Senator Grassley: Focusing on the Facts of the ATF’s Flawed Gun Strategy.

Via Sipsey Street Irregulars
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He's hard on it.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa

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Since January, I’ve been hounding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice for answers about a deeply flawed policy that allowed guns to be sold to known straw purchasers and then transported across the border to Mexican drug cartels.

Until this week, my efforts to conduct my constitutional responsibility of oversight have been stonewalled by the Justice Department. Finally, the administration agreed to provide me the same access to documents and witnesses that are afforded to the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, and the Justice Department Inspector General.

In the meantime, in an effort to distract from the investigation Congressman Issa and I are conducting, the ATF released selective statistical data that inaccurately reflects the scope and source of the problem of firearms in Mexico and the drug trafficking organization violence. The implication made by the ATF and various press reports that 70 percent of the firearms found in Mexico come directly from U.S. manufacturers or U.S. Federal Firearms Licensees selling guns to drug trafficking organizations is incomplete and misleading. Not only does this paint a grossly inaccurate picture of the situation, but there’s also evidence that the U.S. State Department doesn’t believe it either.

I received additional documentation from an ATF database of firearms, and learned that the actual percentage of firearms found in Mexico and traced back to U.S. based federal firearms licensees in 2009 and 2010 was only 24 percent. It turns out the discrepancy lies in the fact that most of the firearms found in Mexico may actually have been sold between governments in direct military to military transactions or were exported directly from manufacturers approved by our government. In either case, U.S. gun dealers are the last people who should be blamed.

And, to make the release of the misleading numbers even more egregious, I obtained an unclassified U.S. State Department cable that dispels myths about the source of weapons trafficked to Mexico. The unclassified cable includes sections such as: “Myth: An Iron Highway of Weapons Flows from the U.S.” and “Myth: The DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are Mostly Responsible.”

When the ATF promotes this kind of misleading data, it distracts from the real questions of our investigation: Why was the ATF was involved in a policy to allow guns to fall into the hands of straw purchasers who were then transporting them to Mexican drug cartels and who approved this reckless strategy? Congressman Issa and I are committed to getting to the bottom of this irresponsible decision, regardless of agency attempts to manipulate the truth.

July 1, 2011