of the Atlantic coastline in Honduras, as well as a large chunk of the border with Guatemala. The Mexicans, Alvarez said, move freely throughout these regions, but rather than seeking to take over areas, the foreign gangs are working through already existing networks of local bosses to increase their presence and expand their operations.

This comes weeks after the discovery of a cocaine-processing lab, which are typically found in the Andean producer nations. This is the first such finding in Central America, and suggests a threat that is mutating. Currently, an estimated 400 tons of cocaine pass through the region on an annual basis, but Central America has not historically been a cocaine-processing region. Alvarez says that the goal for Honduras is to prevent Mexican gangs from laying down enduring roots in the country.

Authorities say that the Honduran cocaine lab was operated by the Sinaloa cartel. Arms stores belonging to the same group have also been captured in Honduras. The shift of cocaine processing from the Colombia, Peru and other Andean nations to Central America could fundamentally shift the economics of the cocaine supply chain. Rather than the South Americans controlling two vital steps in the process—i.e. the collection of the coca base and its processing in laboratories to produce crystallized cocaine—the Colombians would be left just supplying the base. This, in turn, would allow the Mexicans to derive significantly more profit, because instead of buying kilos of cocaine for up to $3,000, they can pay just $1,000 for the base and process it themselves, before selling it in U.S. for up to thirty times that amount.·

Furthermore, this would shorten the distance that the cocaine needs to travel, which would both lower the transportation costs and decrease the chance of seizure. As a major center of operations, Central America is all the more appealing because the weaker law-enforcement agencies mean that there is less chance that expensive cocaine will be seized, which further reinforces the profitability of a northward shift.·

The threat from organized crime to Central America is arguably more serious than in any other region of the Western Hemisphere. The isthmus has been a vital trafficking route ever since the restriction of the Caribbean route connecting the Colombian jungles to the retail markets in Miami and the rest of the United States. However,·the past decade has brought about a particular significant deterioration of security in Central America, with murder rates in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador among the highest in the world.

The incursion of Mexican drug traffickers has been most widely reported in Guatemala, as the Guatemalan government has struggled to prevent the incursion of the Zetas into states like Alta Verapaz and Peten. (Of course, there have also been reports that, far from combating them, elements of the Guatemalan governments are actually selling arms to groups linked to the Zetas.) Street gangs in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador like MS-13 and M-18 have also forged stronger links with the Mexican gangs.

·

Geoffrey Ramsey, also writing in Insight on 25 April notes "Cable: Honduran Military Supplied Weaponry to Cartels."

As Mexican cartels infiltrate Central America, corrupt elements within the region’s militaries from places like Honduras are providing them with arms far superior to those of local police. But the question remains: Just how many of the weapons used by Mexican cartels come from military stockpiles in Central America versus civilian gun stores in the United States?

The question is central. The source of the guns fueling a war that has left over 36,000 dead in Mexico since December 2006, has governments and advocate groups on both sides of the border pointing fingers. Mexico is reportedly considering suing U.S. gunmakers, reports CBS News.

But gun stores along the U.S. border states are only one source of weaponry used in Mexico. As InSight has reported, Guatemala's military stockpiles have been filtered illegally to the Zetas criminal gang. On top of this, according to a 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable first obtained by WikiLeaks and recently released by McClatchy, the Honduran military has “lost” several U.S.-supplied military weapons in recent years.

The cable, avaliable below, cites a Defense Intelligence Agency report entitled “Honduras: Military Weapons Fuel Black Arms Market,” which noted that the serial numbers on light anti-tank weapons recovered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and San Andres Island, Colombia, matched the numbers on guns that had previously been sold to Honduras. In addition to the guns, U.S. authorities seized a number of M433 grenades from criminal groups in Mexico, which were also traced back to the Honduran army.

Such revelations, when paired with recent allegations of high-level government links to drug trafficking in Honduras, present a dim forecast for anti-arms trafficking efforts in Central America. They also add fuel to an already heated debate over the cartels' main source of arms. While testifying to the U.S. Senate on March 30, General Douglas Fraser, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, implied that corrupt military officers in Central America bear most of the responsibility for arming Mexican drug traffickers.

"Over 50 percent of the military-type weapons that are flowing throughout the region have a large source between Central American stockpiles, if you will, left over from wars and conflicts in the past," said Fraser.

Since then, major media outlets like the AFP and McClatchy have picked up the comment, casting it as proof that Central American military arms are fueling Mexico’s drug violence.

But while General Fraser’s comment that over 50 percent of “military-type” weapons come from Central America may be true, it is misleading. The weapons coming from Central America only account for military-grade arms, which include anti-tank weapons as well as M-16 and G36 assault rifles.

The civilian versions of these weapons, such as the AR-15 and the AK-47 variants, account for many more of the seizures made in Mexico, according to several United States Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) sources consulted by InSight. Indeed, ATF agents have repeatedly told InSight that the most commonly carried weapons by cartel foot soldiers are modified, automatic AK-47 variants from Romania and China. These cheaper versions are readily available in many American gun stores and bought, legally, by straw buyers at the behest of middlemen who sell them, illegally, en masse to the cartels in Mexico.

"Middlemen" including the ATF, apparently. One wonders how the Honduran government is going to react to the next lecture from the State Department on how sloppy they are with the military weapons we've sold/given them? Not very well, I would imagine.

Oh, well, just another garden-variety Obama administration act of war on another sovereign nation. What's the big deal? Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along.

Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to HONDURAS! Part of Operation Castaway? Exclusive Report by David Codrea & Mike Vanderboegh.

A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. It may not look like it, but that chair he's sitting in just became the latest hot seat of the Gunwalker Scandal.

Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to Honduras. Part of Operation Castaway?

Exclusive Special Report by David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh.

Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source.

On 21 September, 2010, A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida issued a press release on Operation Castaway:

United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton, Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of central and northern Florida Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operations, and Susan McCormick, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations, Tampa Field Office announce the initial results of Operation Castaway, an intensive and wideranging Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force ("OCDETF") firearms trafficking investigation conducted by ATF, ICE, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and the Miami-Dade Police Department. ATF describes Operation Castaway as the most significant firearms trafficking investigation in Central Florida history.

According to court documents, a group of defendants connected to Hugh Crumpler, III, were involved in a major international gun trafficking operation. . . . Firearms like those involved in this investigation are often smuggled through Honduras and other Central and South American countries before being used in violent crimes in Mexico and other countries in the region. A number of the firearms trafficked by the defendants in Operation Castaway have been linked to violent crimes around the world.

The press release concluded, "This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Bishop Ravenel and E. Jackson Boggs. Operation Castaway remains an ongoing investigation."

SAC 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 on-going 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. That Operation Castaway involved arms smuggling to Honduras is also certain.

"This is confirmed as accurate," the correspondence continued. "There are emails in existence where O’Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project Gunrunner."

"From a first person source she is shitting herself trying to cover it up," the report stated.

No one from ATF is available at this late hour to approach for comment. This information has also reportedly been disclosed to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Member Charles Grassley for follow-up and investigation.

FOX on Melson's bombshell.

From the Mexican newspaper Excelsior: The U.S. sells us arms, admits Zeta kingpin.

English translation of this article in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior.

The U.S. sells us arms, admits El Mamito

The drug dealer Jesus Rejon affirms that the cartel buys drugs in Guatemala, and then they cross the river

Raul Flores Martinez

Mexico City, July 6, 2011 The arms used by the criminal group The Zetas were bought in the United States including those sold by authorities of the United States government, according to the account of Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, El Mamito.

Last Sunday, elements of the Federal Police arrested El Z-7, one of the principal leaders and founders of The Zetas who in his initial statement affirmed that there are entities of the government of the United States that are furnishing arms to the Mexican cartels.

In an interview released by the Federal Police with El Mamito, indicated that the arms that are purchased cross over the International Bridge and thus cross the river.

“The arms bought in the United States – there was a time that the buyers, because they were not with us, were buyers on the other side – said that even the American government itself sold them.”

Furthermore, the arms trafficking from the American Union to Mexico took place in periods of 20 days, a month or month and a half, according to the review and operation that the federal authorities carried out. The transport of armaments were facilitated for the Gulf Cartel by having an agreement with the authorities, said Rejon Aguilar in his initial statements.

“We cannot overlook the reason for the success of this operation; we can deduce that it is impossible to be buying arms much less take them in the trunk of a car and be able to freely pass, well there had to have been a treaty or something, I don’t know, one can suppose that there had to have been a treaty with the government, I don’t know.”

Regarding drug trafficking, the central base is Guatemala. Everything is purchased in that Central American country.

“Drugs are controlled by a group of accountants, they direct everything in private, so it is a closed circle, and they know how it is being done.”

Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) applauded the capture of Rejon Aguilar for whom there is an warrant in the United States for the distribution of cocaine and marijuana.

“This significant arrest is testimony to the commitment of President Filipe Calderon to defeat the dangerous and violent drug cartels that operate in Mexico,” indicated the Agency.

John Longenecker on "Militias and Mumbais."

Minuteman then.

Excellent short essay.

Anti-gun groups are quick to link Militia to state governments, but, as usual, they mislead the electorate. When the Supreme Court and lower courts grapple with the second amendment as a concept of state militia, they err. Still, many wins for the individual right were made possible by a greater adherence to Original Intent than ideas that the Document is a 'living document', that a militia must be a state entity, or that a militia is a hate group.

The United States is a living, breathing entity only because the Constitution and Original Intent are firm. If they were flexible, we never would have survived a generation. Here are a few key points of how the importance of the past is relevant now.

1. Militia within the meaning of the second amendment pre-dates the United States. In the framing era, well-regulated meant self-regulated in answering the question, regulated by whom? There was no government in the framing era when the Militia was first-in-time.

2. Militia pre-dates the formation of the federal government, a creation of the states. The founders did not mean that Militia was a federal concept when, in fact, there was no federal government.

3. Militia within the meaning of the second amendment pre-dates an organized police force by nearly 100 years. There were no cops.

4. Militia within the meaning of the second amendment pre-dates National Guard by about 130 years. So much for the 'state' concept as an exclusive, collective concept.

5. Militia within the meaning of the second amendment is affirmed by the Vitter Amendment to the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006.

6. Militia within the meaning of the second amendment is a preparedness paradigm of volunteers to activate in time of disaster or any other emergency. Because there is no one else.

Since citizens have legal authority to protect their communities in the absence of first responders, military and other agencies, there is no interference or conflict with governmental assets. There is simply a structure in place to keep the lid on until their arrival.

Minuteman today.

Melson officially off the Gunwalker reservation. Text of Grassley/Issa Letter to the Arch-criminal Holder.

July 5, 2011

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General
u.s. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

Yesterday, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson participated in a transcribed interview regarding Operation Fast and Furious and related matters with both Republican and Democratic staff. He appeared with his personal counsel, Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods LLP. His interview had originally been scheduled through the Justice Department to occur on July 13 in the presence of DOJ and ATF counsel. As you know, however, under our agreement Department witnesses who choose to attend a voluntary interview with their own lawyer are free to exercise that right rather than participate with counsel representing the Department's interests.

After being made aware of that provision of our agreement, Acting Director Melson chose to exercise that right and appeared with his own lawyer. We are disappointed that no one had previously informed him of that provision of the agreement. Instead, Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress. This is yet another example of why direct communications with Congress are so important and are protected by law.1

___________________________________________
1 Specifically, no officer or employee may attempt to prohibit or prevent "any other officer or employee of the Federal Government from having direct oral or written communication or contact with any Member, committee, or subcommittee of the Congress" about a matter related to his employment or the agency "in any way, irrespective of whether such communication or contact is at the initiative" of the employee or Congress (emphasis added). Moreover, the prohibition also applies to any officer or employee who "removes, suspends from duty without pay ... any other officer or employee of the Federal Government ... by reason of any communication or contact of such other officer or employee with any Member, committee, or subcommittee of the Congress." Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, P.L.111-117, 123 Stat. 3034, § 714 (2010), as continued by §1104 of P.L. 112-10- which extends the funding levels, as well as "the authority and conditions provided in such Acts," through September 30, 2011. See generally,

Page 2 of 5

Acting Director Melson's cooperation was extremely helpful to our investigation. He was candid in admitting mistakes that his agency made and described various ways he says that he tried to remedy the problems. According to Mr. Melson, it was not until after the public controversy that he personally reviewed hundreds of documents relating to the case, including wiretap applications and Reports of Investigation (ROIs). By his account, he was sick to his stomach when he obtained those documents and learned the full story. Mr. Melson said that he told the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) at the end of March that the Department needed to reexamine how it was responding to the requests for information from Congress.

According to Mr. Melson, he and ATF's senior leadership team moved to reassign every manager involved in Fast and Furious, from the Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations down to the Group Supervisor, after learning the facts in those documents. Mr. Melson also said he was not allowed to communicate to Congress the reasons for the reassignments. He claimed that ATF's senior leadership would have preferred to be more cooperative with our inquiry much earlier in the process.

However, he said that Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress. The result is that Congress only got the parts of the story that the Department wanted us to hear. 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. That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation. The Department's inability or unwillingness to be more forthcoming served to conceal critical information that we are now learning about the involvement of other agencies, including the DEA and the FBI.

The Role of DEA, FBI, and Other Agencies

When confronted with information about serious issues involving lack of information sharing by other agencies, which Committee staff had originally learned from other witnesses, Mr. Melson's responses tended to corroborate what others had said. Specifically, we have very real indications from several sources that some of the gun trafficking "higher-ups" that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants. The Acting Director said that ATF was kept in the dark about certain activities of other agencies, including DEA and FBI. Mr. Melson said that he learned from ATF agents in the field that information obtained by these agencies could have had a material impact on the Fast and Furious

___________________________________________
Government Accountability Office, "Department of Health and Human Services-Chief Actuary's Communications with Congress," B-302911 (Sep. 7, 2004) (discussing the history and background in support of the government-wide prohibition on attempts to prevent direct communications with Congress). As you know, obstructing or impeding a Congressional inquiry is also a criminal violation under 18 U.S.C. § 1505.

Page 3 of 5

investigation as far back as late 2009 or early 2010. After learning about the possible role of DEA and FBI, he testified that he reported this information in April 2011 to the Acting Inspector General and directly to then-Acting Deputy Attorney General James Cole on June 16, 2011.

The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities. While this is preliminary information, we must find out if there is any truth to it. According to Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers, which we now know were substantially delayed by the u.s. Attorney's Office and Main Justice. Mr. Melson provided documents months ago supporting his concerns to the official in the ODAG responsible for document production to the Committees, but those documents have not been provided to us.

It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify. If this information is accurate, then the whole misguided operation might have been cut short if not for catastrophic failures to share key information. If agencies within the same Department, co-located at the same facilities, had simply communicated with one another, then ATF might have known that gun trafficking "higher-ups" had been already identified. This raises new and serious questions about the role of DEA, FBI, the United States Attorney's Office in Arizona, and Main Justice in coordinating this effort. Nearly a decade after the September 11th attacks, the stovepipes of information within our government may still be causing tragic mistakes long after they should have been broken down.

Efforts to Oust Melson

In the last few weeks, unnamed administration officials have indicated to the press that Acting Director Melson would be forced to resign. According to Mr. Melson, those initial reports were untrue. Regardless of what we might have thought before about how he should handle a request to resign, we now know he has not been asked to resign. We also now have the benefit of hearing his side of the story and will have a chance to examine what he said and compare it to the other evidence we are gathering. However, that will take some time.

Page 4 of 5

Mr. Melson served as the First Assistant to the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for 21 years, from 1986 to 2007. That is a career position. After the controversy over the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, he took over the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA). He indicated that he was asked to convert to a non-career Senior Executive Service (SES), a politically appointed position, in order to speed the hiring process, and he agreed. However, his former position at EOUSA is currently filled by a career SES employee, Marshall Jarrett. As you know, for civil servants, the distinction between career and non-career status is significant.

In 2009, he said he was asked to take over as Acting Director of the ATF. Acting Director of the ATF is by its nature a temporary job. According to Mr. Melson, he was willing to serve the Department with the understanding that after a short tenure as Acting Director, he would return to a position as a career senior executive elsewhere within the Department.

However, two days after he told Acting Deputy Attorney General Cole about serious issues involving lack of information sharing, the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed sources said that Melson was about to be ousted.

The revelations about Operation Fast and Furious have focused intense scrutiny on the ATF. It has no doubt taken a toll on the agency and the good people who work there. Much of that damage has occurred because the Department prevented ATF from being more forthcoming and responsive to questions from Congress. This is the context in which Mr. Melson decided to submit to an on-the-record interview with private counsel, pursuant to our agreement with the Department.

Technically, Mr. Melson no longer enjoys the due process protections afforded to career officials. Given his testimony, unless a permanent director is confirmed, it would be inappropriate for the Justice Department to take action against him that could have the effect of intimidating others who might want to provide additional information to the Committees.

We hope that the Department will take a much more candid and forthcoming approach in addressing these very serious matters with the Committees. If other important fact witnesses like Mr. Melson have a desire to communicate directly with the Committees they should be informed that they are free to do so. They should also be notified that if they are represented by personal counsel, they may appear with personal counsel rather than with Department lawyers.

Any decision about Mr. Melson's future with the Department would need to be justified solely on the basis of the facts and the needs of the agency, rather than on his decision to speak to us. We encourage you to communicate to us any additional significant information about any such decision so that we can work together to ensure

Page 5 of 5

that it would not impede our investigation. For now, the Office of Inspector General is still conducting its review, and we are still conducting ours. Knowing what we know so far, we believe it would be inappropriate to make Mr. Melson the fall guy in an attempt to prevent further congressional oversight.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Memeber, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate

Darrell Issa, Chairman, Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives


cc:
The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight & Government Reform

The Honorable Patrick Leahy, Chairman, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary

July 4 BBQ in DC behind closed doors. Melson chats with the Grassley & Issa, adopts the SGT Shultz Defense & implies a wider, more evil operation.

Folks,

John Solomon has scooped me again. I heard a single report about this late yesterday and I hesitated to run with it without confirmation.

Embattled ATF director Kenneth Melson gave a surprise July 4 interview to Congress, disclosing new lapses in a bungled gun sting that allowed U.S. guns to be trafficked to Mexican drug gangs . . .

In a secret deposition on the Fourth of July, the embattled head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed to congressional investigators new potential lapses in a bungled U.S. gun trafficking sting that has stirred controversy on both sides of the Mexican border, according to people familiar with the interview.

While many Americans celebrated over barbecues and fireworks, acting ATF director Kenneth Melson arrived Monday with a private attorney on Capitol Hill for the interview, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity.

During hours of questioning, Melson told investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he has recently learned that other federal agencies may have withheld crucial information about possible drug cartel connections to the gun trafficking ring that his agency had tried to crack during a 15-month operation that used controversial tactics, the sources said.

Melson is the highest-ranking official to testify in the congressional inquiry into why an ATF gun trafficking operation codenamed “Fast and Furious” let suspected straw buyers purchase semiautomatic weapons at U.S. gun stores with the expectation they would flow south of the border into Mexico’s raging drug and gun wars.

His testimony about possible lapses in information sharing among the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and ATF in the war on drugs sounded eerily similar to communication breakdowns that hampered the government’s ability to piece together prior warning signs before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the sources said.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter late Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder laying out concerns raised by Melson’s testimony, the sources said.

What horseshit. He wasn't told? Does he really think that this Sergeant Shultz Defense is going to stand up? When he was watching this shit unfold on the Internet via webcam?

And amid rumors and media speculation that Melson could soon be removed from his job, the two Republican lawmakers told Holder they thought any immediate personnel action against the acting ATF chief would be imprudent given the nature of information he has just disclosed, the sources said.

A longtime career federal official, Melson serves in a political appointment as the acting head of ATF and thus does not enjoy the same whistleblower protections as civil servants. The lawmakers’ letter was designed to serve notice that Congress now considers Melson a key witness in their investigation of the bungled gun sting, the sources said.

The ATF boss had agreed late last month to be interviewed by congressional investigators and a deposition was slated for mid- to late July. But in conversations over the long holiday weekend, Melson agreed to move up the interview, the sources said.

Pressured from all sides, Melson goes to the committee with his own "modified, limited hangout."

In his interview, Melson said most of the operational decisions for the Fast and Furious operation were approved by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, which was leading a special strike force on gun trafficking, and that even he didn’t know about the specific orders to let straw buyers walk off with guns until after the controversy erupted, according to the sources.

He told the investigators he has subsequently learned that ATF agents during the operation did observe straw buyers transferring guns they had purchased to third parties, a possible legal violation, but did not interdict the weapons at the instructions of their immediate supervisors, the sources added.

Under questioning, Melson confirmed information the congressional investigators had received elsewhere that DEA and FBI had information about possible cartel connections to the gun trafficking ring under investigation but did not share it with ATF at the time. He expressed his own concerns about the flow of information from other agencies during a critical time in the war against Mexican border violence, the sources said.

Congressional investigators now want to know whether any of the players belatedly disclosed to the ATF had been working as assets or informants for other federal agencies, the sources said.

Melson also disclosed the existence of documents about the ATF case that have not yet been turned over to congressional investigators, the sources added.

What my source said yesterday: "Melson was too cute by half. He tried to protect himself without giving up too much." That is consistent with what Solomon writes above. How did the investigators react? I asked. Were they pissed? "You don't pull in a big fish all at once, you take up every slack in the line he gives you until you're ready to gaff him. These are patient fishermen."

Still, I said, if the questioning was in any way competent, Melson had to have given up more than he wanted to. His reply?

"You bet your ass he did."

Leading to other agencies and higher ups? I asked.

"You bet your ass he did. Laterally and vertically. . . They're peeling back the onion."

If, as this story suggests, the straw buyers and smugglers were informants or operatives of the DEA and FBI, unbeknown to the ATF, the Gunwalker conspiracy just got broader, higher and more evil. What Melson is suggesting here, beyond embracing his own incompetence in favor of his own culpability, is that the ATF was the unwitting tool in a larger conspiracy. "Just shut up, let the guns walk and track them after they turn up in Mexico, and other people will handle what happens in the middle."

Melson's claim is nothing less than a declaration of war on the FBI and DEA, and they will defend themselves. Expect more revelations to come from that internecine process. If Melson is right, it also implicates DHS, the National Security Agency and the White House, for the larger operation would not, could not, have proceeded without authorization and coordination from the top.

Dan Restrepo, call your office.

LATER: Here's the House Committee press release:

ATF Director Testifies on Operation Targeting Gun Smugglers

DEA and FBI may have failed to share key information on informants


WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Monday, July 4, ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson testified before investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee about Operation Fast and Furious. Following this interview, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, expressed their deep concerns about the involvement of the DEA, FBI, and other agencies – including the possibility that they were aware of and even working with people connected to Fast and Furious suspects.

In addition to these concerns noted in the letter to the Attorney General, Acting Director Melson made key assertions to investigators:

* Contrary to denials by the Justice Department, Acting Director Melson acknowledged the agents had in fact witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without following the guns any further.

* The ATF group executing Operation Fast and Furious had been placed under the direction of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office.

Here's the PDF of the Grassley/Issa letter to arch-criminal Holder.

Citizen disarmament advocate weeps for Gunwalker: "a crisis wasted."

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before." -- Rahm Emanuel, to a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives, November 2008.

Diane Wueger, who blogs at Gunpowder and Lead, takes the Gunwalker scandal and predictably turns it into a citizen disarmament rant in the Atlantic: How American Guns Proliferate in Mexico and Fuel Drug Violence

The article is full of the usual, but in this paragraph I found an interesting observation:

There is a real human cost to the government's choice to allow purchases of unlimited assault weapons. While the individual right to own firearms has been settled by the Supreme Court, there is little guidance on the type of weapons the government must allow the individual to keep or how often the individual may purchase them. Given the high death tolls and the lives shattered, the desires of a few legitimate enthusiasts to acquire arsenals of AR-15s and of firearms manufacturers and dealers to protect their business interests do not outweigh the fact that a number of purchasers of these weapons are criminals and terrorists. There's little that the U.S. can easily do about the guns already in circulation; stemming the future tide is far more practical. Unfortunately, the political will is lacking, and while Fast and Furious provides an excellent backdrop against to act, the start of campaign season suggests this will be a crisis wasted.

"A crisis wasted."

Well, it's not like they didn't try their damnedest to exploit the crisis they created.

"Gunwalker Bill" speaks to the press, a little, with forked tongue. Insipid defense of Gunwalker emerges. US Atty's blame ATF. CYA time in AZ.

"Gunwalker Bill" Newell. The Mexicans consider him an international criminal who waged acts of war on the Mexican people. He says it was all the fault of weak gun laws.

Robert Anglen, who has taken over responsibility for the Gunwalker Scandal stories at the Arizona Republic from Dennis Wagner, writes "Questions of blame remain in ATF gun-trafficking investigation."

But the fate of Burke and other Justice officials may hinge on questions of law and how much they knew about the operation.

It's unclear, for example:

- Whether officials could have stopped the sales of guns to suspected straw buyers. Critics have blasted the program because agents sometimes encouraged dealers to keep selling, but Justice officials say Arizona and federal laws didn't allow them to block such sales.

- Whether ATF agents would have had probable cause to arrest straw buyers before guns moved south. A Justice official and testimony from ATF agents conflict as to whether agents were authorized to make such arrests.

- Whether the ATF told prosecutors everything it knew about where the weapons went. An official for Burke's office said it was assured guns wouldn't cross the border.

The Justice Department itself has not stepped forth in explicit defense of Burke's office, saying the ATF operation is now under investigation. There's no indication so far that Burke, Holder or other officials are on the verge of losing their jobs.

Right. Well, the week is still young.

Patrick "It ain't me babe" Cunningham, head of the Phoenix Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney's office. He says it is all "Gunwalker Bill's" fault.

Enter Patrick Cunningham as the public face of the Phoenix U.S. Attorney's office cover-up of Gunwalker. According to a 30 November 2009 story in the Yuma Sun, Cunningham, a native Arizonan from Kingman, "has extensive experience in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. He served as chief counsel of several divisions, including the Criminal Division, the Environmental Enforcement Section and the Civil Rights Litigation Section." The story continues:

Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Cunningham was an assistant U.S. attorney from 1986 to 1991. Previously, he was a prosecutor, defense counsel and an appellate attorney from 1980 to 1986 in the U.S. Army JAG Corps in Europe and Washington, D.C.

Most recently, he has served since 2003 as the deputy director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. In his position at ADEQ, Cunningham acted as the chief of staff to the director, supervised the daily operations of the agency and attended to selected enforcement cases and policy issues including legislative affairs and rulemaking.

He also co-chaired the Governor's Smart Growth Scorecard Committee and worked on climate change issues for Arizona in the Western Climate Initiative.

Cunningham is expected to assume his duties in January. Until then, Joseph Lodge will serve as the acting criminal chief. Lodge is the branch chief of the Flagstaff office.

“We are very excited in having Pat join this office. He is an outstanding attorney and one of the most accomplished prosecutors in Arizona,” said Dennis K. Burke, U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona. “He possesses the prosecution and management skills and experience to take this office to the next level in one of the most active federal districts in the country.”

So, it seems Cunningham, like his boss Dennis Burke, is an acolyte of former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. He also took his position in January 2010, so almost the entire Phoenix portion of the Gunwalker Scandal crossed his desk. But Cunningham tells the Republic, "It ain't me, babe":

Patrick Cunningham, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix, who supervised Fast and Furious prosecutions, denied that his office knowingly allowed guns to cross the border.

Cunningham said agents with the ATF, who took the lead in day-to-day operations, repeatedly assured his staff that guns were not being allowed to go to Mexico, which is referred to as walking guns across the border.

"(ATF agents) were telling us point blank" that they were not allowing guns to get that far, he said.

Moreover, Cunningham said, his office gave agents a green light to seize guns every time they requested permission, save one, where it was determined by agents and prosecutors that agents lacked probable cause.

Cunningham laid out the legal hurdles federal agents had to overcome in order to seize guns. For instance, none of the gun sales was illegal when they were made, even when someone would come in day after day and buy dozens of weapons.

In Arizona, nearly anyone can walk into a gun store and buy as many rifles as he wants without having to report it to the federal government. Buyers must pass a federal background check and sign a form declaring they are purchasing the guns on their own, not for someone else.

The decision to sell dozens of rifles to the same customer day after day is up to gun dealers.

Under Arizona and federal law, it is also legal for buyers to transfer the weapons to another individual within the state.

Cunningham said guns can be seized only if the purchaser is a known felon or if the agents had evidence the gun was involved in a crime or that it would be used in a future crime.

Agents built their cases for gun trafficking using wiretaps, informants and surveillance.

In February, the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office and the Phoenix ATF announced that more than 20 people had been indicted and that agents had seized hundreds of weapons as part of Operation Fast and Furious.

None of those arrested was a significant cartel figure. But the charges, some involving conspiracy, drugs and smuggling, were far more severe than those for the typical straw buyer.

"We think the indictment of 20 people is a very successful indictment and the case is still ongoing," Cunningham said.

He said that the death of Agent Terry was tragic but that he could not discuss the case.

Spare me. Of course that contradicts everything the ATF agents testified to on 15 June.

Cunningham's depiction of the operation contrasts vividly with the one painted by congressional members leading the inquiry into Fast and Furious.

In a report last month, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and ranking Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, blasted the Justice Department. They said the operation yielded only low-level prosecutions and put countless people at risk.

In a statement Friday, Issa singled out Burke's office.

"As the U.S. attorney, Dennis Burke has a responsibility for decisions that have created an ongoing public-safety hazard, endangered the criminal prosecutions of firearms traffickers, and been linked to deaths on both sides of the border," he said.

"While he wasn't the most senior Justice Department official who knew about Fast and Furious, it certainly wouldn't have continued had he objected."

Issa and Grassley pointed to e-mails and other records that indicate high-level Justice Department officials, including ATF Director Ken Melson, were aware that the guns were crossing the border. The lawmakers questioned ATF claims that agents didn't knowingly allow guns into Mexico.

Three Phoenix ATF agents testified in Issa's committee last month that they were ordered by supervisors to encourage gun-store owners to make sales and allow straw purchasers to move the weapons without interdiction.

Agents say they repeatedly warned supervisors that the guns were being used in crimes in Mexico and spoke of their fear that they would sooner or later be used against American citizens.

Their story is bolstered by some Arizona gun-store owners.

Cunningham is laying out his offices' tepid defense of what they did in Gunwalker, blaming it all on the ATF. Unfortunately for him, further hearings will demonstrate what an incompetent liar he is. But the most interesting to me is that "Gunwalker Bill" Newell has popped up his ugly head in this story.

The fallout to date has mostly hit the ATF. Bill Newell, former special agent in charge of the Phoenix ATF, who before the scandal broke was tapped to be the agency's liaison with Mexico, instead has been transferred to Washington, D.C.

In a brief phone interview last week, Newell suggested the problem with the operation lies with Arizona's gun laws, "or lack thereof."

Newell also pointed to weak gun laws in an interview with congressional investigators. Transcripts of the interview obtained by The Republic show that Newell steadfastly maintained that weak laws stymied agents in their ability to interdict guns.

Investigators grilled Newell on whether agents could have taken other steps short of arresting suspects to stop the guns. Newell replied the agents could have.

Agents have said an example would be to post ATF agents outside gun stores to attempt to spook straw buyers, or follow buyers and attempt to make a traffic stop.

Still, the three agents who testified to Congress said supervisors told them not to intervene.

The investigators also peppered Newell with scenarios involving straw buyers.

He maintained that agents could not legally seize guns based on multiple purchases, cash transactions, ownership transfers or suspicious behavior.

Investigators repeatedly referred to the sales as illegal. Newell disagreed, saying there was no proof of illegality.

"It is not unusual for people in places like Arizona and Texas . . . to go in and buy multiple firearms, multiple handguns, multiple long guns. It is not unusual, and it is not illegal in many instances," Newell said in the interview.

"And so, we have to put the evidence together to prove that, in fact, that transaction is illegal by many different ways. And that's what we struggle with to do all the time on these cases."

It was all the NRA's fault, according to Newell.

Yeah.

Well, we'll see how that plays out as the hearings proceed. I was interviewed at some length last night by a Mexican news organization. One thing is clear about "Gunwalker Bill."

A significant and growing portion of the Mexican political establishment consider him an international criminal who committed acts of war on the Mexican people and deserves extradition to face the music of Mexican justice.

No more casual vacations south of the border for "Gunwalker Bill," I'm afraid.

David Codrea's latest -- "Obama: Good U.S.-Mexican relations demand we spare guilty and let innocent die."

Well, of course they do.

ABC, which has yet to run Story One on Gunwalker nationally, at least has a genuine reporter in Jake Tapper. "Is this president upset about this?"

LATER: David Codrea corrects my insufficient memory. ABC actually did dip a toe into the Gunwalker swamp once here.

From Jake Tapper's column, Political Punch, "Spending Cuts and Fast & Furious: Today’s Q’s for O’s WH – 7/5/2011."

At today’s White House briefing, ABC’s Jake Tapper pressed White House Spokesman Jay Carney on whether the President is “incensed” over the botched gun walking program “Operation Fast and Furious”.

TAPPER: About the Fast and Furious program, I know that there is this investigation going on internally. Weapons from the Fast and Furious program are now showing up in the United States attached to criminal transactions. The ABC station in Phoenix last week reported on several of these weapons from Fast and Furious turning up in crimes. How come we know so little -- the public knows so little -- about this program? And what is the administration doing to get to the bottom of these weapons, which are now showing up in crimes in the United States?

CARNEY: I think there's an investigation going on precisely to get to the bottom of this. And I can't comment further on it because there is an investigation going on.

TAPPER: Can the acting head of the BATF be permitted to go to Capitol Hill to testify? My understanding is that the -- that he's not been allowed by the administration to go there and explain what's going on.

CARNEY: I'll have to refer you to Justice on that. I'm not -- I don't have any information on that.

TAPPER: It's not something that you guys are worried about and incensed about? This is something that ---

CARNEY: Well, Jake, I think it's being investigated for a reason. And obviously, it's a matter of concern, and that's why there's an investigation. But it would be a mistake for me to comment further on -- or to characterize further what happened or -- you know, how -- to rate our unhappiness about it from here. So I think that I have to refer you to the Justice Department for that.

TAPPER: It -- lastly, I mean, we have heard at times, you know, when the president was upset about something -- "plug the damn hole" is one such anecdote that was shared exclusively with every single person in this room by the White House. Did you -- is this president upset about this? I mean, this is a government operation where now weapons -- I mean, the Mexicans are upset that guns are now turning up --

CARNEY: I think you could assume that the president takes this very seriously.

TAPPER: No one's lost their job.

CARNEY: And we don't -- there's an investigation going on, so to comment on people's jobs and that sort of thing is inappropriate. But the president takes it very seriously. I think he made clear when the -- during the Mexican state visit and the press conference he had then that he found out about this through news reports. And he takes it very seriously.

VIPR Recruiting Poster & Checkpoint Warning.

Tip of the boonie hat to Irregular Art for forwarding this VIPR recruiting poster and checkpoint warning.

ATF Titanic hits Gunwalker iceberg, but maintains Captain Newell will still dock in Mexico City.

The ATF Titanic has hit the Gunwalker iceberg and is dead in the water, according to my sources. Nothing is getting done in Firearms Technology Branch and other regulatory offices. Calls that used to be answered now go to voicemail with no call backs. "There has been considerable pull back in enforcement too," one agent commented. "Everybody is in freeze mode except for arson cases and fireworks. We're really BIG into fireworks right now," the agent said sardonically.

Yet some Baghdad Bob on the fifth floor is still pretending the Titanic is going to make the New York docks on time. Or in this case, the Mexico City pier:

Alan Lengel at the federal law enforcement blog Tickle the Wire asks "Is ATF Concerned About Sending “Fast and Furious” Official to Mexico as Attache?"

The answer, according to some fifth floor spinmeister:

But an ATF official on Friday tried to dispel any notion that Newell won’t be headed south of the border.

“As far as his assignment to Mexico City, it’s still in place but it’s been temporarily postponed so that he can assist with the Congressional inquiries and the OIG (Office of Inspector General) review,” the official told ticklethewire.com.

Newell did not respond to an email asking for comment.

"Don't worry, citizens! Bill Newell will still be going to Mexico City!"

These guys hope so:


William "Gunwalker Bill" Newell is enthusiastically welcomed to Mexico City by grateful cartel gunmen he armed. (Pay no attention to the handcuffs.)

Kill the snake. VIPR Searches and the American Citizen: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." The new American Gestapo goes on the road.

John Whitehead tells us about a new snake.

Now, thanks to TSA Chief John Pistole's determination to "take the TSA to the next level," there will soon be no place safe from the TSA's groping searches. Only this time, the "ritualized humiliation" is being meted out by the serpentine-labeled Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams. At a cost of $30 million in 2009, VIPR relies on 25 teams of agents, in addition to assistance from local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration agents. And as a sign of where things are headed, Pistole, himself a former FBI agent, wants to turn the TSA into a "national-security, counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into U.S. government efforts." To accomplish this, Pistole has requested funding for an additional 12 teams for fiscal year 2012, bringing VIPR's operating budget close to $110 million.

VIPR is the first major step in the government's effort to secure so-called "soft" targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. In fact, some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. Given the virtually limitless number of potential soft targets vulnerable to terrorist attack, subjection to intrusive pat-downs and full-body imaging will become an integral component of everyday life in the United States. As Jim Harper of the Cato Institute observed, "The natural illogic of VIPR stings is that terrorism can strike anywhere, so VIPR teams should search anywhere."

For now, under the pretext of protecting the nation's infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems, and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, these VIPR teams are being deployed to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. VIPR teams are also being deployed to elevate the security presence at certain special events such as the Democratic National Convention. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things. Unfortunately, these sweeps are not confined to detecting terrorist activity. Federal officials have admitted that transit screening is also intended, at least in some instances, to detect illegal immigration or even cash smuggling.

Incredibly, in the absence of any viable threat, VIPR teams--roving SWAT teams, with no need for a warrant--have conducted 8,000 such searches in public places over the past year. For example, in February 2011, a VIPR team conducted a raid at an Amtrak station in Georgia, not only patting down all passengers--both adults and small children alike--entering the station but also those departing. In a characteristic display of incompetence, TSA agents co-opted the station and posted a sign on the door informing patrons that anyone who entered would be subject to mandatory screening (this, despite the fact that boarding passengers can easily bypass the station entirely and access the boarding area directly). One officer rummaged through a passenger's hand luggage and even smelled her perfume. A vacationing firefighter roped into the search commented, "It was just not professional. It was just weird. We are being harassed by the TSA." In fact, when Amtrak Police Chief John O'Connor was informed of VIPR's activities, he 'hit the ceiling' and banned VIPR personnel from entering Amtrak property.

These raids, conducted at taxpayer expense on average Americans going about their normal, day-to-day business, run the gamut from the ridiculous to the abusive. In Santa Fe, TSA agents were assigned to conduct searches at a high school prom. At the port of Brownsville, in Texas, VIPR units searched all private and commercial vehicles entering and exiting the port. Although the TSA admitted the search was not conducted in response to any specific threat, VIPR agents nonetheless engaged in "thorough" inspections of each and every vehicle. In a training exercise in Atlanta, VIPR teams allegedly arrested a man after discovering a small amount of marijuana in his semi-trailer. In San Diego, a VIPR investigation at a trolley station resulted in the deportation of three teenagers apprehended on their way to school.

In April 2011, Homeland Security official Gary Milano stated that VIPR teams involved in a raid at a Tampa bus station, again conducted in the absence of any threat, were there "to sort of invent the wheel in advance in case we have to, if there ever is specific intelligence requiring us to be here. This way us and our partners are ready to move in at a moment's notice." He added, "We'll be back. We won't say when we'll be back. This way the bad guys are on notice we'll be back."

Likewise, in an intimidating display of force in June 2011, VIPR conducted a vast training exercise--that is, a military raid--covering more than 5,000 square miles' worth of crucial infrastructure sites such as bridges, gas lines, and power plants between Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. The raid included members of 70 different agencies, over 400 state and federal agents, Black Hawk helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and Coast Guard vessels. Although the surveillance activities constituted an exercise rather than a response to an actual terrorist threat, the sweep was clearly calculated to produce a deterrent effect. According to TSA official Michael Cleveland, the purpose of the exercise was to "have a visible presence and let people know we're out here. It can be a deterrent."

The question that must be asked, of course, is who exactly is the TSA trying to target and intimidate? Not would-be terrorists, given that scattershot pat-down stings are unlikely to apprehend or deter terrorists. In light of the fact that average citizens are the ones receiving the brunt of the TSA's efforts, it stands to reason that we've become public enemy number one. We are all suspects. And how does the TSA deal with perceived threats? Its motto, posted at the TSA's air marshal training center headquarters in the wake of 9/11, is particularly telling: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."

Those three words effectively sum up the manner in which the government now relates to its citizens, making a travesty of every democratic ideal our representatives spout so glibly and reinforcing the specter of the police state. After all, no government that truly respects or values its citizens would subject them to such intrusive, dehumanizing, demoralizing, suspicionless searches. Yet by taking the TSA's airport screenings nationwide with VIPR and inserting the type of abusive authoritarianism already present in airports into countless other sectors of American life, the government is expanding the physical and psychological scope of the police state apparatus.

VIPR activities epitomize exactly the kind of farcical security theater the government has come to favor through its use of coded color alerts and other largely superficial yet meaningless maneuvers. These stings do, however, inculcate and condition citizens to a culture of submissiveness towards authority and regularize intrusive, suspicionless searches as a facet of everyday life. In April, for instance, at a Tampa bus station, VIPR patted down passengers and used dogs to search the luggage. That type of small-scale, random operation provides little actual value but does impart to some citizens a false sense of security. A passenger in Tampa, for instance, commented, "I feel safe, knowing that I get on a bus and I'm not going to blow up."

It's an ingenious plan: the incremental ratcheting-up of intrusive searches (VIPR searches are not yet widespread), combined with the gradual rollout of VIPR teams permits the normalization of TSA activities while inciting minimal resistance, thereby muting dissent and enabling the ultimate implementation of totalitarian-style authoritarianism.

Sadly, this repeated degradation by government officials of Americans engaged in common activities inevitably normalizes what is essentially an abusive relationship to such an extent that authority figures are permitted to trample Americans' constitutional rights with impunity. And those abused are prevented even from protesting. Reinforcing this latter point is the TSA's recent admission that those who merely exercise their First Amendment rights by complaining about intrusive airport security exhibit a behavioral indicator of a "high risk" passenger that, in combination with other behavioral indicators, warrants additional screening.

The expansion of the police state is also fueled by the dynamics present in the relationship between a politician and his constituents. Popular anger over government policies is difficult to sustain for an extended period of time. Outrage over the TSA scanners, for instance, will have substantially diminished by the time the next election cycle occurs. Thus, in many cases, politicians have little incentive to roll back the national security apparatus. In the other direction, however, the incentives are substantial: a politician who dismantles portions of the police state risks being labeled soft on terrorism. The trend, therefore, is to strike a politically cautious balance by incrementally expanding the national security bureaucracy, thereby avoiding inciting civil libertarian outrage.

TSA and VIPR searches also indoctrinate children to accept pat-downs, full-body scans, and the like, as a regular component of the relationship between government and its citizens. In this way, police state tactics will gradually grow in acceptance as simply "the way things are." A child who has been molested by government officials since before he could read is unlikely to question such activities as an unjustified exercise of authority when an adult.

We need to find a way to soft-kill this bureaucratic snakenest before they force us by their predations to hard-kill these snakes individually.

I invite discussion on non-violent ways to harass them out of existence. Target businesses who cooperate with them? Harass/recall local Sheriffs who provide bully boys for their Gestapo checkpoints?

FOX: "The U.S. government has blood on its hands." Covering up Gunwalker fatalities: ATF telling Mexico serial nos. of seized weapons do not exist.

ATF telling Mexico serial numbers of seized weapons "do not exist."

Praxis: Pneumatic Antenna Launchers.

No, it's not an improvised surface to air missile. It's an early-generation pneumatic antenna launcher.

A deep genuflection and tip of the boonie hat to Irregular Chuck for bringing the subject of pneumatic antenna launchers to my attention.

What is Pneumatic Antenna Launching?

Pneumatically Powered (Tennis Ball) Antenna Launching. Pneumatic Line launching is perhaps a more apt description. First we need a line in the trees, then we can pull up an antenna, which in most cases is a long piece of wire. In the launcher pictured above a Tennis Ball is propelled by compressed air, towing a fishing line over the tree. Then we pull up nylon mason twine with the fishline, and finally a wire or heavier line as needed.

Why does anyone need to Launch an Antenna?

It is often more convenient to use existing trees than to erect supports for wire or beam antennas, especially when these antennas are required for temporary or emergency field use. We set up antennas for disasters and drills, camping and contests, practice and fun. With all the applications for Homeland Security there are many potential uses for rapid deployment. If you have a need to quickly set up antennas in various field situations, or you have some really nice trees in your backyard, you may have a use for Antenna Launching.

What is a Pneumatic Antenna Launcher?

It is a very simple system that uses the energy in a pressurized volume of gas (generally air), a valve to release the gas, and a projectile (tennis ball) in a tube that is accelerated by the expanding gas giving it the requisite velocity to pull a light line over the tree.

The PADS Pneumatic Antenna Deployment System with Accessories

What is a Pneumatic Antenna Deployment System?

This is the name for the Launcher-in-a-Toolcase shown above. The CSV17 launcher fits nicely into this hard case. It may be small but has been able to reach over 150 feet in height. The PADS launcher and hard case are available on the order page. Also shown are a pair of Twine Reels containing 500 feet of nylon twine. They are available in 270 foot lengths as well. The grey cylinder near the bottom center of the photo is a bicycle type CO2 tire inflator. It can be used with a number of different capacity CO2 cylinders. Using the low-cost 12 gram cylinders produces enough pressure for one good launch per cylinder. Also in this case, but not visible is a 12 oz Paintball CO2 cylinder stored inside the barrel, along with two tennis balls. The CO2 pressure regulator is behind the right end of the ramrod. There are a total of six tennis balls in this photo, two hidden in the barrel and one hidden inside the reel on the lower left. The Mini-Coaxial reel on the lower left is a special reel made for this launcher to fit in the case. It is a scaled-down Zip-type reel with about a one foot circumference. Just behind the launcher's trigger is a bag of 12 gram CO2 cylinders for the bicycle inflator. See the PADS Web Page.

The Obama Administration's inside man in the Terry family.

Family of slain agent: Prosecute gun runners, not ATF officials

The family of a slain federal agent is pushing for the government to indict and prosecute all the criminals involved in trafficking and using the guns involved in his death.

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s cousin, Robert Heyer, told The Hill in an interview that the family is not calling for the criminal prosecution of the federal officials, agents and officers who might have been involved in the Fast and Furious operation.

What Jordy Yager fails to mention is that Robert Heyer is a current-serving Secret Service agent and his job is dependent upon making his bosses happy. Which makes you wonder about the timing of this story as well.

From Kurt Hofmann: Jon Stewart, Underpants Gnome.

Sorry, I missed this one from last week.