By Jeff Knox
What did he know, when did he know it, and what has he done about it? Was ATF Director Appointee, B. Todd Jones, involved in the inception of the felony stupid program known as Fast and Furious? What has he done regarding the scandal in the year and a half that he has been Acting Director? What specific actions does he intend to take to focus ATF enforcement efforts on violent criminals and reduce the incidence of prosecution of unwitting technical violations by regular gun owners? . . .
The Judiciary Committee of the US Senate is scheduled to begin hearings on the confirmation of B. Todd Jones as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Tuesday, June 11. Jones has served as the Acting Director of the agency since September of 2011 when, then-Acting Director, Ken Melson transferred to a new post in the wake of the Fast and Furious scandal.
Fast and Furious should be at the center of this upcoming hearing, and Jones’ involvement in that scandal has never been fully investigated. About the time of Jones’ appointment to the Acting Director post, The Firearms Coalition uncovered a document that suggested that Jones might have been involved in the strategy meeting that originally conceived the ill-conceived operation. Information about that meeting was very sketchy, and to our knowledge, has never been fully exposed. The meeting in question was a gathering of the Attorney General’s Southwest Border Strategy Group which took place shortly before Fast and Furious began.
The group was put together to devise strategies to rectify shortcomings disclosed in a scathing report from the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General. The OIG report was extremely critical of ATF for arresting only low-level participants in Mexican drug cartel gun smuggling operations, and called for the agency to adopt strategies and tactics to produce arrests further up the criminal food chain. Fast and Furious was devised in direct response to that OIG report.
That being the case, the meeting of the AG’s Southwest Border Strategy Group which occurred just after the OIG report and just before the initiation of Operation Fast and Furious should be of particular interest to anyone trying to understand how Fast and Furious came into being. Unfortunately, information about that meeting has been extremely limited and what information has come out has been heavily redacted. But back in September of 2011 The Firearms Coalition found evidence that B. Todd Jones was a participant in that critical Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting.
Though the roster of participants in attendance at that meeting was redacted, someone failed to conceal a mention that the Chairman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee was in attendance. At that time, the Chairman of the AG’s Advisory Committee was Eric Holders close friend and confidant, B. Todd Jones. Jones resigned that position about the same time that he was appointed by Holder to temporarily head up the ATF.
Now with the Senate Judiciary Committee taking up the question of whether or not B. Todd Jones should be confirmed as permanent Director of ATF, the questions about that critical meeting of the AG’s Southwest Border Strategy Group, and Jones’s involvement in it, must be answered. He also needs to answer questions about his actions since becoming Acting Director of the agency, regarding policy changes, discipline of those involved, and treatment of whistleblowers. We would also like to hear Mr. Jones’ ideas for focusing the activities of ATF on real criminals rather than going after regular gun owners.
We encourage everyone to contact the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee with requests that they get answers to these questions. The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. The operator can then connect you to the office you request.
This post originally appeared at jpfo.org and is reprinted here with permission.
If he’s a barry appointee I’m going out on a limb here and predicting he’s gonna do sweet fvck all about the atf’s misdeeds except to try and intitute new misdeeds while sweeping the old under the rug.
Bu-bu-but what about all that Transparency I read about? And Hope and Change? And unicorns and fairies? Okay, I made up the last part.
FYI, Randy Weaver has a better chance of being confirmed than Byron Todd Jones.
Hilarious as usual.
We’ll probably find Lon Horiuchi sniping random unarmed civilians (women and children) as well.
You’ve more chance of seeing unicorns & fairies than you do of seeing truth & transparency from the ATF or its acting head.
Good news posting. Exactly why I like this site. I don’t know where else I would be reading this type of story.
Once again, prompting me to write my senator and congressman.
We need to stay on top of these thugs and let them know that we aren’t going away. More to the point, we’re getting more vocal.
As an aside, WTH is Al Franken doing on the judiciary committee? Let’s pick another member: Ted Cruz. “Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.” Just a highlight from a stellar legal career.
Al Franken? Saturday Night Live. Anyone else having issues with this?
Franken’s hardly the only comedian in the Senate. He’s up for re-election in 2014. Unfortunately, he’s from the same state that elected Jesse “The Mor0n” Ventura.
Is there something in the Sky Blue Water? Is that why Hamm’s folded?
“Is there something in the Sky Blue Water?”
Damn, you may be onto something there.
Having lived in the state of MN before and during J.V.’s election and term to even a short time afterwards I would ask you do your homework a little more.
I saw personaly some of the common sense type of cuts he did to their state government & he had some good ideas but a beligerent house & senate aggregated to shut him down because one of their guys didn’t win. It was a huge pitty party on both sides of the isle.
One thing that he did to save the tax payers of MN millions was to shut down the over taxation of used vehicles. In MN “tabs” cost roughly 5% of a vehicles value for 5yrs old & newer. This made newer cars a very costly perspective every year come tab renewal time. One frind had to pay around $600 for a 2yr old car… In WI, at the time, license fees were around $55 no matter how old the car providing they were normal plates and not personalized.
It resulted in a huge cut in MN’s tax and spend policies. Newer car sales also increased.
He was a vocal suporter of 2 A rights as I recall some of his speeches.
He hit a mis-reported cord when he maid his great religion comment. It was, as usual, taken out of context in terms of how he feels about people who just blindly follow along with what ever they are told and not led by true faith in something.
I was there and lived the times, so I thought I would share my perspective.
Funnily enough, Ted Cruz is on the Judiciary Committee and did a fantastic job of defending gun rights in the post-Newtown hearings.
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm
Or maybe I just made myself look stupid and assumed you didn’t realize Cruz was on the committee. I don’t know. Either way, he’s there.
Heh.
Just remember Heinlein’s aphorism: “Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”
Unfortunately, that seems to apply to the voters in this country more than to the people they voted in. [Not because the election was fair: the IRS shenanigans illustrate that, as well as several recent felony vote-fraud convictions. But because the margin was to small to overcome the margin of fraud.] Now, as the military is being dismantled, religion demonized, and Obamacare stomping on the economy, Heinlein is once again proved prescient.
At the risk of incurring Matt in Fla’s wrath…
My favorite Heinlein quote: “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
You manifested that sentiment by ignoring the potential “Wrath of the Matt”.
Wasn’t that a “Star Trek” movie?
Oh for goodness sake! Holder just completed an exhaustive investigation of himself, AND HE FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING!!!
I’m certain Mister Jones is of similarly spotless character.
Well this just proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a racist site. /s
rtempleton will be along shortly to inform us that he strongly supports this nomination and that Obama is God.
The most corrupt administration in living memory (I’ve finally forgotten Warren G. Harding). The ‘Stimulus’ payoff to Democrat supporters was the single most massive and fraudulent misappropriation of public funds–ever. Solindra, et al, Fast and Furious (no this has nothing to do with self-pleasure), Benghazi, IRS, and you can add all all the stuff we don’t know about, thanks to our sycophantic press. Tricky Dicky was a better President and a more honest one. Speaks volumes. I needs a drink…
I recommend scotch.
Don’t forget Wilson and FDR. They were real pieces of work too. But even they would probably look at Obama and say, “Damn, how did you get away with all THAT?”
This is obvious racist fear-mongering. Obama, michelle O, holder, valerie jarrett, susan rice, and now this dude are only being targeted because of their skin color.
Yeah, what a crock. I might convert to judaism, the black panthers, or something so I too can be judged by the color of my skin and not the content of my deeds. Thats what MLK meant right?
It’s still beyond me how any human being, no matter how passionately you hate Americans owning guns, could sign off on some shit like that.
B. Todd Jones is featured in several recent posts on CleanupATF.org.
I don’t believe you need to register to visit and read. You’ll probably have to if you want to post a reply.
Good site.
It was set up, I believe, by the guys who broke open the F & F clusterf with Mike and David. It’s worth a visit or two. On my Windoze machines, it’s bookmarked.
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