Forwarded to me by a friend who says, "Reminds me of an old saying; "Guns have only two enemies, Rust and Government!" Is this link regarding the recent Pacer posting of a letter in the matter of U.S. vs. Clark with this comment.

On January 18, 2012, defense counsel participated in a telephone conference and there was serious concern expressed regarding specific discovery requests that had been made in writing repeatedly but that no response had been given by the Government. Thus, the requested items remain outstanding.

ORDER granting 239 Motion for Hearing as to George Dibril Clark III (1). A Status Hearing is set for Monday, February 6, 2012 at 3:30 PM before Chief Judge Roslyn O. Silver as to all defendants.

The letter:

Kathy Lemke, Esquire Assistant U.S. Attorney

February 3, 2012

RE: Request for Discovery/Brady Material

10th Discovery Letter

Dear Ms. Lemke;

Attached is a copy of an ATF Form letter which was obtained recently. The copy is undated and has no addressee in the spaces provided. As you will see, the letter is a notice to multiple purchasers of Stemple M60 machineguns. Space is provided for the insertion of the serial numbers and the date registered (the date of ATF approval of the Forms 4 Applications). The date of the letter can be ascertained as a time during the tenure of the signator, Wayne Miller, as Chief, NFA Branch, but I have no way of learning that.

The content of this letter is pure Brady material which was never disclosed. The letter is evidence of the existence of a policy within ATF that is inimical to the prosecution of this case. This letter relates to Stemple M60 machineguns that were manufactured after May 19, 1986 and thus prohibited to transfer and register on a Form 4. It can be inferred that a form letter was necessary to give notice to more than a few persons possessing Stemple M60s.

The purpose of the letter is to give notice of ATF’s decision to allow the machinegun to remain registered and allow the registered owner to lawfully continue to possess it. The letter indicates ATF’s reasoning for approving the transfers; “...the actual date of manufacture did not come to our attention until after we approved its transfer to you.” It also adds the condition that any attempt to transfer the machinegun in the future will be denied. In other words, § 922(o)’s criminal provisions will not be applied to all possessors of the Stemple M60s referenced in these letters nor will the forfeiture provisions of 26 U.S.C. 5872 be applied.

Obviously, the purpose of this form letter is to implement a policy created by ATF and implemented by ATF institutional policy developed within ATF. I request to be provided with a copy of all documents, memos, correspondence, notes and papers by whatever name relates to the ATF formulation of the policy bearing on the creation, review and approval of the Stemple M60 Form letter. In prior discovery/Brady requests over the past year, I have informed you that the primary repository of letters involving prior determinations of the issues involved in this case are the Firearms Technology Branch, National Firearms Branch, and the Office of Chief Counsel. It is highly probable that the Stemple M60 form letter originated in the Office of the Director and files may be there as well.

I also request a true copy of the Forms 3 and 4 from John Stemple as the transferor of an M60 to all transferees and a screen shot of the NFRTR for all such machineguns. The Stemple M60 form letter is not the product of an isolated case. Please cause a diligent search for Brady material within the records maintained in the ATF offices listed above and copies as same as soon as possible.

/s/ signature

This is important because central to the case is whether the ATF is holding the defendants to one standard while holding their friends, like NFATCA President and ATF snitch John Brown, to another. Hearing won't be until late this afternoon in Phoenix so it will be tomorrow until I am able to post the results.

LATER: ODA564's comments at ARFcom are on point as well:

Could Brown, as president of the NFATCA, been acting as a alleged government confidential informant in order to protect the status quo re: the NFA (as amended) and NFATCA in order to protect the interests (investments?) of certain persons within NFATCA's membership?

And how does his relationship with BATFE as an alleged government confidential informant in this case tie to the recent regulatory changes NFATCA has taken credit for (which may be good and may be bad, depending on their final form)?

The seeming total incompetency of the BATFE has helped some people materially and hurt others materially. The mish-mash of seemingly capricious tech branch letters and regulatory interpretations that are apparently made up on the spot, combined with what appear to be pre-determined, unscientific testing practices and incomplete records hidden behind a veil of secrecy appears so unprofessional and incompetent that a suspicious person would almost imagine it is done deliberately.

This is not the first case where the BATFE has appeared to flaunt the rules of criminal procedure. Usually the judge appears more disposed to hold the Government to what can only be described as a lower standard of professional and legal ethics while apparently dismissing defense's protests out of hand - raising the specter of judicial and prosecutorial collusion, if not misconduct (which can't be the case and must only be my lay misinterpretation of the facts). When this apparently doesn't happen, the results seem to be cases like US v. Rock Island (773 F.Supp. 117 (C.D.Ill. 1991) ) - which the Government seems to deliberately not appeal and therefore remain precedent only in that District.

I would not be surprised if the AUSA isn't drawing this out to bankrupt the defendants in order to force them to accept a plea deal or to stymie any appeal.

I seem to be getting bounce-backs on all your addresses, including David Codrea's. Don't ask me to explain it, I just thought you'd like to know.

It was my last full day in the District of Criminals, Mordor-on-the-Potomac. My scathing TPM interview had hit that morning. There were people, I was given to understand, who were not happy about it. I should go easy on the committee, I was told, they were doing the best they could. "You don't understand how DC works," I was told.

I replied that the problem is, now that I've seen it first-hand a few times, I understand how it works only too well. As I had finally collapsed in my hotel room the night before, I was emotionally spent and depressed. I was convinced that my trip, made possible by the small and large contributions of folks who trusted me to spend it well, had been a failure and that I had not lived up the fiduciary duty required by your trust and generosity. I was convinced I had failed and it was all a waste. Readers will recall that I did not write immediately about the hearing, putting it off until the next day. That was because I couldn't put into words the abject failure I felt.

It wasn't because I had put my trust in the committee. I have always been prepared for set-backs on that account. But the rumors swirling were all in varying shades of good from promises of new, revealing emails up to and including a purported "nuclear option." When the hearing ended, finally, mercifully, with a whimper, I wasn't asking myself "what just happened?" I understood what happened. I just couldn't believe that my sources had all been so universally wrong. When I challenged those sources afterward, they came up with a one-word explanation: Boehner.

But, thanks to the accumulated exhaustion of a week of "alarums and excursions" as the Bard puts it, my body and mind finally just shut down and I got a better night's sleep -- even though interrupted -- than I had in a while. I awoke still angry but more focused. "We've been screwed" turned into "So? Screw 'em back." I had half-a-notion the night before to just chuck the day and spend Friday at the National Archives researching my continuing interest in Fort Pickering, Tennessee (1798-1866). I wanted to immerse myself in something clean and understandable. But by Friday morning I was back working the problem, and the sources, and by the time I got back out to GOA headquarters in Springfield VA, it was evident to me that we were not out of the game by a long shot.

Nothing good happens in DC without pressure from back in real America. As we go forward on the search for truth in the Gunwalker scandal I will remember that. My being there, despite the simultaneous breakdown of my free housing and transportation plans on the day of my flight out of Birmingham and the strain that it put on my -- your -- finances, in the end had made a difference in a lot of ways small and large that I mostly can't tell you now.

In retrospect, I kept faith with your hopes and that, to me at least, makes all the difference. May God bless you all. For myself, I thank Him that I did not let you down.

Deception (military or political) includes manipulating, distorting, withholding, or falsifying evidence available to an opponent. History has shown that it is far easier to deceive by reinforcing an opponent’s existing preconceptions than it is to persuade him to change his mind. PSYOP personnel should encourage the opponent that the most likely way of achieving the objective will in fact be adopted (thereby diverting his attention from an alternative plan). Given two options, one of which reinforces our existing point of view, people are more likely to believe what they already suspect. Psychologically, they are gratified by evidence that confirms their preconceptions. People generally attach undue importance to evidence supporting their point of view and reject that which does not. PSYOP personnel should avoid deception that requires persuading a target audience of something it is not already predisposed to believe. -- U.S. Army Field Manual FM 33-1-1, Psychological Operations Techniques and Procedures, Appendix A, "Deception Operations."

Deception.

As the Democrats in last Thursday's hearing sang the song of "permanent director of the ATF," specifically, Andrew Traver, I mentioned to "authorized journalists" seated around me that,

a. The Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House from 2009-2011 and thus could have had any director they wanted, and,

b. Traver was an anti-firearm rights ideologue whose confirmation hearing in the present time would be more than problematic, even though they still controlled the Senate and could assure success.

In other words, they could have had Traver at any time in the past three years and elected not to do it.

As I wrote here back in July 2010, when I broke the story of Traver's long-postponed selection to replace Ken Melson:

So let's sum up: Traver has been an ATF agent for 23 years, starting out as an entry-level jack-booted thug ("an original member of the Entry Control Team, forerunner of the Special Response Teams"). Since then, he has risen through the agency hierarchy, all the while making friends of notorious Illinois anti-firearm rights politicians of both parties. He has had personal friendly contact with Barack Obama and Hizzonor, the King of Chicago Richard Daley. He has worked with the virulently anti-firearm Joyce Foundation and the IACP, putting his efforts and his name to a report which calls for more firearm bans and regulations that amount to the gutting of the Second Amendment. Traver is, then, an extremely politically well-connected, anti-firearm, pro-citizen-disarmament zealot.

Traver was even closer friend to Rahm Emanuel, Clinton adviser on gun policy, who later became a Congressman from Chicago and then Obama's Chief of Staff. He is now, of course, Mayor of Chicago.

And, as I wrote back in March 2011, an incident involving Eric Holder early in 2009 shaped everything that came later:

It is early March, 2009. Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States had walked into a buzzsaw a couple of weeks before when on 25 February, according to CBS News:

Attorney General Eric Holder was busy announcing the capture of more than 50 alleged members of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel yesterday when he unwittingly stepped into a larger debate about gun control.

Responding to a reporter's question on weapons' regulations, Holder said, "Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder refused to speculate when legislation would move forward. "There are obviously a number of things that are -- that have been taking up a substantial amount of [Obama's] time, and so, I'm not sure exactly what the sequencing will be," he said.

Almost immediately, the Blue Dog Democrats went spastic, burning up the phone lines to the White House. Rahm Emanuel was reported to be "livid" at the faux pas. The long-time supporter of the Brady Bunch, citizen disarmament and specifically the ban on semi-automatic rifles of military utility (the misnamed "Assault Weapons Ban"), was not upset about the goal, just the impolitic nature of the public announcement.

CBS reported in the same story that even pro-citizen disarmament advocate Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, recoiled:

. . . "I think there are a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill cringing at Eric Holder's comments right now," Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, told ABC News.

Lending credence to LaPierre's claims, The Hill reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to Holder's remarks during her weekly press conference by stating, "On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now. I think it's clear the Bush administration didn't do that."

Pelosi's comments reflect the fact that Democrats may not now want a fight over gun regulations with so many other matters on the president's agenda.

So, that's Item One of our Gunwalker Conspiracy Time Line: February 2009, "Eric Holder handed his head by Pelosi and Emanuel on his public advocacy of a new AWB." Here's Item Two, from a story on Sipsey Street in October 2011:

Sources familiar with the congressional investigation into the Gunwalker Plot say that investigators are homing in on early conversations -- and meetings -- between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division William Newell and his self-described "long-time friend," Kevin O'Reilly, a State Department employee then on the National Security Council. This is reflected, say the sources, in the subpoena issued this week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee seeking, among other things, "All communications to or from William Newell, former Special agent in Charge for ATF's Phoenix Field Division, between . . . March 16, 2009 to March 19, 2009."

The sources also say that Newell met personally with O'Reilly during this early period in the Obama administration and they believe that Newell may have "weaponized" the desire for more better statistics on the part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others to support the "90 Percent" meme -- that 90% of weapons seized in Mexico from the drug cartels actually came from American civilian market sources.

Newell, who the sources say was familiar with the tactic of "gun walking" from the previous failed Operation Wide Receiver in Tuscon where Newell had participated in it, probably provided the germ of the idea that "walked" weapons could be used to "boost the statistics" of weapons found at crime scenes in Mexico, in the words of an early whistleblower in this case.

If this is true, it places Kevin O'Reilly, a State Department employee responsible to Hillary Clinton, as the critical potential witness in the early history of the Gunwalker Scandal.

So, even before the Obama administration decided upon a new director for ATF, a State Department guy on the White House's National Security Council is chatting about guns and the border with somebody that now even the Democrats say -- as they try to blame the entire scandal on him -- is the Number One Gunwalker in the United States, William "Gunwalker Bill" Newell.

What happened next, you ask? What is Item Three on our Gunwalker timeline? Why the Obama administration finally settled on an acting Director for the ATF -- someone decidedly NOT Traver. Someone who was not even close to being an obvious choice: Ken Melson. The date was 8 April 2009. Why Melson? He was not Traver, certainly. He was not a friend of Obama or Emanuel and was not particularly known as much more than a career DOJ apparatchik, a non-entity. His last promotion had come from George W. Bush when he was named director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in May 2007. The Obamanoids never put Melson up for a hearing as permanent director, either, although they certainly could have assured his confirmation. Yet they did not. This was always a mystery to many observers. In the light of what subsequently happened, perhaps the appointment of Melson is less mysterious -- if more sinister.

Since we can certainly see that they had the ability to confirm whomever they chose, why then did they choose Melson? In the light of what we now know about Gunwalker and the murder of Brian Terry, it seems obvious that they were hedging their bets with a designated schmuck.

Recall what we do know about events that led to Brian Terry's death. ATF was actually only trusted with two parts of the conspiracy --

1. They were to coerce American licensed firearm dealers into selling weapons to straw buyers who provided those weapons to the money-men/smugglers of the cartels. They were then to document to follow, but not arrest, the straw buyers and their superiors when the weapons were put in the smuggling pipeline. They were forbidden to follow of arrest the cartel middlemen/managers.

2. They were to count those weapons when they showed up in Mexico beside dead bodies, using the E-Trace system. That, and only that.

There was no attempt, unlike Wide Receiver, to coordinate with the Mexicans or track the weapons. There was no "sting gone bad" because THERE WAS NO STING. The purpose of pushing American civilian market firearms into Mexico was to push American civilian market firearms into Mexico. The evidence supports no other conclusion.

Those two things, and only those two things, were what the ATF was trusted to do. But that was not all that was going on. Recall this portion of the report released the night before Thursday's hearing by the Issa committee.

Shockingly, though, other federal law enforcement components of the Department of Justice were already aware of the two cartel associates that ATF had finally identified. Their names appeared frequently in DEA call logs provided to ATF – in December 2009.11 Inexplicably, ATF failed to review all the materials DEA had provided, missing these prime investigative targets.

Additionally, DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had jointly opened a separate investigation specifically targeting these two cartel associates.12 As early as mid-January 2010, both agencies had collected a wealth of information on these associates.13 Yet, ATF spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them.

During the course of this separate investigation, the FBI designated these two cartel associates as national security assets.14 In exchange for one individual’s guilty plea to a minor count of “Alien in Possession of a Firearm,” both became FBI informants and are now considered to be unindictable.15 This means that the entire goal of Fast and Furious – to target these two individuals and bring them to justice – was a failure. ATF’s discovery that the primary targets of their investigation were not indictable was “a major disappointment.”

NOTE 12: Meeting with Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Congressional Staff at Robert F. Kennedy Building, Justice Command Center, Oct. 5, 2011 10:00 AM [hereinafter FBI Meeting]. See also Head Shot, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces [hereinafter Head Shot]. This reaction and lack of follow-through typify the serious management failures that occurred throughout all levels of the Department during Fast and Furious.

NOTE 13: FBI Meeting, supra note 7. See also FD-302 supra note 8.

NOTE 14: FBI Meeting, supra note 7.

NOTE 15: Head Shot, supra note 12.

NOTE 16: Transcribed Interview of James Needles, at 30 (Nov. 4, 2011) (going on to describe it as “very” frustrating)

The October meeting on Operation Headshot by committee investigators with DOJ, FBI, DEA and ATF personnel on 5 October came a month after the wider world learned of two "stone cold killers" who were paid confidential informants of the FBI in the FOX News report by William Lajeunesse entitled "EXCLUSIVE: Third Gun Linked to 'Fast and Furious' Identified at Border Agent's Murder Scene."

A third gun linked to "Operation Fast and Furious" was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government's now infamous gun interdiction scandal.

Sources say e-mails support their contention that the FBI concealed evidence to protect a confidential informant. Sources close to the Terry case say the FBI informant works inside a major Mexican cartel and provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.

Unlike the two AK-style assault weapons found at the scene, the "third" weapon could more easily be linked to the informant. To prevent that from happening, sources say, the third gun "disappeared."

. . . Months ago, congressional investigators developed information that both the FBI and DEA not only knew about the failed gun operation, but that they may be complicit in it. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, fired off letters in July requesting specific details from FBI director Robert Mueller and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart.

"In recent weeks, we have learned of the possible involvement of paid FBI informants in Operation Fast and Furious," Issa and Grassley wrote to Mueller. "Specifically, at least one individual who is allegedly an FBI informant might have been in communication with, and was perhaps even conspiring with, at least one suspect whom ATF was monitoring."

Sources say the FBI is using the informants in a national security investigation. The men were allegedly debriefed by the FBI at a safe house in New Mexico last year.

Sources say the informants previously worked for the DEA and U.S. Marshall's Office but their contracts were terminated because the men were "stone-cold killers." The FBI however stopped their scheduled deportation because their high ranks within the cartel were useful.

In their July letter, Issa and Grassley asked Mueller if any of those informants were ever deported by the DEA or any other law enforcement entity and how they were repatriated.

Asked about the content of the emails, a former federal prosecutor who viewed them expressed shock.

"I have never seen anything like this. I can see the FBI may have an informant involved but I can't see them tampering with evidence. If this is all accurate, I'm stunned," the former prosecutor said.

To characterize , as the committee report does, the alleged "failure to deconflict" Operation Head Shot and Operation Fast and Furious as a "serious management failure" is akin to criticism of the Holocaust on the grounds that it was a serious misuse of the German railway system.

It is no wonder that observers, including this writer, are prepared to believe on the basis of this latest "memorandum" and the failed hearing that it preceded that "the fix is in" and in some ways has been from the very beginning.

To paraphrase Admiral Josh Painter in The Hunt for Red October, predatory federal bureaucrats and the politicians they serve don't take a dump without a plan. And senior policy executors don't start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.

A contingency plan is a plan devised for an exceptional risk which is impractical or impossible to avoid. Contingency plans are often devised by governments or businesses who want to be prepared for events which, while highly unlikely, may have catastrophic effects. -- Wikipedia.

I submit that the selection of Kenneth Melson would not have been made without an eye to the series of events -- both before his nomination and those that were planned for after -- that became the Gunwalker Conspiracy. All planners, military, political or business, do contingency planning as part of the decision-making process. The people who planned Gunwalker at the highest levels of the Obama administration in early 2009 had to take into consideration a number of "what ifs" in the event of failure.

What little we know about Operations Headshot and Fast & Furious makes it plain that the Gunwalker Conspiracy and the murder of Brian Terry can only be explained as compartmentalized clandestine pieces of the same criminal enterprise to subvert the Constitution by building a predicate for more gun control atop the mountain of dead bodies in Mexico and the exaggerated threat that the cartels would do the same thing here.

Plausible deniability is, at root, credible (plausible) ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible, meaning confirming responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts. It typically implies forethought, such as intentionally setting up the conditions to plausibly avoid responsibility for one's (future) actions or knowledge. In politics and espionage, deniability refers to the ability of a "powerful player" or actor to avoid "blowback" by secretly arranging for an action to be taken on their behalf by a third party—ostensibly unconnected with the major player. In political campaigns, plausible deniability enables candidates to stay "clean" and denounce advertisements that use unethical approaches or innuendo based on opposition research. -- Wikipedia.

In Gunwalker everything would have of necessity been on a need to know basis, with those supervising a particular function only briefed with a back story that justified, legally and bureaucratically, what they themselves were doing. The old lie of fake necessity, national security, covers a lot of possible objections. Thus, the political types like Eric Holder and Kenneth Melson would not be briefed on "tactics" or the particulars of Fast and Furious and Headshot. To do so in a compartmentalized clandestine operation would have been foolish. The political appointees only needed to know what not to notice, what not to be too inquisitive about. "Plausible deniability" has been a popular concept for bureaucrats and politicians for a long time before anybody ever thought to call it that.

This reduces the number of critical players necessary to carry out such a plot, with each carefully selected ("Personnel is policy") and placed exactly where they can execute and supervise their portion of the larger plan. Certainly this would explain the March 2009 meeting with attendance of people like O'Reilly, Newell and, it is said, Burke (while he was still Napolitano's henchman at DHS) among others.

Deception planning. Contingency planning. Plausible deniability. All of these would have been taken into account by the Gunwalker conspirators before the first weapon was smuggled. And, with the inconvenience of the whistleblowers like John Dodson aside, their preparations have been working out pretty damned well.

The Issa Committee itself is buying into -- in ignorance or on purpose -- the deception that counts on the public's preconceived notions of the ATF as a bumbling agency that has given us Ruby Ridge, Waco and the Good O' Boys Roundup scandals. Going after Holder and others for "managerial failures" is like issuing Bonnie and Clyde a speeding ticket after a bank robbery. They will be happy to dispute the ticket before a local magistrate as long as you take no notice of the blood-stained cash on the floorboards.

Clyde Champion Barrow and his companion, Bonnie Parker. If the Issa committee had been after them, they would have given them a speeding ticket for fleeing the scene of one of their murderous bank robberies.

The thing to remember about Ruby Ridge and Waco is that although both are considered ATF screw-ups, it was the FBI which racked up the body count and that agency's employees never paid a moments heed to the the casualties nor did they suffer the least inconvenience because of it. In this, the Gunwalker Conspiracy mirrors earlier deadly federal misadventures, perhaps because it also uses some of the same conspirators, including most especially Eric Holder. No wonder the DOJ staffers behind Field Marshal Holder at Thursday's hearing were smirking more often than not. The deception plan is working to a tee. Designated goats like Melson, selected beforehand for their weaknesses, are performing to the script.

Having watched all this Oversight Committee theater from both near and far now, I have to wonder why the principal players in the investigation think that we commoners are so stupid as to believe that THEY are so -- innocently, gullibly -- stupid to faithfully execute the Obama administration's own deception plan while pretending to investigate it. If there is some sort of "deep plan" that the committee is supposed to be executing here, I see no evidence at the moment that it is one which will lead to the truth and to justice for the many victims of Gunwalker.

What can we do about it? For one thing, we can insist that someone get to the bottom of what really happened with Operation Headshot and the FBI's role in the murder of Brian Terry and the subsequent cover-up to protect their "stone cold killer" snitches. More on that later.

Golf buddies.

Good job pushing Boehner's office by Matthew Boyle.

"Boehner mum on Holder as ‘Fast and Furious’ investigation gathers momentum."

I stand by my sources. Catch him in the open out from behind his press flacks, Matthew. Maybe he'll cry.

Back safe after getting groped AND run through the naked machine at Reagan. Pity the poor TSA bastard whose brain has that image etched on the backs of his eyeballs forever. He's probably still shaking and retching. Got that little friendly TSA reminder that they searched both my bags containing computers. Connecting flight delayed in ATL so I just got home. I may get a chance to post Deception Plan tonight, or I may wait until tomorrow. God bless all of you who made it possible. I'll have more on exactly what "it" is that your money bought tomorrow, too.

My next post from Birmingham later today: Deception Plan. Think of everything we've seen so far as a desperate attempt to deflect attention from something far more imnportant to these federal criminals.

The face of the Gunwalker Cover-up. No, not the one on the left, the one on the right with the big mallet.

The night of the first day at Shiloh, when the battle had gone so very wrong for the Union, William Tecumseh Sherman encountered his commander Ulysses S. Grant under a tree, sheltering himself from the pouring rain. He was smoking a cigar while considering his losses and planning what had to be done for the following day. Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

"Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Yesterday was the devil's own day in the Gunwalker scandal investigation and the search for the truth suffered as a result. Several sources tell Sipsey Street that the committee's work has been slowed by the intervention of Speaker of the House John Boehner, with some saying plainly that "the fix is in."

Several sources close to the investigation, have "gone dark," no longer speaking on conditions of anonymity because they have been warned that to do so will be at the risk of their jobs, Prior to the hearing, this silence was represented to some that the committee was ready to exercise a "nuclear option," in the phrase of one, so Holder would have no warning of any evidence said to have been gathered by the investigation.

Considered in the cold light of day, such reports have to be considered as the worst hyperbole, if not deliberate disinformation. "Some 'nuclear option,'" said one. "More like a Black Cat" (a small firecracker).

Said one person very familiar with the investigation:

As for yesterday . . . (it was) a plea bargain of sorts where both sides save face. The Committee will accept the scalps of Breuer and Wienstein, DOJ will release enough of the (documents) to condemn them, claim cooperation (thus giving the appearance of recognizing congress's oversight authority), and Holder will survive - looking like a "leader" for offering them up (along with a few lower level ATF and DOJ folk). The Committee will chalk one in the "Win" column for oversight and holding people accountable. DOJ will have the same for cooperating and accountability. All sides win, all checks and balance intact and working fine, all powers respected and then they move on to the next act of political theatre. The only ones left to sweep up the mess, are the American and Mexican peoples - ignorantly secure in our beliefs that the system works and that our government is actually for us, by us, and of us.

That John Boehner has now become the most useful tool to the White House outrages many gun rights activists and Tea Party members, who look upon this turn of events as just one more sell-out in a long line of sell-outs.

Asked by this reporter what Boehner would get from such a deal, called "logrolling" by the source, he said, "Whatever he wants most or fears most. Politicians do these deals all the time, but this one is unusual in its size and scope. . . and the fact that a whole lot of people are watching."

Another source confirmed the foot of Boehner on the brake pedal of the Issa Committee investigation and said, "the only thing that will stop him is if somebody chucks him out of the car."

As press inquiries begin to grow about what influence Boehner has had on the Issa investigation, reports out of the hard-core gun rights groups that I spoke with today say that, in the words of one, "if this is the game that Boehner is going to play, we can play, too," pointing out that Boehner is facing a primary challenge in his home district in the spring. "I can see a lot of people suddenly invested in the idea that Boehner has to be dumped," said one.

Yesterday a lot of people, including this writer and the whistleblowers, were frankly discouraged at the outcome of the hearing. Today, however, that sense of betrayal has turned to anger, and resolve.

Said one source of this writer very familiar with the investigation and unhappy with the latest turn:

The real question, for many of us, is what now? I'm reminded of that guy in the Matrix where he sold everyone out just so he could get plugged back in, to "taste a steak again," (to) go back to the ease of living the lie rather than the burdens of fighting the reality. I believe many of us find ourselves standing face to face with similar paradigms, and now, forced to make that same decision. So I ask you, do you prefer easy with a side of steak? Or like me, and I borrow from Capt. John Paul Jones, "Give me a fast ship, for I intend to go into harm's way."

As I readied this post for publication, I received another call from a gun rights activist in Ohio. "Boner," he said, using a derogatory term of Buckeye conservatives for the Speaker of the House, "is going to wish he never heard of 'Gunwalker.'"

'Gunwalking' documents shared by Issa prior to Holder hearing cite DOJ failures

“I submit to you that it is entirely possible that the fix is in,” Vanderboegh told TPM. “It could be as simple as a picture of something like John Boehner with a sheep, you know. Because they’ve done that before. The FBI blackmails people routinely. They always have.”

TPM can't get out of their reflexive collectivist defense of a criminal administration but they pretty much quoted me correctly, although they can't seem to decide how to spell my name. The NRA is going to be pissed because they will

a. find out I'm still wearing the press credentials they gave me at the NRA convention, and

b. this irrepressively left-skewed schmuck thinks they were "home-made."

The failure of the committee to mention Operation Head Shot as the source of my anger -- and that of the whistleblowers who I had just talked to prior to the interview -- is not mentioned here, of course, for it is more important for this shady little puke to defend the federal state by leaving out the inconvenient facts in favor of the spin.

Actually, I mistakenly gave him the benefit of the doubt in the interview for being an honest, if misguided, human being. Lying by omission is, however, still lying.

No big surprise there, I suppose. However, he still couldn't spell my name right consistently and managed to screw up "sonsabitches," although I spelled that out for him too.

This also took place before I talked to some other sources close to the committee. I am still processing yesterday and seeking input from my sources, so I'll have more later on today, that is more informed and less reactive.

My computer didn't work at the hearing, my cell phone apparently huffed it this afternoon, and I've had all of the Washington Metro I can stand for a half-a-lifetime. I'm going to get some sleep before I blog on the hearing. More tomorrow.

John Boehner as Fu Manchu . . .

Fu Manchu: "We will make the drops on his head, one by one, maddening, each exquisite in agony and anticipation, until he tells us what we want to know."

Interested Bystander: "But don't you already know everything he knows?"

Fun Manchu: "Ah, so. Yes, but we must pretend that we don't so you will hang around and vote for Fu Manchu and his underlings in the next election."

Uninterested Bystander: "I'm leaving."

Late last night Sipsey Street received a copy of an Issa Committee Memorandum titled "Main Justice: Extensive Involvement in Operation Fast and Furious." The 22 page briefing paper was provided to other media outlets as well but was embargoed until this hour. In keeping with the Chinese water torture pace of this investigation so far, there is no obvious smoking gun here for Eric Holder and the rest of the Gunwalker Conspirators. Indeed, when I forwarded it to another analyst, he replied:

Just pathetic...

If this is all they have, it's a farce to even call Holder...

That's my take... Pls tell what I've missed and where the IED's are buried in this 22 pages of "oh, there's gross incompetence running amok"

Well... it is the f--king ATF... what do you expect???

However, if there is no obvious smoking gun, the accent is on "obvious." There is one hidden "IED" as my friend puts it, but the Committee is apparently too shy to make much of it.

Shockingly, though, other federal law enforcement components of the Department of Justice were already aware of the two cartel associates that ATF had finally identified. Their names appeared frequently in DEA call logs provided to ATF – in December 2009.11 Inexplicably, ATF failed to review all the materials DEA had provided, missing these prime investigative targets.

Additionally, DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had jointly opened a separate investigation specifically targeting these two cartel associates.12 As early as mid-January 2010, both agencies had collected a wealth of information on these associates.13 Yet, ATF spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them.

During the course of this separate investigation, the FBI designated these two cartel associates as national security assets.14 In exchange for one individual’s guilty plea to a minor count of “Alien in Possession of a Firearm,” both became FBI informants and are now considered to be unindictable.15 This means that the entire goal of Fast and Furious – to target these two individuals and bring them to justice – was a failure. ATF’s discovery that the primary targets of their investigation were not indictable was “a major disappointment.”

Say what?!? Compare the text above with the footnotes:

12 Meeting with Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Congressional Staff at Robert F. Kennedy Building, Justice Command Center, Oct. 5, 2011 10:00 AM [hereinafter FBI Meeting]. See also Head Shot, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces [hereinafter Head Shot]. This reaction and lack of follow-through typify the serious management failures that occurred throughout all levels of the Department during Fast and Furious.

13 FBI Meeting, supra note 7. See also FD-302 supra note 8.

14 FBI Meeting, supra note 7.

15 Head Shot, supra note 12.

16 Transcribed Interview of James Needles, at 30 (Nov. 4, 2011) (going on to describe it as “very” frustrating)

So, since October the committee staff have been aware of the FBI sanitized version of the "one-armed man" and his brother who were their confidential informants, who provided the money to the straw buyers and whom the FBI have been protecting ever since Brian Terry was murdered. But does the Committee draw the obvious conclusion? Have they aggressively probed the FBI on Operation Head Shot? If this pathetic entry is any indication, no, they haven't. The FBI, it seems, is off limits.

Yet, they mention it as if we are supposed to guess. Too cute by half. They remind me of the old one about the society matron who is having a garden party and a naked man sporting a huge erection walks in. She motions the butler over and whispers in his ear, "Does he have an invitation?" When assured that the naked man and his tumescence did in fact have the proper credentials, the matron says, "Oh, it must be alright then," and goes back to talking about orchids.

I hope this report is not indicative how timid this hearing is going to be.

Slain border agent's family alleges lies over ATF gun program.

"Now seating Holder, party of one!"

Rumors continue to compete with contradictory rumors but here are a few things I have discovered:

There will be no Fifth Amendment Theater tomorrow of the Phoenix US Attorneys being forced to say their "I-don't-wannas" in front of the cameras. There will be only one panel of one -- Eric Holder. This is viewed by many who have been following the investigation as a serious mistake. Said one, "More simple browbeating of Eric Eric Holder without dramatic new evidence to impeach his story is going to look petty, mean and impotent. If they don't present new emails or (other evidence) the average person is going to conclude that they don't HAVE any evidence, which is certainly not the case, but it's going to look like they're just a gang of white guys beating up on the poor little black guy. They'll do what should be impossible -- make Eric Holder look sympathetic, and worse, innocent."

"Not forcing (the attendance of Burke, Cunningham, Hurley and Morrissey) is a big mistake," said another source, who blamed it on "a desire by Boehner and the rest of those weak-kneed assholes (the GOP leadership in the House) to drag this out until they end up impeaching (Eric Holder) in the fall for maximum political advantage to Mitt (Romney)," adding, "but what if it doesn't work out that way?"

Insider defenders of this strategy all point to the fact that this this will not be a grilling in front of another committees such as the previous Judiciary hearing, but of Issa's own committee. Said one confidently, "Issa won't let him off the hook." But this begs the question, how big of a hook does the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform have in his tackle box and is the GOP leadership willing to let him use it?

I'll try to have more for you tonight, folks, but in the meantime I'm heading north across the river, into the sewer of rumors to find a real turd I can report on.

"Go forth, young Gunwalker, and sin no more."

The Charlie Savage headline below about the Democrats "absolving" themselves is priceless for its irony. Don't you have to have moral standing from God to give absolution? Sinners are not presumed to possess the ability to pardon themselves, right?

A Gunwalker miscellany:

David Codrea: 'Clean hands' excuse 'doesn't pass laugh test'

NYT's Charlie Savage: Report by House Democrats Absolves Administration in Gun Trafficking Case

IBD: Eric Holder's False Testimony Warrants Impeachment.

Bob Owens: House Oversight Dems run sham investigation in an attempt to save Holder.

The "Minority Report." As I told some folks with the investigation today, this is a house of cards capable of being collapsed by one more email.

FOX reports.

The politically reliable Jordy Yager.

Issa's letter.

More tomorrow.

Pete Yost of AP Democrats try to shape the narrative in advance of the Thursday hearing. I'm reading it now and will post link when I have it.

"Vanderboegh," the friend/source/retired spook said to me in a conversation on the general topic of 'change agents' a couple of days ago after I got to DC, "you're like this little rock in the middle of their stream, defying the water. The water and everything in it can try to ignore you as they pass by, but they can't go through you, or under the ground you occupy. You just sit there and defy them and they hate you for it, because you not only defy them but you mock them. It pisses them off because you just won't go away or get out of their way."

"Yeah," I replied, "but the low-life in the water still gets around me."

"So get more rocks and build you a dam."

He always has a way of putting things into perspective, being a rather more formidable (if less obtrusive) rock himself. I took it as a high compliment and the subject of a recruiting poster for more citizen-rocks.

That's a hint.

Gaius Mucius Scaevola, legendary Roman hero who is said to have saved Rome (c. 509 bc) from conquest by the Etruscan king Lars Porsena. According to the legend, Mucius volunteered to assassinate Porsena, who was besieging Rome, but killed his victim’s attendant by mistake. Brought before the Etruscan royal tribunal, he declared that he was one of 300 noble youths who had sworn to take the king’s life. He demonstrated his courage to his captors by thrusting his right hand into a blazing altar fire and holding it there until it was consumed. Deeply impressed and fearing another attempt on his life, Porsena ordered Mucius to be freed; he made peace with the Romans and withdrew his forces. According to the story, Mucius was rewarded with a grant of land beyond the Tiber and given the name Scaevola, meaning “left-handed.” -- Britannica.

Mostly motions, and, although interesting, no smoking guns that I see immediately.

Court documents released today reveal new details in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

ABC15 and five other news organizations took legal action against the Department of Justice to make the sealed court documents public.

The records released Monday include sixty pages of paperwork including an indictment charging Manuel Osorio Arellanes with second degree murder in Terry's death.

Names of most other defendants are still being kept secret.

Camp Mittens Duplicity on Allen West Worse than Conspiracy: It’s a Habit

ChuckGrassley

#F&F Documents releasd Fri nite by Justice clearly show Holders people knew abt gun running days b4 I opend investigation Yet they lied

28 Jan

All the money is on cyber intel (to generate targets based on "signatures") and drones to kill them. When domestic unrest occurs in the US due to economic decline, these systems will be ready for domestic application. Oh joy.