ATF Blocking Senate Gun Probe?

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, who has questioned whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed suspected gun smugglers to purchase assault rifles that later may have been used in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, wants to know if ATF has ordered its agents not to cooperate in his investigation of the shooting.

In a letter Friday to ATF Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson, Sen. Charles E. Grassley said emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act “appear to contain proposed guidance” on how to respond to questions from the senator’s office, including instructions that agents were “in no way obligated to respond” and should refer inquiries in the matter to ATF’s office of congressional affairs.

The Iowa Republican described the emails as “further attempts to prevent direct communications with my office” by telling agents they were “not authorized to disclose non-public information.

“It is of grave concern because, as you know, such attempts to prevent direct communications with Congress are not a lawfully authorized activity of any officer or employee of the United States whose salary is paid with appropriated funds,” he wrote.

Mr. Grassley has raised questions on whether ATF allowed suspected gun smugglers to purchase and keep assault rifles that later were used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry, and if the agency allowed the sale of the weapons to “known and suspected straw purchasers for an illegal trafficking ring near the Southwest border.” He said two of those weapons reportedly were recovered at the site of the Terry shooting.

The senator said ATF agents told his staff the agency, as part of “Project Gunrunner” and its “Fast and Furious” component, allowed guns to “walk” across the border, despite warnings from agents in the field that the policy would result in somebody getting killed. “Fast and Furious” was a gunrunning sting set up by ATF that funneled more than 1,700 smuggled weapons from Arizona to Mexico.

Terry, 40, was attempting to arrest bandits who prey on illegal aliens when he was fatally shot about 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.


More here