Fast And Furious Gun Control Plot Was Widely Known :: 02/17/2012

Scandal: A drug enforcement agent says other agencies knew in 2009 about the Justice Department's gunrunning operation and even tried to interdict the weapons flow. And, yes, it was a gun-control plot.

The notion that Fast and Furious was a localized operation run out of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of which few, particularly the arguably clueless Attorney General Eric Holder, were aware continues to be exposed as the lie it is.

"In 2009, I became aware that ATF was walking guns," Tony Coulson, who was in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency-Tucson during Operation Fast and Furious, said in a recent interview with Michel Marizco of the website Fronteras.

"I also learned that Homeland Security Investigations, then ICE, actually interceded on more than one occasion where they seized weapons at the ports of entry when they were heading southbound contrary to ATF's plans."

The statements by the now-retired Coulson confirm the testimony of ATF agents themselves that providing guns to Mexican drug cartels was intended, not accidental. "Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals - this was the plan," John Dodson, an ATF agent, testified before the House Government Oversight Committee.

"It was so mandated," ATF agent Olindo James Casa said before the committee, adding that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."

Coulson paints a picture not of a well-intentioned local program gone rogue, but of a operation widely known throughout the Obama administration, one deliberately intended to promote the need for gun control. Other agencies knew of the operation and tried to stop the flow of guns to Mexican criminals and drug cartels.