CBS News posted a story on Monday revealing new evidence against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) in the Operation Fast and Furious debacle that causes concern that more evidence has been covered up by the agency.

The audio tapes were made by a gun dealer forced by the BATF to help them transfer guns to Mexican narco-terrorists and have been turned over to the congressional investigation being conducted by Rep. Darrel Issa (R, Calif) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa).

Not long ago we found out that the BATF had initially tried to cover up the existence of a third gun transferred by BATF agents to Mexican gangsters at the site of the murder of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry.

The existence of the tapes was known quite a while ago but for some reason the Inspector General passed the tapes onto the very Arizona office that is under investigation where the tapes sat unknown to investigators.

The tapes confirm what the official reports have not, that a third gun was found at the murder site. Worse, that the government seemed to want to cover up the facts.

In the audiotapes, ATF Agent MacAllister tells Howard that a third weapon recovered at the Brian Terry murder scene last December is an SKS assault rifle. Agent MacAllister claims to know that the SKS “had nothing to do with” the Brian Terry murder and, unlike the WASR’s, did not trace back to the Lone Wolf gun store.

It’s unclear why a weapon would be, in essence, missing from the evidence disclosed at the crime scene under FBI jurisdiction.

Agent MacAllister and Howard (the gun dealer) also discuss various Republicans and Democrats in Congress who are investigating Fast and Furious. They express concern that whistleblower ATF special agent John Dodson has further evidence that could be damaging to the government.

It seems that the reason the BATF and the FBI were trying to tamper with evidence is that they were trying to protect the identity of a confidential informant.

The previously identified guns found at the scene of Terry’s murder were more or less ruled out as having been the gun used in his death. But did this third one fire the killshot? And was it gun fired by the FBI’s informant?

If not, why else would the government try to cover up the existence of the weapon?

Check out the CBS report for the transcript of some of the conversations.

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