Justice Department Stonewalls While More Evidence Against the Agency Piles Up

When whistleblowers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) first came to me with allegations that the ATF was allowing guns to be sold to known straw purchasers and illegally smuggled to Mexico, I couldn’t believe it was true.  How could the federal government knowingly allow guns to fall into the hands of the bad guys? 

ATF Special Agent John Dodson, a courageous whistleblower, was upset when Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a gunfight near the U.S.-Mexico border.  As it turns out, Special Agent Dodson knew that the guns recovered at the scene of the firefight were the same guns that had been earlier bought by a straw purchaser intent on re-selling the guns to people associated with Mexican drug cartels.  What I’ve learned from whistleblowers is that when the ATF agents who were monitoring the sales of these suspicious gun purchases in Arizona asked their higher-ups if they could intervene, they were ordered to let the straw buyers go.  These agents had warned their bosses that this strategy was headed for disaster, and somebody would be killed.  Ultimately, it appears they were proven right.

After ten letters to the Justice Department or the ATF to get to the bottom of this ill-advised strategy, I have received five responses—two that provided false information, one that provided no information, one that sought to deter me from seeking information from other sources, and one that partially responded to my concern about attempts to prevent communications between whistleblowers and Congress.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the Justice Department, the evidence is quickly stacking up in support of the whistleblower allegations.  Through witness testimony, and reams of documents given to us through anonymous sources, we’ve learned that ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson was intimately involved in the ATF’s operation along the Southwest Border, even lauding it as an extremely successful operation.  Even more troubling is that it’s clear that individuals at the Justice Department were also involved in certain aspects of the strategy along the border. 

The evidence that we’ve gathered is clear—the ATF sanctioned the sale of guns to straw purchasers that were then used in crimes on both sides of the Southwest Border.  Officials at both the Justice Department and the ATF knew of and approved the operation.
 
At best, the ATF was careless in authorizing the sale of thousands of guns to straw purchasers; at worst our own government knowingly participated in arming criminals, drug cartels, and those who later killed federal agents.  Either way, it is tragic and unacceptable.  Someone needs to be held to account.

Since that first correspondence and subsequent conversations between my staff and more than a dozen whistleblowers and documents, it looks like the Department of Justice has a lot of explaining to do. 

The truth will eventually win out, and I hope the Justice Department and the ATF are ready to come clean and deal with the consequences.