The End Of The ATF As We Know It?

BY Herschel Smith
12 years, 7 months ago

Katie Pavlich writing at Townhall has the report.

Multiple sources, including sources from ATF, DOJ  and Congressional offices have said there is a white paper circulating within the Department of Justice, outlining the essential elimination of ATF. According to sources, the paper outlines the firing of at least 450 ATF agents in an effort to conduct damage control as Operation Fast and Furious gets uglier and as election day 2012 gets closer.  ATF agents wouldn’t be reassigned to other positions, just simply let go. Current duties of ATF, including the enforcement of explosives and gun laws, would be transferred to other agencies, possibly the FBI and the DEA.  According to a congressional source, there have been rumblings about the elimination of ATF for quite sometime, but the move would require major political capital to actually happen.

“It’s a serious white paper being circulated, how far they’d get with it I don’t know,” a confidential source said.

After a town hall meeting about Operation Fast and Furious in Tucson, Ariz. on Monday, ATF Whistleblower Vince Cefalu, who has been key in exposing details about Operation Fast and Furious, confirmed the elimination of ATF has been circulating as a serious idea for sometime now and that a white paper outlining the plan does exist.

So does this report exaggerate the situation?  Turning to Examiner reporter David Codrea, there at least seems to be a serious shakeup in the works.

“Word is leaking out of HQ this week, to us plain old agents in the field that our new Acting Director is in fact planning on making some personnel moves very shortly,” a thread on the CleanUpATF website titled “Sweeping Out the 5th Floor” begins.

CleanUpATF is the website co-founded by whistleblowing ATF Special Agent Vince Cefalu to expose bureau waste, abuse, corruption and fraud, and has been the source for many tips that have been proven by investigation, including the initial allegations of gunwalking and the association of walked guns with the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry—something which the Chief Counsel’s Office and top management were acutely aware of early on—including this correspondent’s reporting on it.

Per comment poster “Plain Old ATF Agent”:

The Acting Director has told the 5th floor jerk off’s that the management of ATF will look entirely different by January 1 and has said in so many words that most will be gone. Mr. Jones is not too impressed with what he has seen and been told thus far by the 5th floor executives. Jones is telling people close to him at DOJ and at the OUSA in Minnesota that he can’t believe some of the people are in the positions they are in and that the agency is in worse shape than he was led to believe.

This assessment has also been shared with this correspondent by other sources, some hearing scuttlebutt that a partial realignment of senior executive staff may happen as early as today.

Whether the end result is termination or reorganization of a large number of ATF agents and analysts or complete breakup of the organization, there are a few things things that are obvious to the astute observer.

First, it isn’t clear how much of victory it is for those of us who oppose the existence of the ATF as an overly-bureaucratic, hyper-regulatory obstruction of firearms freedom and rights in America.  What happens going forward isn’t planned or considered because none of this is very well planned or considered.

And that leads to the second point.  This is a function of the political machinations of the Obama administration.  This has nothing to do with making the ATF better, or ending the ATF as we know it, or any other predetermined altruistic end.

It’s all reactionary and it has to do with political cover.  This has to do with making the problem go away in the headwinds of the coming election, because the election is all that matters.  The sad fact is that the good ATF agents – those ones who want to lock up criminals and assist law abiding citizens in gun ownership and publicly bearing arms – end up being collateral damage in Obama’s cover.

The entire nation deserves better.


Comments

  1. On October 3, 2011 at 5:50 pm, Mutantone said:

    Operation Gunrunner–in which the government authorized the sale of weapons with the intent of letting these weapons fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, but ended up killing an American boarder Guard.

    Operation Castaway–in which the government authorized the sale of weapons knowing they would fall into the hands of Honduran gangs which have extensive ties to drug runners and political groups.

    Project Gangwalker the ATF and the DOJ allowed the straw purchases of weapons which eventually ended up in the hands of United States gang members in Indiana” and have been found at crime scenes in that state.

    And they are claiming now that the government had not gotten clearance for these projects from higher up, or made use of stimulus funds to finance them.
    Now picture gang bangers in armed flash mobs and just where did that army that Obama formed disappear to?
    Add to that a state governor that thinks there should be no elections for two years until the congress can fix the problem. And Obama does not think that Americans understand democracy as well as he does.
    It all leads to the UN small arms treaty that Hillary signed off on all to disarm the American populace.
    It all sounds treasonous to me

  2. On October 21, 2011 at 8:29 am, Warbucks said:

    New court room strategies unfolding in Fast and Furious pulling in our historically drug addicted government agency…yet again…

    “Despite the startling nature of the case, and the likelihood of Agency (CIA- my emphasis) complicity in drug trafficking into the United States yet again, the establishment media has been almost completely silent on this aspect of the Fast and Furious scandal”: tinyurl.com/3bfryrr 

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This article is filed under the category(s) BATFE,Firearms,Guns and was published October 1st, 2011 by Herschel Smith.

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