Mexicans grow very tired of the high-handed USGOV talk of corruption in high places in the government in Mexico when the fish rots from the head down in the US as well.
By now, I'm sure that you heard that ATF Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge George Gillett's personal handgun was found at the scene of a gun battle between the Mexican Army (SEDENA) and the Sinaloa Federation. The matter is all the more infamous because Maria Susana Gamez, a Mexican beauty queen was one of five dead at the scene.
Fox News asked, "How did a gun belonging to a former assistant special agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives end up at a crime scene in Mexico where five died, including a Mexican beauty queen?" But it's not just Fox News and the American Congress who want answers. The Mexican people want them too. And they don't hear President Obama talking about anything but going to Hawaii on vacation for three weeks.
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Maria Susana Flores Gamez,
deceased beauty queen
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We know that President Obama won't be doing much about this because his fingerprints and those of Attorney General Eric Holder are all over Operation Fast and Furious, the US Government program that allowed over 2,000 firearms to be transferred from the US to Mexico through straw buyers. In addition to the handgun registered personally to ASAC Gilette, another weapon found at the crime scene was traced to a Uriel Patino, who illegally bought more than 600 guns and is a main suspect in the controversial Operation Fast and Furious run out of the Phoenix office of the ATF.
After the Fast and Furious scandal broke, ASAC Gillette was promoted and sent to BATF Headquarters to a cushy liaison job (requiring almost no work at all). Some maintain that this was his reward for keeping his mouth shut about what he knew.
I suspect that Attorney General Holder didn't know that he provided his own Fabrique National (FN) 57 handgun to the cartels as well. Was it a personal gift to the Sinaloa Federation in appreciation? I don't know. Maybe Mr. Gillette can tell us. Only he really knows the whole story. We do know that George Gillette lied on his application to purchase the handgun.
(Fox News) Gillett purchased the weapon at Legendary Arms, a Phoenix gun store. On the federal form 4473 used to buy the gun, Gillett used the ATF office address, 201 East Washington, and said "Apt 940." On subsequent purchase, Gillett used a commercial address, that of a strip mall.
Both actions are illegal, since ATF regulations require buyers use their residential address. "Lying on form 4473 is a felony and can be punished by up to five years in prison in addition to fines," Sen. Charles Grassley said in a letter Wednesday to Michael Horowitz in the Office of Inspector General. "I request that you initiate an investigation into these matters and that you specifically examine whether Mr. Gillett was the purchaser as indicated by these documents, why the forms list multiple, inaccurate residential addresses while purchasing the weapons, and how the weapon purchased on January 7, 2010 ended up in Mexico."
Does anyone really believe that Attorney General Holder wants to see George Gillette sent to prison for five years? If that happens, will Gillette break and go public with his story?
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| FN Herstal |
(Fox News) "Why would the assistant in charge of that office be buying guns in the first place?" Grassley said in an interview with Fox News. That would raise the question of the extent to which that person might be involved in the gun trafficking that was going on and profiting from it. ... These are legitimate questions."
Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillette says that he sold the handgun on the Internet because he'd "run into a few financial problems". Note that sales of this particular handgun are restricted to law enforcement and the military. AND the ASAC is selling it on the INTERNET? Nobody in Mexico will believe that lie. The fish rots from the head down and George Gillette is not the head of the fish.
The Herstal pistol is nicknamed a "cop-killer" because of its designation as a "weapon of choice" for Mexican drug cartels.
