Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin’s Notes
Facebook.com
9/6/2011
The truth is still seeping out, despite Team Obama’s best efforts to cover up and shut up the Fast and Furious whistle-blowers.
Last week, we noted the latest evidence that the scandal went straight to the top and chronicled the desperate dance of the lemons. In discussing the quiet resignation of U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Phoenix, I talked with NRA News’s Cam Edwards about Burke’s transparent attempt at liability avoidance.
Today, the WSJ spotlights the Phoenix USAO’s botched handling of an Arizona man accused of supplying grenades to a Mexican drug cartel. Business Insider provides a closer look (h/t William Amos):
The WSJ reports today that federal authorities are now investigating why the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix — the same office that oversaw Fast and Furious — released Jean Baptiste Kingery after he confessed to providing military-style weapons to the now-defunct La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.
Kingery, who was arrested and released in June 2010, confessed to manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using grenade components from the U.S. He also admitted to helping the cartel convert semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. Mexican criminal organizations are increasingly using these military-style weapons as the cartels’ escalate their wars against the government and one another.
Despite Kingery’s confession, and over loud protestations from the arresting ATF officers, the U.S. Attorney’s office let Kingery go within hours of his arrest.Kingery’s release is now the subject of an internal probe by the DOJ inspector general. The findings in the DOJ probe were a major catalyst in the recent staff shakeup that ousted Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennie Burke and Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson from their posts.
The Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s office denies that it declined to prosecute the case, saying that it wanted to continue surveillance. The office alternatively told investigators that ATF agents wanted to make Kingery an informant, but lost contact with him within weeks of his release.
…The Congressional Oversight Committee has also expanded its Fast and Furious investigation to include the Kingery case. The Committee is investigating who in the Obama administration knew about the gunrunning program, under which ATF agents allowed more than 2,000 guns to “walk” across the border.
On a related note, Kathleen Millar focuses on the State Department and poses provocative questions about F&F and the Arms Export Control act, which brought down the architects of Iran-Contra during the Reagan years:
…If a US law enforcement agency wants to involve itself in the sale of weapons purchased from US gun dealers for export purposes–sales that may be part of an legitimate enforcement or military operation–that agency, let’s say ATF, must apply to the State Department for an exemption from the licensing requirements normally imposed on the commercial sale and export of such weapons. If an enforcement agency or military entity intent on running a covert op involving the export of lethal weapons does not obtain the necessary exemptions from State, for–listen carefully–each weapon or bundle of weapons purchased, that agency or military purchaser has committed a crime. Consider. ATF sent more than 1700 weapons across the border into Mexico–that could translate into 1700+ violations of the Arms Export Control Act…
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