How the US gave guns to Mexican cartels

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ”

Via: New York Post

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Fast and Furious—Still Infuriating

With the economy still cratered, a slew of foreign policy debacles, and a government shutdown, most Americans probably haven’t thought much about the Fast and Furious scandal in recent months. The Scrapbook doesn’t know what it says about the times we live in that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ homicidal negligence is all but forgotten a few years later, but we’re pretty sure it isn’t good.

JOHN DODSON

LANDOV

The ATF is certainly doing everything it can to make sure that Americans don’t revisit its inexplicable decision to give thousands of guns to Mexican gangs, resulting in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and dozens of Mexican nationals. Two years ago, ATF whistleblower John Dodson revealed the incompetence of the Fast and Furious operation, which led to the resignation of a number of top-ranking ATF officials. It also led to Eric Holder becoming the first attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling congressional investigators. To this day, the ATF and its overseers at the Justice Department have refused to provide the House Oversight Committee thousands of documents that would shed light on Fast and Furious and possibly prevent another such debacle from occurring.

Dodson has now written a book about the scandal and his role in bringing it to light. Surely, his story is worth telling. However, the ATF has denied Dodson the right to publish his book, using the excuse that the agency is allowed approval over “outside employment.” As if to thoroughly burnish the ATF’s deserved reputation for incompetence, here is the note the bureau sent Dodson denying his request to publish his book, as quoted in the Washington Post: “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [field division] and would have a detremental [sic] effect on our relationships with [the Drug Enforcement Administration] and FBI.”

Via: Weekly Standard

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ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book

The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal. 

After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Two guns found at the murder scene were sold through the ATF operation. 

Dodson's book, titled "The Unarmed Truth," provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people. 

Dodson, who is working with publisher Simon & Schuster, submitted his manuscript to the department for review, per federal rules. However, it was denied. 

Greg Serres, an ATF ethics official, told Dodson that any of his supervisors at any level could disapprove outside employment "for any reason." 

Serres letter said: "This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental effect [sic] on our relationships with DEA and FBI." 

The national office of the American Civil Liberties Association is representing Dodson as he fights the decision. ACLU attorney Lee Rowland says the agency's restriction is overly broad. 

Via: Fox News

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