The Truth about Fast & Furious

[gejohnston]

61. Here are some questions:

Last edited Mon Jul 2, 2012, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)

and no, it is not the best researched. It is the one you like the most, but it is not the best researched. It might explain a few things, but raises more questions.
What "confidential documents" did she look at? Did she have free reign, or did ATF management just hand the ones that serve their purpose?
Which ATF agents did she talk to? Again, did she have free reign and agents could talk to her openly and honestly, or were they hand picked by management. The military hand picks who gets to talk to the media or politician all of the time, why would ATF agent Voth be any different?
So, they are saying Dodson became whistleblower to cover his own ass? More likely they are trying to scapegoat Dodson.

Then she, and you, are accusing Dodson of perjury before congress.

Over the course of the next 10 months that I was involved in this operation, we monitored as they purchased hand guns, AK-47 variants, and .50 caliber rifles almost daily. Rather than conduct any enforcement actions, we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals for a short time after their purchases, but nothing more. Knowing all the while, just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, we still did nothing. I can recall, for example, watching one suspect receive a bag filled with cash from a third party then proceed to a gun dealer and purchase weapons with that cash and deliver them to this same unknown third party. Although my instincts made me want to intervene and interdict these weapons, my supervisors directed me and my colleagues not to make any stop or arrest, but rather, to keep the straw purchaser under surveillance while allowing the guns to walk. Surveillance operations like this were the rule, not the exception. This was not a matter of some weapons getting away from us, or allowing a few to walk so as to follow them to a much larger or more significant target. Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals—this was the plan. It was so mandated.

I put in bold what would be a slam dunk conviction for "lying and buying"
http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2011/06/15/statement-of-john-dodson-about-atf-gunwalker-scandal-the-very-idea-of-letting-guns-walk-is-unthinkable-to-most-law-enforcement/

Ten weeks later, an ATF agent named John Dodson, whom Voth had supervised, made startling allegations on the CBS Evening News. He charged that his supervisors had intentionally allowed American firearms to be trafficked—a tactic known as "walking guns"—to Mexican drug cartels. Dodson claimed that supervisors repeatedly ordered him not to seize weapons because they wanted to track the guns into the hands of criminal ringleaders. The program showed internal e-mails from Voth, which purportedly revealed agents locked in a dispute over the deadly strategy. The guns permitted to flow to criminals, the program charged, played a role in Terry's death.
After the CBS broadcast, Fast and Furious erupted as a major scandal for the Obama administration. The story has become a fixture on Fox News and the subject of numerous reports in media outlets from CNN to the New York Times. The furor has prompted repeated congressional hearings—with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testifying multiple times—dueling reports from congressional committees, and an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general. It has led to the resignations of the acting ATF chief, the U.S. Attorney in Arizona, and his chief criminal prosecutor.

It seems that the loony right wing militia guy that started the conspiracy theory was....CBS news? Faux and others jumped on it only after CBS interviewed Dodson. It is simply impossible to intelligently discuss FF, gun and drug trafficking without having to let go of "to be a good liberal/conservative, I must believe this regardless of the evidence."