Cover-up in ATF gunwalker case?

By Sharyl Attkisson

Congressional investigators tell CBS News there’s evidence the U.S. Attorney’s office in Arizona sought to cover up a link between their controversial gunwalking operation known as “Fast and Furious” and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

More…

Here’s a thumbnail of what happened.

ATF was allowing guns to be sold to straw buyers from the Mexican drug cartels in an operation called “Fast and Furious”.

Mario Avila was one of the cartel straw buyers who got guns via Fast and Furious.

ATF field agents complained allowing guns to “walk” into the hands of criminals was a bad idea and that maybe even federal agents would end up being killed by one of the “walked” guns.

The along comes the night of December 14, 2011 when Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot by a border bandit near Rio Rico, Arizona.

Two guns were found at Terry’s murder scene and were immediately indentified  as being ATF “walked”  guns that had been bought by  Avila.

So the feds did evrything they could to hide the fact that the two “walked” guns found at Terry’s murder scene would not be traced to “Fast and FDurious”

Here is a link to the emails that CBS got copies of that flashed around in the wake of Terry’s murder: Warning…they will make you sick at how completely off base our government’s priorities can be:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/att12.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBody

GOP lawmakers: Coverup attempted in death of Border Patrol agent

By Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona tried to cover up a link between a government operation and the December 2010 death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, two Republican members of Congress are telling CBS News.

Two assault rifles that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had allegedly allowed onto the street were found at the scene of Terry’s death on the Arizona side of the border.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California say there’s evidence that officials at ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to hide the link, CBS reports.

The two lawmakers say in a Sept. 1 letter to the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office that Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor on the “Fast and Furious” program that allowed illegal guns on the streets, learned almost immediately that firearms involved in the program had been recovered at the scene, according to CBS.

In the hours after Terry died, Hurley “contemplated the connection between the two cases and sought to prevent the connection from being disclosed,” CBS reports.

Hurley could not be reached. The Justice Department had no comment.

AFT whistleblowers revealed the link to CBS and to the two lawmakers because their supervisors were attempting to cover it up, CBS reports.

Here is the link to the letter sent to the acting US Attorney for Arizona demanding more information about the attempt to squash the disclosure of the “walked” guns….

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/IssaGrassleyLetter.pdf