Gunning for the truth

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff  |   Thursday, September 1, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com/  |  Editorials

The man on whose watch the now infamous “Fast and Furious” anti-gun trafficking operation went afoul has now been sent off to where he will no longer be an embarrassment to the Obama administration.

Ah, we must be approaching another election season.

Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms since 2009, will become a senior adviser on forensic science in the Office of Legal Policy, where presumably he won’t get into any more trouble.

Also being thrown under the Obama re-election bus was U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, who oversaw prosecutions related to that same operation.

The idea behind Fast and Furious was to go after gun smugglers selling their wares to Mexican drug cartels. That was the idea, anyway. But the execution of the 15-month operation was flawed in the extreme. ATF lost track of at least 2,000 guns sold as part of the program. Two of the guns were found at the scene of a shootout in the Arizona desert last December in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed. Other ATF-bought guns were found at crime scenes in Mexico and on our side of the border.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating the Fast and Furious operation. In the course of that probe they found e-mails indicating that Melson had been regularly informed about problems with the operation. The committee rather wisely isn’t abandoning its investigation just because Melson has been allowed to take the fall.

In fact, when questioned by congressional investigators Melson alluded to his frustration with Justice Department officials who had prohibited him from testifying before Congress for months.

“There are still many questions to be answered about what happened  . . .  and who else bears responsibility,” said Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

No kidding! The committee shouldn’t stop just when things are getting interesting.
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