How did Sen. Feinstein get ATF gun trace data in violation of Tiahrt Amendment? :: 11/30/2011

Persons within the Department of Justice whose identities are not yet publicly known apparently broke the law by leaking firearms trace data to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which she introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee record in the hearing on Department of Justice oversight earlier this month.

"If I may," Senator Feinstein requested at the beginning of her questioning of Attorney General Eric Holder (see webcast , at the 69:45 mark), I'd like to put in the record the official firearms trace data from the Department of Justice from 12/1/2006 to 2000...excuse me, 9/30/2011...this is guns [unintelligible] Mexico."

Left unchallenged and unsaid is how Feinstein obtained the data, which is prohibited by the Tiahrt Amendment from being shared with anyone but law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, and only then in the course of a criminal investigation. That prohibition extends even to Senator Feinstein, as evidenced by the failed attempt earlier this year by Rep. Adam Schiff "to allow Congressional committees to be included on the list of entities to which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms can disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System database."