botch (bch)
tr.v. botched, botch·ing, botch·es
1. To ruin through clumsiness.
2. To make or perform clumsily; bungle.
3. To repair or mend clumsily.
"The FBI/DEA informant helped get the guns from the Fast and Furious operation over the border, congressional investigators say."
An FBI/DEA confidential informant helped smuggle firearms from the ATF's Fast and Furious gun-trafficking surveillance operation to drug cartels in Mexico, according to evidence compiled by congressional investigators.
The investigators said the informant obtained the weapons from Manuel Celis-Acosta, considered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be the "biggest fish" of 20 individuals indicted in Fast and Furious. At the same time the informant was receiving large amounts of "official law enforcement funds as payment" for his services, they said.
Congressional investigators believe the informant was working with U.S. law enforcement over a two-year period, beginning in early 2009, and often contacted DEA agents such as Jim Roberts, the resident agent-in-charge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to "pass on information to these agents about Mexican drug cartels."
The revelations were contained in a letter Tuesday from Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. They contend that had the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration told the ATF about the informant, Fast and Furious would have been shut down much earlier. . .
Really? Grassley and Issa continue to give the Gunwalker conspirators too much slack. Why not quit pretending that this plot against the Second Amendment of the Constitution involved anything having to do with the word "botched?" The only thing that was "botched" here was the cover-up, thanks to ATF agents like John Dodson.
The letter signals that the congressional investigation is looking beyond the ATF operation and into the possibility of a major breakdown in law enforcement cooperation on the border.
Fast and Furious ran for 15 months, from fall 2009 to last January, and culminated in indictments in Phoenix. Among them was Celis-Acosta. Documents show that when Fast and Furious was first proposed, the ATF targeted Celis-Acosta because they said he was "believed to be supplying firearms" to a drug cartel.
Congressional investigators have learned that the DEA was aware of Celis-Acosta's alleged drug trafficking activity as early as late 2009, just when Fast and Furious was getting underway, and that he was "providing hundreds of firearms to members of Mexican drug cartels." In fact, they knew Celis-Acosta allegedly was moving guns to Ciudad Juarez, south of El Paso, "but that he was uneasy about taking the guns across the border himself."
The FBI and DEA also knew that the informant, identified as "CI#1," was ordering weapons from Celis-Acosta and smuggling them into Mexico. That informant, "apparently the financier for Celia-Acosta's firearms trafficking ring, later began cooperating with the FBI and may have received additional government payments as a confidential informant."
In one payment, the investigators learned, the U.S. government gave the informant $3,500 for his services.
But what "services" are we talking about, exactly? Issa should add FBI Director Robert Mueller to his witness list at the next hearing and grill him until we know exactly and precisely what those "services" were.
5 comments:
"Grassley and Issa continue to give the Gunwalker conspirators too much slack."
+1,000,000,000 !!!!
IF Issa was doing his job (I understand Grassley is hamstrung by being in the minority)then he would call a prime witness list and make Barry claim "Executive Privilege" for every one of the heads of his agencies, departments and bureaus.
Hillary, Robert, Janet, Eric and all the other heads should be called to testify. Issa clearly has the authority to call every one of them, and that he doesn't demonstrates that he is standing down his held authority that he factually does have. This is a willful choice on his part and can only mean that he is using his authority to obstruct not all that differently than Holder himself is.
What was only a Executive branch Scandal is turning into a Legislative Scandal also. What was at first the responsibility of Barry himself and his cabinet, is being spread across government to lessen the blow and Issa is facilitating it. So too is John Friggin Boehner.
It is an embarrassment, for the entire GOP and all its members, that Mr. Speaker isn't even, well, speaking. What good is a Speaker who won't even speak, much less lead??
re: "services" - the check issued to the unidentified person did have a cryptic clue as to the nature of the services. Written on the Memo line of the check was the terse phrase
"Glory Hole Operations"
"Grassley and Issa continue to give the Gunwalker conspirators too much slack. Why not quit pretending that this plot against the Second Amendment of the Constitution involved anything having to do with the word "botched?""
Geez, Mike! Don't you get it? Issa and Grassley are POLITICIANS! They are not doing this for any real effect. They're only in it for publicity. The two major parties two major political parties are but "two wings of the same bird of prey." (Pat Buchanan) If they did what you and David are suggesting they might actually ACCOMPLISH something.
Why don't you use all that marvelous access you have to Issa's and Grassley's staffs to ASK why they'er still playing it as if F&F were merely a botch sting?
Mike, you know I am still your man. I just worry sometimes that you are too much of an optimist. I also worry that you may be ferrying a scorpion across a stream.
One would like to hope that Issa & Co. are giving more low and mid level participants the opportunity to perjure themselves, thus making them more likely to rat out the upper levels.
I smell a sell out.
I think the political class realizes that there is a lot here which could threaten their power retention and they are determined to prevent that from happening.
It could be that I have been wrong all along. It may be that there are no more "friendlies" in DC, that all of them, without exception are driven by everything but concerns about the constitution, bill of rights and liberties of the people.
It appears to me that just as before, the perpetrators will skate, platitudes will be spoken and absolutely nothing will be corrected or changed and we will lose even more liberties and face greater acts of criminality and treason from our own government because it's what they want, that matters to them.
TREASON and MURDER and DESTRUCTION of the CONSTITUTION and Bill of Rights and they have now indicated that they aren't serious and won't pursue these matters, in the face of OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE. And the media yawns...
Guess they really do need to control the Internet and monitor everything said and the people saying it.
That means they know what they are doing, know it is wrong and don't care and are doing ALL OF IT DELIBERATELY.
It looks like they are ALL IN ON IT.
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