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Posted on 07/29/2011 4:00:19 AM PDT by marktwain
Fallout from Tuesday’s third Capitol Hill hearing into Operation Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ botched gun trafficking sting operation, will continue thanks to new revelations, one of which came, perhaps inadvertently from the man on whose watch the investigation broke down, former Phoenix Special Agent in Charge William Newell.
The four-hour hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, quizzed current and former ATF officials stationed in Mexico, and those involved in conducting the operation. It is getting lots of attention from gun rights activists on several forums including Northwest Firearms, WaGuns.org, GunRightsMedia.com, TheHighRoad.org and even Hunting-Washington.
Newell came under repeated criticism for evasive answers, and he had some company in his supervisor, William McMahon. Neither could specifically (a word that Committee Chair Darrell Issa twice told Newell to stop using) identify who planned the operation and made it happen.
One bombshell revelation did come later in the hearing when Newell acknowledged (late in this video segment) that he had traded e-mail about the operation with Dr. Kevin O’Reilly, director of North American Affairs for the National Security Council. My colleague, David Codrea, writes about that here.
‘You didn’t get these from me…
‘The first attachment is what we were going to hand out to the media prior to our planned August 26th press conference. We will still use this IF we ever do a press conf. It had been vetted through ATF HQ. The second Word doc is what we were going to give to ATF DD Melson as notes in case he got asked specific questions about our Industry Operations efforts during GRIT.’—William Newell e-mail to Kevin M. O’Reilly, National Security Council
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Under questioning from Congressman Patrick Meehan, Newell rambled and evaded directly naming a single individual who formulated the plan. Instead, he said the plan was the product of:
Several individuals; it was the group supervisor (David Voth*), assistant special agent in charge (George Gillett*), myself and individuals in headquarters.
I am sick and tired of reading this from those on our side!
F&F was never meant as a sting operation!
F&F had zero intentions of tracking firearms!
F&F had zero intentions of arresting traffickers!
I agree. It made no sense as a "sting" operation. No one has ever come up with any rational about how it could have been used to "bring down a cartel".
The operation worked exactly as intended.
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BTTT
“The operation worked exactly as intended.”
Just like the Reichstag fire and Gleiwitz incident.
Not only that, but a sting operation requires that the law enforcement agents operate the sting. If BATFE agents had posed as the store owners or employees to make the sales, one might argue that it was intended to be a sting. But that’s not the case; the agents ordered civilian employees to make the sales. This was originally intended to set up the narrative that we need more gun control. Hillary started the narrative with her statements about how many US guns were winding up in Mexican cartels and arguing for more gun control. If all had gone according to plan, the left wing media would have picked up on the “tragedy on our southern border” and the drums would be beating for more “common sense gun control.” Finally, you don’t try something like this without Obama’s and Holder’s approval - never would happen.
Bump
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