They supervised a controversial program that allowed guns to fall into the hands of drug traffickers, all in the name of law enforcement tracking, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) officials still managed to get promoted.

 

Operation Fast and Furious has been heavily criticized inside and outside of Washington, after it was learned that ATF allowed thousands of firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico. Officials insisted the plan was to follow the movement of the guns in order to learn more about drug cartels. But in the process of doing so, about 2,000 weapons were lost and many were used in crimes in Mexico—and during 11 violent attacks in the U.S., including the killing of a border patrol agent.

 

Three ATF supervisors who oversaw Fast and Furious have been given new management positions at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. They are William McMahon, who was the ATF’s deputy director of operations in the West, and William Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency’s Phoenix office.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Firearms from ATF Sting Linked to 11 More Violent Crimes (by Richard Serrano, Los Angeles Times)

ATF Promotes Supervisors in Controversial Gun Operation (by Richard Serrano, Los Angeles Times)

ATF Program Let Hundreds of Guns go to Drug Cartels (by noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)