A Sipsey Street Irregulars/National Gun Rights Examiner Column Exclusive: ATF Letter and Sources Confirm That There Was No "Botched Sting Operation" in Fast and Furious.
Official ATF documents as well as sources in Arizona and Washington D.C. confirm that in at least two instances in 2010, an agent of the United States government purchased Kalashnikov-pattern semi-automatic pistols from licensed federal firearms dealers with taxpayer money and delivered those weapons directly into the hands of cartel smugglers.
In a letter dated June 1, 2010, then Phoenix ATF Group VII supervisor David Voth instructed a Federal Firearms Licensee in Arizona as follows:
Dear Sir,
Per Section 925(a)(1) of the Gun Control Act (GCA) exempts law enforcement agencies from the transportation, shipment, receipt, or importation controls of the GCA when firearms are to be used for the official business of the agency.
Please accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62x39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson. These aforementioned pistols will be used by Special Agent Dodson in furtherance of the performance of his official duties. In addition, Special Agent Dodson has not been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. If you have any questions, you may contact me at telephone number 602-605-6501.
Sincerely,
(Signature)
David Voth
ATF Group Supervisor
Phoenix Group VII
In the lower left-hand margin of the one-page letter is the hand-written notation:
"Picked guns up 6/10/10 Paid Cash"
"Paid Cash" is underlined.
The existence of this letter provided to these reporters by a previously reliable source familiar with the Fast and Furious investigation, coupled with interviews of other sources across the country which put it into context, provides startling proof that the Federal government did not merely "lose track" of weapons purchased by "straw buyers" under surveillance by the ATF and destined for the Mexican drug cartels. In an undercover operation ordered by Fast and Furious supervisor David Voth, the U.S. government purchased firearms with taxpayer money from licensed firearms dealers, instructed them to conduct the sales "off the books," and used an ATF agent, John Dodson, to deliver them directly to people that Dodson believed were conducting them across the border.
This Jan. 25 picture shows part of a cache of seized weapons displayed at a news conference in Phoenix.
Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel -- the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared.
This disclosure, revealed in documents obtained by Fox News, could undermine the Department of Justice's previous defense that Operation Fast and Furious was a "botched" operation where agents simply "lost track" of weapons as they were transferred from one illegal buyer to another. Instead, it heightens the culpability of the federal government as Mexico, according to sources, has opened two criminal investigations into the operation that flooded their country with illegal weapons.
Operation Fast and Furious began in October 2009. In it, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged gun stores to sell weapons to an arms smuggling gang, then watched as the guns crossed the border and were used in crimes. Each month, the agency allowed hundreds of guns to go South, despite opposition from some agents.
All told, the gang spent more than $1.25 million for the illegal guns.
In June 2010, however, the ATF dramatically upped the ante, making the U.S. government the actual "seller" of guns.
According to documents obtained by Fox News, Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy six semi-automatic Draco pistols -- two of those were purchased at the Lone Wolf gun store in Peoria, Ariz. An unusual sale, Dodson was sent to the store with a letter of approval from David Voth, an ATF group supervisor.
Dodson then sold the weapons to known illegal buyers, while fellow agents watched from their cars nearby.
CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.
(Scroll down to listen to the audio)
The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister.
The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General.
As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" onto the streets without interdiction into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in its operation "Fast and Furious."
The conversations refer to a third weapon recovered at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Agent: I was ordered to let guns into Mexico
Court records have previously only mentioned two weapons: Romanian WASR "AK-47 type" assault rifles. Both were allegedly sold to suspects who were under ATF's watch as part of Fast and Furious.
Also, a ballistics report turned over to Congressional investigators only mentions the two WASR rifles. The ballistics report says it's inconclusive as to whether either of the WASR rifles fired the bullet that killed Terry.
Law enforcement sources and others close to the Congressional investigation say the Justice Department's Inspector General obtained the audio tapes several months ago as part of its investigation into Fast and Furious.
Then, the sources say for some reason the Inspector General passed the tapes along to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona: a subject in the investigation. It's unclear why the Inspector General, who is supposed to investigate independently, would turn over evidence to an entity that is itself under investigation.
A spokesman from the Office of the Inspector General today said, "The OIG officially provided the United States Attorney's Office with a copy of the recordings in question so that the USAO could consider them in connection with the government's disclosure obligations in the pending criminal prosecutions of the gun traffickers. Prior to receiving the tapes, the OIG made clear that we would have to provide a copy of the recordings to the United States Attorney's Office because they would need to review them to satisfy any legal disclosure obligations."
17 Years after the Olympic Arms/BATF screw-up and subsequent "screw you!"
It's appropriate, I guess, that it comes from a third participant in the 1993-1994 boondoggle which led to the prohibition of the cheap 7.62 X 39mm steel-core ammunition, Century International Arms, with their Kalashnikov-based "Centurion" handgun.
Centurion
Also fitting is that, as is obvious from the above page from the January 2011 Century Arms catalogue, it's a straight-from-the-factory "Rooney gun" with an MSRP of $650.
I am reminded that shortly before that drug-addled sociopath Patrick Purdy wandered into Cleveland Elementary Schoolyard in Stockton and shot a number of school children to pieces with his AK, that there were "AK price wars" all over California… on one block a motorist would see a gun store's mobile sign advertising "AK-47s - $79.97," and in front of another gun store a block or three away, "AK-47s - $77.49."
It was at that time, um, a high competitive buyers' market. And the "Stockton Massacre" almost overnight led to an assault weapons hysteria. the ripple effects of which are still being felt today.
Not only is the cheap ammo gone, so are the "affordable" Kalashnikovs!
Two US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigators (with sunglasses) speak with Guatemalan police officers at the scene of a bus attack in Quetzal, 35 km northeast of Guatemala City on January 26, 2011. The police is investigating if this attack is related to a similar one occurred on January 3 in which 9 people were killed when alleged gang members threw incendiary bombs at two buses, apparently because the owners of the transportation company refused to pay extortions.
The Obama administration lost no time determining where to place primary blame for border violence. During a joint April 16, 2009, White House press conference with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, President Obama stated that more than 90% of all guns recovered by Mexican authorities came from the United States. He had previously made the same claim in February of that year, further asserting that many of those firearms came from gun shops that line our border.
According to FactCheck.org, that 90% statistic is highly inflated because it “represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials.” Mexico actually recovers many more guns than it submits to the U.S. In December 2008, Mexican Attorney General Eduadro Medina Mora put the number of the country’s recovered crime weapons over the preceding two years at 29,000. Assuming that the total reported 10,347 guns seized and given to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing by Mexican authorities during 2007 and 2008 is an accurate number, only about 36% of all recovered crime weapons in Mexico came from U.S. sources.
Still, that exaggerated 90% figure continued to be touted as gospel by gun control advocates. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in March 26, 2009 on CBS’s Early Show: “We have to recognize and accept that the demand for drugs from the United States drives them north, and [of] the guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90% come from America.”
During a March 17, 2009, Congressional hearing on the subject, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said: “According to ATF, more than 90% of the guns seized after raids in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) chimed in, adding: “It is unacceptable to have 90% of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must stop that.”
There was no doubt at all about whom they intended to stop. The targeted culprits were those border state gun shops.
Four federal agencies were "full partners" in the Obama administration's bungled Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed guns to wind up in the hands of Mexican drug lords, the man who implemented the program revealed today at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
William Newell, the former head of the Phoenix field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was pressed by Rep. Pat Meehan, R-Penn. to identify all the federal agencies involved in the operation.
In response, Newell identified the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service as "full partners" with the ATF.
The DEA and ATF are both part of the Department of Justice and ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
The video of the exchange is embedded below, with the relevant portion around the 3:30 mark.
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