Probe: ATF urged dealer to sell guns to drug suspects
This thing is going to bust wide open:
The investigation into a federal operation that allowed Mexican drug cartels to acquire U.S. weapons escalated Thursday with new revelations that an Arizona gun dealer repeatedly expressed fears that his guns were falling into the “hands of the bad guys” but was encouraged by federal agents to continue the sales.
A series of emails released by congressional investigators showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged the gun dealer against his better judgment to sell high-powered weapons to buyers he believed were agents for the drug cartels.
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The aim of the ATF program, called Project Gunrunner, was to gather intelligence on suspicious weapons sales and arrest senior members of international tracking chains.
In an eerie case of premonition, the gun dealer expressed fears that the guns he was selling could be used against U.S. border agents.
“I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys,” the dealer, who has not been named, wrote in June 2010 to the lead ATF case agent in Phoenix, David Voth.
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Read the whole thing. When I first heard about this, I thought the one guy who was speaking about it was looking for attention. I was wrong.