A Criminal Enterprise

With such a title I might be tempted to talk about a certain solar panel company that folded taking a half billion in tax dollars when it sank. Instead I am talking about the widening scandal centered around the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [BATFE] and Dept of Justice attorneys.

Operation Fast and Furious keeps generating the murder of civilians and law enforcement people. One of the latest cases to come to light is from 2010. A F&F AK-47 was found in a vehicle that had just rammed a police vehicle and injured two officers. Nationality of the perp in this case - Mexican.

More bad news rained on the U.S. Attorney's Phoenix office when it came to light they sprung from jail a known weapons smuggler for a Mexican drug cartel. The BATFE had managed to put Jean Baptiste Kingery in jail only to see the man released because the DoJ was using him as an informant. Agents managed to lose track of Kingery as he headed to Mexico and he slipped across the border. Only later would he be arrested by Mexican police. Mr. Kingery's crimes? How does smuggling grenade components into Mexico to be made into IEDs grab you. Sen. Grassley and Rep. Issa have expanded their investigation of Fast and Furious to include the handling of the Kingery case.

As if the hemorrhage of weapons from the US to Mexico was not bad enough, there is mounting evidence of a wider operation conducted by agents of the U.S. Government. Operation Castaway was being run out of the Tampa BATFE office and it seems to have let weapons walk to Honduras. Next comes Gangwalker out of all places Indiana. Like in F&F it seems the BATFE told an Indiana gun dealer to sell weapons to people no matter what. Federal law requires gun store owners to deny sales to convicted felons. Gangwalker ATF agents told the store to sell anyway.

Three different operations in three different jurisdictions all with a similar motive, to allegedly trace weapons from sale to the criminals. All three seemingly have failed the most basic standard of success, keeping control of the weapons and preventing them from actually being used by criminals. In the case of Fast&Furious we have multiple murders linked to weapons sold during this operation. No word about Castaway or Gangwalker, but the odds are sadly good weapons from these operations have also murdered people.

So for the Obama administration and Eric Holder to deny they knew about these operations stretches credibility into some amazing shapes. Three different ops that crossed multiple jurisdictional boundaries and the likes of Holder knew nothing. Not to mention ICE and US Customs under DHS Sec. Napolitano since agent Jaime Zapata worked for DHS. Something stinks badly. Especially when one of the three people in the White House who had knowledge of Fast and Furious is Obama's National Security point man for Latin America Dan Restrepo.