Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All (20 page)

But I must warn you: action changes the world, but it also attracts attention, both wanted and unwanted. There are legions of insiders who feed at the trough of the political status quo. These people are parasitic and exist in large numbers on both sides of the political fence. I witnessed this many times while working with the PPD within the walls of the White House. Access is power, and prestige and principles will always take a backseat to the desire for power. I watched scores of politicians, from the local to the national level, sell their souls in order to remain part of the “in” crowd, despite the fact that the cost of admission was selling out a former ally. Do not ever assume the loyalty of a group of politicians who you think are on your side. They will switch allegiance in a heartbeat if they think it will help them gain or retain power.

Whether you decide to become a candidate for public office or simply get involved politically as a citizen and question those who should be serving the public, be prepared for the onslaught of attacks and negative energy. I was told many times that I was a “troublemaker” and that I “kick too many barking dogs.” Always remember that men and women of character are a direct threat to those politicians who are only in the game for the power. They will do anything to avoid being exposed and will confront you with all their ammunition to silence you. Principled men and women in politics often walk alone in Washington, but they attract legions of dedicated supporters in the real world of grassroots politics. Find
these people and get behind them. Only after the people get involved and support the politicians who want to move this country forward—with our founding principles as a stepping-stone—will our government be returned to its rightful owner: you.

• • • • •

In recent months, several events have taken place that trouble me. The events themselves have resulted in the deaths of innocent citizens and public servants, which is disturbing in itself, but the media and the administration’s handling of the issues have made the fallout even worse. Honest media coverage of these incidents would have quickly diffused any skepticism or whiff of a cover-up, and ironically, the media suppression of the stories only served to add to the scandal narrative. Some of these issues, like the Fast and Furious scandal and the Benghazi tragedy, involve the kind of complex security and military operations that I experienced throughout my career, and the mistakes are glaring. I can just imagine what is going on behind the scenes, on the secure conference calls and in the situation rooms, where administration staffers are entrenched in spinning their stories. The terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon is another example of a security failure that resulted in the loss of innocent lives. At least in the case of Boston, the administration came forward and labeled the bombing “terror” in the president’s second statement about the attack. There were clearly security breaches that gave these terrorists the ability to move freely within this country and to travel back and forth to Russia without raising any red flags.

Most people probably feel like they know the facts about these important issues in our nation’s modern history, but I know there is much that is unreported and the mainstream media’s coverage of these issues has been inadequate at best. In the next few chapters we will spotlight these three particularly tragic examples, showing how the growing size of government bureaucracy has led to an environment of detachment, where no one is really responsible, where there is always another layer in an organization to blame for wrongdoing—and where innocent people have died as a result.

T
HE HEROIC AND TRAGIC DEATH
of Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry in December of 2010 was the spark that lit the powder keg of a national scandal that continues to burn. The operation, dubbed “Fast and Furious” due to the proclivity of some of the investigative targets for street racing, has been the subject of congressional inquiries, media investigations, internal US government investigations, and public scrutiny, yet the real story of what happened is still unclear.

There are a number of reasons why the truth has not come to light. The issue of firearms trafficking, unlike trafficking in narcotics or counterfeit
documents (something I frequently investigated as a Secret Service agent), involves a web of political interests that even the most skilled political operative would find difficult to untangle. Despite the persistent haze surrounding the case, there are some facts that are clear. I will present what is known, but leave you with the burning question yet to be answered: were Fast and Furious weapons used on US soil, and why did the Department of Justice fail to take preventative measures?

The operation began in 2009 as a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) investigative effort to stem the unrelenting tide of weapons purchased illegally within the United States and trafficked across the Mexican border. I have investigated cases along with ATF agents, and I can confidently affirm that they are an elite group of men and women, dedicated to service and country. They are up against Mexican drug cartel members who use what are known in law enforcement as “straw buyers” to purchase weapons. A straw buyer is an individual who purchases a weapon on behalf of another person who, for any variety of reasons, is not eligible to purchase the weapon himself.

The case took a tragic turn and became a national story when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and his four-member BORTAC (Border Patrol Tactical) team came under heavy, unexpected fire after intercepting five illegal border crossers. Agent Terry was fatally wounded in the short but fierce exchange of gunfire and one of the suspects, Manuel Osario Arellanes, was taken into custody, wounded but still alive. Lying next to the body of the fatally wounded Agent Terry were weapons used by the criminals that would be traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company located in Glendale, Arizona. From there the national scandal began to unfold.

Internal and external politics, election cycles, Department of Justice and ATF conflicts, Second Amendment rights, and petty internal office squabbles combined in a toxic brew that became the Fast and Furious scandal. In order to explain why I place the blame largely on the Department of Justice and why I believe the death of Brian Terry may not be the last, I will have to clarify the differences between initiating, investigating, and prosecuting crimes at the federal level and at the state and local level. This important distinction is the key to the Fast and Furious case.

When I was a young police officer with the New York City Police Department, it was not uncommon to witness a street crime while on
patrol, arrest the perpetrator, and give a sworn affidavit as to what you witnessed in order to establish probable cause. Probable cause is a legal requirement for any arrest regardless of the jurisdiction. In the NYPD, we witnessed a crime, arrested the suspect, and then gathered the investigative details.

Establishing probable cause and making an arrest in the federal system usually works in the opposite direction. Federal agents will typically investigate the case thoroughly first, establishing probable cause in the process, then make a phone call to an “intake” assistant United States attorney (AUSA) to determine if he will agree to accept the case for potential prosecution. If the AUSA agrees to prosecute the case in the federal system, arrest warrants will be issued and the suspects will be taken into custody, but not until an overwhelming amount of evidence has already been collected. Very few AUSAs want to take cases that may go to trial, so the bar for acceptance by the attorney is high. Usually the AUSA wants to see enough evidence to force a plea bargain so a trial will not even be considered an option. The politics of justice at the federal level dictate that numbers matter, because numbers can be used by politicians and bureaucrats to further their careers. Falling crime rates are electoral gold and so are successful federal prosecutions. This gives US attorneys much incentive to make sure that they don’t take on a case that they have even the slimmest chance of losing.

Why does the process matter? Because what is known in federal law-enforcement jargon as a “PC arrest” (short for probable cause arrest) is a rare and strongly discouraged enforcement tool in the federal system. Police officers at the state and local level use their probable cause arrest authority every day to keep our neighborhoods safe. Yet federal agents, many of whom are former police officers, are strongly discouraged from making this type of arrest. They must follow the established federal procedure of completing an investigation and getting AUSA approval before moving forward with an arrest. If it appears counterintuitive that well-trained, well-educated federal agents cannot do what our police officers on the street do every day, that’s because it is. By nature, a probable cause arrest is unpredictable, and unpredictability is the enemy of our federal justice system. Everyone from the magistrate judges, to the intake AUSA, to the assigned AUSA, to the US Marshal’s Service, which will handle the
prisoner, are all on relatively consistent work schedules. The fastest way to get on the bad side of the United States Attorney’s Office is to start making PC arrests late at night without having thoroughly exhausted all investigative avenues, completed mounds of paperwork, and made an appointment with the AUSA for an arrest. Yes, an appointment.

Unless the case is a justifiable emergency, a PC arrest is a virtual career death sentence. It is likely that none of your future cases will be accepted for prosecution if you get on the bad side of an AUSA. In this system the AUSA has broad latitude, and the PC arrest scenario is just one example of the power they hold. Based on my experience, I am confident that this power structure played a pivotal role in the tragic Fast and Furious operation.

The generally held belief around the operation, which has been supported by the media, is that ATF agents let guns “walk,” i.e., be purchased illegally and not tracked, and this misstep led to the tragic death of Brian Terry. After reading and analyzing multiple accounts of the circumstances surrounding the investigation, I do not believe this to be the case. From all accounts, the seven ATF agents of Group VII, led by case agent Hope MacAllister, were dedicated, nonideological federal operators genuinely trying to stop illegal gunrunning into Mexico. Allowing guns to “walk” is not a sanctioned investigative tactic, and I do not believe this was Group VII’s intention.

The trafficking of firearms from straw buyers is a federal crime, but if there is no one willing to prosecute the case, then it has the same effect of a tree falling in the woods—no one can hear it. Katherine Eban of
Forbes
magazine states in her June 27, 2012, piece that, “By January 2010 the agents had identified 20 suspects who had paid some $350,000 in cash for more than 650 guns. According to Rep. Issa’s congressional committee, Group VII had enough evidence to make arrests and close the case then.”

In my experience investigating similar cases at the federal level involving the purchasing of contraband, Assistant United States Attorney Emory Hurley, working with MacAllister and the agents of Group VII, could have easily moved forward with prosecution. The evidence in the case was overwhelming. It included the repeated cash purchases of expensive firearms by purchasers with no financial ability to support this type of activity. In the summer of 2010, a straw buyer cooperating with Group VII agent John Dodson delivered weapons to a suspected gun trafficker
and provided wiretap recordings of the illicit transactions, and still no arrests were made. Former ATF attaché in Mexico Darren Gil may have stated it best when, in response to questions on the progress of the investigation, he said, “Again, spring time it got to the point of … at what point are we going to close this investigation down? I mean, after 500 or so seizures I think you should have enough data collection on what you’re trying to show or prove. It was my position, it was Chief [Dan Kumor’s] position as well. He says, yeah, you’re right. And he goes, ‘So when are they going to close this down?’ And we were both on the same position there that this thing needed to be shut down.”

Never in my experience as a federal agent have I heard of an investigation with this much evidence and no indictments or arrest warrants. Receiving judicial approval for a federal wiretap alone takes an enormous amount of evidence. Every practical tool in the investigative toolbox must be exhausted before a federal judge will approve a wiretap. The fact that Group VII acquired wiretap authority indicates to me that the case had proceeded far past the stage of just reasonable suspicion and was known to DOJ headquarters. Any efforts by DOJ headquarters to claim ignorance of the case details prior to the tragic death of Agent Terry are suspicious at best. In the spring of 2010 the application for the federal wiretap was signed on behalf of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer through DOJ’s Office of Enforcement Operations.

In a perfect world, the agents of Group VII would have ended the stream of weapons crossing the border and made probable cause arrests like any local police officer. But, it is not a perfect world, and in federal law enforcement an ever-growing army of agents insulated within competing agencies and rarely interacting with each other are forced to compete for the limited time of the US Attorney’s Office, and you cannot afford to find yourself on the receiving end of their wrath or you will be ignored. Combine this dynamic with the bureaucratic DOJ and its constantly expanding layers of hierarchy designed to insulate those at the top from having to take any responsibility for what is actually happening on their watch and you have the ingredients for a tragedy.

Solidifying my suspicions that probable cause was abundant and arrests should have taken place is the fact that within twenty-four hours of the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, an arrest was made.
Jaime Avila, suspected of purchasing two of the weapons found alongside the body of Agent Terry, was arrested, and nineteen additional suspects were indicted two weeks later on January 19, 2011. Does this make sense to you? Seven veteran ATF agents investigate a gun trafficking ring for nearly a year, using every tool available to modern law enforcement, and they cannot develop a legally sound case? But magically, within twenty-four hours of Agent Terry’s murder, DOJ and the Arizona US Attorney’s Office decide the case is worth prosecuting. This reeks of prosecutorial laziness, ineptitude, and arrogance.