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What evidence do we have that Fast & Furious was an incompetent attempt to catch bad guys and what evidence do we have that it was an incompetent attempt to introduce new gun control restrictions? Was it one or the other? Was it both? I'm not sure what to think at this point.
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Well, in terms of evidence we have:
1. ATF
Agent Forcelli testifying that he attempted to bring several cases against straw purchasers for prosecution; but the AUSA refused to prosecute. These cases were then taken to the Arizona AG who prosecuted and convicted on the same information that the AUSA found inufficient.
2. ATF is prohibited by law from sharing trace data with newspapers via the
Tiahrt Amendment. This was done because the data was being misused by the papers so badly that even ATF was complaining about the twisted interpretation. As a result, it is now forbidden by law. Yet despite this,
the Washington Post somehow managed to get access to who the top ten gun stores with guns traced to Mexico were.
3. At least three of the stores on the list (including the top two) were actively cooperating with ATF and made these sales at the request of the ATF. So even as they were assisting ATF with the investigation, somebody at ATF was illegally leaking that info to the Washington Post to make them look like the bad guys.
4. Two days after the Washington Post story was published,
the Administration proposes the multile long gun reporting requirement.
5.
A recent email from the ATF Assistant Director of Field Operations to William Newell, the agent in charge of the Phoenix office during Fast and Furious says "Bill-can you see if these guns were all purchased from same Ffl and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales."
6.
Multiple ATF agents have testified that they had no way to track guns once they entered Mexico and basically would have to wait until they turned up at a crime scene.
7. Fast and Furious alone was responsible for THOUSANDS of guns to Mexico. So many that if you look at the
ATF's dubious "70%" figure, the numbers from Fast and Furious alone could potentially account for over half of the what was actually traced back to U.S. FFLs.