Gunwalker: did the FBI cover up evidence in the Brian Terry killing?

**Posted by Phineas

Brian Terry was a US Border Patrol agent killed last year near the Mexican border in Arizona a gun-battle with what were then described as “bandits.” Two of the guns used to kill Agent Terry were traced to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) operation called “Fast and Furious” (aka “Gunwalker”), which allowed the illegal purchase of weapons at US gun shops by straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels and then allowed them to be “walked” over the border to the real buyers.

No, I have no idea what they were thinking, either.

Now evidence has come out that there was a third Gunwalker firearm at Terry’s killing, and that the FBI may have covered it up to protect a confidential informant planted with the cartels:

Sources say emails support their contention that the FBI concealed evidence to protect a confidential informant. Sources close to the Terry case say the FBI informant works inside a major Mexican cartel and provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.

Unlike the two AK-style assault weapons found at the scene, the third weapon could more easily be linked to the informant. To prevent that from happening, sources say, the third gun “disappeared.”

In addition to the emails obtained by Fox News, an audio recording from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent investigating the Terry case seems to confirm the existence of a third weapon. In that conversation, the agent refers to an “SKS assault rifle out of Texas” found at the Terry murder scene south of Tucson.

The FBI refused to answer a detailed set of questions submitted to officials by Fox News. Instead, agency spokesman Paul Bresson said, “The Brian Terry investigation is still ongoing so I cannot comment.” Bresson referred Fox News to court records that only identify the two possible murder weapons.

However, in the hours after Terry was killed on Dec. 14, 2010, several emails written to top ATF officials suggest otherwise.

In one, an intelligence analyst writes that by 7:45 p.m. — about 21 hours after the shooting — she had successfully traced two weapons at the scene, and is now “researching the trace status of firearms recovered earlier today by the FBI.”

In another email, deputy ATF-Phoenix director George Gillett asks: “Are those two (AK-47s) in addition to the gun already recovered this morning?”

Be sure to read the rest.

Meanwhile, I’d sure like to know the answer to Mr. Gillett’s question, wouldn’t you? And, beyond that, where did the third gun go and who gave the orders not to include it in the evidence recovered from the crime scene?

We’re not just talking about a huge federal scandal involving multiple agencies here. A US Border Patrol agent was killed with weapons allowed purposefully to fall into the hands of the bad guys. Simple justice for Agent Terry and his family (who have been treated shabbily by the US Attorney’s office in Arizona) demands that the truth come out.

It’s time for people to start testifying under oath, both before Congress and a grand jury. And if the Obama administration won’t agree to a special prosecutor, then the attorney general offices in the affected states should open their own investigations. Surely there were multiple state laws broken here, too.

via Nice Deb through Michelle Malkin.

RELATED: Earlier Gunwalker posts.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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