Did President Obama Order ATF "Project Gunrunner?"

Katie Pavlich | March 14, 2011 3:30 PM

President Obama in April 2009 met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, saying he has not backed down on his stance to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, saying the ban during the Clinton era made sense.

"Trafficking illegal firearms, sending them across the border, is illegal." (but ATF did it anyway)

Coincidentally, later that year, CBSNews reports that ATF started approving mass sales of weapons like the AK-47 under "Project Gunrunner." The concept behind the operation was to approve the sales of reported gun purchases by known Mexican drug cartel members and then trace those guns trafficked back into Mexico, hoping to catch the big fish in charge of drug smuggling operations. ATF let the guns walk into the hands of criminals, resulting in tens-of-thousands of deaths in Mexico, the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and has lead to the arrests of zero drug cartel leaders.

This clip of the President begs the question: Did the President of the United States order this operation? After all he did declare tracing ballistics as an option to deal with crime in the United States and Mexico. The timing sure seems interesting considering Obama made the statements in the above video in early 2009, and ATF started approving sales of guns to known cartel members in late 2009. He also said that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder would be working together through ATF and Border Patrol operations to come up with a solution to violence.

But now as the investigation into the ATF operation reveals even uglier allegations, Napolitano denies knowing about "Project Gunrunner," saying ATF is a part of the Justice Department, not Homeland Security.

But why?

Was this operation ordered to smear law abiding gun owners, gun shop owners and the Second Amendment as the Obama Administration calls for stricter enforcement of gun regulations? Afterall, the investigation into ATF's "Project Gunrunner" shows the Administration has been using law abiding gun shop owners as a scape goat since late 2009 to cover up ATF's inexcusable actions.