Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) Special Agent John Dodson has been a whistleblower in the Fast and Furious scandal and has testified before Congress about what took place. Earlier this year, following the Inspector General’s report on Fast and Furious, Dodson sought to have a smear campaign at Fortune Magazine against him retracted, which followed the Justice Department purposefully leaking documents to smear him. This was all in preparation for his new book, which hit the shelves on December 3, which the ATFattempted to block Dodson from publishing back in October, and finally claimed he could publish it after they censored it. Following the release of the book, Dodson implicated the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of what led to the December 14, 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
According to AZCentral, who spoke with Dodson:
A federal agent who exposed the Justice Department’s flawed gun-trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious says the FBI played a key role in events leading to the 2010 murder near Nogales, Ariz., of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
John Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, contends that the bandits who killed Terry were working for FBI operatives and were sent to the border to do a drug rip-off using intelligence from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
“I don’t think the (FBI) assets were part of the rip-off crew,” Dodson said. “I think they were directing the rip crew.”
Dodson’s comments to The Arizona Republic amplify assertions he made in his recently released book, “The Unarmed Truth,” about his role as a whistle-blower in the Fast and Furious debacle.
In his book, Dodson uses cautious language to characterize his account of circumstances surrounding Terry’s death, saying the information is based on firsthand knowledge, personal opinion and press reports. He asserts that the DEA had information about, and may have orchestrated, a large drug shipment through Peck Canyon that December night. He alleges that DEA agents shared that intelligence with FBI counterparts, who advised criminal informants from another cartel that the load would be “theirs for the taking.”
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Fast & Furious was a DoJ sanctioned operation under the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program. OCDETF is a major component of DoJ and is located within Main Justice. The top OCDETF manager is a "senior executive service" level position, the highest rank in federal civil service.
ReplyDeleteThe process for obtaining OCDETF approval and funding is quite rigorous, requiring a very detailed written proposal. In the case of F&F, the proposal was written by special agent(s) in the ATF Phoenix, AZ field office.
Once the document is written, it goes through an ATF in-house approval process, which includes approval signatures from the group supervisor for the originating agent(s), the assistant special agent in charge, the deputy special agent in charge, and finally the Special Agent in charge (SAC), William Newell, in the case of F&F.
Once the SAC signed his approval, the document moves to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, William Burke for F&F. All U.S. Attorney offices have in-house panels of career prosecutors that study the proposals to see if they meet with the OCDETF guidelines. Once this panel was satisfied, they referred it to Burke for his approval and signature.
The next step in the process is for the document to be sent to the regional OCDETF office, which are supervised by career, supervisory prosecutors. They convene a meeting of all of the OCDETF member federal law enforcement agencies, of which there are nine. The designated OCDETF regional coordinators are senior career special agents, with extensive law enforcement experience. They vette the proposal through their individual agencies to ensure their aren't any conflicts. Once this is accomplished, the document moves to OCDETF Main Justice, where yet another panel will review the proposal in detail. It isn't unusual for the proposing special agent(s) to be summoned before the panel for in person explanations.
We know in the case of F&F it was approved and funded, because it ran for some eighteen months.
How could it have been approved, if they had written about the actual tactics they implemented - letting guns walk? So they either lied in the proposal or ALL of the reviewing and approving never happened, which I seriously doubt.
Burke, while being officially questioned about his supervision of F&F had to interrupt the questioning, so he could vomit in his waste basket.
The same Mr. Burke is currently a partner in a security consulting firm, with the former national chief of the U.S. Border Patrol and the former director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), David Aguilar. Think they might be getting some nice, juicy, federal contracts!