A new watchdog report revealed this week that U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has conducted dozens of unauthorized undercover investigations into illicit cigarette sales, misused $162 million in profits, and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes.
The investigation covered operations and records between 2006 and 2011. The most disturbing allegation is the use of “churning investigations,” operations used to pay for ATF expenses.
Also detailed in the report is that ATF officials allowed a tobacco distributor (who was a confidential informant) to keep $4.9 million in profits from cigarette sales to criminal suspects. Those missing 420 million cigarettes were worth $127 million.
Yet, there is no reference to criminal investigations or a single act of discipline. Indeed, the assumption appears to be that any such missing money or property had to be innocent. This all could very well be innocent but the amount of misused money or missing cigarettes is staggering. ATF spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun however insisted “only 447,218 cartons that were not reconciled because of insufficient documentation.” Only 447,218 cartons? Is that the standard for the ATF, keep missing property below half a million items? That short of sounds like “well, its close enough for jazz . . . or the ATF.”
The police state does not have to be successful, capable, rational or accountable, it just needs to be. They have to spend all their allotted funds or risk having them cut. They will fight to keep their bloated budgets, since their bloated retirements and bonus system depend on those funds being increased each year.
Oxymoron: dumb smoker. This blog does not cover the issue of health and suicide by smoking and leaves smokers to their own demise. Many commenters here are probably smokers and I will not call you dumb or oxymorons, I will leave that to your heirs. But, the ATF stands for: Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Never the Twain shall meet unless the three arrive in Cairo when Jim and Huck are getting off the raft. I hate to be mean here but some people call me Peat Moss and say that I am an ox.
Thanks.
WordPress just ate my comment.
How about telling it not to do that?
Blouise is spot on. The ATF has been hollowed out (the new catch phrase) by the NRA, the overseer of Congress, and the provider of weapons for criminals and the insane.
Yes, the NRA, whose only responsibility is representing arms manufacturers.
You work for the NRA. Your taxes pay the salaries of their most powerful employees. Congress.
The NRA leads the resistance to Senate ratification of the U.N. Arms Treaty, finally signed by the U.S.A.
What does the U.N. Arms Treaty have to do with your god-mandated, sacred obligation to keep firearms in your dwelling, on your person, and killing your kids?
Nothing. The Arms Treaty is seen as a threat to the peddling of killing machines all over the planet, by U.S. arms manufacturers.
The U.S.A. is the leading exporter of arms, to every side of every conflict, on earth.
The ATF is a shell organization, a distraction, kept that way by the NRA.
C’mon, I don’t really think that the NRA is the most evil organization in the world.
Let me think about it, and get back to you. There must be something more evil than the NRA. It’s just not obvious.
it’s 420 (million) somewhere
the good ole atf is at it again. they didnt learn from ” fast and furious” huh? as for the missing cigarettes. those good ole boys and girls are selling them off to their friends and families. of course now had a distributor lost that amount of cigraettes the agency would have spent millions on investigations, false charges, and imprisonment
My comment won’t post and when I try to repost wp tells me it’s a duplicate. My original post runs completely against the grain of what’s been said thus far so come on … let’s have a little controversy!
Also all CIA foreign operations should be completely divulged and overseen by a council of 15 Senators and 15 House Reps with each party having a representative in. Including 3rd parties.
ATF needs to be defunded and abolished. No need for it anymore anyways
NSA Defunded and abolished also.
DHS Defunded and abolished.
Any other 3 letter security agency. Defund and abolish/merge
Just leave
FBI- for domestic crime
CIA- for foreign
Merge Border Patrol into INS- Responsible for Border and immigration. Turn over any serious criminal matters to FBI
Now I understand the old phrase “Close enough for government work!”
“Over the last three decades, gun activists and lawmakers have purposefully hindered the ATF and carefully molded the agency that enforces gun laws to serve their own interests, stunting the ATF’s budget, handicapping its regulatory authority, and keeping it effectively leaderless.”
note … ATF has been in leaderless limbo as the Senate refused to confirm an ATF director since 2006. This was, of course, after first passing the law requiring Senate confirmation. (Jones was just confirmed this month)
The NRA has effectively worked to make the agency a pariah and our legislature, awash with gun nut funds, has happily gone along.
Expect to see even more reports like this one JT has highlighted. ATF must be kept toothless and the best way to accomplish that goal has been well illustrated and executed since the NRA started its grand morphing process under Reagan.
“Leading the charge was Reagan. On the campaign trail, he’d bashed the ATF and vowed to dissolve it. Once in Washington, Reagan, with the NRA’s backing, proposed folding the ATF into the Secret Service—the two branches of the Treasury most unlike all the others. ATF agents would help the Secret Service handle its beefed-up responsibilities of campaign years and expand its investigative powers. It would have been a death sentence for the bureau.
But then the NRA had had a change of heart. The organization’s strategists came to worry that if gun law enforcement was handed to the Secret Service, one of the few federal agencies with a reputation for competence, gun owners might actually have something to fear. And, they feared, that if the agency did become part of the Secret Service, they’d lose an easy target.
“If it weren’t for the NRA and the liquor industry, there would be no ATF today.”
The NRA realized, “‘Oh my God, we’re gonna lose the ATF!'” recalls William Vizzard, a professor of criminology at California State University-Sacramento, who worked for bureau at the time. “It would have been like removing the Soviets during the Cold War, for the Defense Department—there’s nobody to point to.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/atf-obama-gun-reform-control-alcohol-tobacco-firearms
I can hear the rebuttals already … what does gun control have to do with missing cigarettes, churning investigations, missing funds, and leaderless limbo at the ATF?! Fools
It would be interesting to see exactly what these churning operations involved.
I will say it again, the ATF is the slimiest of all Fed law enforcement. And, they’re the biggest cowboys[see: Branch Davidians].
Sorry, I do not grant them the presumption of INNOCENCE here. These were all unauthorized and an informant was allowed to keep 4.9 million from illegal sales. Some one needs to be fired and prosecuted. This is bloody ridiculous.
That’s a lot of smokes to fall off the back of a truck in Jersey.
Fuggedaboutit!
The ATF was kept out of the loop with Navy Yard shootings too. Maybe law enforcement departments know something we don’t.
“lost track” of420 million cigarettes or buried them?
The ATF really seems to have fallen on hard times lately. In Milwaukee, they set up an undercover store to fence stolen goods including guns. The idea was to nab the bad guys. Well, the store was robbed, the guns all disappeared, and the whole thing would have been better run by the Three Stooges. And then there was “gun walking” too. Bush or Obama, the ATF seems a shambles.
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.