(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former ATF official Peter Forcelli, who blew the whistle on the bureau’s Obama-era Operation Fast and Furious Scandal, said in a recent interview that the bureau’s current director, Steven Dettelbach, is a “tool for the gun-control lobby.”
Forcelli, who worked in the ATF’s Phoenix office from 2007 to 2011 before becoming a senior official until his retirement in October 2021, is releasing a book next month entitled, The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast and Furious and Bad Lawyers Armed the Mexican Cartels.
Previewing that book, Forcelli sat down for an interview with firearms journalist David Codrea, recounting the events that led him to blowing the whistle on the ATF’s ill-conceived program—if it can be called that. In fact, Forcelli said Fast and Furious—which entailed the ATF purposely allowing illegal gun purchases under the guise of tracking organized crime—shouldn’t be considered a program at all.
“I never understood why folks called it a ‘program.’ It was a case that spiraled out of control,” Forcelli told Codrea.
“Fast and Furious, which, as you know, was actually called Jacob Chambers et. al, should have been a simple, straw purchase case. The straw purchasers should have been charged early on, and if they were, the gun that killed Brian Terry would have never crossed over the counter of the gun store,” he said.
“Instead, they decided to let the straw purchasers continue to purchase firearms, knowing that the guns were turning up in Mexico because they somehow believed that the traces from Mexico could somehow tie this case into a bigger conspiracy and result in the takedown of a cartel-driven firearms network.”
Forcelli added that some of the gun stores currently being sued by the government of Mexico for allegedly “facilitating arms trafficking” were actually encouraged to do so by the ATF.
Forcelli said he decided to go public as a whistleblower when ATF official Bill Newell told him to “steer clear” of agent John Dodson—who was also blowing the whistle on Fast and Furious at the time—warning that Dodson was about to be indicted.
“That was the straw. I didn’t even know John Dodson and wasn’t even sure if I had ever met him in passing, but the thought that dozens and dozens of criminals got a pass and they were even contemplating indicting John as a bridge too far,” he said. “Way too far.”
Forcelli’s interview with Codrea follows another interview the Second Amendment Foundation published earlier this month, where Forcelli said he believes that the government is still running Fast and Furious-type activities.
Meanwhile, ATF Director Dettelbach said last year that he still doesn’t even know how many guns are still on the streets from the original Fast and Furious scandal.
Forcelli told Codrea that he’s not surprised by Dettelbach’s incompetence.
“The agency fell into the hands of people who were more concerned with activism and less concerned with what most ATF Agents cared about—putting criminals in jail,” he said.
“The current Director, Steve Dettelbach, is a tool for the gun control lobby. He does not have the confidence of the rank and file. For the first time, ATF is having a retention issue as agents leave for other agencies, and that scares me,” he said.
“Who replaces the agents that joined for the right reasons? Most agents are pro-gun. Will the new ones share those views?”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
