Weekly newsletter from Grassley...

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa 

Did the U.S. Attorney’s Office, ATF Case Agent Attempt to Obstruct Congressional Inquiry?

Secret recordings released over the last week corroborated details about coordination between the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix and the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) case agent in answering questions from my congressional investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.

Both the U.S. Attorney’s office and the ATF were intimately involved in the botched gun operation.  It started as an ATF case, but later became a “prosecutor-led,” multiagency strike force case.  An assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s office was responsible for coordinating the operation and deciding whether and when to prosecute the straw purchasers.  ATF supervisors claim that the U.S. Attorney’s office consistently refused to prosecute straw purchasers, which then required them to let the criminals and the guns go.  However, agents testified that there was plenty of evidence to justify stopping the suspects to question them and develop probable cause to seize the firearms.

The tapes, secretly recorded by the Federal Firearms Licensee cooperating with the ATF operation, bring more details to light in the botched operation that allowed guns to be purchased by known straw buyers who then transported the firearms to criminals and Mexican drug cartels.  Two guns found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were part of this operation, and many more have been found at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico.

The recordings reveal concerns raised by the gun dealer to ATF Case Agent Hope MacAllister about statements made by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley.  This recording corroborates a transcribed interview that congressional investigators had with the cooperating gun dealer and his attorney.  In the interview, the congressional investigators were informed that the Assistant U.S. Attorney allegedly told the gun dealer’s attorney to tell his client that the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the ATF and the gun dealer were “all in the same boat.”  On a separate occasion the ATF group supervisor in Phoenix, David Voth, allegedly told the gun dealer, “we are on all on the same sheet of music.  And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”  These statements were made to the gun dealer or his attorney while discussing the congressional inquiry that I had undertaken in late January 2011.

The interview, in conjunction with the recordings, shows what appears to be an attempt by federal officials to get the gun dealer on board with telling the same story to Congress about the ill-advised gun-walking strategy. 

In addition, the recordings showed the lengths the ATF might go to in order to head off a congressional investigation.  During one of the conversations between the cooperating gun dealer and the ATF case agent, the agent suggested that a way to make the issues “go away” would be to hire a private investigator to investigate me.

They obviously don’t know me very well.  I’ll keep working on getting to the bottom of this disastrous strategy until we find out who approved Fast and Furious, and we make sure something so stupid is never approved again.

September 23, 2011

~~~~~~~~~~                                                                                                                                         Yes, I receive a weekly newsletter from Senator Grassley.  We have been corresponding, off and on, since 1975.  That's back when you sent letters back and forth through the US Mail and he was a US Congressman :).  Now it's via email, of course.  He also sends out follow-up letters via snail mail.  He's a stand up guy.  Lives down the road a bit from me.   I don't think that he and Congressman Issa are going to roll over and play dead.  I loved his comment: "They obviously don't know me very well".                                                                                                                                                            

I hope we see some indictments soon.  High level indictments.  Criminals at the very highest levels of government.  They are criminals, ya know.  If you or I did what they have done we'd be in jail by now.  They would have thrown away the key.  (My momma used to tell me that "they" were gonna lock me up and throw away the key.  I miss her)

                                                                                                                                                                Anyway....

                                                                                                                                                               Stay safe.