didn t they get arrested? that s a great question. it s illegal to be a straw purchasers, but how do you make that case? prosecutors made it almost impossible to make those arrests and to seize those guns. they were continually determining in their analysis of the law that the sales and the transfers were legal. atf did not agree. there is copious evidence that atf agents demanded we want to seize these guns. we want to make these arrests, but prosecutors blocked them. we re a nation of laws. atf agents can under decide that they re going to make arrests or seize guns without prosecutors okay. if they have asked and prosecutors have answered and the answer is no, that s it. is this a prosecutor scandal? were the prosecutors decisions in these cases wild departures from the law? were they making prosecutorial discretion decisions that were wildly incompatible with what
and i spend a lot of time and energy in my reporting trying to determine just that. that s enormous differences in prosecution styles and prosecutorial interpretation of laws in each jurisdiction. now, dave vogt, the group s supervisor of phoenix group seven in his frustration and despair was actually writing in prosecutors in other jurisdictions. they were going as far as new york to see if they could find prosecutors who would take tease cases. and that was described in some congressional testimony by an atf agent named pete forsele. it s hard to say. i think what you have is a perfect storm of incredibly weak laws in arizona, prosecutors who did not seem particularly eager to enforce the law, and an absolute river of iron onslaught of guns being purchased and pouring across the border. i mean, just to put this in perspective. in arizona where you have 853
it over your head and turn it upside down and shake it. that sharp, clattering disaster in your kitchen is an appropriate metaphor for what has just become of the fast and furious scandal in house of representatives. joining us now is the author of the article the truth about the fast and furious scandal. thank you for being here. thank you for having me. it s a pleasure. you know a lot more about this than i do. i have been covering it for a few days. can you tell me what i got wrong? the only thing you got wrong is i m contributor for fortune, not forbes. and everything you said was absolutely accurate. that s a very humiliating thing to get wrong. i quit, i m sorry. please don t. did agents intentionally walk guns across the border? you tell the story of one instance, one gun, or a handful of guns in that one instance being walked, but that was not part of the fast and furious program. no, and let s set that aside for a moment.
supposingly knowingly allowing illegal guns to be trafficked into mexico. she said, quote, quite simply, there s a misconception at the heart of the fast and furious scandal. nobody disputes that straw purchases under surveillance repeatedly bought guns that fell into criminal hands. darrell issa and others charge that the atf intentionally alouded guns to walk as a an operational stakting, but five agents tell fortune that atf had no suchรง tactic. they insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be trafficked. they said they seized weapons whenever they could but were ham strung by prossecurities and weak laws that stymied them at every turn. it s not let s allow these guns to flow freely into mexico. it was the opposite, let s monitor the gun sales, arrest all of the people buying the guns. as atf discovered, there wasn t
case and decimated that part of the fast and furious case, the part about atf agents supposingly knowingly allowing illegal guns to be trafficked into mexico. it s not let s allow these guns to flow freely into mexico.