Gunwalker Update: Dallas Morning News, Cornyn Blasts ATF Promotions, Hannity Fast & Furious Special

Details Only Get Worse From ATF’s Fast & Furious Fiasco

Finding someone to stand up and take responsibility for the feds’ ill-advised gun-walk-to-Mexico program has been anything but fast. Only the denying, obfuscating and bus-throwing-under has been furious.

Months into a congressional investigation into Project Gunrunner and its Arizona-led wing, Operation Fast and Furious, we know only a little more. In large part, this is because Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have expended far more energy covering up than coming clean.

And a whole lot of empty toner cartridges.

Even as Justice Department officials have stalled and stonewalled, what new details have emerged are alarming.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch’s letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee concedes that Fast and Furious guns have turned up at 11 other violent crime scenes in the U.S. The Welch letter also says 1,418 firearms were circulated under the program — and it’s not clear how many remain missing.

This guy:

You can watch him spout a load of crap to Congress here.  The first thing he faces is Issa showing him the black pages around 7:30.

Almost improbably, three key Fast and Furious supervisors have been given new management positions at ATF’s Washington headquarters. William G. McMahon had been deputy director of operations in the West; William D. Newell and David Voth were field supervisors who oversaw Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office.

After the Los Angeles Times broke this news, ATF officials insisted the moves were not promotions but “lateral” transfers. This view would not be shared by many field agents, including those charged with executing Fast and Furious over their own misgivings. In testimony, they also describe McMahon, Newell and Voth as enthusiastic supporters of the disastrous program.

So to translate ATF higher-ups, these three mid-level bosses were not kicked upstairs, just shoved out of view.

The ATF and other fedgov agencies have done this before.  Agents who a state might look at for criminal charges due to government malfeasance are simply moved away from the state in question, making it more difficult to investigate them.  There’s also the principle of “screw up, go up”.

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Meanwhile, Texas Senator John Cornyn rebukes the ATF’s decision to promote the Fast & Furious Sturmbannführeren to DC offices.

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Sean Hannity of the FOX News channel did a special tonight on Fast & Furious.  Two parts are available so far online:

Did Justice Department Know About Fast & Furious?

and

Tragedy on the Border