Gunwalker: Under White House Control?

Gunwalker: Under White House Control?
New documents reveal extensive White House communication with the ATF head behind the scandal.

That deception seems to be collapsing, as the long suspected proof of other gunwalking operations was confirmed by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News:

An administration source would not describe the Tucson OCDTF case. However, CBS News has learned that ATF’s Phoenix office led an operation out of Tucson called “Wide Receiver.” Sources claim ATF allowed guns to “walk” in that operation, much like Fast and Furious.

“Wide Receiver” joins Operation Fast and Furious as the second named gunwalking operation based in Arizona, but they do not appear to be the only gunwalking operations that existed.

The White House has so far refused to answer inquires from Senator John Cornyn about two other suspected gunwalking operations based out of the Houston and Dallas field operations areas. Additional gunwalking operations supplied drug gangs in Honduras from Florida, and supplied Chicago-area gangs from a gunwalking operation in Indiana.

While administration officials have stuck to the cover story that these were law enforcement operations, there was never any possibility of them working. There were no mechanisms to track the weapons, personnel were ordered not to make arrests, and there was never any possibility of U.S. agents affecting arrests in Mexico.

The cover story was further demolished by recent revelations that the ATF supervisors directed agents to personally walk guns to cartel members, and refused repeated attempts by field agents to have smugglers arrested before they could carry firearms over the border into Mexico. Interdiction was never on the table. Creating and insuring a steady flow of U.S. weapons into Mexico must have been the goal.

Perhaps desperate to avoid the political and legal fallout from their actions, the administration seems ready to trigger a “nuclear defense” — burning down the entire ATF. Townhall’s Katie Pavlich, who confirmed the existence of a white paper floating that exact plan, notes the self-serving goal:

ATF field agents weren’t the problem with Operation Fast and Furious, high ranking officials within ATF and the Department of Justice were and still are. DOJ would eliminate ATF only to take the heat off of the Obama administration. By eliminating the bureau, it makes it seem like DOJ is taking Operation Fast and Furious so seriously, they decided to “clear out the corruption, clean house,” however, it would only be a distraction away from the people at the top of the investigation. In fact, evidence shows the DOJ has been stonewalling the Oversight Committee investigation into the operation to protect Obama political appointees.

“It was very frustrating to all of us, and it appears thoroughly to us that the Department is really trying to figure out a way to push the information away from their political appointees at the Department,” former ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson, who has since been moved to a position within DOJ, said of his frustration with the Justice Department’s response to the investigation in transcribed closed door testimony with the Oversight Committee in July 2011.