Timeline appears to conflict with agent’s testimony in Reese case

Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 2 December, 2012 | David Codrea

[marktwain]

Revelations by the Albuquerque Journal that ties existed between a Columbus, N.M., gun trafficking conspiracy and the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation highlight a disconnect with pretrial testimony given by an ATF agent in yet a third case, that of the Reese family, a tip received this morning by Gun Rights Examiner from a source close to the case suggests.

“Federal prosecutors have sought to distance the Columbus gun smuggling case,” reporter Mike Gallagher revealed in a story filed last Thursday. “But reports obtained by the Journal show that in April 2010, federal agents were aware that the leader of the Columbus ring … had been stopped a few months earlier with weapons purchased by a suspected ‘straw man’ involved in the Fast and Furious case in Arizona.”

The Columbus case has attracted the attention of Sen. Chuck Grassley, who recently wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking how the husband of a U.S. Attorney was able to obtain and leak wiretap information to the trafficking suspects, as per the allegations of his indictment.

Similarly, prosecutors -- and the judge -- tried to distance another New Mexico case from Fast and Furious. The Reese family, gun dealers written about extensively in this column who were imprisoned for allegedly knowingly selling guns to cartel members, and who have since had conspiracy and money laundering charges against them dismissed, faced a procedural hurdle on July 12 of this year when the prosecution moved to prevent references to the Phoenix-based gunwalking operation in their case. That motion was bolstered in pretrial testimony by Agent Carlos Valles, the Luna Tea Party Patriots, which has been closely monitoring the case, reported at the time, and reminded readers yesterday.

[marktwain]

BATF agents have been documented as being ordered to testily in some cases. Any credibility that they have left can be attributed to MSM spiking stories because of ideological sympathies.

[TigersEye]

bttt