# Did the ATF intentionally allow guns to fall into the hands of Mexican cartels? Fortune mag says no. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505 "2012-06-27T21:33:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/61 "2012-06-28T16:54:55Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > There was no “plan” and they didn’t “send” guns across the border. This is not true. BATF agents used BATF funds to purchase guns and give them to people to take across the border. You can’t just wish it away because you don’t like it. > [@](#): > > And, in fact, they were hamstrung by gun laws, because in order to find suspicious gun purchases, they had to personally visit about 1,000 local gun shops and page through their paper records by hand, because there was no electronic database (because of the gun lobby). It seems to me that the offline gun database they were building was illegal and specifically prohibited from existing. The fact that these sort of databases are not allowed is a feature, not a bug. The manpower they spent creating it wasn’t just a waste of time it was working around the law. Another example of the corruption and incompetence of the BATF. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/62 "2012-06-28T17:01:00Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Have someone read my post to you. “Haav, haf,…” Can someone sound this out for me. It’s too hard. > [@](#): > > I want to know who in the justice department planned and controlled the F&F operation. The top members of the BATFE, FBI, the justice department, and now the Whitehouse (with the Executive Privilage edict) Do Not Want You To Know Who Is Responsible For The Death Of Agent Terry. And I maintain that using the gun lobby/Republican logic, the person responsible for Agent Terry’s death is the one who pulled the trigger. If someone who sells a gun at a gun show isn’t responsible when it’s used to kill someone, how is Holder responsible for this? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/63 "2012-06-28T17:36:28Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And, in fact, they were hamstrung by gun laws, because in order to find suspicious gun purchases, they had to personally visit about 1,000 local gun shops and page through their paper records by hand, because there was no electronic database (because of the gun lobby). Ya know, before beginning this little cluster fuck you think that they might, just might, look at how to recover the guns. Something like: “Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Lets give these guys a bunch of guns. We know they will get sold to a bunch of criminals that will end up taking them to Mexico if they get a chance to do some mayhem down there. Then, once we’ve built a case we can arrest them” says BATF guy. “Great idea. What does the legal side look like? What do we arrest them for? How do we recover the guns? Do we need to talk to the prosecutors?” asks agent #2. “Fuck if I know, lets just do it”. “K. Wanna write some emails that will make us look like tools when this explodes in our faces?” “Sure. Sounds like fun!” Slee ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/64 "2012-06-28T22:24:25Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > This is not true. BATF agents used BATF funds to purchase guns and give them to people to take across the border. You can’t just wish it away because you don’t like it. Have I missed this somehow? There is evidence of this? > [@](#): > > It seems to me that the offline gun database they were building was illegal and specifically prohibited from existing. > > The fact that these sort of databases are not allowed is a feature, not a bug. The manpower they spent creating it wasn’t just a waste of time it was working around the law. Another example of the corruption and incompetence of the BATF. So, the ATF is not supposed to be investigating instances of suspicious gun buying? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/65 "2012-06-28T22:32:13Z")
Just to clear this up, I’m asking whether there is evidence that the DOJ or the ATF actually directed agents to do this. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/66 "2012-06-28T22:37:44Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s not the issue, and Caps Do Not Make An Argument. **davidm** asked the question, "Did the ATF intentionally allow guns to fall into the hands of Mexican cartels? Fortune mag says no. The linked article headline reads, _“A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never “intentionally” allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels”._ There is no doubt that firearms that were puchased illegally in the U.S. did “walk” into Mexico. Even Holder admitted that (unless he’s recinded that statement also). The BATFE agents are saying that the BATFE didn’t let this happen “intentionally.” The agents are not denying that illegally purchased firearms walked into Mexico. The BATFE agents are blaming the justice department for not allowing them to arrest the strawbuyers. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/67 "2012-06-28T23:05:17Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > And I maintain that using the gun lobby/Republican logic, the person responsible for Agent Terry’s death is the one who pulled the trigger. If someone who sells a gun at a gun show isn’t responsible when it’s used to kill someone, how is Holder responsible for this? Holder wasn’t found to be in contempt for shooting anyone. Holder was found in contempt by the Oversight Committee and now he’s been found in comtempt of Congress for his refusal to hand over the documents that could explain how firearms illegally purchased in the U.S. ended up in Mexico. And how two of those weapons returned to the U.S. in the hands of illegal aliens who were involved in the murder of Agent Terry. These aren’t tough questions. What national security issue is involved in saying agent “A” or supervisor “B” or justice department official “C” or whitehouse aide “D” decided not to arrest obvious lawbreakers? The BATFE agents in the “Foutune” article are blaming the justice department for its refusal to allow the arrests of people who were “obviously” violating the law. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/68 "2012-06-28T23:42:07Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > It seems that you weren’t the one reading for comprehension. > > The ATF purchased guns and didn’t follow up on them. The article does a masterful job of dressing it up and making excuses for it, but they can’t deny the simple truth of it. No, I spoke (err, wrote) carefully. I said that Fast and Furious only monitored gun sales. Outside the scope of Fast and Furious, Agent Dodson did authorize a small number of gun purchases, which did unintentionally make their way across the border. Since the post I was responding to mentioned the agent that was killed, and the guns involved in that were tenuously connected to Fast and Furious, that’s what I was referring to. Agent Dodson’s appear to have been ill-advised and badly executed, although I’d probably say that in principle, given that 2,000 guns per day make their way over the border, adding three to the mix in return for a few arrests seems like a decent trade. If it had worked at all. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/69 "2012-06-29T01:28:45Z")
Nobody was arguing intent, not even me. The very idea that the President of the United States and his administration would intentionally arm drug cartels in Mexico is ludicrous. In that context, the entire article is a strawman. No, what I want to know is how they let it happen the way it happened. The controversy comes from the fact that they are going to great lengths to shield information, especially in light of President Obama’s transparency pledge. If there was incompetence, let’s deal with it and get it over with. Instead we have claims of executive privilege, a claim that has never really washed with anybody. It makes me want to know the answer to the one question that always arises when such a claim is made: what did President Obama know, and when did he know it? ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/70 "2012-06-29T01:31:37Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > On June 1, Dodson used $2,500 in ATF funds to purchase six AK Draco pistols from local gun dealers, and gave these to Fernandez, who reimbursed him and gave him $700 for his efforts. Two days later, according to case records, Dodson—who would later testify that in his previous experience, “if even one [gun] got away from us, nobody went home until we found it”—left on a scheduled vacation without interdicting the guns. That day, Voth wrote to remind him that money collected as evidence needed to be vouchered within five days. Dodson e-mailed back, his sarcasm fully restored: “Do the orders define a ‘day’? Is it; a calendar day? A business day or work day….? An Earth day (because a day on Venus takes 243 Earth days which would mean that I have plenty of time)?” > > The ATF purchased guns and didn’t follow up on them. The article does a masterful job of dressing it up and making excuses for it, but they can’t deny the simple truth of it. 6 guns, none of which had anything to do with Brian Terry’s murder, in a case that wasn’t even part of Fast and Furious. So that’s the story here? Rogue ATF agent allows 6 guns to walk to Mexico, consequences unknown? Because I thought we were talking about an ATF operation that deliberately walked hundreds of guns to Mexico, resulting in numerous crimes including the murder of a border patrol agent. That’s the claim that, according to this article, was complete bullshit. You can’t say “Yeah but they admit six guns were walked in a separate case” and act like it’s the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/71 "2012-06-29T01:36:11Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] And I maintain that using the gun lobby/Republican logic, the person responsible for Agent Terry’s death is the one who pulled the trigger. If someone who sells a gun at a gun show isn’t responsible when it’s used to kill someone, how is Holder responsible for this? [/QUOTE] Holder is the head of the Department of Justice, and in pursuit of said justice they willfully allowed crimes to be committed. That’s not unusual, but what is unusual is that they had such little oversight over their own operation that it resulted in at least one preventable, documented death. On the other hand, neither buying nor selling a gun at a gun show is illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/72 "2012-06-29T04:01:49Z")
I found the article I mentioned earlier. This is from the [L.A. Times](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110912,0,7611438.story) September 11, 2011. It paints quite a different picture than the story in the OP. Like I said in my last post, for a gun store owner to speak out against the BATF is unusual to say the least. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/73 "2012-06-29T13:22:30Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > Did you read the article? Fast and Furious did _not_ send guns across the border. They were merely monitoring suspected straw purchasers, and trying to build a case that would convince an overly cautious Assistant US Attorney that the suspects in question had provably broken very permissive state and/or federal gun laws. The guns used in the shooting of the agent were purchased by one of the people they were watching, and the seller thought it seemed suspicious so he faxed the ATF the information, but by the time they got it, it was three days later. The guns in question were never in any way under ATF supervision. Yes, I read it. My point still stands. Before this action was taken, it may have been a good idea to have a plan on how to both recover the guns AND prosecute those involved. That’s all. I also realize that these guns were not found at the murder scene of the agent. > [@](#): > > On June 1, Dodson used $2,500 in ATF funds to purchase six AK Draco pistols from local gun dealers, and gave these to Fernandez, who reimbursed him and gave him $700 for his efforts… > > The guns were never recovered, the case was later closed, and Fernandez was never charged. By any definition, it was gun walking of the most egregious sort: a government agent using taxpayer money to deliver guns to bad guys and then failing to intercept them." ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/74 "2012-06-29T14:02:28Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The BATFE is not looking at Congressional contempt charges. The head of the Just-Us department, Eric Holder, is. > > What does the article actually say? > > _It was nearly impossible in Arizona to bring a case against a straw purchaser. The **federal prosecutors** there did not consider the purchase of a huge volume of guns, or their handoff to a third party, sufficient evidence to seize them._ > > The BATFE agents witnessed firearms being purchased illegally. The agents wanted to make an arrest but were ordered not to. Here’s the full quote. > [@](#): > > It was nearly impossible in Arizona to bring a case against a straw purchaser. The federal prosecutors there did not consider the purchase of a huge volume of guns, or their handoff to a third party, sufficient evidence to seize them. **A buyer who certified that the guns were for himself, then handed them off minutes later, hadn’t necessarily lied and was free to change his mind. Even if a suspect bought 10 guns that were recovered days later at a Mexican crime scene, this didn’t mean the initial purchase had been illegal.** To these prosecutors, the pattern proved little. Instead, agents needed to link specific evidence of intent to commit a crime to each gun they wanted to seize. Perhaps those **federal prosecutors** aren’t as nefarious as they seem. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/75 "2012-06-29T14:09:26Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > I found the article I mentioned earlier. This is from the [L.A. Times](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110912,0,7611438.story) September 11, 2011. It paints quite a different picture than the story in the OP. > Like I said in my last post, for a gun store owner to speak out against the BATF is unusual to say the least. From the beginning of that article: > [@](#): > > They gave him one basic instruction: Sell guns to every illegal purchaser who walks through the door. > > For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semiautomatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns, and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border. I’m trying to get my head around exactly what’s going on here. The LA Times article makes a declarative statement that the gun store owner was instructed to carry out _illegal_ purchases, but then only gives two examples of such. One, buying guns with obviously fake IDs, I can see that as being illegal. The other, buying guns with wads of cash, doesn’t seem illegal. Questionable? Yes. Illegal? How? The _Fortune_ article paints a similar picture. Guys who stumble in off the street to buy 3 rifles when they clearly have never fired a rifle in their life probably set off all kinds of alarms in the gun store owner’s head, but it’s not illegal to buy 3 rifles. It IS illegal, per the article, to buy 3 rifles with the intent to hand them over to someone else, but the _Fortune_ article says that those cases are hard to prosecute, and I believe it. The defendant can just say that he bought 3 rifles because he wanted to, but he changed his mind 10 minutes later and decided to give them to a buddy. Proving intent is hard, and individually these would all be very minor cases that would probably get dropped or plead down to nothing in short order. Gun store owners, as a matter of good faith and good business, would alert the ATF of these questionable transactions, but saw nothing being done about it. That’s gotta be frustrating for the owners, and also a bit scary. Do you carry out the sale and risk exposing yourself to a lawsuit? Or do you turn down the easy money? There seems to be ample evidence that the ATF was conducting a sting operation, and that they instructed the gun shops to carry out these questionable sales. If movies have taught me anything about law enforcement, it’s that this isn’t an unusual or even a bad tactic at all. It doesn’t appear that the ATF was buying guns and hand-delivering them to criminals or anything like that, but even if they were, I don’t see how that’s all unusual in the course of a sting operation. As long as there’s no entrapment going on, fighting organized crime seems like it would almost _require_ allowing a certain level of low-level criminal activity to occur. The “scandal,” if there is one, seems to be simply that the ATF then proceeded to conduct a very poor sting operation. If you allow illegal activity to go on under your nose, you’d better be documenting a case so that you can swoop in and clean up the mess. Where was the swoop in this case? There doesn’t appear to have been one. If that’s all the scandal is, I’m not impressed. “Law enforcement officials bungle case” doesn’t seem to warrant stringing up the attorney general, and this could very well be a case of someone in the chain pointing the finger up the ladder in order to cover their own ass. What’s strange to me is that the agents in the _Fortune_ article appear to be claiming that there was no sting operation; they wanted to swoop in and arrest people constantly, but the prosecutors wouldn’t let them. I don’t understand that. Were they not told about the sting? Was there no sting at all? Were they told about the sting but they didn’t agree with the concept? Were the agents sandbagging so that the sting would intentionally fail? If anyone wants to correct any of my perceptions or answer any questions about this, I’d be very appreciative. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/76 "2012-06-29T14:35:38Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Nobody was arguing intent, not even me. The very idea that the President of the United States and his administration would intentionally arm drug cartels in Mexico is ludicrous. In that context, the entire article is a strawman. The article makes no such claim. Therefore, this is a strawman. > [@](#): > > No, what I want to know is how they let it happen the way it happened. The controversy comes from the fact that they are going to great lengths to shield information, especially in light of President Obama’s transparency pledge. A red herring. Obama never said he would _never_ assert executive privilege, and with the exception of George H W Bush, has done so on average less than any president going back to Reagan. > [@](#): > > If there was incompetence, let’s deal with it and get it over with. Instead we have claims of executive privilege, a claim that has never really washed with anybody. It makes me want to know the answer to the one question that always arises when such a claim is made: what did President Obama know, and when did he know it? It “washed” with plenty of people. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/77 "2012-06-29T22:06:47Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > The article makes no such claim. Therefore, this is a strawman. Hmmm… Perhaps I misread the title of this thread and the entire discussion thus far. I’ll look into that. > [@](#): > > A red herring. Obama never said he would _never_ assert executive privilege, and with the exception of George H W Bush, has done so on average less than any president going back to Reagan. Doesn’t matter. Bringing transparency back to the White House was something he ran on and hammered President Bush for. It’s certainly a valid criticism when he hides something under the guise of executive privilege. > [@](#): > > It “washed” with plenty of people. Did it? Let’s ask people who were around when Nixon tried it, or when Reagan tried it, or when Bush tried it. A claim of executive privilege now means that you are hiding or trying to hide something damaging. That’s the way of it. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/78 "2012-06-30T00:29:40Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Hmmm… Perhaps I misread the title of this thread and the entire discussion thus far. I’ll look into that. Neither the thread title nor the article claims that the president or his administration intentionally armed drug cartels. > [@](#): > > Doesn’t matter. Bringing transparency back to the White House was something he ran on and hammered President Bush for. It’s certainly a valid criticism when he hides something under the guise of executive privilege. I’m not saying you can’t criticize a president for asserting executive privilege. I’m just saying that because Obama did it here doesn’t contradict his goal of having a transparent administration. If we could agree on a scenario where it was absolutely correct for a president to assert executive privilege, I would hope that we would also agree that that in and of itself would not violate any principle of transparency. > [@](#): > > Did it? Let’s ask people who were around when Nixon tried it, or when Reagan tried it, or when Bush tried it. A claim of executive privilege now means that you are hiding or trying to hide something damaging. That’s the way of it. I maintain that Obama’s claim “washed” with many people. I was not offering an opinion as to the executive privilege claims of any other president. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/79 "2012-06-30T00:49:24Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m not sure why this would be a problem for the federal government. Wouldn’t it be more of a problem for Arizona? You would think after reading about it. So why the executive privilege? Something the Federal and State governments did got fubar’d. News at 11:00. Take your lumps and move on. This is going to end up being something embarrassing made exponentially worse by attempts to bury it. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505/80 "2012-06-30T01:01:33Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > So why the executive privilege? Assuming you agree that you do not have all the facts at hand that the White House is privy to, can you imagine any scenario at all where it might be justified for Obama to assert executive privilege in this case? If not, I’d say there is no satisfactory answer to your question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-atf-intentionally-allow-guns-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-mexican-cartels-fortune-mag-says-no/626505.md?page=5)