The House Oversight Committee held further F&F hearings today.
Part 1 of 3 video here: Oversight Hearings July 26
Not surprisingly, a lot of stonewalling occurred again. Some was by William Newell, former ATF Special Agent in Charge for Phoenix Field Division, who steadfastly said it was not the intention to let guns go to Mexico, but that they wanted to identify higher ups in the cartels. He wouldn't even admit that they allowed/encouraged straw purchases to occur, for thousands of guns. Congressman Jason Chavetz had to ask four times, "When did you first think that guns were walking?" Newell refused to answer directly. In effect, because ATF watched as the straw purchases were made from gun shops and and the guns did not pass through ATF hands and ATF did nothing but watch, thus ATF didn't actually allow guns to walk. Amazing gall. The cover-up was obvious.
Washington Post - Newell Testifies
Newell even let it be known today that EEOC and IRS were involved with the operation. The EEOC made sure the demographics of the straw purchasers were appropriate. And that a security adviser at the White House was informed.
Later on, there was testimony about what happened in Mexico. Critically, ATF was not in communication with Mexican officials, as shown in the piece by LA Times reporter James Serrano in Washington:
LATimes - US Embasy Not Told of ATF Guns Sting
Further details of the frustration of US Officials in Mexico are shown in this article:
Washington Post - Report-details-objections-in-atf-to-fast-and-furious-gun-operation
Quote: "The frustration of Darren Gil, the former ATF attache to Mexico, reached such a boiling point that he got into a screaming match with his superior about the large volume of AK-47 variants and .50-caliber sniper rifles recovered at Mexican crime scenes and traced back to the same Phoenix gun stores. “Hey, when are they going to shut this, to put it bluntly, damn investigation down,” Gil recalled in congressional testimony. “We’re getting hurt down here.”
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