ATF press release alert!

Government-controlled Narodniy Politicheskiy Radio (NPR) published the following pearls of wisdom, which seem to have derpped right from the silver tongue of ATF’s notorious spokespersons onto the AP wire:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s inspector general is conducting a four-city examination into storefront undercover operations run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to assess whether they pose a danger to the public.

The ATF runs sting operations in various cities, often as part of an effort to catch arms traffickers who bring stolen weapons into storefronts where agents act as buyers.

The IG’s office said [last] Thursday it is looking into storefront operations in Milwaukee, Pensacola, Fla., St. Louis, Mo., and Wichita, Kan.

IG Michael Horowitz said if his office learns of information that might warrant looking at additional storefront operations, it will consider expanding the review to include them.

The ATF ran a Milwaukee storefront operation intended to bust felons for drug and gun offenses, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in January 2013 that no major drug dealers or gang members were taken down. The store was robbed of $35,000 in merchandise, an agent’s machine gun was stolen and a document listing undercover agents was left behind.

via Govt Looking Into ATF Operations In 4 Cities : NPR.

This story, as you’d expect from NPR and the Associated (with terrorists) Press, minimizes ATF misconduct in even the Milwaukee case, which has been covered in some depth by the Journal-Sentinel. Indeed, the Ray Charleses and Stevie Wonders of internal ATF oversight did not uncover a thing; the newspaper did. The story mentions one stolen machine gun but not the two pistols also lost (and unlike the M4, recovered) through the negligence of the same officer. The story does not mention that ATF has systematically placed these operations near schools (often middle schools and junior highs), or that ATF seeks out retarded locals to ensnare in its stings. In Milwaukee, they paid a retarded man $2,000 for a gun they sent him to Gander Mountain (an outdoor chain store) to buy for $700, and they lost eight cases because the lead agent couldn’t testify credibly.

It’s clear from the cloning of these operations across many time zones that this was not some local misconduct by “rogue” agents, but a deliberate plan executed by a rogue agency.

So for further revelations, experience tells us, we have to count on a press, many of whom will not investigate ATF because of their shared political partisanship and gun-control agenda.

This investigation is not meant to find any wrongdoing, but to hide it. IG Horowitz has been, to date, a “beard” for abuses at ATF and DOJ in general, and the likelihood that there will be any consequences for any of the misbehaving agents (or, especially, supervisors and executives) is zero.

Consider this:

• Was anyone ever disciplined for gunwalking? No. Most were promoted, and one, near retirement, was given a paid year off to start his new job.
• Was the Milwaukee agent who was too corrupt to go on the stand disciplined? Nope.
• How about the Milwaukee lead undercover agent, who lost three guns from a G-ride while hooking up with another agent (both of whom were married to other people)? What, you’re kidding, that’s just how ATF rolls.

As you might expect, the Journal-Sentinel (a paper that shares ATF’s partisanship and gun-control advocacy agenda, but has problems with the agency’s methods) has a much better, bylined report on the coming IG whitewash. Facts in the J-S report that are missing from the NPR one, which might as well have been written by ATF’s lightweight and dishonest PR dolly Ginger Colbrun, are many.

• Horowitz has decided to skip investigating the Portland, Oregon case on flimsy grounds. In Oregon, ATF paid one retarded kid and one merely slow one to get the logo of their fake storefront tattooed in the “jobstopper position” on their neck; set up facing a middle school; outfitted the store with video games to attract juveniles; failed to make Federal cases and failed to recover any crime guns. Per Horowitz, this is not worth investigating. No ATF employee has been or will be disciplined.

• Storefront ops so often walked guns that ATF finally wrote into a handbook that it was a bad idea to let felons leave with guns.

• ATF Congressional liason officers lied to Congressional staffers in early 2013 that the problems the Journal-Sentinel found in Milwaukee were unique to that city. They knew that the Milwaukee problems were replicated in many other agency operations.

• In meeting with the ARC, a group that speaks for the rights of the retarded, ATF managers refused to stop manipulating mentally handicapped people in stings. (This is reminiscent of ATF’s fallback position in Fast & Furious: if they couldn’t get any actual criminals, they’d just indict the FFLs who only sold the guns under ATF instructions).

We could go on and on, but you get the idea.