Fast and Furious AK Shows Up at Garland,TX Terror Attack

Bartholomew Roberts · August 1, 2015, 10:28 AM

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1.../p2p-84121444/

The LA Times is reporting that Nadir Soofi, who had misdemeanor drug and assault convictions, purchased his AK47 through Lone Wolf Trading Co. In Phoenix - Lone Wolf was the gun store that the ATF directed to sell guns to prohibited people under Fast and Furious.

He would later use the same AK in his attempt to shoot up the "Draw Mohammad" event in Garland,TX.

**Tom Servo** · August 1, 2015, 12:46 PM

Actually, the only gun they mention being traced to Lone Wolf was a 9mm pistol. They don't mention where he got the rifles.

I'd like to think this would be the impetus to reopen the F&F investigation, but it looks like that's fizzled out. Nobody got fired, and the contempt charges against Holder had no effect.

Catfish King · August 1, 2015, 01:12 PM

Not to wax too political, but I see Holder going to the SCOTUS if the opportunity arises during Obama's final year and a half.

F&F proved one thing to me... The "gubmint" will do whatever it can to create discord among gun owners and those legal age voters that are currently fence sitting on the issue of guns in America.

IIRC, a gun used in a crime most certainly traced back to Op. F&F, which blew the whole thing wide open publicly.

Pond, James Pond · August 1, 2015, 02:58 PM

Can someone explain what Fast and Furious was outside the eerily true to life docu-drama series that Hollywood produced?

Just so I can put this story and its significance in perspective.

A reliable link would be fine.

barnbwt · August 1, 2015, 03:24 PM

"I'd like to think this would be the impetus to reopen the F&F investigation, but it looks like that's fizzled out. Nobody got fired, and the contempt charges against Holder had no effect."
Heck, even the gun store is still in business.

"Can someone explain what Fast and Furious was outside the eerily true to life docu-drama series that Hollywood produced?"
Early in the new Obama administration 'somebody' (the attorney general/top law enforcement officer, but nothing yet proven) decided it would be a good idea to allow weapons to be illegally sold to persons both unable to legally purchase firearms, and likely to transport them into Mexico. There has been this long-running myth among American anti-gunners that our civilian gun market is responsible for all the guns used in Latin American crime (even though lawful government sales there have an even worse habit of showing up at cartel/government massacres, just as recently a week ago). So the idea was that the ATF would infiltrate this secret 'iron railroad' with arranged sales to likely gun smugglers, and follow them to the mothership or whatever, and...do something. Not only did they never do anything because they almost immediately lost track of the guns (they claim unintentionally, but the reality is the guns were simply allowed across the border), but years after the program started, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed with one of the illegal-smuggled weapons in an assassination. To this day, there are recurring reports of F&F-related weapons turning up at crime scenes and cartel massacres, on both sides of the border.

Long story short; in an attempt to prove the existence of a mythical smuggling network, the ATF created one. The crassest among us would say this was the intention all along, as it was perfect justification for later gun controls implemented by the exact same agency responsible for the arms trafficking.

TCB

Pond, James Pond · August 1, 2015, 03:31 PM

Wow.... and no one lost their job?!

fuhr52 · August 1, 2015, 03:50 PM

Why would any of them lose their job? They are doing what the left wing government wants. Unarmed defenseless citizens are much easier to control. Look to history, works every time for a while.

Bartholomew Roberts · August 1, 2015, 04:58 PM

I think Lanny Breuer , a Deputy AG at DoJ, was the highest level guy to "fall on his sword" (by which I mean he took a million dollar partnership slot at a law firm sympathetic to the Administration and resigned without any kind of black mark).

The U.S. Attorney in AZ suffered a similar fate.

Also, thanks for the correction! It was a 9mm pistol, not an OK - and apparentl DoJ put a hold on the transfer and then inexplicably released it.

**Tom Servo** · August 1, 2015, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Long story short; in an attempt to prove the existence of a mythical smuggling network, the ATF created one.

I don't think I've seen it boiled down to a single sentence so well

James, we had a looooooooooooooooong thread on it here. It's pretty much a blow-by-blow account, from when the rumors looked like they had credence, up through the congressional hearings.

Quote:

Not to wax too political, but I see Holder going to the SCOTUS if the opportunity arises during Obama's final year and a half.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

As it is, certain politicians wanted to make political hay of it. Instead of prosecuting the agents involved on the ground, they tried to implicate the President. The Attorney General clammed up, he was held in contempt of congress, then...then, nothing.

They got the headlines they wanted, but it never went anywhere from there. Nobody's been punished for an operation that resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Mexicans. The SAC's who gave the orders still have their jobs, as do the field agents who ran the operation.

barnbwt · August 1, 2015, 11:13 PM

"I don't think I've seen it boiled down to a single sentence so well"
At this point, it's become something of a crummy movie plot, to be honest. Not sure if it should be played straight as a farce (Burn After Reading) or as a cautionary dark comedy (Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb. Right up there with Clinton's State Department apparently operating very much like the fictional ISIS spy agency of the TV show Archer (i.e. independently operating shady illegal intelligence gigs for a high-ranking politician with no oversight or permission whatsoever from the proper authorities)

"As it is, certain politicians wanted to make political hay of it. Instead of prosecuting the agents involved on the ground, they tried to implicate the President. The Attorney General clammed up, he was held in contempt of congress, then...then, nothing."
You have to remember, this was way back in the beginning of the Obama administration, when people hadn't yet learned how brazen the man's and his subordinates' politics were. Also, the story died exactly when Obama declared Executive Privilege over Holder's communications pertaining to the operation and personally classified everything that could possibly be incriminating. Did everything but hand out pardons to everyone involved. Republicans knew that that was what would happen if they kept pushing, and got special/independent prosecutors involved, so they blinked and let the issue die for the most part. Nowadays it is revived solely when evidence like this pops up, for the mere purpose of making some short-term bad news; time and again the main players have shown no interest in doing the hard work to get to the bottom of the case.

TCB

Catfish King · August 2, 2015, 12:03 AM

Quote:

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I was following on about what you mentioned about Holder in post #2; specifically, not only did nothing happen to Holder, but if given a chance before Jan 19, 2017, Obama could put Holder up for a Supreme Court position.

leadcounsel · August 2, 2015, 02:17 AM

Nevermind - F&F was bad, and nearly totally covered up.

It's been hashed out many times here and elsewhere. Shameful, but I have nothing more to add except that we'll continue to see these guns at murder scenes, since there were 2000+ of them.

45_auto · August 2, 2015, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pond, James Pond

Can someone explain what Fast and Furious was outside the eerily true to life docu-drama series that Hollywood produced?

It was one of many ATF operations under "Project Gunrunner" where they allowed dealers to sell weapons to illegal buyers in hopes of tracking them to drug dealers.

It blew up in their face when some of the weapons were found at the murder of a US Border Patrol Agent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

Quote:

During Operation Fast and Furious, the largest "gunwalking" probe, the ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012.

thallub · August 2, 2015, 11:53 AM

The pilot program For Operation Fast and Furious was Operation Wide Receiver. Operation Wide receiver was run by the same BATFE employees who ran Fast and Furious. Wide Receiver took place on the watch of the previous administration. Both operations ran guns into Mexico.

The US house investigation was a failed attempt to make something stick to Holder.

Meanwhile back at the BATFE; several career bureaucrats who participated in Operations Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious were promoted.

**Tom Servo** · August 2, 2015, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Obama could put Holder up for a Supreme Court position.

Grassley and Cornyn were both very emphatic in their pursuit of him during the F&F hearings, and they run the same committee that would hold his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. An attempt at nominating him now would be somewhat futile.

johnwilliamson062 · August 3, 2015, 01:01 AM

At the end of the day the firearms that went through fast and furious are nothin compared to the military aid that has walked from the Mexican military to Cartel organizations. Arms, vehicles, training, electronics, helicopters, and the list goes on.
Mexico is such a mess it is laughable. A failed state with a thin veneer of effective corruption.
I heard I think a Mexican official from something equivalent to the US state department being interviewed by an American reporter. Maybe on NPR. The interviewer stated there were claims every state government was totally controlled by various cartels. The interviewee got defensive and pointed out that in one state the governor was actually in charge of the local cartel. The interviewer didn't quite know how to respond and the interviewee didn't seem to grasp how absurd that response was to anyone who isn't familiar with Mexican politics.

August 1, 2015, 10:28 AM	#1
Bartholomew Roberts member Join Date: June 12, 2000 Location: Texas and Oklahoma area Posts: 8,462	Fast and Furious AK Shows Up at Garland,TX Terror Attack http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1.../p2p-84121444/ The LA Times is reporting that Nadir Soofi, who had misdemeanor drug and assault convictions, purchased his AK47 through Lone Wolf Trading Co. In Phoenix - Lone Wolf was the gun store that the ATF directed to sell guns to prohibited people under Fast and Furious. He would later use the same AK in his attempt to shoot up the "Draw Mohammad" event in Garland,TX.

August 1, 2015, 01:12 PM	#3
Catfish King Member Join Date: July 28, 2015 Posts: 29	Not to wax too political, but I see Holder going to the SCOTUS if the opportunity arises during Obama's final year and a half. F&F proved one thing to me... The "gubmint" will do whatever it can to create discord among gun owners and those legal age voters that are currently fence sitting on the issue of guns in America. IIRC, a gun used in a crime most certainly traced back to Op. F&F, which blew the whole thing wide open publicly. __________________ 'Keep your powder dry.'

August 1, 2015, 02:58 PM	#4
Pond, James Pond Senior Member Join Date: July 12, 2011 Location: Top of the Baltic stack Posts: 6,079	Can someone explain what Fast and Furious was outside the eerily true to life docu-drama series that Hollywood produced? Just so I can put this story and its significance in perspective. A reliable link would be fine. __________________ When the right to effective self-defence is denied, that right to self-defence which remains is essentially symbolic. Freedom: Please enjoy responsibly.

August 1, 2015, 03:24 PM	#5
barnbwt Senior Member Join Date: May 17, 2012 Posts: 1,085	"I'd like to think this would be the impetus to reopen the F&F investigation, but it looks like that's fizzled out. Nobody got fired, and the contempt charges against Holder had no effect." Heck, even the gun store is still in business. "Can someone explain what Fast and Furious was outside the eerily true to life docu-drama series that Hollywood produced?" Early in the new Obama administration 'somebody' (the attorney general/top law enforcement officer, but nothing yet proven) decided it would be a good idea to allow weapons to be illegally sold to persons both unable to legally purchase firearms, and likely to transport them into Mexico. There has been this long-running myth among American anti-gunners that our civilian gun market is responsible for all the guns used in Latin American crime (even though lawful government sales there have an even worse habit of showing up at cartel/government massacres, just as recently a week ago). So the idea was that the ATF would infiltrate this secret 'iron railroad' with arranged sales to likely gun smugglers, and follow them to the mothership or whatever, and...do something. Not only did they never do anything because they almost immediately lost track of the guns (they claim unintentionally, but the reality is the guns were simply allowed across the border), but years after the program started, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed with one of the illegal-smuggled weapons in an assassination. To this day, there are recurring reports of F&F-related weapons turning up at crime scenes and cartel massacres, on both sides of the border. Long story short; in an attempt to prove the existence of a mythical smuggling network, the ATF created one. The crassest among us would say this was the intention all along, as it was perfect justification for later gun controls implemented by the exact same agency responsible for the arms trafficking. TCB __________________ "I don't believe that the men of the distant past were any wiser than we are today. But it does seem that their science and technology were able to accomplish much grander things." -- Alex Rosewater

August 1, 2015, 03:31 PM	#6
Pond, James Pond Senior Member Join Date: July 12, 2011 Location: Top of the Baltic stack Posts: 6,079	Wow.... and no one lost their job?! __________________ When the right to effective self-defence is denied, that right to self-defence which remains is essentially symbolic. Freedom: Please enjoy responsibly.

August 1, 2015, 12:46 PM	#2
Tom Servo Staff Join Date: September 27, 2008 Location: Foothills of the Appalachians Posts: 13,059	Actually, the only gun they mention being traced to Lone Wolf was a 9mm pistol. They don't mention where he got the rifles. I'd like to think this would be the impetus to reopen the F&F investigation, but it looks like that's fizzled out. Nobody got fired, and the contempt charges against Holder had no effect. __________________ Sometimes it’s nice not to destroy the world for a change. --Randall Munroe

August 1, 2015, 03:50 PM	#7
fuhr52 Member Join Date: November 21, 2008 Location: Oregon Posts: 23	Why would any of them lose their job? They are doing what the left wing government wants. Unarmed defenseless citizens are much easier to control. Look to history, works every time for a while. __________________ "You can get a lot accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit" Ronald Reagan

August 1, 2015, 04:58 PM	#8
Bartholomew Roberts member Join Date: June 12, 2000 Location: Texas and Oklahoma area Posts: 8,462	I think Lanny Breuer , a Deputy AG at DoJ, was the highest level guy to "fall on his sword" (by which I mean he took a million dollar partnership slot at a law firm sympathetic to the Administration and resigned without any kind of black mark). The U.S. Attorney in AZ suffered a similar fate. Also, thanks for the correction! It was a 9mm pistol, not an OK - and apparentl DoJ put a hold on the transfer and then inexplicably released it.

August 1, 2015, 11:13 PM	#10
barnbwt Senior Member Join Date: May 17, 2012 Posts: 1,085	"I don't think I've seen it boiled down to a single sentence so well" At this point, it's become something of a crummy movie plot, to be honest. Not sure if it should be played straight as a farce (Burn After Reading) or as a cautionary dark comedy (Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb. Right up there with Clinton's State Department apparently operating very much like the fictional ISIS spy agency of the TV show Archer (i.e. independently operating shady illegal intelligence gigs for a high-ranking politician with no oversight or permission whatsoever from the proper authorities) "As it is, certain politicians wanted to make political hay of it. Instead of prosecuting the agents involved on the ground, they tried to implicate the President. The Attorney General clammed up, he was held in contempt of congress, then...then, nothing." You have to remember, this was way back in the beginning of the Obama administration, when people hadn't yet learned how brazen the man's and his subordinates' politics were. Also, the story died exactly when Obama declared Executive Privilege over Holder's communications pertaining to the operation and personally classified everything that could possibly be incriminating. Did everything but hand out pardons to everyone involved. Republicans knew that that was what would happen if they kept pushing, and got special/independent prosecutors involved, so they blinked and let the issue die for the most part. Nowadays it is revived solely when evidence like this pops up, for the mere purpose of making some short-term bad news; time and again the main players have shown no interest in doing the hard work to get to the bottom of the case. TCB __________________ "I don't believe that the men of the distant past were any wiser than we are today. But it does seem that their science and technology were able to accomplish much grander things." -- Alex Rosewater

August 2, 2015, 02:17 AM	#12
leadcounsel Junior member Join Date: September 8, 2005 Location: Tacoma, WA Posts: 2,119	Nevermind - F&F was bad, and nearly totally covered up. It's been hashed out many times here and elsewhere. Shameful, but I have nothing more to add except that we'll continue to see these guns at murder scenes, since there were 2000+ of them.

August 2, 2015, 11:53 AM	#14
thallub Senior Member Join Date: November 20, 2007 Location: South Western OK Posts: 3,112	The pilot program For Operation Fast and Furious was Operation Wide Receiver. Operation Wide receiver was run by the same BATFE employees who ran Fast and Furious. Wide Receiver took place on the watch of the previous administration. Both operations ran guns into Mexico. The US house investigation was a failed attempt to make something stick to Holder. Meanwhile back at the BATFE; several career bureaucrats who participated in Operations Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious were promoted.

August 3, 2015, 01:01 AM	#16
johnwilliamson062 Junior member Join Date: May 16, 2008 Posts: 9,995	At the end of the day the firearms that went through fast and furious are nothin compared to the military aid that has walked from the Mexican military to Cartel organizations. Arms, vehicles, training, electronics, helicopters, and the list goes on. Mexico is such a mess it is laughable. A failed state with a thin veneer of effective corruption. I heard I think a Mexican official from something equivalent to the US state department being interviewed by an American reporter. Maybe on NPR. The interviewer stated there were claims every state government was totally controlled by various cartels. The interviewee got defensive and pointed out that in one state the governor was actually in charge of the local cartel. The interviewer didn't quite know how to respond and the interviewee didn't seem to grasp how absurd that response was to anyone who isn't familiar with Mexican politics.