The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have been buy arming Mexican drug cartels which has lead to a hearing. As with most government hearings on the illegal actions of government I expected these hearings to go nowhere and accomplish nothing of consequence. It appears as though I was right:
The Justice Department is expected to oust the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a troubled federal antitrafficking operation that has grown into the agency’s biggest scandal in nearly two decades.
Moves toward the replacement of Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, could begin next week, although the precise sequence of events remains to be decided, these people said.
Yup. The ATF actively arms Mexican drug cartels, claims that they need more authority to stop the traffic of firearms going from the United States to the drug cartels, and now the only thing that will happen is the head of the ATF will be replaced. That should teach them (sarcasm for those who didn’t catch it).
This is one of many reasons that government agencies remain unaccountable. When a government agency does something naughty we have a different government entity rule on the validity of the agency’s actions. Since the entity judging the agency’s actions is also a part of the government generally the agency’s actions are deem legitimate. When the actions are deemed illegitimate nothing of consequence happens and instead one or two people are shuffled around so the next person can continue doing illegitimate shit for a while until he or she is caught red handed as well.