ATF gunwalking scandal

Weapons recovered by the Mexican military in Naco, Sonora, Mexico on November 20, 2009. They include weapons bought two weeks earlier by Operation Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino, who bought 723 guns during the operation.[1]

Gunwalking, or "letting guns walk", was a tactic used by the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office and the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran a series of sting operations[2][3] between 2006[4] and 2011[2][5] in the Tucson and Phoenix area where the ATF "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them" - however as of October 2011, none of the targeted high-level cartel figures had been arrested.[6] These operations were done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the United States.[7] The Jacob Chambers Case began in October 2009 and eventually became known in February 2010 as Operation Fast and Furious after agents discovered Chambers and the other suspects under investigation belonged to a car club.[1]

Each weapon was equipped with a GPS unit initially installed by the El Paso Intelligence Center, later purchased at a local electronics shop by the ATF. Critically, the GPS battery life was only a few days and the GPS weapon "tracker" signal was routinely lost especially in car trunks.[8] This lack of technical sophistication and failure of GPS as a tracker, were the major reasons for Fast and Furious failure as an ATF operation.

The stated goal of allowing these purchases was to continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, with the expectation that this would lead to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.[6][9][10] While federal prosecutor Emory Hurley allegedly told agents they had no choice but to let guns "walk" because agents lacked probable cause to arrest buyers, the tactic of allowing obvious straw purchasers to give guns to criminal organizations was questioned during the operations by ATF field agents and cooperating licensed gun dealers.[11][12][13][14][15] During Operation Fast and Furious, the largest gunwalking probe, the ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000[1]: 203 [16] firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012.[1]: 203  A number of straw purchasers have been arrested and indicted; however, as of October 2011, none of the targeted high-level cartel figures had been arrested.[6]

Guns tracked by the ATF have been found at crime scenes on both sides of the Mexico–United States border, including the scene where United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010. The gunwalking operations became public in the aftermath of Terry's murder.[2] Dissenting ATF agents came forward to Congress in response.[17] According to Humberto Benítez Treviño, former Mexican Attorney General and chair of the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, related firearms have been found at numerous crime scenes in Mexico where at least 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed.[18] Revelations of gunwalking led to controversy in both countries, and diplomatic relations were damaged.[2]

As a result of a dispute over the release of Justice Department documents related to the scandal, on June 28, 2012, in a vote largely along party lines in a Republican-controlled House, Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting member of the Cabinet of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress.[19][20] At Holder's request, President Barack Obama had invoked executive privilege for the first time in his presidency in order to withhold documents that "were not generated in the course of the conduct of Fast and Furious."[21][22] In 2016, a federal court ruled that the records in question were not covered by privilege;[23] a House lawsuit to try to recover the records was settled and the matter dropped in April 2019, after control of the House had shifted to Democrats.[24]

  1. ^ a b c d "A Review of ATF's Operation Fast and Furious and Related Matters" (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. November 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 13, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d Jonsson, Patrik (July 26, 2011). "How Mexican killers got US guns from 'Fast and Furious' operation". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference wapoa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "AP Exclusive: Second Bush-Era Gun-Smuggling Probe". Fox News. Associated Press. October 14, 2011. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  5. ^ Savage, Charlie (July 26, 2011). "Agent Who Supervised Gun-Trafficking Operation Testifies on His Failings". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 20, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  6. ^ a b c Serrano, Richard (October 3, 2011). "Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 13, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  7. ^ "ATF Fact Sheet – Project Gunrunner". ATF. Archived from the original on October 15, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  8. ^ John Dodson, The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious Hardcover, Threshold Editions, 2013, ISBN 978-1476727554. Hardcover: 304 pages.
  9. ^ "Congress starting ATF "gunwalker scandal" probe". CBS News. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  10. ^ Attkisson, Sharyl. "Attorney General Holder subpoenaed for documents in ATF Gunwalker Fast and Furious case". CBS News. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  11. ^ Ryan, Jason (October 14, 2011). "Documents Highlight Bush-Era Incident Pre-Dating 'Fast and Furious'". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 5, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
  12. ^ Eban, Katherine (June 27, 2012). "The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal". Fortune. Archived from the original on July 5, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  13. ^ The Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents, Joint Staff Report, Prepared for Rep. Darrell E. Issa and Senator Charles E. Grassley, 112th Congress, June 14, 2011.
  14. ^ Steller, Tim (October 12, 2011). "Newell's role, Mexico's participation and more on ATF's Tucson operation". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on October 13, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  15. ^ Attkisson, Sharyl (April 14, 2011). "Gun shop owner expressed concerns early on in "gunwalker" scandal". CBS News. Archived from the original on June 5, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference miher1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Attkinsson, Sharyl (February 23, 2011). "Gunrunning scandal uncovered at the ATF". CBS Evening News. Archived from the original on June 5, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
  18. ^ Murphy, Kim (March 11, 2011). "Mexico demands answers on guns". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 5, 2012. Retrieved June 26, 2012.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference House contempt was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt062912 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference usat062012 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference abc062012 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Gerstein, Josh (January 19, 2016). "Judge rejects Obama's executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records". Politico. Archived from the original on May 6, 2019. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  24. ^ Gerstein, Josh. "Subpoena fight over operation Fast and Furious documents finally settled". Politico. Retrieved August 24, 2021.