On Thursday, the Full House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing, “Reviewing ATF’s Failures in the Death of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.” Two officers invited to the hearing, William Temple, special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Division, and Ronald Turk, associate deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were no-shows.
House Committee Chairman, Jason Chaffetz has subpoenaed to Special Agent, Temple, and Associate Deputy Director Turk to a hearing or deposition on March 21, 2017 and March 22, 2017.
Fox News by Jennifer Hickey
…“I’m tired of hearing from just [Justice Department] management, I want to hear from the people that actually are on the front lines doing this,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said…
The hearing Thursday was meant to examine alleged lapses in the ATF’s investigation into the trafficking of guns later used in the February attack that killed Zapata and wounded his ICE colleague, Special Agent Victor Avila.
An inspector general report was completed more than five years after the committee and Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, inquired into Zapata’s murder. Zapata was killed by members of the Los Zetas drug cartel while on official business in Santa Maria del Rio, Mexico.
ATF Acting Director Thomas Brandon said Thursday he did not order Temple and Turk to skip the hearing — but agreed with their decision not to appear, which drew a bipartisan rebuke from Chaffetz and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings[…]
In fairness to the officers invited to attend the hearing, it appears that their decision to not attend may not have been their own. ATF Acting Director Thomas Brandon gives the impression that either he or someone else did not want them at the hearing. Someone did not receive the memo or care to read it but there is a new sheriff in town.
After eight years of Barack Obama and administration thumbing their noses at both Houses, what and who gave Brandon the idea that he could ignore the process? Such a directive had to come from somewhere. Who?
H/t Paris Swade, Liberty Writers News.
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