In an article on the Foxnews website, there is a story that just raises all kinds of alarm bells and the makings of a major scandal. The title of the story says it all: “ATF, DOJ Launch Damage Control Effort Over Growing Project Gunrunner Scandal”.

It seems under the watchful eye of the Dept of Justice, the ATF was supervising the purchase of AK-47′s in Arizona by “strawman buyers” for the drug cartels in Mexico. It seems this was allowed to go on to the tune of thousands of guns. The gun shop owners asked agents directly if the should stop selling them, and the agents expressly told them to keep selling them so they could track them. The only problem is that they didn’t track them and they didn’t stop the sales.

It was conceived after the bureau was criticized for not conducting more complex investigations on straw buyers — people who were allowed to purchase guns legally in the U.S.– who illegally transport  guns into Mexico and sell them to cartels.

So rather than just take down low-level straw buyers here and there, the agency hoped by ‘letting the guns walk’ the sales would lead investigators to cartel members higher up in the organization.

However, whistle-blowers say that never happened.

The worse part is that many of these guns have already been tied to a lot of murders, rapes and robberies!

Now everyone is scurrying to damage control. The Justice Dept lawyers is refusing to answer Sen. Charles Grassley’s questions. Sen. Patrick Leahy is refusing to hold hearings or allow the posting of the documents to the Senate web site. The ATF is already instructing agents to make sure “good news stories” are delivered to the press to counter act possible bad press that may occur.

Now the question is this President Obama’s Iran-Contra? This really has that kind of potential. As they say, it is the coverup that is worse than the crime and the coverup is already starting.