Can You Hear Me Now?

Yesterday obama administration lackeys announced that the Department of Justice is filing an antitrust suit to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.

The merger would create the largest wireless company in the United States, combining AT&T's 98 million customers with T-Mobile's 34 million users for a total of 130 million subscribers. AT&T is currently the second-largest wireless company by number of subscribers, and T-Mobile is fourth.

"We feel the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers across the U.S. facing higher prices, fewer choices, and lower quality products for wireless services," said James Cole, deputy attorney general, in a press conference Wednesday.

I don't know about you, but I find the timing of this action suspicious, in that it comes on the heels of recent events that reveal the depth and breadth of DOJ officials in the 'Fast and Furious' gunrunning scandal.

ATF Director Reassigned; U.S. Attorney Out Amid 'Fast and Furious' Uproar

Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has been reassigned to a lesser post in the Justice Department...

U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, one of the officials closely tied to Fast and Furious, is also a casualty in a shakeup tied to the botched gun-running program. Burke was on the hot seat last week with congressional investigators and, according to several sources, got physically sick during questioning and could not finish his session.

The purge of those responsible for the firearms trafficking scandal continued as new documents reveal a deeper involvement of federal agencies beyond ATF.

New documents ... deeper involvement of federal agencies ... oops, time for a diversion

In Phoenix, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, who oversaw Fast and Furious on a day-to-day basis, was reassigned from the criminal to civil division...

Hurley's reassignment came after three ATF supervisors responsible for the operation were promoted.

The moves follow a series of reports by Fox News detailing the face-off between Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose investigators have recently broadened their probe. It now reportedly shows a deeper involvement of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Operation Fast and Furious, a program designed to track illegal gun sales, turned into an embarrassing scandal after weapons linked to it were found at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent's murder last year. Thousands of guns ended up in the hands of Mexican cartel members.

Transfers ... reassignments ... PROMOTIONS, for God's sake ... there should be jail time for those involved, not 'reassignments.' We're not talking about your routine governemnt scandal here, where some congresscritter pokes someone else's wife/duaghter/son/mistress, or bends over and lets himself/herself get poked by special interests. Instead, we're talking about an operation organized, implemented, supervised, and sanctioned by senior officials up to and likely including the most partisan Attorney General in history, Eric Holder, that resulted in an unknown number of deaths, including LEOs on both sides of the border.

The failed federal anti-gunrunning program known as Operation Fast and Furious got so out of control in November 2009, it appeared the U.S. government was single-handedly "arming for war" the Sinaloa Cartel, documents show, even as U.S. officials kept lying to fellow agents in Mexico about the volume of guns it helped send south of the border.

At one point, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives say guns sold under the program took just 24 hours to travel from a gun store in Phoenix to a crime scene in Mexico.

(ATF senior officials)... in Washington met every Tuesday, to review the latest sales figures and the number of guns recovered in Mexico.

"How long are you going to let this go on?" Steve Martin, an assistant director of intelligence operations asked the ATF top brass at meeting Jan. 5, 2010, according to a transcript of the meeting contained in the congressional report. None of the men responded and several quickly left the room, the transcript reveals.

Plausible deniability, no doubt.

Meanwhile, ATF agents in Mexico were seeing a flood of weapons coming south. When asked, ATF brass told the resident ATF attaché in Mexico things were "under control."

The ATF attaché's response: "We're getting hurt down here,"

The precise number of casualties in Mexico isn't known, but ATF officials confirm the murder of Mario Gonzales Rodriguez, brother of the Chihuahua attorney general, with a Fast and Furious gun.

According to the report, the U.S. knew for eight months of the link between the ATF operation and his death, but refused to tell any Mexican officials.

There's more.

As early as January 2010, guns tied to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosions were found at crime scenes in cities like Phoenix, Glendale and El Paso

(Since then) Weapons from the failed federal operation "Fast and Furious" have reportedly been linked to 11 more violent crimes in the U.S., including in places like Arizona and Texas where a total of 42 weapons were seized.

Sadly, infuriatingly, nothing happened until the death of Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Agent Terry was killed in a gun battle Dec. 14 along the border southwest of Tucson. Two AK-47 rifles linked to the ATF's gunrunning were found at the scene.

Adding insult to injury, the federal government is arguing that members of Terry's family are not crime victims.

In a surprise move in a controversial case, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona is opposing a routine motion by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry to qualify as crime victims in the eyes of the court.

U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not "directly or proximately harmed" by the illegal purchase of the murder weapon, it does not meet the definition of "crime victim" in the Avila case. Burke claims the victim of the Avila's gun purchases, "is not any particular person, but society in general."

Coffey and others wonder if Burke has a conflict. It was his office that led Operation Fast and Furious. The operation, while executed by agents for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was managed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley. Hurley drafted the response to the family's motion. It was signed by Burke.

Just to bring things full circle, Hurley and Burke were two of the officials recently reassigned, as noted in the story at the top of this post. No word yet on whether the government will now drop its opposition to the Terry family's motion.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but in this case I do think there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than we're aware of. I think the entire DOJ, from Eric Holder on down, is in serious CYA mode. We may never know the full truth.

I also think the trail of complicity goes a lot farther upwards than we know, all the way to the White House.

This is a perfect illustration of why I love my country, but I fear its government...