U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Thus far, the Department of State has located 11 responsive records subject to the FOIA,” a March 3 letter from Jeanne Miller Chief, Programs and Policies Division Office of Information Programs and Services, to attorney Stephen Stamboulieh advises. “Upon review, we have determined 4 records may be released in full and 7 records may be released in part.”
She’s referring to a lawsuit, filed against State in August 2017, prompted by the department not responding to a Freedom of Information Act request filed over a year earlier on behalf of myself and Kent Terry, brother of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, slain by border-crossing criminals. Their act of murder, specifically by their dropping guns at the crime scene, would be the catalyst for exposing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Operation Fast and Furious Mexican “gunwalking” scheme.
“An enclosure explains the FOIA exemptions and other grounds for withholding material,” Miller points out. “Where we have made excisions, the applicable FOIA exemptions are marked on the document. All nonexempt material that is reasonably segregable from the exempt material is released in the enclosed pages.
“This concludes the processing of documents in response to your request,” she states.
It concludes nothing. The truths we sought have been consistently ignored and redacted, as the “final response,” embedded below and representative of everything received to date, show.
Here’s what we have been trying to find out:
- To corroborate if the government of Mexico was intentionally not informed of a U.S. government law enforcement operation where it was known guns were being illegally exported across its border.
- To determine if Arms Export Control Act regulations were violated and/or ignored. The law doesn’t apply only to those doing the “gunwalking,” but also to those who “induce” or “willfully cause” offenses. What that means is either State was kept in the dark by the Department of Justice, which is a federal crime or the State knew and deliberately turned a blind eye, which is also a federal crime.
- To seek further information on why then-White House Counsel denied the House Oversight Committee access to a former National Security Council official who had been given information on Gun-Running Impact Teams by the former top ATF official in Phoenix associated with Fast and Furious, along with the disclaimer “You didn’t get these from me.”
Here’s the final response, all we are going to get, and because nothing substantive has been produced in the response, a challenge is problematic as well as prohibitively expensive. The thing is, these concerns have been shared with the government for years, back when House Oversight and Senate Judiciary were controlled by Republicans, who were interested in scoring political points but not in seriously getting to the bottom of things to the point where violations of law were prosecuted. So forget about DOJ under Merrick Garland and a Biden administration doing any investigation, or any major media group, which did its best to minimize and ignore Fast and Furious findings during the height of the exposés by a handful of “lesser” voices.
By not allowing the truth to be known, and by ensuring that those responsible will not be held accountable, the incentive never to do it again has been reduced. That’s especially dangerous to gun owners noting the same lies that led up to Fast and Furious are once more being repeated by those who share the original goals, of blaming Mexican cartel slaughter on what they publicly call “lax American gun laws”
(Note: Some of the links in this article are from the discontinued Examiner.com site and the only versions available are at the Internet Archive. As such, some may load slowly or require reloading.)
Also see:
- AmmoLand Exclusive: Terry Brother Joins in Fast and Furious FOIA to State Dept.
- State Production on Terry FOIA Lawsuit Leaves Key Questions Unanswered
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
