(note1:this rather long, but detailed posting, pretty much tells the whole, real story, it was in reply to some other whiners on another board, not here, but worth the read, I thought.. weco)
That the usual suspects are already fulminating about this story blowing the cover off the real story about "Fast and Furious", and showing it for what it is/was - a partisan witch hunt - tells me this is something the Obama Administration will be able to use in the upcoming election.
I would like to go over a few things about this investigative piece because it really does show the need for calmer heads and methodical investigation of claims by people who ruin other people's careers before a thorough investigation has been made.
I've read this piece twice, beginning to end.
It is extremely well researched, and as Fortune/CNN says, this report has taken them six months to put together.
What is amazing about all of this is there was never, NEVER, a case of one gun being "walked" by the ATF during the "Fast and Furious" investigation.
It is worth stating again: Not-one-single-gun was walked by the ATF Group VII during "Fast and Furious". Period.
Not only that, but outside of this investigation, Darryl Issa just had to announce his witch hunt cannot connect the Obama Administration to a "coverup" of "Fast and Furious", or any connection to it at all.
(All Issa and his Republicans can lockstep to is asking that Attorney General Holder be held in contempt for not releasing documents they wanted to see. Holder's reason for not releasing these documents at this time is the documents would blow the cover of ongoing investigations. This is another topic for another thread.)
So, "Fast and Furious" never had one documented case of ATF agents buying caches of guns at one time and then - acting as a straw man purchaser (or setting up a sting by turning around and selling them to a straw man purchaser) - which would enable the ATF to follow a hot trail of where the weapons were sold, when they were sold and to whom they were sold to.
That was the Big Lie proffered by one lone ATF turncoat, named James Dodson, who - as you can all learn yourselves by reading the whole investigative piece from Fortune/CNN - went out on his own to sell a made up story about ATF gun running.
Crazier yet, this story takes 180 degree detour: there was only one documented government-run "gun walking" case ever uncovered by the Fortune/CNN investigation and that case was outside "Fast and Furious."
And the man at the center of that one documented "gun walking" case is none other than (drum roll, please) Agent James Dodson.
Yep, that James Dodson. The whistle-blowing James Dodson. The hero of the rightwing witch hunt, James Dodson.
Furthermore, Agent Dodson, now outed as a sociopathic liar, is who Darrell Issa and Republicans have hung their case against ATF and their "Fast and Furious" program.
Musings about ATF Group VII, the NRA, Agent James Dodson, Agent Dave Voth, "Fast and Furious", "Gun Walking", Arizonan gun laws, US Attorney Hurley (of Arizona), Darrell Issa, Republican reactionaries and more:
As stated, there was only one documented case of an ATF agent buying guns and selling them downstream to follow - and those guns were later lost. (And that was done outside the "Fast and Furious" investigation.)
More importantly, that one case concerned the sale of 6 handguns for $2500 in an Arizona gun shop. And those guns were then sold by the ATF agent to a straw buyer who gave the agent an extra $700 as a fee for buying and selling the guns to that buyer.
Here's what voters outght to know about this miscreant ATF agent: his name is James Dodson.
Yep, that James Dodson, the treasonous SOB who was Darrell Issa's point dog "whistle-blower" of CBS "60 Minutes" fame.
My irony meter exploded several times as I read this investigative piece
Here is why:
1. James Dodson, crank ATF agent who chafed at protocol, went on TV and accused his methodical and by the book superiors of "gun walking" to Mexico during "Fast and Furious".
2. James Dobson becomes hero of rightwing reactionaries who use Dobson's accusation as "proof" that the ATF's "Fast and Furious" program was responsible for an Border Agent Terry's death.
3. That death of Agent Terry, in fact, was never linked to any "gun walking" by any ATF agent.
4. The reason the Mexican cartels buy guns from straw men in Arizona is the state has the most lax gun laws in the nation allowing for the purchase of multiple weapons at one time by anyone aged 18 or older and who does not have a serious criminal record.
5. Because of the NRA's influence, agents for ATF do not have any real time computerized national database for gun buys. In fact, ATF agents in Arizona had to manually go to gun stores, leaf through hundreds of their hand written files, write notes about who purchased what, and then start entering all these hand written notes into an Arizonan ATF Office database.
6. Also, Arizonan US Attorney Prosecutor Hurley had the power to quell any investigation by saying yea/nay to ATF agents who wanted to bring charges against gun runners. In fact, as you will learn when your read the whole piece, the guns which killed border-Agent Terry were guns bought and sold not by ATF agents, but by straw man purchasers which the ATF were following.
Here's the kicker on that: the US Attorney Office's head, AG Hurley is an avid gun lover. And he prevented the ATF from moving on arresting the straw purchasers they were following. Had he allowed them to arrest, Agent Terry would still be alive.
Hence, a sitting, gun-loving, NRA-friendly US Attorney, was the reason the guns used to kill Agent Terry were never interdicted by ATF's Group VII in Arizona. It's not that Group VII didn't step in to stop those guns from being sold down the line. They wanted to arrest the straw man selling those guns. But they were told by AG Hurley they had no case.
No where - and at no time - did ATF's Group VII act to purchase guns, then turn around and sell those guns downline during "Fast and Furious".
Period.
7. As the article points out, had any agent moved on interdicting any of the guns used to kill Agent Terry that/those agent(s) would have opened himself/themselves up to lawsuits.
Arizonan gun friendly (and NRA friendly) laws allow the purchase of multiple guns at one time in Arizona. And as the US Attorney in Arizona stated numerous times, it was also lawful to buy numerous guns and then - on a whim (cough, cough)- turn around immediately and sell those same guns to someone else.
(Mustn't step in the way of a profitable venture such as buying and selling guns. Nor must we step on anyone's 2nd Amendment rights, right?)
8. Let me repeat: there never was a single provable incident during the "Fast and Furious" operation of "selling guns" to criminals and following those guns and then losing those guns and then those guns were later used to kill a Federal Border Patrol agent. Nope. Never happened.
But don't expect the fringe rightwing nutbags to walk back their dis-information and mis-information, and calumny and distortions concerning the "Fast and Furious" operation which none of them themselves had bothered to investigate as thoroughly as Fotrune/CNN.
9. However, the nutbag, belligerent, sociopathic ATF agent and so-called whistle blower (Dodson) who went on TV and made such allegations actually instigated such a scheme - one time - and then when it came time for him to follow the guns, this true American Hero got surly with his supervisor and went ahead on a vacation. It was during Agent James Dodson's vacation that the trail of the guns were lost.
Yes, that is correct.
The man who made the most damning accusations ever about the ATF is in reality the only ATF agent in Arizona who did the dirty deed he accused others of doing.
And how did he react when he was asked how he could ask for and go on a vacation when he should be tracing the guns he had his direct pick straw man buy and sell downline?
Like a big a$$ baby.
More specifically, how did Dobson work this dangerous mission (outside of "Fast and Furious") to buy, sell directly to a straw man, allowing Agent Dodson to trace, follow and get back six guns he bought at one time by himself?
Let's go to the investigative piece:
...Dodson opened a case into a suspected gun trafficker named Isaiah Fernandez. He had gotten Casa to approve the
case when Voth was on leave. Dodson had directed a cooperating straw purchaser to give three guns to Fernandez and had
taped their conversations without a prosecutor'sapproval.
Uh-oh, Mr. Renegade, Agent James Dodson, gets one of his cohorts from his "Renegades" group inside ATF Group VII - and who also is acting supervisor while Dave Voth is out of town - to approve a gun walking scheme. But then Dodson runs afoul in his operation by taping conversations between him and the straw man without a prosecutor's approval. This derails the case temporarily. How long would such evidence stand up in a trial for a gun runner who was unaware he was illegally being taped (no warrant or directive) without approval?
But I digress. There's more to Dodson's "gun walking" scheme outside of "Fast and Furious".
Voth first learned these details a month into the case. He demanded that Dodson meet with him and get approval from
prosecutors to tape conversations. Five days later, Dodson sent an uncharacteristically diplomatic response. (He and
Alt had revised repeated drafts in that time, with Alt pushing to make the reply "less abrasive." Dodson e-mailed back:
"Less abrasive? I felt sick from kissing all that ass as it was.") Dodson wrote that he succeeded in posing undercover
as a straw purchaser and claimed that prosecutor Hurley—who he had just belatedly contacted—had raised "new concerns."
The prosecutor had told Dodson that an assistant U.S. Attorney "won't be able to approve of letting firearms 'walk'
in furtherance of your investigation without first briefing the U.S. Attorney and Criminal Chief."
It was the first time Voth learned that Dodson intended to walk guns. Voth says he refused to approve the plan
and instead consulted his supervisor, who asked for a proposal from Dodson in writing. Dodson then drafted one, which
Vothforwarded to his supervisor, who approved it on May 28.
(My note: Voth did NOT approve Dodson's crazy "gun walking scheme", but Voth's superior did. Remember, Dodson went on TV and accused his superiors (which would include Voth) of setting up "gun walking" during "Fast and Furious".)
More on Dodson's failed scheme:
On June 1, Dodson used $2,500 in ATF funds to purchase six AK Draco pistols from local gun dealers, and gave these to
Fernandez, who reimbursed him and gave him $700 for his efforts. Two days later, according to case records, Dodson—who
would later testify that in his previous experience, "if even one [gun] got away from us, nobody went home until we
found it"—left on a scheduled vacation without interdicting the guns. (Note: my head exploded reading that one.) That
day, Voth wrote to remind him that money collected as evidence needed to be vouchered within five days. Dodson e-mailed
back, his sarcasm fully restored: "Do the orders define a 'day'? Is it; a calendar day? A business day or work day….?
An Earth day (because a day on Venus takes 243 Earth days which would mean that I have plenty of time)?"
(My note: this is the guy on whose testimony the whole "Fast and Furious" coverup investigation was launched? Are you kidding me? Where was Judith Miller and Curveball when Issa needed professional liars? )
Lastly on Dodson's "gun walking" blowup - which Dodson had intiated himself first while Voth was out of the office, and secondly, without Voth's approval, but only with Voth's superior's approval:
The guns were never recovered, the case was later closed, and Fernandez was never charged. By any definition, it was gun
walking of the most egregious sort: a government agent using taxpayer money to deliver guns to bad guys and then
failing to intercept them.
Got that? American hero, darling of the rightwing blogosphere, Agent James Dodson, arranged for a gun running of guns he purchased taxpayer's money. And then when it was time for him to follow the guns in this knuckleheaded scheme of his, he pitched a piss fit and went on vacation.
Question to CBS, right wing bloggers, posters from winger boards, and all the Republicans who piled on for the witch hunt. Still feeling smug?
10. I'll point out one more time, because it bears repeating again and again to combat lazy partisan hacks who've made this a story of Obama and Holder covering up crimes under the "Fast and Furious" program: those lost guns from Agent Dodson's Fernandez case were NOT part of "Fast and Furious." They were a separate investigation instigated by James Dodson, hero of the rightwing witch hunt, and now a man looking like a petty, back-stabbing, hypocritical, treasonous SOB.
The Fortune/CNN investigation was deep and wide, and it uncovered a load of new information for the public to chew on and understand. They just didn't put this investigation together by making a few phone calls and reading a few documents pertaining to the case. As Fortune/CNN states:
Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked
guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000
pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct
knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.
(My note: remember the CBS piece where Agent Dodson made the outrageous accusations that the ATF was buying guns and selling them into the market to follow, and had lost track of those weapons? CBS never interviewed Agent Dave Voth, the head of the ATF's Group VII. Nor did any right wing reactionary bloggers. So all that was aired were these wild a$$ accusations by an embittered lower functionary who had petty grudges against superiors he wished to settle. I hope this Agent Dodson gets a Federal prison sentence once this is all settled.)
In the beginning, all that we heard is one side of the story. And geezy peezy, have the rightwing bloggers and reactionaries on message boards everywhere had a field day with this "Fast and Furious" conspiracy/coverup. And as we learned in this CNN/Fortune invesigation, the guy with the alligator mouth making the wildest of accusations, is now the slimiest, seamiest, scuzziest player in the "Fast and Furious" story. Scuzball Dodson decided to make his superior officer's life hell by making up a story to incriminate his boss, and for that, I hope he never receives any pension for the so called "work" he did as an aberrant ATF agent in Arizona.
The guy doesn't deserve a single penny of taxpayer monies.
But what about the guy whose career Agent Dodson trashed, his immediate superior Agent Voth?
In 2009, ATF Agent Dave Voth was promoted to head one of seven ATF teams focused on stopping the sales of guns to Mexican criminals.
First of all, let's look at what kind of Agent this David Voth - leader of Group VII in Arizona - was. From the link:
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marine is cool-headed and
punctilious to a fault. In 2009 the ATF named him outstanding law-enforcement employee of the year for dismantling
two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. He was the "hardest working federal agent I've come across," says John
Biederman, a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department. But as Voth left to become the group supervisor of
Phoenix Group VII, a friend warned him: "You're destined to fail."
Voth's mandate was to stop gun traffickers in Arizona, the state ranked by the gun-control advocacy group Legal
Community Against Violence as having the nation's "weakest gun violence prevention laws." Just 200 miles from Mexico,
which prohibits gun sales, the Phoenix area is home to 853 federally licensed firearms dealers. Billboards advertise
volume discounts for multiple purchases.
Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they're 18 or older and pass a criminal
background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns.
"In Arizona," says Voth, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."
In the story, Voth is described as a straight up, by the book, agent. He's not footloose, un-prepared, non-thinking.
On the other hand, this Agent Dodson, who had it out for Voth and who went to CBS's "60 Minutes" to blabber mouth wild accusations about a superior who was still overseeing ongoing investigations, was just the opposite. He showed up to work in flip flops, was taken off a case for coming to work without proper equipment, and his best man at his wedding described him as an a$$hole who could never keep his mouth shut anytime an idea popped into his head.
Dodson is the hypocrite whose unconfirmed accusations were picked up and amplified by Republican blogging reactionaries whose only mission in life is to make President Obama and his administration look bad. Damn the facts, damn letting the investigation take place, go ahead and print and amplify the damning unconfirmed accusations of a bad apple ATF agent whose only mission in life was to make his superior pay for admonishing him and writing him up for sloppy work habits.
Moreover, we now see that backstabbing Agent Dodson was actually the only ATF agent to direct a buy and set up straw purchases . . . all while his superior, Agent Voth, was away from the office.
One time in ATF's Group VII history - only one time - had an ATF Agent bought guns - and then immediately sold them through a set up straw man. And who performed this task without any authorization by Agent Voth (who was away from the office) when this request was rammed through by a "friendly" ATF agent taking Voth's place? Right wing true American Hero ATF Agent Dodson. That's who. Another rightwing reactionary caught in the act of lying,
Agent Dodson was the wolf who cried "wolf".
Let's look at this prevaricator Dodson whose testimony and TV appearances have caused a vapor lock on important work in Congress:
Dodson was known as an unprofessional "renegade". In fact, his group of three in this Arizonan ATF Group VII office was known as "the Renegades".
Dodson's faction grew antagonistic to Voth. They regularly fired off snide e-mails and seemed to delight in mocking
Voth and his methodical nature. They were scornful of protocol, according to ATF agents. Dodson would show up to work in
flip-flops. He came unprepared for operations—without safety equipment or back-up plans—and was pulled off at least
one surveillance for his own safety, say two colleagues. He earned the nickname "Renegade," and soon Voth's group
effectively divided into two clashing factions: the Sunshine Bears and the Renegades.
And there's more to this story than just Agent Dodson lying about a superior and the ATF to make them look bad. There's the NRA side to this story.
The unintended criticism of NRA policies by Darryl Issa and his henchmen in Congress
Because of the NRA's lobbying of Republican legislators, there is no real time national database of gun purchases be they single purchases of just one gun, or multiple purchases at one time - even when a person with no visible income, or who is on food stamps (Agent Voth had two cases like these which the NRA friendly Assistant US Attorney General of Arizona Hurley turned down for wiretaps)suddenly shows up at a guns shop and purchases $20,000 worth of firearms, or purchases a $5,000 50 caliber long gun with tripod.
From the article:
They were seven agents pursuing more than a dozen cases, of which Fast and Furious was just one, their efforts
complicated by a lack of adequate tools. Without a real-time database of gun sales, they had to perform a laborious
archaeology. Day after day, they visited local gun dealers and pored over forms called 4473s, which dealers must keep on
file. These contain a buyer's personal information, a record of purchased guns and their serial numbers, and a
certification that the buyer is purchasing the guns for himself. (Lying on the forms is a felony, but with weak
penalties attached.) The ATF agents manually entered these serial numbers into a database of suspect guns to help them
build a picture of past purchases.
By January 2010 the agents had identified 20 suspects who had paid some $350,000 in cash for more than 650 guns.
According to Rep. Issa's congressional committee, Group VII had enough evidence to make arrests and close the case then.
Question: So why didn't the ATF go ahead and make arrests?
Answer: The NRA stooge, Assistant US Attorney General for Arizona, Hurley, would not allow agents to make an arrest because he determined everything these buyers of multiple guns were all legal.
And the beauty of all this is Daryl Issa and his Republicans are trying to paint the US ATF Group VII in Arizona as complicit aides to "gun walking" by Federal agents overseeing "Fast and Furious" when:
a) there was never a case of gun walking during "Fast and Furious",
b) the ATF could not make a case against gun traffickers who bought and sold the weapons which killed US Border Patrol's Agent Terry because the recalcitrant Assistant US Attorney in Arizona is in effect the man who allows/dis-allows gun running cases to be built or pursued
and because
c) Hurley is a gun nut
and
d) Hurley was seen by two agents once helping one of his friends sell hardware at an Arizonan gun show
and
e) there is no digitialized/real time national database to collect and collate and sort through because the NRA pays off too many Republicans to keep that sort of info from being shared nationwide.
So, Issa and his Republicans are now at odds with the NRA. As the article states:
Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who
support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing
enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.
The fact that a sitting US Attorney/pro gun advocate was seen at a local gun show helping a friend to sell weapons should tell most even keeled people why the ATF in Arizona was severely hampered in trying to collect evidence on who was running mass quantities of guns south of the border.
The fact that a lone wolf agent, Dodson, went on national TV and made false accusations against his superiors, when it was he, himself, guilty of gun walking tells us our mainstream media was yet again suckered by a sensationalistic headline from a "Curveball" type of stoolie which was quickly picked up by Republican bloggers and Republican legislators willing to use any kind of innuendo to take the piss out of the Obama administration.
That this whole thing has blown up in the faces of the NRA, Daryl Issa, Republicans, rightwing hacks, and gun nuts everywhere is enough to make Progressive/Independent voters know there's only one thing to do this November, and it isn't pulling the lever for a flip/flopping liar who backs a party which reminds us of Joseph McCarthy in the 21st Century.
Read the whole damn thing.
It will make you shake your head.
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