Devastating e-mail exchanges between a senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix, AZ and a cooperating gun shop operator have been revealed by Senator Charles Grassley in a letter sent late yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder.
“In light of this new evidence,” Grassley tells Holder, “the Justice Department’s claim that the ATF never knowingly sanctioned or allowed the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers is simply not credible.”
Grassley's press release can be viewed here.
CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson is reporting that the information contained in the e-mails is “damning.” The e-mail exchange is with David Voth, group supervisor for ATF’s Phoenix Group VII. Voth is the agent who infamously sent an e-mail to other ATF agents, goading them into participating in the Gunrunner project without question, or to find a different job. This column discussed the Voth e-mail here.
I don’t know what all the issues are but we are all adults, we are all professionals, and we have a (sic) exciting opportunity to use the biggest tool in our law enforcement tool box. If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work – period! This is the pinnacle of domestic U.S. law enforcement techniques. After this the tool bag is empty. Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day…We need to get over this bump in the road once and for all and get on with the mission at hand. This can be the most fun you have with ATF, the only one limiting the amount of fun we have is you!—e-mail from David J. Voth, group supervisor, Phoenix Group VII
Grassley’s letter to Holder challenges an assurance by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich in a Feb. 4 letter to Grassley that allegations the ATF had “sanctioned or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons” was “false.”
However, the newly-obtained e-mails – copies of which are attached to Grassley’s letter to Holder – clearly contradict that assertion.
The unidentified gun shop owner, whose identity has been redacted in the e-mails, repeatedly expresses concerns about selling firearms to Gunrunner suspects, and ultimately, in a June 17, 2010 e-mail to Voth, notes: “Tuesday night I watched a segment of a Fox News report about firearms and the border. The segment, if the information is correct, is disturbing to me. When you…and I met on May 13th I shared my concerns with you guys that I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands…I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents safety that protect our country…”
“Incredibly,” Grassley writes, “the FFL sent this email six months before guns from the same ATF operation were found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry‟s murder. So, not only were the ATF agents who later blew the whistle predicting that this operation would end in tragedy, so were the gun dealers—even as ATF urged them to make the sales.”
Grassley reminds Holder that the documents in question had been turned over to Congressman Darrell Issa yesterday afternoon, but that he had requested the same documents back in February.
“Yet the Justice Department refused to make them available for my staff to review,” Grassley asserted.
Grassley closes his letter with two questions he wants Holder to answer:
1. Do you stand by the assertion in the Department‟s reply that the ATF whistleblower allegations are “false” and specifically that ATF did not sanction or otherwise knowingly allow the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers? If so, please explain why in light of the mounting evidence to the contrary.
2. Will you commit to providing the Senate Judiciary Committee with documents, or access to documents, simultaneously with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform? If not, please explain why not.
Holder, who was one of the first members of the Obama administration to call for a possible renewal of the ban on so-called “assault weapons” in 2009, using the violence in Mexico as his excuse, has until April 20 to answer Grassley's questions. The Iowa senator is ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He reminds Holder that he has not asked Chairman Patrick Leahy to "join in any document requests, consider any subpoenas, or schedule any hearings into this matter..."
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