USA –-(Ammoland.com)- “Breaking: ATF reportedly relieves Fast and Furious managers prior to OIG report,” Gun Rights Examiner reported last Tuesday, simultaneously with a related report by Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, and supplemented with additional details by Dave Workman.
“ATF sidelines officials in gun sting debacle,” Reuters corroborated a day later in the Chicago Tribune.
The basic details of this development, from my January 4 report:
“William Hoover, ATF’s Deputy Director during Fast and Furious, who was recently reassigned as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office, Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait, likewise reassigned as head of the Baltimore Field Office, and Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations William McMahon have reportedly been sidelined pending the outcome of the anticipated report from the Office of Inspector General.”
Which leads to another interesting development noted by Vanderboegh on Friday, where he observed a photograph of the recently-sidelined McMahon standing next to Attorney General Eric Holder at the funeral of an ATF agent killed by a police officer during a drugstore robbery. (Note: Examiner.com photo agreement and use policy prevents including it in this report.)
Why is this significant?
Holder has an entourage and security. Just anybody doesn’t get up next to him. He is also media-savvy.
Sentiment among some insiders is that this was no accident, that there is a reason why the top boss would allow himself to be publicly seen with one of his managers who has been relieved, and that this is an indicator of a continued game plan to trivialize the work of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and signal continued in-your-face defiance.
One other question asked by Gun Rights Examiner to advisers intimately familiar with Bureau practices and culture:
Would it be safe to assume McMahon is armed? I think the mention of that has significance in terms of the “disgruntled employee/workplace violence” meme the antis use to try to keep us mere mortals from even having our guns in cars on company parking lots because we may have personnel issues.
Knowledgeable sources affirm that’s a safe and sure assumption to make.
It is brought up here not to suggest any danger, but, because this is primarily a column dedicated to promoting the right to keep and bear arms, to point out a double standard—that government officials are automatically trusted and We the People are automatically not.
It would also seem to be an indicator that the administration doesn’t think their sidelined career manager facing the results of a supposedly exhaustive investigation is under excessive stress.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance.
