Author Topic: Operation Fast & Furious  (Read 34065 times)

Hazcat

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #30 on: August 16, 2011, 11:06:24 AM »
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

August 16, 2011

--SNIP--

The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency's headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF's deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency's Phoenix office.

--SNIP--

McMahon was promoted Sunday to deputy assistant director of the ATF's Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations — the division that investigates misconduct by employees and other problems.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF's acting director, said in an agency-wide confidential email announcing the promotion that McMahon was among ATF employees being rewarded because of "the skills and abilities they have demonstrated throughout their careers."

Newell was the special agent in charge of the field office for Arizona and New Mexico, where Fast and Furious was conducted. On Aug. 1, the ATF announced he would become special assistant to the assistant director of the agency's Office of Management in Washington.

Voth was an on-the-ground team supervisor for the operation, and last month he was moved to Washington to become branch chief for the ATF's tobacco division.

--SNIP--

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110816,0,7676977.story

More and comments at link.
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tombogan03884

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #31 on: August 16, 2011, 01:05:25 PM »
Meanwhile the whistle blower got canned.

fightingquaker13

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #32 on: August 16, 2011, 01:24:21 PM »
Its pretty standard CYA. Ballsy, and hopefully stupid, but a solid ploy. You promote the guys who did wrong, therefore saying that no wrong was done, it was SOP, kosher, and above board. Nothing to see here folks, move along. In effect "I dare you to say it wasn't". Here's hoping it bites them in the ass. >:(
FQ13

Rastus

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #33 on: August 16, 2011, 07:22:55 PM »
Meanwhile the whistle blower got canned.

The real reason for the promotion is, I would imagine, to insure there are some friendlies around after the adminsitration is gone.  They have to go with the flow because if the big guys go down so do they.  Typical lawyer politician trick to protect their six. 

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Pathfinder

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #34 on: August 16, 2011, 08:17:41 PM »
Anyone consider the fact that maybe someone is buying their silence? For a while anyhow - the heat gets too hot, then they'll squeal, but for now, they are richer and more powerful than before. They've been bought.
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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #35 on: Today at 05:34:36 PM »

fightingquaker13

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #35 on: August 16, 2011, 09:24:28 PM »
Anyone consider the fact that maybe someone is buying their silence? For a while anyhow - the heat gets too hot, then they'll squeal, but for now, they are richer and more powerful than before. They've been bought.
And threatened at the same time. Its classic cartel Plato O Plomo. "I just promoted you because I know you'll be loyal. Look how easy that was. Now, if I think you're going to be disloyal? Well, that's easy too."
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tombogan03884

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #36 on: August 17, 2011, 01:43:13 AM »
This from FOX

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/16/senator-blasts-atfs-reported-promotion-supervisors-in-ill-fated-gun-operation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/16/senator-blasts-atfs-reported-promotion-supervisors-in-ill-fated-gun-operation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

A top Republican senator slammed the Justice Department for reportedly promoting the supervisors of the failed anti-gunrunning sting operation Fast and Furious, which is under a federal and congressional investigation after weapons linked to program were used in a December attack in Mexico that killed a U.S. border patrol agent.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted three key supervisors of Operation Fast and Furious who came under fire for pushing the program even after it clearly spiraled out of control.

The three supervisors -- William Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who managed the program out of the agency’s Phoenix office, and William McMahon, who was the ATF’s deputy director of operations in the West -- are being transferred to Washington for new management positions at the agency’s headquarters, the newspaper reported.

“Until Attorney General (Eric) Holder and Justice Department officials come clean on all alleged gun-walking operations, including a detailed response to allegations of a Texas-based scheme, it is inconceivable to reward those who spearheaded this disastrous operation with cushy desks in Washington,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cornyn sent a letter to Holder last week demanding answers following reports of alleged Texas-based “gun-walking” programs similar to “Fast and Furious.”

Holder insists that he didn’t know about the operation as it was being carried out. But Republican leaders say he should have known.

Spokesmen for the ATF did not return phone calls to the newspaper seeking comment.

At a congressional hearing in June, three ATF agents said they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels. So far, 20 small-time gun-buyers have been indicted, but the investigation is still under way.

ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson admitted last month to congressional investigators that his agency, in at least one instance, allowed sales of high-powered weapons without intercepting them -- and he accuses his superiors at the Justice Department of stonewalling Congress to protect political appointees in the scandal over those decisions.

The operation was designed to track small-time gun buyers up to major weapons traffickers along the U.S. border with Mexico. Critics estimate that 1,800 guns targeted in the operation are unaccounted for, and about two-thirds of those probably are in Mexico.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/16/senator-blasts-atfs-reported-promotion-supervisors-in-ill-fated-gun-operation/#ixzz1VGX02Qyf

twyacht

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #37 on: August 18, 2011, 03:30:13 PM »


Holder insists that he didn’t know about the operation as it was being carried out. But Republican leaders say he should have known.



LIE!!!!! The Asst. AG not only knew he promoted it on C-Span back in Jan. 10.

Here's the Best Part:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atf-responds-to-inaccurate-news-reports-regarding-fast-and-furious-personnel-127966138.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following statement is from Scot Thomasson, chief, Public Affairs Division, Office of Public and Governmental Affairs, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF):

"Recent media reports have inaccurately characterized personnel changes involving ATF agents associated with the Fast and Furious operation as promotions. Special Agents Voth, Newell and McMahon were laterally transferred from operational positions and moved into administrative roles, they were not promoted.  They did not receive salary or grade increases nor did they assume positions with greater responsibility. 

On May 13, 2011, Deputy Assistant Director McMahon, Field Operations was reassigned to a position within the Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations back filling a position that had been vacant for over a year.  His transfer was one of six other transfers announced on that day involving various other positions.

On August 1, 2011, Special Agent Newell, who had been selected as Country Attache Mexico City, was reassigned to the Office of Management to assist with the OIG investigation and Congressional inquiry.

Furthermore, Special Agent Voth was reassigned to a headquarters position, a lateral move into a program area.

These transfers/reassignments have never been described as promotions in any of the documents announcing them."

Contact: Public Affairs Division
(202) 648-8500

*****

See, we had it all wrong.... Oh, but there's more:

******

The public scandal began when ATF whistleblowers disclosed that a multi-agency federal law enforcement operation in Arizona — Operation Fast and Furious — supplied weapons found at the crime scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

It was quickly revealed that federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, and administration appointees ensured that straw purchasers would be able to purchase weapons intended for the Sinaloa drug cartel without the threat of arrest. As federal agents watched — essentially acting as cartel security — 2,020 firearms were purchased, and the majority of them were “walked” by straw purchasers into the hands of the violent drug gang.


Mexican authorities claim that an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers, plus an unknown number of civilians have been murdered with weapons “walked” under the eyes of the federal task force. Three U.S. federal agents have also been shot in crimes using Fast and Furious weapons. Two died.

Initially, the Obama administration attempted to scapegoat acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. When that failed, they colluded with the Washington Post and later possibly the New York Times on attempted character assassinations of Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa, along with Senator Charles Grassley, is leading the charge to investigate the scandal.

A month following Melson’s testimony to Issa’s committee, the Gunwalker landscape has changed considerably.  Emails have been unearthed, additional figures with inside knowledge of the operation are testifying, and more congressmen and senators have joined the probe of the Department of Justice to see just how wide and high the administration’s knowledge of and participation in the gunwalking program — or programs — truly went.

All of these evolving disclosures are increasing the pressure on administration officials such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, both of whom simply must have known of the operations considering the high-level collaboration between multiple agencies under their control.


Which leads to President Obama: how is it possible that the White House was not aware of Fast and Furious while it was occurring? We now know the following:


    * The #2 man in the ATF, Acting Deputy Director William Hoover, tried to shut Operation Fast and Furious down in March of 2010 but was rebuffed.
    * Officials with the Justice Department and ATF tried to evade Senator Grassley’s attempts to discover where the guns came from.

    * A National Security Council (NSC) operative in the White House named Kevin O’Reilly was in direct contact with Bill Newell, the agent in charge of the operation. (Are we to believe that the benign emails released between the two men were their only Gunwalker conversations, and that O’Reilly wasn’t briefing the National Security Council or the president?)
    * The U.S. attorney involved in Fast And Furious, Dennis Burke, is a long-time Napolitano ally and was her chief of staff while she was governor from 2003-2008. Burke is also on the attorney general’s Advisory Committee border and immigration law enforcement subcommittee. He recently opposed a routine filing by murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s family, in a move that appears designed to protect him in criminal and civil trials regarding Gunwalker.
    * Emails reveal that every law enforcement director in DOJ was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious. All have been silent on the allegations except the scapegoated Melson and the DEA administrator, who surfaced long enough to deny that her agency was involved in the criminal actions.

    * The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Treasury were involved (State and CIA have allegedly had roles in the operation, but these allegations have not been confirmed by evidence).

With this level of cooperation across at least three (Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury) departments and among at least eight directors, with long-term personal contacts between friends and political allies that have been fingered as key players in this scandal, and with the president’s own words and deeds regarding his radical views towards gun rights in this country, is it rational to believe the president and his closest advisers had nothing to do with this murderous plot?


When we see a cover-up being orchestrated, we should rationally assume that the cover-up exists to hide criminal culpability. When we see corruption spread across the highest and most connected levels of government, we should rationally assume that the person at the top, President Obama, likely was involved.


With the latest evidence, Barack Obama and his co-conspirators no longer have plausible deniability. It remains to see how they will fare with criminal culpability, as more whistleblowers come forward from Justice and DHS to avoid prison time themselves.


http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-president-obamas-un-plausible-deniability/?singlepage=true

****

I urge more info, that the MSM WILL NOT COVER, is found here...

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/



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Col. Jeff Cooper.

tombogan03884

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #38 on: August 18, 2011, 04:47:44 PM »
Your just saying that cuz he's black.
Actually, 2 of them are black, ones a tax evader and the last one is an idiot.

JC5123

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Re: Operation Fast & Furious
« Reply #39 on: August 18, 2011, 05:44:22 PM »
Your just saying that cuz he's black.
Actually, 2 of them are black, ones a tax evader and the last one is an idiot.


No wonder they work for the feds.
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