The Obama Administration is Under Mounting Pressure for its Botched Gun Trafficking Investigation

AFT's gunrunning investigations were supposed to stem the flow of guns, like these, bought by U.S. straw buyers and sold in Mexico.

Congress and the Justice Department appears headed for a showdown this week in documents detailing the operation and fast traffic, angry, frustrated weapons sting set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Snuff, Firearms and Explosives, which funneled more than 1,700 weapons smuggled from Arizona to Mexico.

Ministry of Justice has until Wednesday to submit a stack of discs of congressional investigators and the designation of persons responsible gun e-mail for illegal activities that may have killed tens if not hundreds of Mexicans, and it is becoming increasingly embarrassed more than the Obama administration.

Subproject gunrunner and Phoenix-shoot, called Fast and the Furious that ATF prompted store owners to sell weapons to straw buyers - consumers who they suspected of working on behalf of the Mexican cartels drugs. To buy weapons for non-personnel is illegal. However, store owners of weapons were provided by the ATF agents, buyers were under investigation, and the guns were intercepted before crossing to Mexico.

Instead, the informants say weapons were "walking".

Obama, speaking for the first time in the growing scandal, admitted last week Fast and the Furious may have been a "grave error" but said: "I do not authorize, Eric Holder, does not authorize the Attorney General. It was very clear that our policy is to catch smugglers of weapons and put them in jail. "

But the investigation Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the committee on oversight and government reform could prove otherwise.

ATF operates the U.S. Department of Justice and two assistant U.S. attorneys in Phoenix to approve almost any interception, affidavits, and the operation was carried out in Fast and Furious.

Some, like Issa, wonder how the team could not have known about a study size.


"One of the questions you always ask who's lying," he told Fox News. "We lose our credibility if we did not come clean and make any necessary changes can save lives on both sides of the border."

If the Justice Department and ATF to refuse to provide documents requested Issa, as similar requests made by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Issa can summon the records.

"We're going to call, if we must, we hold hearings if necessary, we will invite officials if we have it. But at the end of the day, two Americans probably died as a result of this effort n is nothing compared with the Mexicans, many who have been killed, "said Issa.

He referred to the Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata.

The gun used to kill the two men were related to the project gun trafficker who knowingly has allowed buyers to buy straw and illegally export weapons just to see how they turned to Mexico. With this investigative technique in the hope of getting the organization ATF firearms trafficking throughout. Instead, records show he has helped more than 1,700 firearms, including hundreds of AK-47 rifles and high-powered, armor-piercing .50-caliber rifles to be sold in Mexico.

Humberto Trevino, a senior Mexican legislature, said at least 150 people were shot with guns ATF monitored.

Two gun shops have participated Carter Country in Houston and J & G sales of arms to Prescott, Arizona

"Let me tell you something about Carter Country. Cooperated with the ATF since the first time," said Carter County attorney Dick DeGuerin.

"They were invited to go through what they considered questionable for sale. They go through the sale of three or more assault rifles at the same time, or at least five 9 mm. Cannons at the same time, or a young Hispanic to pay cash. It 's all for profiling, but they went through. "

Both gun shops seem burnt ATF - The first news leaked to the Washington Post, which showed the two stores is responsible for dozens of weapons found at crime scenes in Mexico, and the time of Fast and Furious. "We've had back," added J & G President Brad Desaye. "Certainly, we felt that the partners ATF has many ways."

Assistant Attorney General, Ronald Weich said in a letter dated February 04, the operation was "to dismantle the organization of general traffic, not only to stop straw purchasers."

"The request - which ATF sanctioned" or knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a buyer of straw, which were then transported to Mexico - is wrong, "he writes.

Holder said his department's policy is not "leave the guns out."