Patterico's Pontifications

3/20/2012

Obama Administration Let Main Fast & Furious Suspect Go

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:02 am



Got the big fish but he promises to catch an even bigger fish if you let him go?

If you’re the feds, the answer is clear.

Throw him back:

Seven months after federal agents began the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, they stumbled upon their main suspect in a remote Arizona outpost on the Mexican border, driving an old BMW with 74 rounds of ammunition and nine cellphones hidden inside.

Detained for questioning that day in May 2010, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta described to agents from theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives his close association with a top Mexican drug cartel member, according to documents obtained this weekend by the Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after he pledged to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators.

Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico. He never called.

Shocking!

Me, I might put the big fish on the hook and use him as bait for the bigger fish. That waym rather than simply throwing him back, I have him on the hook.

But that’s me, a simple state prosecutor. If only I were as smart as the feds . . .

Thanks to Dana.

63 Responses to “Obama Administration Let Main Fast & Furious Suspect Go”

  1. “He never called.”

    Go figure.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  2. But that’s me, a simple state prosecutor. If only I were as smart as the feds . . .

    — Do not despair! One day you will deduce how to fit that square peg into the round hole. And when you do . . . can you say “appellate attorney at the 9th clown circus”?

    Icy (927b00)

  3. I had a friend who went out and made himself as smart as the feds.

    He said the prefrontal lobotomy hurt like the dickens.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  4. And the republicans remain silent, what a turd of a party.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  5. And he got ten bucks out of the deal.

    HWGood (3ad46f)

  6. Well, her name is Hope….

    Big Robert (080692)

  7. “But that’s me, a simple state prosecutor.”

    It’s funny how governments work.

    We have state prosecuters working their fingers to the bone, trying to keep guns out of the hands of drug gangs so folks don’t get killed, while the feds are busting ass trying to arm drug gangs so folks do get killed.

    Seems kind of counter-productive.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  8. Hey Hope, I promise not to cxx in your mouth.Honest!!!!

    Ipso Fatso (7434b9)

  9. Bush let Bin Laden go. And Obama caught him. 🙂

    Jeremy Wolcott (9de8d9)

  10. Patterico, or anyone else in law enforcement, would you ever do something like this, letting a weapons smuggler go free on a simple promise, without orders from higher-ups to do this?

    rbj (9ae8d9)

  11. He could have been “disappeared” by the cartel after being snitched out by a cartel member inside the BATFE, maybe Hope herself. Anything is possible with this cluster****.

    nk (dec503)

  12. Non-shocking news of the day: When the Bush administration employed the same “gun-walkng” tactics on the smugglers, Patterico wrote nothing about the subject: http://bit.ly/y0uMkF

    Jeremy Wolcott (9de8d9)

  13. Gunwalker tracked the weapons, and was discontinued in 2007, without any casualties, nice try.

    narciso (af93ce)

  14. Jeremy Wolcott is about as mendoucheous as Jabba the Wolcott.

    JD (0e9826)

  15. More from Sheryl Attkinsson, CBS, who has been following this from the beginning,

    In a related case also run by ATF’s Phoenix office, CBS News has reported a grenade parts trafficker named Jean Baptiste Kingery was caught smuggling 114 disassembled grenades in a tire in 2010, but was released. The same prosecutors faulted in Fast and Furious allegedly refused to bring charges saying grenade parts are “novelty items” and the case “lacked jury appeal.” Mexican authorities arrested Kingery a year later at a stash house with enough materials for 1,000 grenades.

    And Eric Holder tsk-tsks the entire matter,

    The Inspector General has been investigating Fast and Furious for more than a year. Attorney General Eric Holder, who’s denied knowing about any gunwalking, has said use of the “inappropriate tactics is neither acceptable nor excusable.”

    Dana (4eca6e)

  16. They are probably related.

    narciso (af93ce)

  17. Non-shocking news of the day: When the Bush administration employed the same “gun-walkng” tactics on the smugglers, Patterico wrote nothing about the subject: http://bit.ly/y0uMkF

    Comment by Jeremy Wolcott — 3/20/2012 @ 6:14 am

    Mr. Wolcott, please link your blog where you covered the story.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  18. Comment by rbj — 3/20/2012 @ 6:07 am

    Patterico, or anyone else in law enforcement, would you ever do something like this, letting a weapons smuggler go free on a simple promise, without orders from higher-ups to do this?

    I think anyone can try an answer here.

    I think if you were bribed, or your superior(s) had been bribed and ordered you never to arrest anyone unless the arrest had been planned in advance, you might do this.

    The purpose of Fast and Furious, and its predecessor a few years earlier, was not to stop guns from going into Mexico; it was to insure the guns got safely into Mexico, and maybe that other illegal activities got safely carried out, and that certain Mexican criminals were protected from arrest.

    In the version during the Bush Administration, on paper Mexican authorities were supposed to be involved; in its later incarnation as Fast and Furious in 2009, they didn’t even pretend that Mexican authorities were supposed to be involved.

    I don’t think this was any kind of political scheme to show how bad gun regulations were.

    Rather, the political appointees didn’t understand how ridiculous the proposed operation recommended by the career people was, except that the Obama people in 2009 were even more stupid and naive than the Bush people had been in 2006, and the Obama people didn’t talk to the Bush people, so it could start all over again.

    Sammy Finkelman (4591c3)

  19. Considering that quote, from Holder, in 1995, that
    we have to ‘brainwash’ people against firearms, I put nothing past them.

    narciso (af93ce)

  20. three words for Biden
    Jimmy Friggin’ Doolittle
    audacious my ass

    Colonel Haiku (837735)

  21. Mexican Drug Cartels Stacked with U.S. informants

    DEA officials say they have “several highly placed confidential sources with direct access” to key leaders in the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. But issues have arisen from the program—one midlevel Sinaloa boss sentenced last month, for example, used his in with the DEA to pass along info that would hurt rival cartels, while protecting his own trafficking activities.

    U.S. Agencies Infiltrating Drug Cartels Across Mexico by Ginger Thompson, published by the New York Times Oct. 24, 2011.

    While using informants remains a largely clandestine affair, several recent cases have shed light on the kinds of investigations they have helped crack, including a plot this month in which the United States accused an Iranian-American car salesman of trying to hire killers from a Mexican drug cartel, known as Los Zetas, to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

    American officials said Drug Enforcement Administration informants with links to the cartels helped the authorities to track down several suspects linked to the February murder of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Jaime J. Zapata, who is alleged to have been shot to death by members of Los Zetas in central Mexico.

    This is so successful that:

    “Mexican organized crime groups have morphed from drug trafficking organizations into something new and far more dangerous,” Mr. Panner said. “The Zetas now are active in extortion, human trafficking, money laundering, and increasingly, anything a violent criminal organization can do to make money, whether in Mexico, Guatemala or, it appears, the U.S.”

    Sammy Finkelman (4591c3)

  22. fast and furious
    may be “most head up ass” plan
    last five hundred years

    Colonel Haiku (837735)

  23. Now there was a story by Aram Roston in Newsweek, that indicated the Sinaloan cartel’s success was in informing on his competitors, call it the Whitey
    Bulger effect.

    narciso (af93ce)

  24. Who has time to worry about mostly peaceful, non-violent drug cartels when we have the evil, murdering, guitar manufacturers at Gibson? Priorities, people!

    If you were in a drug cartel, and you were having trouble with your main competition, the Zetas, wouldn’t you form an alliance with a smaller drug cartel and arm them to the teeth since they’re in the same turf as the Zetas?

    So why is our DOJ acting like a drug cartel?

    Ghost (6f9de7)

  25. Did Gibson ever get charged with anything? Or get their materials back?

    JD (0e9826)

  26. Bush Clinton let Bin Laden go. And Obama SEAL Team Six caught got him.

    FTFY

    Icy (927b00)

  27. OP F&F was a complete cluster-f&ck from the outset because it started with an operational plan (walking guns to identify key players in the Mexican cartel drug trade) that stupid and ineffective.

    But lets look at the decision to let him go from an investigative standpoint. As noted above, a big operational push in large investigations like this, where the real targets are abroad, is to find sources of information that are on the inside. Celis-Acosta seems to have fit that profile. So, having him in hand provides an opportunity that the agents don’t otherwise have — he can get people on the phone, he can identify key locations in Mexico, he can identify key players on both sides of the border, etc.

    Not clear from the article are a couple of key decision data points regarding his arrest. First, while he might have been the key target, at the time he was arrested were the feds in a position to prosecute him for anything other than the 74 rounds of ammunition in the car? Frankly, under federal firearms statutes, that’s not much of a charge, and its not going to produce much of a sentence. If you prosecute him overtly, he gets a light sentence, and you then try to send him to Mexico to work as a CI, nobody is going to talk with him, and he’ll likely end up dead. His position in the cartel will be easily assumed by someone who is unknown, and the gun-buying operations will continue uninterrupted.

    Second, while the article includes a wide description of the things Celis-Acosta told the investigators, it doesn’t say whether he talked to them under the protection of a “proffer agreement.” The questioning took place after he was arrested, meaning he was entitled to have an attorney present. Any attorney representing someone like Celis-Acosta in the federal system is going to want a proffer letter before he/she lets his/her client discuss what it is they know. The proffer letter means nothing Celis-Acosta told them during the interview could be used against Celis-Acosta himself if he was later indicted and taken to trial. Agreements like this are used at the beginning of possible cooperation arrangements because it lets the investigators and the prosecutors get an idea about what it is the suspect can offer through their cooperation, so they can judge whether its worth making a deal with him. But it doesn’t work as evidence against the suspect.

    So, when they let Celis-Acosta go, it might very well have been the case that they had little or no admissible evidence against him with which to prosecute him on the wider aspects of the gun-smuggling that was the focus of the investigation, and what they did have were only minor charges involving the ammunition found in the spare tire of the car. Given the information he provided when interviewed, they had to make a decision about which way to go — charge him in a public court document and ruin any chances to flip him into a CI who was “inside” the cartel operations, or let him go and see what develops.

    Again, as I mentioned at the outset, the overall operation F&F was stupid and run by a bunch of idiots. But the decision to interview and let Celis-Acosta go is one that involved a lot of considerations beyond what is contained in the article.

    This smells to me like a DOJ leak meant to further point the finger of blame at the Phoenix ATF office and the Arizona US Attorney’s Office, and away from players at Main Justice in DC.

    shipwreckedcrew (97754e)

  28. When HOPE gave him the 10 bucks, he should have gien her CHANGE.

    That would have fixed things.

    Gus (36e9a7)

  29. Shipwrecked, I think you’ve been on Gilligans Island a wee bit too long, ask the Professor to invent something for you, and come back to the real world.
    Just IMAGINE, JUST FUXING IMAGINE if this was the BUSH ADMIN.
    Oh, that’s right, to you, LYNDON J0HNSON is still in office.

    Gus (36e9a7)

  30. Gus — I think I know more about this than you do. You might want to ask around.

    shipwreckedcrew (97754e)

  31. Remember, if a wiretap intercept catches two people on the phone talking about what Celis-Acosta is doing, its possible that the recording of that conversation might not be admissible in a trial involving Acosta unless some evidentiary hurdles can be overcome.

    Just because you know who he is and what he’s involved with doesn’t mean you have admissible evidence with which to prosecute him and establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

    shipwreckedcrew (97754e)

  32. JD, last I heard, a month ago, no charges, nothing returned.

    Ghost (6f9de7)

  33. Shipwrecked, I don’t give a fiddlers fart who you think you are.

    Gus (36e9a7)

  34. “Shipwrecked, I don’t give a fiddlers fart who you think you are.”

    Gus – I do.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  35. Icy says that if a Seal Team does something good under Obama’s tenure, the Seal team did it, but if the ATF does something bad under Obama’s tenure, then Obama did it. LOL.

    Jeremy Wolcott (25a0c1)

  36. Jeremy Wolcott says I blame Booooosh, lol!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  37. How many guilty people did SEAL Team Six kill?

    How many innocent people has F&F killed?

    Did Obama do a good job on this one? Sure.

    His record for good/bad decisions has improved to 1 & 500

    Icy (927b00)

  38. “Jeremy Wolcott” is the most pathetic LOOK BUNNIES/BOOOSH troll to drive by in a while.

    Most audacious in 500 years, in fact.

    JD (0e9826)

  39. #gutsycall is apparently going to be one of the leftist campaign memes.

    JD (0e9826)

  40. “U.S. Agencies Infiltrating Drug Cartels Across Mexico”

    That’s good. Now that they’re in with the cartels, government employees will be able to get blow at discount prices.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  41. If my tax dollar has to go to supporting Obambi’s coke habit, I’d much rather they bought it in bulk directly from the cartels, than buy it at retail prices from street dealers.

    And as far as our government (effectively) supplying the drug gangs with thousands of weapons goes…how the hell are they supposed to protect their businesses from the busybodies in the Mexican government, if they don’t have any guns?

    Letting them have weapons is just striking a blow for free enterprise.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  42. Me, I might put the big fish on the hook

    Because he didn’t live in the United States, he wasn’t on the hook.

    They could have put him on the hook by videotaping him talking about several important people, more than one, including some he might not be on complete good terms with, and some he was, and several ongoing conspiracies (and threatening to make it public in the right circumstances, although I suppose some ethics code would prevent that from being carried out)

    Unless they were all lies, and/or he told the others first. But he’d at least continue to pretend to co-operate, and that’s all you can hope for, anyway.

    Sammy Finkelman (4591c3)

  43. Only the first line above should be in italics.

    Sammy Finkelman (4591c3)

  44. “They could have put him on the hook by videotaping him talking about several important people, more than one, including some he might not be on complete good terms with, and some he was, and several ongoing conspiracies (and threatening to make it public in the right circumstances, although I suppose some ethics code would prevent that from being carried out)”

    Sammy – Which movie did I see that in?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  45. “Me, I might put the big fish on the hook”

    – from “The Old Sammy and the Sea”

    Colonel Haiku (11593b)

  46. Sammy – am I reading your suggestion correctly as prefering the government to put an person not yet convicted of any crime secretly on videotape talking about the possibility of betraying those he is working for, and they blackmailing that person into cooperating with the government by threatening to make public the videotaped exchanges that would likely put he and his family in Mexico at risk of execution?

    Really?

    shipwreckedcrew (4ae072)

  47. “Non-shocking news of the day”

    Yeah, there’s nothing shocking about it.

    Dems used to use the Klan as part of a plot to strip people of their right to vote. Now they get caught employing Mexican drug gangs in a plot designed to strip Americans of their right to keep and bear arms.

    Same old, same old.

    The Dems are the same tyrants they’ve always been, they’re trying to deny people rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and they’re perfectly willing to arrange murders to get what they want.

    Nothing new there.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  48. I almost didn’t bother reading this because of the headline “Obama Administration Let Main Fast & Furious Suspect Go”…mostly because I already knew they were going to let Holder get away with it….

    Pamela (95126e)

  49. He’s probably not the first guy to never call her back…

    Pamela (95126e)

  50. the point is Guzman seeded informants, which took out his rivals, parallels to the ‘Departed’ are intentional.

    narciso (94eff0)

  51. Wolcott writes two lies in one thread. Bush did not let Bin Laden go. And the Bush administration did not use the same tactics for gun smuggling. The Bush administration operation attempted to actually track gun once across the border and had cooperation from Mexican LEO’s. Once the tracking techniques failed in Mexico, the Bush era operation ended. There was no attempt to track the weapons in Mexico at all and no cooperation with Mexican LEO in the Obama administration. It was a different operation with a different purpose – to put US guns into Mexican crime scenes for political gain.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  52. Comment by shipwreckedcrew — 3/20/2012 @ 4:06 pm

    #

    Sammy – am I reading your suggestion correctly as prefering the government to put an person not yet convicted of any crime secretly on videotape talking about the possibility of betraying those he is working for, and they blackmailing that person into cooperating with the government by threatening to make public the videotaped exchanges that would likely put he and his family in Mexico at risk of execution?

    Really?

    If the guy and the people he was working with were bad enough. In fact, it probably wouldn’t work unless they were bad enough.

    Of course I am talking about this as an alternative to arrest. And voluntary statements, voluntarily recorded. (might as well be tell him in advance what you want to do. You don”t want resentment.)

    If they want an agent inside the Mexican drug cartels, that’s what they need to do. If they want even the possibility of an honest agent. Otherwise they have no hold.

    Again, it depends if this is somebody who ordinarily can’t be trusted. In some cases you might want to waive doing this. In fact, this tactic shouldn’t be repeated too much because you wouldn’t want it to become known. The cartel would figure out a counter-tactic.

    You might think the big problem is they could be released on purpose to punish him when they shoudn’t. In fact, the real problem is that the government couldn’t guarantee confidentiality. Eventually a court would order these statements released as Brady material in another case. So anyway you’d want to get the people compromised in this way out of there after no more than two or three years.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  53. Making these recordings would be part of the deal.

    Done too often of course, it might become apparent that someone could survive a release of the tape so usage should be limited.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  54. Some or many potential informants wouldn’t take up the offer. But the ones who did you would know had a potential to be really solid.

    The British in world war II did something like that. Not exactly this but they were threatened with hanging. Their co-operation was needed because every person who uses a telegraph has his own distinctive “signature.

    Again in this case, the person would have to deliberately put his head in a noose – but no deal maybe unless he did.

    Of course there’s the problem can the government people be trusted.

    Another reason to close out cases like that relatively soon lest he be succeeded by somebody else not so careful or with different ideas.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  55. The same tactic would be useful in terrorism investigations.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  56. Snitches don’t walk on a tightrope or a cliff’s edge. They walk on a knife’s edge. They are desperate people with little, almost nothing, to lose. They cannot be trusted. They cannot be handled. Flipping a coin gives LEOs a better chance.

    nk (dec503)

  57. I like your American English. It went from “law” to “law enforcement officer”, with “police”, “sheriff”, “constable”, “marshal”, “ranger”, in-between. And now, “LEO”. Still polysyllabic, but that’s ok.

    nk (dec503)

  58. On the trail of the missing link…. (Boldface mine)

    http://extranosalley.com/?p=19523

    How El Chapo Guzman Works The Feds
    Posted on January 31, 2012 by Stranger…

    More and more often, Mexican news sources also imply the Sinaloa and Zeta Cartels have strong links to Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the ATF, as well as to the U.S. State Department. This informant’s story agrees with what is coming from Mexico.

    Mexican newspapers now..maybe that’s been repeated in English and/or more fully sourced.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  59. “There was no attempt to track the weapons in Mexico at all and no cooperation with Mexican LEO in the Obama administration. It was a different operation with a different purpose – to put US guns into Mexican crime scenes for political gain.”

    Yup. That’s the only explanation that fits the facts.

    The idea was to cause all kinds of violence and killing in Mexico that could be traced back to guns sold in the United States, which would give them an excuse to shut down gun sellers here.

    They want to ban private gun ownership in the United States, and they don’t give a damn how that gets done, as long as it gets done.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  60. Hope honey, i am married but i am getting a divorce and i have been fixed so we don’t need a condom, i lost my cell phone so i can’t give you a number to call. Because of the divorce i had to cancel my credit cards so if you put the room on yours, i will pay back payday.

    dunce (15d7dc)


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