Federal ATF chief said to resist pressure to step down

Kenneth Melson of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms faces controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns into Mexico. He is said to be eager to testify to Congress.

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
June 24, 2011
Reporting from Washington
The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.

Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.

Melson does not want to be "the fall guy" for the program, under which ATF agents allowed straw purchasers to acquire more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers, the sources said. The idea was to track the guns to drug cartel leaders. But that goal proved elusive, and the guns turned up at shootings in Mexico, as well as at the slaying in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in December.

"He is saying he won't go," said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. "He has told them, 'I'm not going to be the fall guy on this.' "

Added a second source, who also requested anonymity: "He's resisting. He does not want to go."

Melson has an open invitation to appear on Capitol Hill. So far, he has not been given Justice Department approval to appear before Congress.

This week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he hoped that Melson would give a full accounting of how the gun operation was conceived and carried out. He also said Melson should resign, and that other senior leaders at ATF and the Justice Department should be held accountable as well.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also is awaiting answers from Melson, and cautioned this week that even if the acting director stepped down, it "would be, by no means, the end of our inquiry."

The Justice Department said it was cooperating with congressional leaders.

"We've been working with the [Issa] committee on interviews, including Melson, and will continue to do that," said Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokesperson.
At ATF headquarters in Washington, officials said Melson "continues to be focused" on leading the agency. His chief spokesman, Scott Thomasson, added, "We are not going to comment on any speculations" about Melson's status as head of the agency.

At a House hearing last week, testimony from ATF agents portrayed Melson as closely involved in overseeing the venture. At one point, according to documents released by Congress, he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed in order to watch some of the illegal straw purchases.
richard.serrano@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110624,0,5906485,print.story

Editorial: Was Fast And Furious A Gun-Control Plot?

Posted 06/22/2011 06:47 PM ET

Scandal: Rather than a botched attempt to catch criminals, was the ATF program actually an attempt to advance gun-control efforts by an administration that has blamed Mexican violence on easy access to U.S. weapons?

If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee?

Perhaps because all was going as planned until it was learned that two of the AK-47s recovered at the scene of the fatal shooting of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December were bought in ATF's Operation Fast and Furious. That wasn't supposed to happen.

"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," Dodson testified to the panel. "It was so mandated."

ATF agent Olindo James Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."

Yet, as we've noted, gun-tracking operations stopped at the border. That seems odd if the purpose was to catch gun traffickers and their drug-lord bosses. It makes sense, however, if the real purpose was to perpetuate, in the interests of pursuing the administration's gun-control agenda, what Bob Owens of Pajamas Media calls the "90% lie."

Unwilling to guarantee a secure southern border, and as part of a campaign to reinstate an expired assault weapons ban, the administration has charged that much of Mexico's gun violence is our fault. Both governments have pushed the myth that 90% of weapons confiscated by Mexican authorities originate in the U.S.

Fox News has reported that, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico sent about 11,000 guns to the U.S. for tracing in 2007-08, out of about 35,000 confiscated. Of that 11,000, 6,000 were successfully traced. And of that number, 5,114, or 90%, were found to have originated in the U.S.

 

Weapons that originated in foreign countries are not sent to the U.S. for tracing. Neither are weapons of Mexican army deserters or those stolen from armories.

 

Bill McMahon, ATF deputy assistant director, testified that of 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were made, sold or imported from the U.S. And of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. That's 8%, not 90%.

So why the lie and why create Fast and Furious, a program designed to put dangerous weapons into criminal hands? We forget that from 1994 to 2002 President Obama was a director of the Joyce Foundation, a progressive organization dedicated to "social justice" and eroding Second Amendment rights.

Obama has advocated what he called "sensible restrictions" on gun ownership and even thought the District of Columbia's total gun ban was constitutional before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

During the 2008 campaign, when Hillary Clinton attacked Obama's famous remark about bitter Pennsylvania townsfolk clinging to their guns, then-Sen. Obama dismissingly called her "Annie Oakley" and said she was pandering to gun owners.
Was Fast and Furious merely a poorly conceived scheme about which Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama knew little or nothing? Or was it a deliberate attempt to inflate the embarrassingly low true number of guns traceable to the U.S.?
Was Watergate just a third-rate burglary?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=576172&p=1

Bills will punish gun owners, advocates say

By Kyle Cheney

State House News Service / June 22, 2011

Boston.  Republican lawmakers and gun rights advocates testified yesterday that a series of gun control measures promoted by Democrats — requiring imprinted serial numbers on firearms, “microstamped’’ bullets, and annual limits on gun purchases — would punish lawful gun owners, increase costs, and hamper a 5,000-job industry.

“In order to try and curb and curtail the violence, we’re penalizing those that are not the culprits,’’ said state Representative Daniel Webster, a Pembroke Republican. “I would suggest to you that in the vast majority of cases, people that are misusing guns are doing it when they don’t have licenses to carry.’’

Critics of stricter controls on gun ownership and purchasing blamed black market transactions, Mexican drug cartels, and even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for enabling criminals to access guns without licenses, and they argued that any additional oversight could put gun ownership out of reach for lawful citizens.

Opponents of microstamping legislation, which would require gun manufacturers to etch serial numbers into firearms and introduce technology in which fired bullets would be “microstamped’’ with a matching number, argued that it would be easily thwarted by criminals and would add to the cost of guns.

StateRepresentative Paul Adams, an Andover Republican, said “household tools’’ could be used to file down serial numbers on guns, and in many cases, gun crimes would not be solved by microstamping.

State Representative David Linsky, a Natick Democrat, the sponsor of microstamping legislation, countered that the measure is a “common-sense law enforcement assistance bill.’’

He argued it would add $7 per firearm in startup costs but would become less costly as companies adopted the technology.

Lawmakers also heard fierce opposition to a bill that would restrict gun purchases to 15 per year.

“This bill would shut down licensed gun dealers in the state of Massachusetts,’’ argued Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League.

Nancy Robison, executive director of Citizens for Safety, countered that supporting restrictions on gun ownership is not tantamount to abridging Second Amendment rights.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/22/gun_control_measures_called_misguided_at_hearing/

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Obama’s nominee for ATF chief to meet with Justice Department officials

By Jerry Markon and Sari Horwitz, Published: June 20

President Obama’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is scheduled to meet with senior Justice Department officials Tuesday amid growing pressure on the agency’s leadership over a controversial gun-trafficking operation.

Andrew Traver, who runs the ATF’s Chicago office, is arriving in Washington as political fallout is continuing from the agency’s “Fast and Furious” operation, which targeted Mexican gun traffickers but has been linked to the killing of a U.S. law enforcement officer. Republicans in Congress have criticized the ATF’s handling of the investigation.

One U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Traver may be offered the ATF’s top job on an acting basis at a meeting Tuesday with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. CNN reported Monday that the current acting director, Kenneth E. Melson, is expected to resign under pressure.
But law enforcement and other sources said Melson has told associates that he believes he has done nothing wrong. Officials said the White House is watching the situation warily and is concerned about the ATF but has not asked for Melson’s resignation.

The conflicting reports reflected the troubled state of a small agency that enforces federal gun laws but is itself increasingly in the crossfire. The ATF became part of the Justice Department after Sept. 11, 2001, and had a long-standing battle with the FBI over who controls investigations of bombings, which has drawn criticism from top Justice officials.

The ATF has been without a permanent director since 2006, when Congress required the position to be confirmed by the Senate. With the powerful gun lobby able to block a director because one senator can hold up a nomination, Obama in November nominated Traver, who is special agent in charge of ATF’s Chicago field division.
But the National Rifle Association strongly opposes Traver because the organization believes he is linked to gun-control advocates and anti-gun activities, the organization has said. His nomination has stalled in the Senate.

Melson, a former federal prosecutor in Alexandria and longtime Justice Department official, became the ATF’s acting director in April 2009. He is respected by many in law enforcement circles as an apolitical law enforcement professional.

But Melson’s stewardship of ATF has come under fire over the Phoenix-based operation dubbed “Fast and Furious.” Under pressure to snag bigger players in trafficking organizations smuggling weapons to Mexico, ATF launched the campaign in early 2010.

For nearly a year, agents tracked guns they suspected might end up in the hands of Mexican cartels.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said at a congressional hearing last week that the idea was to dismantle “a significant transnational gun-trafficking enterprise” and pointed out that the investigation has led to 20 indictments.

But it turned out that two of the AK-47s recovered at the scene of the fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry in December were bought in “Fast and Furious.” Several ATF agents testified at the hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the operation failed and that they were ordered not to stop people they suspected had the illegal guns.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) introduced evidence that he said showed that Melson and other senior ATF officials were regularly briefed on “Fast and Furious.” Also last week, a report issued by Issa and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) accused the Justice Department and ATF of allowing nearly 2,500 guns to flow illegally into Mexico as part of the program.

The Justice Department’s inspector general is investigating the allegations.
If Traver is offered and accepts the ATF director position on an acting basis, it is considered unlikely that he could win Senate confirmation. Since the position became Senate-confirmable, the gun lobby has effectively prevented any nominee from being confirmed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-nominee-for-atf-chief-to-meet-with-justice-department-officials/2011/06/20/AGe9LYdH_print.html



Staff writers Anne E. Kornblut and James V. Grimaldi contributed to this report.

PROMISES, PROMISES: No Action From Obama on Guns

AP
More than five months after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, the White House has yet to take any new steps on gun violence, even though that's what President Barack Obama called for in the wake of the shooting.

The silence from the administration is drawing criticism from gun control activists and even some of Obama's Democratic allies. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., told the president in a letter last week that the administration "has not shown the leadership to combat gun violence."

It's in keeping with Obama's general stance on gun issues since taking office: outspoken earlier in his political career in favor of tougher gun measures, he's treaded carefully since becoming president, almost never raising the topic except when asked and offering, at-most, tepid support for legislation he once embraced, such as re-enacting a ban on assault weapons.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement that the Justice Department is "consulting with the key stakeholders to identify common-sense measures that would improve American safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights."

Schultz declined to comment beyond that, but whatever the administration produces is likely to fall well short of the steps activists would like to see, such as legislation banning the kind of high-capacity ammunition clips used in the Giffords shooting. Any significant change of that kind would require legislation, but with Congress hostile toward any gun-control bills, the administration sees that avenue as closed.

A government official involved in the talks said that suggestions under consideration include ways to improve the background check system dealers use to avoid selling guns to criminals, which activists say is ineffective and riddled with loopholes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.

Some improvements could be made administratively, such as by providing states clearer guidelines on how to provide criminal information to the federal government for the background check database. Although such steps are not nearly as bold as activist groups, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, would like to see, they still hope to see something — and soon.

"We're coming on the six-month mark since the shooting and still nothing from the administration," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign. "It's time for some action."

The Justice Department deliberations began in March, after the president broke his usual silence on guns in an opinion piece in Giffords' hometown newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star. In it, he called for "a new discussion on how we can keep America safe for all our people."

Even then Obama steered clear of ambitious declarations, timelines or goals, but he did call for "sound and effective steps" to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, including strengthening background checks. Obama said that "if we're serious about keeping guns away from someone who's made up his mind to kill, then we can't allow a situation where a responsible seller denies him a weapon at one store, but he effortlessly buys the same gun someplace else."

Helmke and others interpreted that as support for closing what's called the "gun-show loophole," which allows private sellers to sell firearms at gun shows and elsewhere without conducting background checks. Activist groups say that some 40 percent of gun sales are conducted without background checks.

But doing that would require legislation, and the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups are adamantly opposed. The NRA has not been involved in the Justice Department talks, but the National Shooting Sports Foundation has, and a spokesman said that when they met at the Justice Department, gun-control measures didn't even come up.

The topics discussed at the meeting were limited strictly to improving and enhancing the current background check system," said spokesman Ted Novin, explaining that closing the gun-show loophole would amount to expanding the system, not improving it, and his group doesn't support an expansion. "No gun-control measures of any kind were discussed during the meeting, nor would this organization support any such proposals that would curtail the lawful commerce of firearms or the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens," Novin said.

With that kind of opposition from gun-rights groups, an election year approaching and attention focused on the economy, prospects for congressional action are dim. And the Obama administration, in turn, appears unlikely even to try to do anything more than make modest changes that don't fundamentally alter the nation's gun policies.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at government promises and how well they are kept.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=13882145