Phoenix-area gun store, ATF sting may be linked to border shootout

Uh oh.

Is there a hidden agenda here or are we just witnessing a royal fuck-up?

Hanlon's Razor being "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence."

I'm still suspicious.

Maybe I need to clean my glasses, or something.

My insider, a former ATF agent, says malice.

Also, some of the agents at www.cleanupatf.org are saying the same thing.

The ATF has not been unknown to stage big events, complete with inviting TV news crews, with the goal of a visible display their relevancy. The ATF bungled a public-relations stunt in the form of an aggressive raid of the Davidian home, which had been practiced on life-size model buildings.

Koresh could have easily been arrested without all this fanfare and violence – he was an integrated member of the town, and law enforcement had visited the Davidian home and even fired weapons with him at their shooting range – but the ATF had made sure the press would be there to witness their chivalrous swooping in and capture of this menace of Mt. Carmel. Tables full of siezed alleged "assault weapons, the Administration could proudly display endlessly on cable news.

Meth lab! Weapons stockpiles! Child molesters! The excuses for this federal militarism in the heart of Texas were numerous and shifting. But when it was all done, the compound had been utterly destroyed by the U.S. government.

Off to bed.

This has been building for a while with ATF agents refusing to come forward until they could be guaranteed witness protection from congress directly. They don't trust their own people it seems.

edit for spelling.

An delivering them, naked and hog-tied, to the local FBI office.

in order to blame mom and pop gun stores for arming the drug games and to push for another assault weapons ban.

Sounds like a major SNAFU to me.

This is an open message to Senator Grassley and all members of Congress...

After an ATF Agent was retaliated against by ASAC Gillett in Phoenix for speaking with your staff, your letter to Ken Melson put ATF on notice:

"This is exactly the wrong sort of reaction for the ATF. Rather than focusing on retaliating against whistleblowers, the ATF's role sole focus should be on finding the disclosing the truth as soon as possible."

With all due respect to you and with appreciation for your present interest and efforts in Arizona, this type of behavior is routine, historical, accepted by ATF management and routinely defended by ATF counsel, especially with ASAC Gillett but, also throughout ATF management.

ATF's leadership could not care less about Senator Grassley, Congressional inquiries, the No Fear Act, Victim-Witness laws, truth, honesty, integrity or anything that gets in their way of intimidating their workforce. I apologize for the harshness of my tone, but you've had just a small exposure to ATF management's repressive, retaliatory character. Unfortunately, it is a way of life for us.

If you expect ATF to now "find and disclose the truth" based on your censure, it is simply not in the professional nature of the individuals involved, ATF leadership as a whole, and most definitely not anything close to a priority for ATF's attorneys. THEY DO NOT CARE!

When your staff investigates the Phoenix allegations they will be met with answers packed with hollow mitigation and a series of, "I don't know", "I don't recall", and, "I thought that someone else was on top of that" answers. Expect it. This is a stone cold lock guarantee because none of the people involved have ever been held accountable for any of their countless bad acts. They have always won out by deflecting responsibility and lying. This is fact and provable on dozens if not hundreds of occasions. ATF management has stuck their collective heads in the sand and allowed these people to remain in place and continue to do additional and more comprehensive damage.

If you are not directly and personally insulted by ATF attempting to sneak Bill Newell in as the Mexico Attache' under the wire, and in the face of your inquiry, then you have missed the point. That is what they do. The theme on ATF's 5th floor is that it is harder to get him removed once he is in place. ATF has mocked your interest in Newell's mismanagement. They have ignored numerous examples of his failures and turned a blind eye to his bad acts. He is completely unable to effectively run a field division. So what does ATF do? They give him an entire country!

Newell and Gillett are profoundly inept, but ATF management will back them to the end of the Earth. Expect that too.

http://cleanupatf.org/forums/index.php?/topic/153-phoenix-division/