A trove of internal emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times paints a picture of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials trying to temper early congressional inquiries into the botched gun-smuggling operation Fast and Furious.
The emails show that, in the weeks that followed the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry in a gun shootout with Mexican bandits in Dec. 2010, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives evaded inquiries from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) about two guns sold in the operation and recovered at the scene of the shootout.
Grassley asked whether operation guns were “used” in Terry’s killing, which the department denied, saying that “these allegations are not true.” In fact, the response did not acknowledge that the guns were found there, according to the Times.
But internal emails between two ATF supervisors in the bureau’s Phoenix office identified the weapons as coming from the failed operation only two days after the Dec. 14 shootout. George T. Gillett Jr., then-acting special agent in charge, sent his boss William D. Newell, the agent in charge, a report saying that the two AK-47 semiautomatics were purchased during the operation by Jamie Avila, a straw buyer who later gave them to an unidentified Hispanic male.
Anonymous ATF officials told the Times that the FBI had determined that neither of the two firearms were the ones that shot Terry, and in their response, they had distinguished between the guns being found at the scene and “used” in the killing.
But the response illustrates a larger pattern in which the ATF and Justice Department closed ranks and downplayed the operation in a series of emails to congressional investigators.
In an email dated Feb. 4, department officials told ATF supervisors that “you are in no way obligated to respond to congressional contacts or requests for information … You are not authorized to disclose non-public information about law enforcement matters outside of ATF or the Department of Justice to anyone, including congressional staff.”
ATF agents also sent a series of emails to ATF’s acting deputy director William J. Hoover about requests for information from Grassley and detailed concerns they held over interactions between a mid-level supervisor and an agent who had spoken which the senator’s staff. The supervisor reportedly ordered the agent to “write a memorandum disclosing everything” he had said to investigators. Several other agents worried that the supervisor had violated federal laws designed to protect whistleblowers.
Another email to Hoover suggested providing a “watered-down” account of what was found at the December shootout and added that Grassley was “at best imposing an unobtainable standard on ATF.”
In its ultimate response to Grassley, the department sent a letter signed by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich that defended Fast and Furious and refused to comment on Terry’s killing, citing “pending criminal investigations.”
According to other internal emails quoted by the Times, ATF acting Director Kenneth E. Melson and Hoover signed off on this response, with one official telling Hoover: “Whether or not they buy in, you are the man for supporting us like that.”
