It's about damn time: McCain calls for Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. Wants Holder and Napolitano to testify under oath.

Sen. McCain calls for 'Fast and Furious' hearing.

Sen. John McCain has requested a Congressional hearing on the much-maligned gun trafficking investigation led by the ATF.

Up until recently, two fellow Republican legislators — Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., — have led the Congressional inquiries into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Fast and Furious" operation.

In a letter sent Wednesday, McCain said additional information released about the operation last week warrants a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which McCain is a member.

“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses.

I have requested a copy of this letter from Senator McCain's press office and will post it as soon as I receive it.

LATER: Nevermind. As usual, I found my sources faster than official ones: Here's the PDF that McCain's office told me wasn't posted yet.

Sipsey Street Exclusive: Do the guys in the NRA weeniemobile know about this? More background on Grenadewalker and AUSA Emory Hurley.

Well, now, won't this be disconcerting to The Lairds of Fairfax?

Sources on the ground in Arizona report that Assistant United States Attorney in Phoenix Emory Hurley, the man at the center of both the Gunwalker and Grenadewalker fiascoes, is "a card-carrying NRA member who had NRA posters on the walls of his office." Further, one source reports, "He was known to, and seen by, ATF agents on surveillance at gun shows sitting behind the tables of FFL’s." (That's federally licensed gun dealers to the uninitiated.)

"Godfrey Daniel!" as W.C. Fields would say. Has anybody broken the news to Wayne LaPierre?

Our sources also provide some interesting details about "Grenadewalker."

(W)hen Kingery was arrested/detained at the POE (Port of Entry) Yuma, he was discovered after his vehicle was x-rayed and 114 grenade hulls were seen in his spare tire. The POE went into full lock down because they believed that they had found live hand grenades. A bomb squad did the approach and render safe.

Enter Emory Hurley:

When this information was relayed to Hurley with the argument that the inert hulls were being ‘smuggled’ into Mexico, that the technique displayed criminal intent and knowledge of illegal activity, and after Kingery confessed his intentions to make bombs for the cartels, Hurley insisted that it was not a prosecutable case. Newell and Gillett backed Hurley and Burke on this instead of supporting their field agents. Now the USAO is attempting to defame Forcelli.

Not just the Phoenix USAO, but the entire phalanx of the Justice Department's cover-up myrmidons.

Recall, boys and girls, that Hurley's excuse to NOT prosecute Kingery was that simple possession of grenade hulls at the border did not constitute probable cause, even after Kingery confessed to rearming them for the Mexican cartels. Nice touch about hiding them in a spare tire. That's where I always carry my collectible inert war souvenirs when I go to Mexico. Or not.

As for Hurley's principal antagonist in the Grenadewalker debacle, ATF whistleblower Peter Forcelli, one source who knows him reports:

Let me tell you something about Pete. He has a long standing track record of highest regard as a law enforcement officer. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to become a shitty investigator and invent ways to not arrest criminals.

"Godfrey Daniel!"

National Proletariate Radio on the new acting ATF Director.

Here.

No "mainstream media" interested in Hoosier Gangwalking. Farago disappointed there are no Sinaloans in the Indiana fuel supply.

David Codrea reports: Mainstream media ignores Indiana ‘Gunwalker’ story.

Documentation presented exclusively in this column on Monday about an Indiana gun dealer cooperating with ATF on straw purchases--and then being told guns were being traced from crime scenes--has gone completely unreported by every major newspaper and television network, including those in the Hoosier state.

A Google “news” search shows the mass media press has ignored the story, despite efforts made by this reporter, Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, and a handful of supportive readers to elicit their attention and interest. . .

It should be evident that had the mainstream press been relied on to do their jobs as government watchdogs, the Project Gunwalker story would not be where it is today--if anywhere at all. But it’s also been thoroughly documented that attracting the attention of media and government was like pulling teeth, and required no small amount of banging pots and pans to where the noise could no longer be ignored.

David also reports that

Robert Farago has taken in interest in Gangwalker.

Farago:

I just got off the blower with Brent R. Weil [above] 0f Kightlinger and Gray, LLP. The Evansville, Indiana lawyer represents the [as yet unnamed] gun store that sold firearms to ATF-enabled straw purchasers. “The ATF told my client to let the sales go through,” Mr. Weil told TTAG. “He later told me that the guns went to Chicago gangs.” In one case, a straw purchaser failed to pass the FBI’s NICS [National Instant Check System] background check . . .

The dealer called an ATF agent in the parking lot; the agent told the dealer to let the sale go through. The ATF arrested the so-called straw purchaser after he walked out the door. In every other instance, however, the ATF did not apprehend the buyers immediately after purchase.

In one case, a buyer and his associate left the store and smashed their vehicle into a police car on their way out. (Seriously.) The driver was charged with the traffic incident, but allowed to keep the guns and proceed. Whether or not the ATF kept tabs on the guns after that, or if guns were used in subsequent crimes, is unknown.

Mr. Weil also threw some cold water on the theory that Mexican cartel members in Indiana purchased the guns with the ATF’s blessing as part of an anti-Los Zetas quid pro quo. “The buyers were black and caucasian,” Weil said. Also, the gun store in question initiated the contact with the ATF.

The new information doesn’t rule out the possibility that the Indiana gun store “sting” involved criminals affiliated with the Sinaloa or La Familia cartels (whom the ATF armed during Operation Fast and Furious). But that possibility seems a whole lot less likely.

Good on him for honesty. Farago, who has been seeing Sinaloans behind every new Gunwalker bush, is convinced that there is some CIA-ATF-Sinaloan conspiracy to combat the Zetas. One day when the flood waters recede and my plate isn't so full I'll get around to debunking that theory.

Now isn't this special?

Feds to assume control of Bastrop Co. fire; volunteer firemen turned away.

So, why doesn't Rick Perry kick their federal asses out?

LATER: And now this is even more special than that.

Contract Dispute Grounds Firefighting Planes.

Nearly half of the federal government’s firefighting air tankers are siting idle at a California airport, grounded by the Obama administration in a contract dispute just weeks before wildfires swept through Texas killing a mother and her child, and destroying 100,000 acres.

Sipsey St. Exclusive: "Meetings, Part 6." "The Surge" comes to Phoenix. The interaction between Group VII, Fast & Furious & GRIT and why it matters.

"Things like this happen because of meetings. People sit in meetings and they decide what they want to happen. And then they take decisions, make policy and implement that policy to achieve those ends." He added, "That's why State is so nervous. They signed off on this. In a meeting." . . . He added, "Of course the meeting transcripts won't reflect the truth so plainly, but then neither did the Wannsee Conference. These bastards always talk in riddles about what they're really after. Watch what they do, not what they say." -- Old DC intelligence community member, quoted in Meetings: Part One.

Kenneth Melson and Dennis Burke: The Gunwalker conspirators announce a Phoenix "success," 17 September 2010.

In "Meetings, Part 5," we examined how, thanks to decisions passed down from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, "The Surge" and the Gunrunner Impact Team (GRIT) concept came to Houston. But Houston wasn't the only place that GRITs were utilized:

ATF also increased its efforts under Project Gunrunner through its Gun Runner Impact Team initiative, a temporary deployment of 100 agents, Industry Operations Investigators, and support staff to the Houston Field Division during summer 2009. ATF deployed the personnel for 120 days to address a backlog in investigative leads and gun dealer inspections in the Houston Field Division and “aggressively target and disrupt groups and organizations responsible for trafficking firearms to Mexico.”

. . . In September 2010, ATF announced the conclusion of another Gun Runner Impact Team initiative in the Phoenix Field Division, (Emphasis supplied, MBV) reporting that the Phoenix team had initiated 174 firearms trafficking cases, seized 1,300 illegally trafficked firearms, and conducted over 800 gun dealer inspections. ATF Industry Operations staff also made 791 referrals to state and local law enforcement agencies and to other federal agencies such as ICE, the FBI, and the Internal Revenue Service. -- Review of ATF's Project gunrunner (Final Report), November 2010, page 41.

This is the announcement the OIG report refers to:

September 17, 2010

ATF Announces 7 New Gunrunner Groups and Phoenix Gun Runner Impact Teams’ Successes

PHOENIX — Deputy Director Kenneth E. Melson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the formation of seven new Project Gunrunner firearms trafficking groups during a news conference in which he and Dennis K. Burke, United States Attorney, District of Arizona, announced the results of ATF’s Gun Runner Impact Team (GRIT) initiative, a nearly 100-day deployment of ATF resources to the Phoenix Field Division to disrupt illegal firearms trafficking by Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

As a result of the 2010 emergency supplemental appropriation for border security, ATF received $37.5 million for Project Gunrunner, ATF’s comprehensive firearms trafficking strategy to disrupt the illegal flow of firearms into Mexico. With this funding, ATF will establish and place firearms trafficking groups along traditional and newly-discovered firearms trafficking routes and hubs in Atlanta; Dallas; Brownsville, Texas; Las Vegas; Miami; Oklahoma City; and Sierra Vista, Ariz.

"Lives are being lost to violent crime every day on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border," said Melson. "Through Project Gunrunner and its GRIT initiative, ATF is shutting down the supply routes of firearms traffickers along the border and further inland."

The GRIT initiative brought more than 80 experienced ATF personnel from around the country to Arizona and New Mexico. GRIT special agents initiated 174 firearms trafficking-related criminal investigations and seized approximately 1,300 illegally-trafficked firearms and 71,000 rounds of ammunition, along with drugs and currency. ATF’s industry operations investigators conducted more than 800 federal firearms licensee compliance inspections.

"We are fighting on a crucial front here today to reduce violence in our own communities, and to disrupt and dismantle the southbound supply of weapons to the cartels," said Burke. "We will not be a gun locker for the cartels, who have made murder and mayhem their modus operandi. We will not tolerate violent criminals and others who illegally possess, purchase or sell firearms."

Burke announced that 96 defendants have been arrested, charged, convicted or sentenced since June 2010 on gun-related charges. The majority of defendants include violent felons, drug traffickers who use weapons, and those trafficking firearms to Mexico. Cases involved more than 370 guns — many of them AK-47 style rifles and other "weapons of choice" of drug cartels — and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition smuggled into or destined for Mexico. Some of the guns seized in the investigation, including a .50 caliber weapon, were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico.

Recent examples of firearms prosecutions in the District of Arizona:

U.S. v. Arizmendiz et al.

In July and August, two leaders of a firearms trafficking conspiracy that supplied at least 112 firearms — mostly AK-47 style — to the Sinaloa Cartel, were sentenced. Alejandroi Medrano, 23, and Hernan Ramos, 22, both of Mesa, Ariz., were sentenced to 46 and 50 months in prison, respectively, for leading a conspiracy involving 10 defendants who straw purchased firearms from gun dealers in Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., in order to supply them to a member of the Sinaloa Cartel known as "Rambo."

U.S. v. Gaeda et al.

On June 3, following an ATF investigation involving more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition, ATF agents arrested Emmanuel Casquez, Elias Vasquez, and Charice Gaeda for unlawfully exporting ammunition to Mexico. Agents had learned the three were purchasing vast quantities of ammunition and searched a vehicle headed for the border port at Nogales and recovered 9,500 rounds of ammunition; a search of a residence ensued and an additional 27,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered.

U.S. v. Ibarra et al.

In July, a 20-count indictment announced charging 10 straw purchasers, recruited by then 17-year-old Francisco Ibarra, to buy at least 25 firearms. ATF believes the firearms were trafficked into Mexico.

That's the PR. But what was the actual effect of "The Surge" on the operations of the Arizona ATF and how did GRIT fit into what we know of "Fast and Furious"?

Well, I've been poking around asking questions about that and what follows are some observations by folks knowledgeable about the situation. Recall that F&F was carried out as an OCDETF investigation by Phoenix Group VII. The Assistant US Attorney responsible for directing it was Emory Hurley. Because of this, according to one source familiar with the operation, Group VII exhibited a "closed door mentality." They didn't volunteer much about what they were doing and others were discouraged from asking questions. But what of GRIT?

One source said:

There were about 60 people assigned to the GRIT surge. There were about 5 of them assigned to Phoenix VII.

The rest just did follow up on old NICS cases and assisted with other cases, The reality is that the GRIT was a colossal waste of taxpayers money. The GRIT people assigned to Group VII are part of the reason that this was leaked. They with Dodson and Alt wouldn't sit by and watch while the cartel got armed to the teeth.

The whole idea of allowing guns to ride off into the sunset was Emory Hurley's brainchild. He has not been held accountable enough.

Newell is an inexperienced idiot, and political "kiss ass" who stood by and allowed it to happen because he thought it'd be his ticket up the ranks. His time spend in the streets doing real police work is almost non-existent. He is unilaterally disrespected as a political hack.

"The whole idea of allowing guns to ride off into the sunset was Emory Hurley's brainchild." Although I can see how it was easy for a street agent to form that opinion, the preponderance of other evidence since discovered says differently. Recall the celebratory emails of "our guns" found in Mexico at crime scenes and the arguments with Dodson and others by Voth, Gillett and Newell. This was such a deviation from the norm, as has been testified to under oath, SOMEONE above Hurley had to have authorized it. Otherwise a simple phone call to DOJ would have stopped it. Recall also the refusal to tell the Mexican government about F&F. Darren Gil made such a phone call, and in the end was forced out of his job over it. The source's description of Newell as "a political hack," however, is universally held by just about everybody who knew him.

Another confirmed that Group VII and GRIT were not synonymous:

My understanding of it is... Dodson, Alt, Casa etc. were PCS (Permanent Change of Station) transfers to Group VII under the Southwest Border Initiative. The GRIT deployment didn't start until around April sometime. GRIT deployee's are all TDY - the Phoenix GRIT was for 100 day TDY and then they returned to their respective field division.

Said yet another:

GRIT had a couple of agents assigned to Phoenix VII, but they are not the same. Operation Gunrunner was a funding source, and Phoenix VII and GRIT came from Gunrunner funds. Therefore Operation F & F was part of Gunrunner, but NOT all encompassing. There were some good cases that were part of Gunrunner.

Another:

(GROUP) VII had 6 or 8 (GRITs) - the majority of the detailee's were assigned to augment Group VII. A few went to help out the other groups but the compelling reason that GRIT was even deployed to Phoenix was to assist with F & F. As soon as GRIT agents questioned the strategy or case agents, they found themselves working on other things; unless it was realized that it even remotely tied back to F&F, then it was taken away from them and rolled up in it.

There has been some confusion in other media accounts of just how the "Grenadewalker" case fits into Fast & Furious. By the accounts of the Wall Street Journal and David Codrea, the supervisor on that investigation who repeatedly locked horns with Emory Hurley over failures to interdict and prosecute was Peter Forcelli, who was the Group I leader at the Yuma office. Thus, "Grenadewalker" was not part of Fast & Furious, although both Emory Hurley and Dennis Burke, of course, were the common denominators in both cases.

Sidenote: Oddly, Emory Hurley is described, even by people who despised his judgment, as "a nice guy." Thus once more proving, if any were necessary, the "banality of evil."

So, let's recap:

A. "The compelling reason that GRIT was even deployed to Phoenix was to assist with F & F."

B. "(GROUP) VII had 6 or 8 (GRITs)."

C. "The GRIT people assigned to Group VII are part of the reason that this was leaked. They with Dodson and Alt wouldn't sit by and watch while the cartel got armed to the teeth."

So, at least in part, GRIT was there for F&F and F&F used GRIT resources.

Why does this detailed accounting matter?

Easy. Because of White House word games in their denial of National Security Council knowledge of gunwalking.

From Politico:

A previous email chain between Newell and O’Reilly emerged at a House hearing in July. That exchange indicates that O’Reilly was seeking some information about southwest border gun operations for Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan.

“We want John Brennan well prepared to talk GRIT with the Mexicans next Wednesday,” O’Reilly wrote on Sept. 1, referring to a “gunrunner impact team” program to beef up ATF enforcement in particular regions.

An administration official said that email exchange referred to other investigations being conducted by the Phoenix ATF office, not to Fast and Furious.

Ah, but did Newell -- who obviously knew the details -- make the distinction to O'Reilly? Why would he since at least in part, Fast and Furious was GRIT and GRIT was Fast and Furious? And why wouldn't Newell, who after all was talking to someone much further up the policy food chain -- a long-time friend by his own admission -- someone who had knowledge of and probably a hand in writing the policy that Gunwalker sprang from, be as frank as friends often are about the details? Why wouldn't he brag about it?

And if, as it is being pimped about by the cover-up weasels at Main Justice, this was a "rogue Phoenix operation" of the evil troll Hurley's concoction, why wouldn't Newell -- whose office was having so much trouble getting Hurley to prosecute "grenadewalkers" and straw buyers -- NOT complain to his friend about this deviation of policy?

Unless, of course, it wasn't a deviation, but rather the policy itself.

Questions for another hearing.

If they spelled their "America" with a "k" it would be easier to tell them apart.

"We are ready to march. Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong." -- Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., warming up the crowd for Barack Obama, Labor Day, 2001.

Words mean things. Understand that when little Jimmy said "an America where WE belong," he is enunciating the plain truth that the collectivists and the libertarians (in the broad senses of both those words) within the borders of the United States actually represent two different visions of the county if not two different countries altogether.

Thus, tongue-clucking about "hypocrisy" such as here and here misses the point entirely.

Collectivists speak like this without shame because they have already determined that individualists exist outside the pale of THEIR country. They do not recognize us as anything other than enemies to their way of life, and, when you consider it dispassionately, they're right.

Language like this is designed to portray individualists as outlaws to the collectivist state, which we certainly are from their point of view. A reminder of what "outlaw" really means:

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active persecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system, since the outlaw had only himself to protect himself, but it also required no enforcement on the part of the justice system. -- Wikipedia.

In collectivism, "peace" is achieved when all your opponents are silent or dead. Thus, Hoffa is merely enunciating a perfect understanding of the present situation.

I long ago determined, through painful trial and error, that it was impossible to debate such people in any meaningful way. Logic, law, common sense, history -- none would make a dent when debating collectivists about gun control, for example. This is why I finally -- at the demand of such a firearm prohibitionist to give him "the short answer" -- boiled down thousands of years of human history and hundreds of years of western jurisprudence into "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

I finally came to understand that such people actually lived in a different country, a different worldview, even a different universe from those of us who respected individuality, liberty and property.

Chiding such people for "hypocrisy" is not only a waste of time, it is factually incorrect. They are not hypocrites. They just represent a different country than we do.

The question is, who writes the history books after the war they provoke -- the war that Junior seems to want?

I vote that it be us.

This headline made me think of W.C. Fields and Monty Python simultaneously.

"I think I'll go out and milk the elk." -- W.C. Fields in "The Fatal Glass of Beer."

Drunken elk rescued from Swede's apple tree.

Excellent piece from Bob Owens at PJM. "It's time for the administration to come clean, under oath, and face the consequences for its actions."

Gunwalker Explodes into the Heartland.

Gunwalker Miscellany for this morning.

Still on damage control from the flood, so apart from the next "Meetings" and a stray thought or two, don't expect much this morning anyway.

An LA Times editorial masquerading as a news story: "Republicans refuse to confirm leader for ATF despite its troubles."

From the Arizona Republic: "Arrest tied to grenade parts stirs questions in Arizona"

CNN: "American citizen in Mexican custody on arms-trafficking allegation."

A very useful piece of work at Rinos and Rats.

The Gunwalker Scandal: Overview and Timeline.

Gunwalker Miscellany: Filed under the heading of "Still trying to clean up after the flood and don't have time to keep up analysis of breaking news."

CBS: ATF Gunwalker case to be transferred out of Arizona.

In a move that signals more trouble for the US Attorney's office in Arizona, sources tells CBS News the Department of Justice is transferring two controversial weapons cases and a murder case to other districts. The cases are the Fast and Furious "gunwalker" case, a major grenade case, and the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. "The Department of Justice is giving a no-confidence vote to the US Attorney's office in Arizona," says one law enforcement source.

Both weapons cases involve the trafficking to drug cartels in Mexico. In both instances, ATF agents accuse the lead prosecutor in Phoenix of wrongfully allowing suspects to remain on the street as they continued to traffic weapons without interdiction. The Justice Department did not confirm the case transfers, and provided no immediate comment.

Dave Workman: ‘Grenade case’ explodes and leaves many questions.

AP: Mexico says US man smuggled grenade parts.

John Hayward: Gun Walking In the Midwest. Plus: grenades for Mexican cartels.

Michelle Malkin: And now…Project Grenadewalker?!; Plus: The Indiana story.

Heritage Foundation: Operation Fast and Furious -- An Obama Foreign Policy Disconnect.

Subject for a Second Front on Gunwalker: The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

On Sunday I wrote this appeal for a "Second Front" in the Gunwalker Scandal. Since then, folks have emailed me asking for specifics they can write their Congresscritters about.

Back in May, I wrote this piece: "Media & Congress Still Missing the Big Legal Point of the Gunwalker Scandal: it was a conspiracy to illegally export weapons to a foreign country." This article explains in detail the ins and out of ITAR -- the International Traffic in Arms Regulations -- and how they were violated by the Gunwalker Plot of the Obama Administration.

Yesterday, Kathleen Millar wrote this at the Foreign Policy Association blog: "Melson out–Holder digs in: 1700+ violations of the Arms Export Control Act?" Ms. Millar explains:

If investigators determine that Fast and Furious was intended to be something other than a bona fide law enforcement operation—an under-the-radar political ploy, for instance, designed to shore up Mexico’s claims that US gun dealers have been responsible for fueling Mexico’s gang wars and to lend support to the push for stronger gun control in the US—then Fast and Furious will stand beside the Iran-Contra scandal as a politically inspired effort devised by officials within the US government to export weapons illegally, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), to criminal actors in Mexico.

The Oversight Committee indicates DOJ/ATF officials knew from the beginning there was a high probability the guns ATF let ‘walk’ would fall into the hands of cartel gunmen who would use those guns, not just to murder Mexican nationals, but to attack and kill US citizens as well. . .

The Arms Export Control Act is the same law that brought down the architects of Iran-Contra, officials who facilitated the illegal sales of weapons to Iran and to Nicaraguan rebels (Contras) during the Reagan Administration.

It’s a critical piece of legislation, especially for the ordinary American, who’s usually the one wearing the boots when they hit the ground in bad places. Americans have a hard time with the notion that the bullets, guns, missiles, tanks, and other military hardware the enemy may be using to kill their sons and daughters in the military may have been ‘made in the USA.’

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. The Arms Export Control Act prohibits US arms merchants and defense manufacturers from selling lethal weapons and sensitive or dual-use technology to people who may want to use those weapons and technology to fire back at US citizens—at the military, law enforcement agents, and more and more often, a lot of just plain Americans who routinely miss those signs 80 miles inland on the US side of the Mexico-Arizona border warning tourists to go no further–Mexican gunmen on the prowl.

US weapons cannot be sold and shipped to countries that support terrorism, or nations, states, groups, or other entities deemed unfriendly to the United States.

I’d say Mexican cartels, especially the violent assassination squads that comprise Los Zetas, fall into that category, wouldn’t you?

Even more importantly, the Arms Export Control Act is, in fact, a servant to Article Three of the United States Constitution, which defines the act of selling weapons to those who would ‘levy war against the United States’ or ‘giving aid and comfort to our enemies’ as treason. No kidding. Treason.

If a US law enforcement agency wants to involve itself in the sale of weapons purchased from US gun dealers for export purposes–sales that may be part of an legitimate enforcement or military operation–that agency, let’s say ATF, must apply to the State Department for an exemption from the licensing requirements normally imposed on the commercial sale and export of such weapons. If an enforcement agency or military entity intent on running a covert op involving the export of lethal weapons does not obtain the necessary exemptions from State, for–listen carefully–each weapon or bundle of weapons purchased, that agency or military purchaser has committed a crime. Consider. ATF sent more than 1700 weapons across the border into Mexico–that could translate into 1700+ violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

When arms are purchased as part of a commercial deal from US manufacturers for shipment overseas–when the sale is not part of a law enforcement or military operation–the purchasing agent must apply to State for both a license and an End-User Certificate (EUC). If the EUC is obtained as part of a fraudulent deal, i.e., the guns were never meant to go where the purchaser said they were going, then the export license is automatically deemed null and void. If a commercial buyer does not obtain an export license from State as well as a bona fide EUC, that buyer has committed a crime. . .

But let’s give the devil his due, and suppose that Fast and Furious was, in fact, conceived as a legitimate law enforcement operation: the agency, which intended to facilitate the sale of guns from US dealers to agency informants or ATF ‘ringers,’ chosen to act as straw buyers, would have factored in the need to obtain exemptions from the licensing requirements mandated by the State Department, which has oversight for the Arms Export Control Act.



But even before State issued those exemptions to ATF, DOJ/ATF would have had to demonstrate operational accountability, convincing State Department officials and other relevant agencies that Fast and Furious reflected solid planning, measurable objectives, and an endgame which guaranteed that none of the weapons in question would go missing or be used in the commission of crimes.

As we know, that’s not what happened with Fast and Furious. . .

Congressional investigators tell us that from the inception of the operation, there was no strategy to trace or tag the weapons DOJ/ATF officials knew would cross illegally into Mexico, and no plan to interdict in an alternative manner, or to prevent thousands of deadly fully-functional weapons from disappearing without a trace once they moved across the US-Mexico border.

Instead, federal agents merely entered the serial numbers of the weapons sold to straw buyers (at ATF’s urging) into their database, and went back to the office to wait until Mexican, or US authorities returned these same weapons, by then used in the commission of a crime or a killing, to ATF.

ATF agents had no way of knowing to whom or where those weapons had traveled once they had crossed into Mexico, or who used any specific weapon to commit a crime or homicide. All ATF was able to do, and perhaps expected to do, was count the number of guns they knew for certain (because ATF had arranged the sale) had been purchased at gun shops along the US side of the border.

Does this sound like a gun-tracing operation that went bad? Or a clandestine gun-running operation whose purpose was to retrieve, mostly from Mexican authorities, piles of ‘illegally purchased and trafficked’ AK-47s and other lethal weapons ATF and DOJ could point to as solid evidence that the US has, as Calderon keeps insisting, been responsible for fueling the violence that’s already killed 40,000 Mexican civilians? Was the US responsible for the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Agent Jaime Zapata?

Who approved the ATF operation?

Ask yourself this question: who ok’d Fast and Furious? What are the chances that an interagency review board, the kind to which every enforcement agency that wants to run a cross-border covert operation goes to for approval, would give a thumbs-up to a plan to smuggle thousands of military-grade weapons into Mexico when there were no provisions in that plan to interdict, or track/trace, or somehow retrieve those guns before they could be used to kill innocent civilians?

Zero.

Why would other law enforcement/intelligence agencies put their heads on the block for a plan that promised to do nothing but send weapons to killers in Mexico and provide the Administration with a tally, after the fact, that proved how deeply involved the US had become in Mexico’s murderous gang wars?

Let’s think about who would have had representatives sitting on this kind of interagency review board, ready to yea or nay the ATF operation? DOJ and ATF, obviously. DHS and ICE—the latter has authority for investigating violations of the Export Control Act. Then DEA, the FBI, and the State Department—since State would have had to issue exemptions re the Export Control Act to allow ATF to move the guns into Mexico. DOD? NSA? CIA? Sometimes.

Why so many players?

The easy answer is coordination. But here’s the rest of the story . . .

First, a covert operation involving the trafficking of weapons across the US-Mexico border falls within ICE’s jurisdiction, not ATF’s.

You don’t steal turf in federal law enforcement and walk away unscathed.

If ATF wanted to ‘own’ Fast and Furious, it would have had to strike that deal with ICE and then work out the potential for jurisdictional ‘overlap’ with other enforcement and intelligence agencies as well. All of it before, not after, the operation began.

Let’s say that didn’t happen. No coordination with DHS/ICE. No green light re Fast and Furious from an interagency review board. Bad judgement. Bad form. Bordering on the illegal.

But not a crime. . .

The State Department had, and still has, the really big dog in this fight—that’s why it would have sent a department rep to a review board meeting re Fast and Furious. Play fast and loose with State, and it is, indeed, a crime. A serious one.

It was ATF’s job to make sure State knew it was engineering shipments of AK-47s and .50 cal rifles across the border and ATF’s responsibility under the law to obtain exemptions from State’s licensing requirements to send these guns south. To obtain these exemptions to the Arms Export Control Act, officials at DOJ, ATF’s parent agency, would have had to send a letter or formal request to State.

The State Department would have a copy of that letter or request in its files today, and on it would be the signature/s, no doubt, of one or more of the top three officials at DOJ–the Deputy Assistant Attorney for the Criminal Division, the Deputy Attorney General, or the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. It takes horsepower to obtain authorization to send guns to Mexico.

So, where is that letter, that request for exemptions? Let’s take ATF off the hook.

The State Department isn’t talking, and the media doesn’t yet seem to understand how deafening that silence is.

ATF is talking, but their spin doctors are clinging desperately to a single message: ‘botched operation.’ Not good, but infinitely preferable to admitting Fast and Furious might have been a criminal endeavor, a deliberate effort to circumvent US law and use a US law enforcement agency to pursue political, as opposed to operational, objectives.

There is more, but Millar concludes:

Let’s get to the bottom of this ATF scandal. Stop the games, the professional executions, the subterfuge, the diversionary strategies, and the disinformation that aims to distract the press from the real story.

Administration officials can end this controversy right now. If DOJ/ATF did not break the law, if that agency did obtain exemptions to the Export Control Act, the Department of State will have that information at the ready.

All we have to do is ask.

So that's the question we need to ask -- Of the GOP members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and of Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and sits on the Homeland Security Committee -- Did ATF follow the ITAR or not? Was the Department of State (and other departments) involved in these acts of war against a sovereign nation and its people?

It is time to open the Second Front in the Gunwalker debacle. And ITAR is the weapon to do it with.

David Codrea: "Federal LEO advocacy group charges retaliation for Gunwalker testimony."

Grenadewalker: David has the letter posted that other sources merely mention.

Vindictive bastards at the Bureau of Prisons.

Bureau of Prisons explains Fincher denial day after wife's burial.

Big Weekend in the Gunwalker Scandal, Bigger Week Ahead.

For those of you who read us at work and are just now sitting down to your computer after a long weekend, you've missed a lot. Let me recap:

David Codrea broke an incredibly important story: "Project Gangwalker?" More gunwalking -- in INDIANA! FBI manipulated NICS system in favor of felons, AGAIN! What did Traver know?

The Wall Street Journal broke a story that David and I were aware of and working on for a several days, but were constrained by sources to hold off until today: Phoenix Fast and Furious Improvised Mexican Grenade Case Blows Up in DOJ's Face. Trying to deflect blame, DOJ blames agents.

I issued a call for a Second Front in the Gunwalker Scandal: It is time to open a second front on the Gunwalker Scandal. "Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of being hung in morning."

Phoenix Assistant United States Attorney Emory Hurley is another designated goat of a DOJ desperate to deflect blame: AUSA Hurley about to be hurled under the bus too. The "Let's blame Phoenix for everything" meme of the cover-up continues.

The Friday "modified limited hangout" of the White House on the Newell-O'Reilly connection continues to reverberate: More on the White House's "modified limited email hangout." "Validating" precisely DICK. (And I don't mean Nixon.)

There are other stories, including Part 5 of my "Meetings" series and my tongue-in-cheek email to ATF bigwig Teresa Ficaretta, so enjoy at your leisure.

The Great Pinson Flood of 2011.

What a pain in the ass. Understand, we are not in a low area where I live, but my gutters are shot, my foundation has a crack in it and whenever we get these "once in a lifetimes," each one worse than the last, which so far has been about a dozen times since I moved here in 1986, my garage and basement office floods. There isn't a spare towel or blanket left in the house that isn't sopping wet and stacked up outside the washer waiting for processing. Carpet soaked in places but managed to avoid major damage to books. The local high school fared worse:

Heavy rainfall across the Birmingham area caused by Tropical Storm Lee will slow in the next few hours, but streets will likely remain flooded, the National Weather service reported at 8:30 p.m.

Between midnight and 8 p.m., the Birmingham Shuttlesworth-International Airport today received 6.69 inches of rain, washing away a record of 2.1 inches that was set on this day in 1949, according to the National Weather Service. . .

The auditorium of Pinson Valley High School collapsed tonight and three to five feet of rain is standing in the building, said Jefferson County schools spokeswoman Nez Calhoun. No one was injured. . .

The 7.85 inches of rain that fell today in Pinson shattered the 24 hour rainfall total record for the city, set back on March 19, 1970, said weather service meteorologist Jessica Talley.

Funny thing. That auditorium was just finished last year at great expense. Brand spanking new and now, in a county that is -- thanks to corrupt politicians now wearing federal prison uniforms -- bankrupt but won't admit it, they'll have to rebuild it. Glad my daughters are out of it.

It'll take weeks to dry the basement out.

But, of course it could be worse. I'm counting my blessings.

Phoenix Fast and Furious Improvised Mexican Grenade Case Blows Up in DOJ's Face. Trying to deflect blame, DOJ blames agents.

Three hours ago the Wall street Journal ran this, a story that David and I were aware of for about a week but were asked not to mention. David will have his own story out tomorrow morning. Note that DOJ is still trying to cover up by blaming the agents. Note also that they are retaliating against Pete Forcelli.

Grenades Case Hits Justice

Blunders After U.S. Arrest of Suspected Supplier Had a Part in High-Level Ousters

By EVAN PEREZ

Federal authorities are probing why the U.S. in 2010 let go an Arizona man accused of supplying grenades to a Mexican drug cartel, a case that played a role in the ouster last week of the nation's top firearms regulator and the U.S. attorney in Phoenix.

U.S. officials said missteps in the case, which hasn't been previously disclosed, are being investigated by the Justice Department and Congress. Federal agents in 2009-10 at the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led the case against the suspect, who they believed was dealing grenades to cartels in Mexico. The case was overseen by prosecutors in the Arizona U.S. attorney's office, the U.S. officials said.

The Arizona U.S. attorney's office and the Phoenix ATF office are the Justice Department units behind another botched operation, called Fast and Furious, which has been the subject of intense congressional interest this year. The Fast and Furious program allowed suspected smugglers to buy about 2,000 firearms, some of which later turned up at drug-related crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S.

Jean Baptiste Kingery, the suspect in the grenades case, was arrested Aug. 31 in Mexico and has been charged with violating that nation's organized-crime laws, according to U.S. officials.

Mexican police raided his home in Mazatlan and other locations nearby where they reported finding materials that could be used to construct 500 grenades, the officials said. A confidential informant told U.S. investigators last month he had provided Mr. Kingery with components for 2,000 grenades, they said. Mexican authorities, who haven't made the arrest public, didn't respond to repeated requests for comment. An attorney for Mr. Kingery couldn't be located.



U.S. prosecutors say they continue to pursue possible charges against Mr. Kingery.

Like Fast and Furious, the grenades case has exposed severe discord between federal agents and prosecutors in Arizona over how to pursue the trafficking of drugs, weapons, people and cash between the U.S. and Mexico.

The weapons trade is bustling along the border because of a ready market in Mexico, where legal private firearms ownership is severely restricted, and easy supplies on the U.S. side. U.S. authorities say cases are hard to prove because they must guard against infringing on legal gun-owner rights. In the case of inert grenades, the parts are legal to possess and an infraction occurs only when someone tries to export them without a license.

This account is based on interviews with three U.S. officials and others familiar with the case as well as documents describing it.

ATF agents arrested Mr. Kingery in Arizona in June 2010 after months of surveillance and seized 116 grenade hulls and parts in his possession, the officials said.



The suspect told investigators he helped operate a mill in Mexico manufacturing improvised explosive devices made from the U.S.-sourced grenade components, they said. Mr. Kingery allegedly said he supplied the weapons to a cartel called La Familia Michoacana and also helped the cartel convert semiautomatic rifles into military-style machine guns.

Nonetheless, he walked free without being charged after just hours in custody, officials said.

That decision is at the crux of a bitter fight between ATF agents and prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix. The lead ATF agent on the grenades case, Peter Forcelli, "was horrified with the thought of releasing this individual" and "practically begged" senior prosecutor Emory Hurley "for permission to arrest the suspect on a criminal complaint," according to an Aug. 31 letter sent to a congressional committee on Mr. Forcelli's behalf by an attorney with the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, a group that provides legal assistance to law enforcement officers.

Officials from the U.S. attorney's office dispute that Mr. Hurley, who oversaw both Fast and Furious and the Kingery cases, declined to prosecute, according to officials familiar with the accounts provided to investigators. These officials said prosecutors wanted to continue following the case and possibly bring charges at a later date.

Officials from the U.S. attorney's office also have told investigators that the ATF agents freed Mr. Kingery because the agents wanted to make him an informant. Mr. Kingery maintained contact with agents for several weeks, then disappeared, the U.S. officials familiar with the case said.

The prosecutors involved also accuse the ATF agents of a misstep at an earlier stage. In January and February 2010, U.S. and Mexican agents devised a sting that allowed Mr. Kingery to take delivery of hundreds of grenade parts in the U.S. and cross the border into Mexico, officials said. U.S. agents lost Mr. Kingery on the highway to the border and Mexican authorities failed to stop him at the crossing, they said.

The Kingery case is now under scrutiny by investigators from the Justice Department inspector general's office. Lawyers from the office of Deputy Attorney General James Cole in recent weeks gathered information on the case. The findings helped decide the fates of Kenneth Melson, acting director of the ATF, and Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, who were ousted from their posts last week, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Hurley, who didn't respond to requests for comment, was reassigned.

Mr. Burke said in a statement released to employees last week that he resigned to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Melson said in a statement that he was taking a new post in another division of the Justice Department.

Messrs Burke and Melson didn't respond to requests for comment on the Kingery matter.

Investigators from the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), and the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), are also probing the Kingery case as an extension of their Fast and Furious probe. "Information suggesting that a prosecutor, who exercised dubious judgment in Operation Fast and Furious, also made similar decisions in a separate case is certainly disconcerting," a committee spokesman said.

Mr. Forcelli is among ATF agents who provided testimony earlier this year about missteps in the Fast and Furious operation. The officers association's letter alleges that he is the victim of "whistleblower retaliation" because of that testimony.

A key point of contention is whether Mr. Forcelli and his team got proper clearance for the operation that led to the botched sting in February 2010. In October 2009, a prosecutor in the Kingery case told ATF agents that "We cannot approve [allowing] the illegal export to be accomplished," according to an email read to The Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors and Justice Department officials have cited the email to investigators to contend that the ATF agents failed to get clearance.

But the ATF agents disagree and cite a January 2010 email exchange that appears to show high-level approval. The latter email described the operation in detail, including a plan to let Mexican authorities track the suspect in hopes of finding a grenade-manufacturing facility in Mexico.

Mr. Burke, then the U.S. attorney in Arizona, is among the officials in the email exchange and responds to the summary of tactics: "Agree [with] the course of action as the variables play out." The email exchange was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Forcelli said in a statement, "I am very proud of the work the ATF did in this case and I can assure you that at no point did we ever endanger the safety of the public with our actions." The statement said he described aspects of the case in a deposition with congressional staffers and the Justice Department inspector general's office.

Collectivist begs for permission to declare class war on the Tea Party. Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. offers Dear Leader Obama his stormtroopers ready for war.

Ace of Spades has it here: "Let's Take These Sons of Bitches Out," linked to RealClearPolitics here.

This was a warm-up speech for Obama, so it isn't like he didn't hear it.

"We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war," Jimmy Hoffa Jr. said to a heavily union crowd.

"President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong," Hoffa added.

Variations on a theme. Stupid grenade tricks.

First, I'd like to have a little theme music appropriate to the subject on an improvised Mexican trumpet.



Now, the next videos comprise a short survey of stupid grenade tricks -- with real, not improvised, hand grenades.









Here's a reminder. Blowing an improvised Mexican bugle is safer than blowing things up with an improvised Mexican hand grenade.