The family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government.
Terry was killed on December 14, 2010, by drug cartel bandits in Arizona. Investigators found two AK47s at the scene that were linked to the government’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation.
Under Fast and Furious, the ATF orchestrated the sale of guns originating in the United States to Mexican drug cartels financed by international banks.
According to William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious.
The CIA was also involved, according to the Washington Times. The agency helped arm the Sinaloa cartel, described as the “preferred cartel on the street level near the American border.” Wachovia bank laundered Sinaloa money through foreign-exchange houses known as casas de cambio.
The relationship between Sinaloa, the Department of Justice, the DEA, FBI and presumably the CIA was revealed by Zambada Niebla, a key player in the Sinaloa organization, who is now in custody in the United States.
In a court document filed last March, Niebla said he is an asset of the U.S. government.
“The notion that Fast and Furious was used as a cover through which to arm the the Sinaloa cartel would explain why the feds showed little interest in following up where guns ended up once they left the United States,” Paul Joseph Watson noted.
It was confirmed that the government operation was also used to further whittle away the Second Amendment.
“There’s plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said during the Fast and Furious investigation. “But, we’ve learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It’s pretty clear that the problem isn’t lack of burdensome reporting requirements.”
The Brian Terry lawsuit comes as Department of Justice boss Eric Holder prepares to face House Republican Darrell Issa’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Holder’s appearance comes after the Justice Department sent a letter to Issa rejecting his demands that certain documents be turned over. The documents reveal that the DOJ allowed “guns to walk” into Mexico.
Issa promises to cite Holder with contempt of Congress if he fails to turn over the documents.
In their lawsuit against the government, the Terry family argues that the top federal prosecutor in Phoenix lied to them about the AK47s found at the murder scene in an attempt to hide the connection of the weapons to the ATF’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation.
Following a memorial service for the murdered Border Patrol agent, the Terry family met with Border Patrol, FBI and Justice Department officials in a hotel conference room in Tucson, Arizona. “But the officials gave them almost no information and wouldn’t answer the family’s questions,” a notice of claim filed in court explains.
“The federal officials were obviously covering something up, and their actions only added to the family’s grief,” the notice says.
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