DEA Agent: Other Fed Agencies Aware of Fast and Furious in 2009
In what appears to be an exclusive for border issues-focused Fronteras, Michel Marizco reveals information that seems to directly undermine the Department of Justice’s insistence that Operation Fast and Furious was a localized and compartmentalized plot within the Phoenix ATF and Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In sworn testimony in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week, U.S. Attorney Eric Holder continued with this stance. Holder was supported by congressional Democrats who cited a lack of evidence of corruption — corruption that the Oversight majority speculated was a result of the DOJ refusing to hand over the majority of the documents and witnesses requested.
Retired DEA official Tony Coulson was in charge of DEA-Tucson during Operation Fast and Furious. He now states that his agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were not only aware of the gunwalking plot, but that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were actively interdicting the plot, confiscating weapons the ATF was walking to Mexican narco-terrorists:
“In 2009, 2010, I became aware that ATF was walking guns into Mexico,” Coulson said. “I also learned that Homeland Security Investigations, then ICE, actually interceded on more than one occasion where they seized weapons at the ports of entry when they were heading southbound contrary to ATF’s plans.”
There was serious friction, Coulson claims, between ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the ATF in Phoenix. When Coulson took the gun walking to his bosses in Phoenix, he was told the lead law enforcement official in Arizona — U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke — was already aware of it.
Coulson reveals not just the extent of how widely Operation Fast and Furious was known of within federal law enforcement, but that the gunwalking plot was actively opposed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that interdicted the ATF-run weapons shipments on multiple occasions.
Coulson’s information opens up an entirely new group of federal law enforcement officers for interviews by congressional investigators. Investigators could get an idea from interviews with DEA and ICE agents just how widely Operation Fast and Furious was known of among the branches of the Obama administration.
Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller followed up with Coulson in an interview that seems to seriously undermine the position Attorney General Holder has taken that he did not know gunwalking was occurring:
Contrary to the picture Holder has tried to paint during his congressional hearing appearances, Coulson said that “yeah, absolutely” law enforcement officials were widely aware the ATF was using gun-walking tactics in Arizona. Coulson went so far as to say he suspects Holder himself was aware of the tactic, or was willfully unaware — meaning he didn’t want to know and made sure he wasn’t informed of gun-walking.
Depending on where the evidence takes them, Congress may very well have good reason to put DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart under oath to determine what her chain of command knew about Operation Fast and Furious. Leonhart had previously claimed that her department played only a support role, which is vastly different than the ATF’s Bill Newell’s position under oath when he claimed that ATF, DEA, ICE, and the Internal Revenue Service were all “full partners” in the gun-walking operation.
Investigators may also find cause to have Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel testify, and to issue subpoenas for relevant documents from both the DEA and DHS. Interviews with ICE agents and supervisors in Arizona could investigate the alleged interdictions of Fast and Furious weapons, the disposal of those firearms, and precisely what occurred as a result of the “serious friction” between ICE and ATF due to the latter organization’s plot to arm the Sinaloa cartel.
Former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke ran Operation Fast and Furious according to the Department of Justice’s current position. Burke’s history is interesting in the context of the gunwalking plot: he has long been a gun-ban architect for the Democratic Party and was behind the ineffectual 1994 “assault weapon” ban that sunset in 2004. Burke was the former Chief of Staff for former Governor Janet Napolitano for a number of years before she became the Secretary of Homeland Security. Considering their long-term relationship, his role running the plot on Napolitano’s home turf, and the ICE/DHS intercepts of Fast and Furious weapons, investigators may find a legitimate reason to request that Secretary Napolitano testify under oath in front of Congress about what she or other DHS officials may have known about the “widely known” plot.
It seems to have come down to a choice between having The One and The Hill “walk back” erroneous statements on guns confiscated in Mexico, or “walking” guns into Mexico to make it look like they weren’t just pulling numbers that sounded good (to their supporters) out of thin air.
Being progressives, they naturally chose the most expensive, risky, and ultimately disastrous course, in the hope of doing as much damage as they could to people they don’t like. Namely, law-abiding Americans who happen to own firearms.
As for the people who died, well, they feel about that the way Napoleon felt about making omelets. That is, nothing except perhaps the desire for an even bigger omelet.
There is a fine line between egomania, megalomania, and sociopathy. With Fast & Furious, this administration crossed it.
clear ether
eon
Too many different agencies in too many different cabinet departments for higher ups to at least not know, if not outright concoct.
Coulson went so far as to say he suspects Holder himself was aware of the tactic, or was willfully unaware — meaning he didn’t want to know and made sure he wasn’t informed of gun-walking.
I think “willful unawareness” is likely the tacitly agreed upon strategy of a lot of the administration crowd involved in covering up fast & furious and concealing what their knowledge was, or wasn’t.
As when Janet Napolitano claimed some time last year that she had never discussed F&F with Eric Holder, even after Agent Terry’s death.
Right, sure, uh huh
“During his testimony about Operation Fast and Furious before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he still hasn’t discussed the deadly scandal with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano or President Barack Obama.”
Mr Boehner, response?
(crickets)
But he’ll sure as heck let everyone know how he feels about religious freedom…a nice, cozy “safe” issue that is a complete sidetrack and distraction from other goings on in this current plastic government.
It looks to me like the chain of events may have gone something like this: 1) decide to extend U.S. gun control laws, beginning with the Mexican border; 2) order up a GAO study of the supposed problem [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf]; 3) set up a group of ATF and other Feds to encourage gun running; 4) find a couple of those guns and then claim that they represent 90% of guns found at crime sites in Mexico and along our border; and, 5) get Congress to pass various laws stopping the sale of several classes of firearms.
Add in A.E. Van Vogt’s “Right Man” hypothesis;
http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2004/10/right-man-and-fear-of-losing-face.html
And you have a fairly comprehensive summary of The One’s motivations for this debacle’.
The fact that none of it makes sense in any objective way is just one more indication that, as Van Vogt states, we are dealing with an adolescent living in his own fantasy world.
clear ether
eon
The “Right Man” syndrome definitely characterizes fundamentally insecure individuals of limited mental capacity, which describes both Holder and his boss.
The entire spin machine they dwell in is constructed to make the Wrong Man look Right.
For the record, the mentality also characterizes the middle eastern Muslim mind, which will kill its own children in order to “save face”.
Boehner and McDouchebag need to go! They are destroying this country just as fast as Ostupid. Who did they think they were foollng with that stupid debt extension deal? Retarded rabbits would run things better.
I am SOOOOOOO sick of frikkin’ RINOs!
Mr Owens,
Thank you for continuing to pursue this. I can’t get reliable info on this scandal anywhere else. I lived near the border in AZ when Agent Terry was murdered. Living in a rural area, we were well and truly on our own out there. It’s a dangerous enough place right now without our own government making it worse on purpose! Please keep up the good work. I just can’t believe this story hasn’t “blown up” yet. Why is no one in congress making this front page news????
While I agree that creating a reason to impose gun controls laws was probably the driving reason to operate Fast & Furious. But, don’t rule out that he was also working with the cartels. Remember that Barack Obama’s name appeared in a FARC computer during the 2008 election. These people are nothing but hard core leftists like Hugo Chavez.
Obama’s name appeared in the context of an email to a US Congressthing. It was apparently a feeler to see how the two sides — the “incoming administration” and the narcoterrorists — could work together.
Do we know how many of those guns have showed up here in the US? I can only find the number 11 when I google.
I cant believe that, the number has to be higher.
I still think not much will happen with these investigations until people start to directly testify against Holder and other major people who knew about this. The mainstream media is doing everything in its power to cover this up and ignore that anything even happened, so unless you have someone testifying before Congress that Holder knew all about this, nothing will happen. Sad but true.
Many years down the road when the Fast and Furious scandal is brought up for one reason or another the MSM will pretend like they covered it extensively at the time.
But what about “Gangwalker” — the ATF’s ordered sales to straw buyers taking their guns into Chicago?
We need to record all of there cell phone conversations, personal calls can be redacted. These people are devious. When they have something incriminating to say they either converse via personal cell or at an “off site” location in person. Look at Justice Kegan and how she avoided conversing about the Obama Care subject in her email. She simply asked for a cell phone #. It’s like the old mobsters talking cryptic slange, “He sleeps with the fishes.” Why this isn’t considered under the Rico Act? Well like all laws they write them! Time to Rise Up!
Kagan received an email with a question about Obamacare. Rather than replying with an answer which would have implicated her as having been a part of the Obamacare case she said call me. That way she was free to counsel her staff on Obamacare, but deny she ever did because there is no documentation.
Napolitano did the same thing with ICE. She gave a strictly verbal order to not arrest illegal aliens that was passed down the chain of command. There was no email or memo documenting the order so Napolitano could deny it despite the fact that ICE supervisors and union representatives confirmed they received verbal orders not to arrest illegal aliens.
“It wasn’t remotely cost-effective to buy semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull) AR-15 and AK-47 pattern rifles in the United States when the selective-fire military variants (real assault rifles) were both much less expensive to acquire and easier to acquire in bulk in many of the same countries from which they obtained their drugs.”
Absolutely true – - think, the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and possibly Ecuador, as well as F.A.R.C. in Colombia. In a shootout between opposing cartels, or cartels and the Mexican military, there is no way any cartel member would be without a fully automatic weapon. The one shot per trigger pull guns sent by the U.S. would only be useful for shooting unarmed sitting ducks such as innocent civilians.
Another thing I might have missed, but which seems essential to the well stocked arsenals of the cartels is thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition. I don’t recall seeing reports of any of the “gun walkers” buying ammunition. It is highly likely that the mega amounts of ammunition comes from the same groups who are supplying the fully automatic weapons – - and not from the U.S. “Murdergate” gun control conspirators.
It is impossible that F and F was concocted by ATF agents in Arizona. They knew better. Even if they had dreamed this up, they would have needed approval at the highest level of the DOJ to conduct such an operation.
As much as I hate to say it, if DEA was involved or Michelle Leonhart had knowledge, it is time to bring her in and put her under oath. This is a stain on all federal law enforcement agencies.
Gary Fouse
DEA-retired
The guy whose called the American public, well those with lighter melanin ‘cowards’.
Overwhelmingly not colorblind, except towards illegal aliens ‘rights’ and darker melanin militants who, if not his being a g-man would be grabbing his ankles on a daily basis for the TOTAL f’up FALN, Marc Rich pardon’s alone.
Who at the very least helped create a fictional backdrop of gun violence USING hundreds of murdered peoples in another country by PROVIDING weapons to drug cartel henchmen in hopes of resulting in more stringent/ stranglehold tactics on our albeit not perfect though excellent gun purchasing rights.
Even with the MURDER of a border agent from said guns, this dude is still withholding evidence and lying on the stand, repeatedly.. our nation’s #1 go-to legal ‘representative’.
Where’s the coverage regarding this POS nefarious actions? If the government’s ‘too busy’ to truly focus on this amoeba-like turd, then government is truly too big, wasteful. More importantly, useless.
This was a direct undermining of US foreign policy and a violation of several arms control treaties. Not to mention a violation of the US ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations).
How can a “rogue” group of agents in the SW US act in violation of US foreign policy and the President and/or Secretary of State not take issue with it?
How come when weapons were traced back to US origins that the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) didn’t conduct an investigation into the export violations? If they did and were warned off, why did they not inform the Secretary of State of this blatant undermining of US foreign relations?
According To The FBI, Internet Privacy Is Now Considered To Be Suspicious Activity
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/according-to-the-fbi-internet-privacy-is-now-considered-to-be-suspicious-activity
I wonder, when will the Mexicans issues and arrest warrant for Eric Holder charging him with illegal gun smuggling.
18. Ron
Since Oboma feels free to ignore a court order from an American state judge why do you think that Eric Holder will not do the same with a Mexican arrest warrent?
Point well taken.
I’m a little fuzzy on this, but does anyone remember roughly a year or so ago the Brady Campaign complaining to Obama about his lack of movement on gun control? The group had a meeting with the administration and afterwards the spokesperson for Brady came out and said the President told them to be patient and calm down, don’t worry, “we are working on it under the radar”. Gun advocates were wondering what “under the radar” meant. Perhaps he was referring to Fast and Furious as the “under the radar” solution?
It is a great relief to see that no more “homicides” are being committed with these “walked guns.” Or is it that they are no longer being recovered at the crime scenes?
Justice must prevail!
Mr. Coulson’s testimony, if he is not psychotic, puts the lie to executives in our federal police forces, DEA, ATF, FBI, and possibly Homeland Security. When veteran cops work in the same room, listening to the same wire taps, for months, as one focuses on drug crimes, the other focuses on weapons trafficking, and others focus on terrorist threats to our homeland, it is impossible to say that all were not involved. When strong objections from front line cops, from multiple agencies, that crimes are being committed, are silenced by their superiors, it is impossible to hold that a few rogue players in Arizona are solely responsible, when a cop is murdered.
This is not about rough politics about gun policy. It is essentially ongoing crimes: perjury, conspiracy, accessory, accomplice (depending on actions, and timing), being committed by our several federal police agencies. There are veteran cops who swore to uphold the law, fight the bad guys, who are now in agony. They are certain that they have been cruelly betrayed. This is unraveling like a $2 shirt.
The journalistic coverage by the NYT, WaPo, and other major media publications leave them naked to the charge of intentional ignorance of one of the greatest scandals in US history.
And where are loyal Democrats? Their cop was murdered.
Two nits: Billionaire drug cartels do not worry about the cost of weapons, as private purchasers do. It is true their weapons are disposable, but their sole concern is availability. And semi-automatic weapons can readily be converted to full automatic with gun smithing talent and machining capability. I do not judge that either issue is a significant concern to wealthy mass killers.
Other than blowing his horn about what he supposedly knows (or doesn’t know) about ATF Fast and Furious, I’d like Coulson to answer three other questions regarding his lack of candor and personal integrity.
1. Why, when you owned a home in California, did you ask a DEA confidential source to secure a Colorado P.O. Box when you were stationed in Thailand?
2. What information was either fabricated by your or withheld from Task Force officers and even defense attorneys regarding the investigation of Billy Uhler?
3. When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, do you smirk as you think about the number of people you’ve either exploited or deliberately used on your way to the top? You always had an affinity for women more than half your age. What does Mrs. Coulson really know?