From House Oversight hearing on Fast and Furious:
DC Representative Eleanor Norton asked about Mexico’s gun laws. According to Norton: “Trafficking is wide open” in America. She blamed Congress for being controlled by the “gun lobby.”
Norton tried to claim that domestic trafficking is just as bad here. “If I had a dollar for every mistake this Congress made on guns, I’d be a rich woman.”
Did you feel disarmed in this fight against this wholesale trafficking against guns to Mexico. “Would you feel more able if Congress passed a law that prohibited transfers to prohibited persons?” Norton appears ignorant of US Code Title 18, Section 922, which already outlaws such transfers.
ATF Special Agent Newell says they can’t stop somebody who bought 100 AK-47s. But Darren Gil – Former ATF Attaché to Mexico, says agents are perfectly able to deal with trafficking under current laws.
Special Agent Canino, acting ATF attaché to Mexico, says it’s against policy to walk guns to Mexico. Walking guns is “exactly what happened in this case…when you have control of the guns and you don’t interdict.”
Special Agent Newell says gunwalking is only when an ATF agent puts guns into hands of prohibited persons. He disagrees with Canino. He claims Fast and Furious originated at “the street level.” He cannot or will not name specific agents, but says it was a group, including Special Agent McMahon, ATF Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations (West, including Phoenix and Mexico).
Newell said DEA, IRS, ICE all participated.
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