Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry killed on patrol along the Mexican border.
The Washington Post and its reporters are the unnamed co-conspirators in the bloody gun-grabber mess that may lead to the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder and certainly contributed to the death of a federal agent on the Mexican borderlands.
Project Gunrunner and its connected undercover operations, such as Fast and Furious in the Southwest and Castaway in Florida, facilitated the purchase and shipment of hundreds of firearms that would have otherwise stopped at the point of sale or the Mexican border.
The program came to public notice after disgusted federal agents with the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) broke their cover after the Dec. 14 death of Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry. Terry was cut down by an AK-47 sold by the Arizona’s Lone Wolf Trading Company gun store in an ambush with Mexican gangbangers. Terry, who also served in the Marines, bled out before he could get proper medical attention.
On Dec. 13, the Washington Post ran a blockbuster article in its “Secret Life of Guns” series subtitled, “As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border” that focused on the arms trade across the Mexican border. In the article, the Post printed a list of the top 12 gun stores responsible for selling guns traced to crimes in Mexico. On top of the list was Lone Wolf Trading in Glendale, Ariz.
Joining the bylined reporters James V. Grimaldi and Sari Horwitz on the team were research editor Alice Crites and staff writer William Booth. This team worked for months with the ATF so closely that when the article was published the paper, it had prepared maps and charts based on ATF-provided statistics. Its online presentation included a video narrated by ATF Special Agent J. Dewey Webb, and a video of an interrogation of an illegal alien picked up in a weapons case in a private room with an ATF agent, apparently without the detainee knowing he was being recorded.
The AK-47 that killed Terry was sold by Lone Wolf Trading.
That means that the reporters working on the Dec. 13 story for months were completely aware that the bureau was getting its statistics from the undercover operations that allowed the guns to pass through the normal controls.
What they should have also known is that this ill-conceived project was a completely irresponsible abrogation by sworn law enforcement officers and their leaders.
They should have known that it was a dangerous contamination of public servants and members of the free press working together toward the political goals shared by both the platform of the Democratic National Committee and the paper’s editorial board.
Finally, they should have known that they were sitting on top of one of the biggest stories of anyone’s career, titled, “As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. government agents clear, and expedite to crime gangs, guns tied to crime south of border."
Of course, what the team of Grimaldi, Horwitz, Crites and Booth did not know when they filed their story is that two days later, 10 days before Christmas, the Terry family would be given the horrible news of their loved one's death.
At that moment, the reporters should have recoiled in horror, realizing their contributing role in this federal agent’s killing.
Instead, they continued to cooperate with the ATF, including on a Feb. 1 story written by Grimaldi and Horiwitz that included this paragraph, clearly written to mislead the reader:
“Court records do not indicate that the agents deliberately allowed weapons to cross the border into Mexico. On at least two occasions, agents stopped and seized arms shipments headed for the border.”
In a March 9 story, Grimaldi wrote a story, “ATF’s tactics to end gun-trafficking face a federal review.” The piece, while still framed with the generous view of the ATF, marked the end of the working relationship betwen the paper and that federal agency. From that story on, the Post cut the ATF loose and was completely out for itself.
Imagine if the Post had run an investigative piece like its March 9 story when it first had the pertinent information—on Sept. 9, Oct. 9, Nov. 9 or even Dec. 9? Even in December, the power of the Washington Post's coverage would have been enough to alert all personnel on the border that there were a lot of weapons people assumed had been confiscated heading into the hands of murderous drug gangs.
