- The Obama administration on Tuesday removed or reassigned the top officials involved in a widely criticized U.S. operation to trace the flow of illegal guns into Mexico.
"Fast and Furious" was intended to gather information on how Mexican drug cartels use operatives in the U.S. to buy and smuggle guns across the border. Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were instructed to watch — but not to stop — the illegal sales in the hope of gathering intelligence on how the smugglers worked. But in the process, hundreds of guns wound up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs. Two of the weapons turned up at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout.
The acting director of ATF, Kenneth Melson, has been reassigned to a Justice Department policy office. And Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona who approved the "Fast and Furious" operation, resigned Tuesday. A senior Justice Department official said Attorney General Eric Holder had lost confidence in them and that ATF needed "a fresh start."
In true Chicago fashion though, the acting director of ATF was "reassigned." Not unlike certain Chicago exempts who can't stop stepping in shit and continuously coming up smelling like a rose. Nice to see our complete lack of responsibility spreading its tentacles into the national consciousness.