Evidence Suggests Cover-Up in ATF Scandal

Photograph by J. Centavo

As most of our regular readership knows only too well we have been covering this story – before – the main stream media got a hold of it. Senator’s Issa (R-CA) and Grassley (R-IA) have been relentless in their pursuits of simple justice with regards to the fiasco called “Fast & Furious.” Those who do not recall the specifics it runs down like a poorly made television series (Please see Categories).

Just hours after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, federal officials tried to cover up evidence that the gun that killed Terry was one the government intentionally helped sell to the Mexican cartels in a weapons trafficking program known as Operation Fast & Furious.

It’s important to recall that the information known about this fiasco originated from inside sources to another inside source, directly to the abovementioned senators who are not on a witch hunt; no, they’re on the hunt of an ostensibly fraudulent and deceitful set of executive agencies who from the onset have denied even knowing anything of it.

Well so much for lying; moreover, the real perpetrators have been identified and it’s a matter in exercising stand up leadership versus wimps. Remember, we prefaced the article today by stating that originally it was members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives (ATF) field agents who believed this activity was wrong and wrote their supervisors; however, when ballistic forensics came back members of the Justice Department, the FBI, started getting very uneasy as well knowing that one of the firearms sold to “straw men” ended up at the Brian Terry murder crime scene with a ballistic match.

Also late Thursday, Sen. Charles Grassley’s office revealed that 21 more Fast and Furious guns have been found at violent crime scenes in Mexico. That is up from 11 the agency admitted just last month.

In an internal email the day after Terry’s murder, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emory Hurley and then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke decided not to disclose the connection, saying “this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case.” (Weak excuse…)

The level of involvement of the United States Attorney’s Office … in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” wrote Issa and Grassley. Furthermore, the two claim witnesses have told them that recently reassigned Hurley may have also prevented ATF agents from doing their jobs.

Issa and Grassley said they want to speak with Hurley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey, along with Patrick Cunningham, chief of the office’s Criminal Division.

Not only do congressional investigators want to “make sense” of details of the operation that allowed more than 2,000 guns to “walk” and later turn up at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S. – Mexico border, but they want to know why Hurley — who knew almost immediately the guns found at Terry’s crime scene belonged to Fast and Furious — tried to “prevent the connection from being disclosed.”