All right, I've got John Dotson here with me today. Come all the way up here from lower part of North Carolina. What upper part, however, you want to look at it lower than here. That's right. He's a retired ATF agent. I worked with him a little bit in Ronoke in the Ronoke office, and he went on to do bigger things in Phoenix that he'll talk about what I'd like to give him a chance to do, just kind of talk about your early childhood and how he ended up getting into the service. I grew up in Orange County, Virginia. I'm about halfway between say, Charlottesville and Fredericksburg and small town. I think county had three stop lights. My entire high school was like four hundred students. I graduated in nineteen eighty nine, and it became accredited and I think nineteen ninety six. So they got they got the low ang and fruit of the way. Some will argue that the I may or may not have a ged much less of diploma. But so after high school I did a brief stint in the army and came back and went Active Guard Reserve AGR on a joint marijuana eradication program for summer and kind of caught the law enforcement bug and decided to pursue a career in law enforcement after that. So when you got done, what was the first So what did you do in the military? Well, I was a back then the MS was a ninety six bravo, So I was a military intelligence andlist. And so, like you just took the information that was gathered and went from there. Most of back in those days, what was most of the intel that y'all were getting, was it? Well, the training hadn't quite caught up with current events at the time, because, like I say, I graduated high school in eighty nine, left straight for the army, well after a brief stint at summer school, and then at the time the training was geared tour. I was trained to be a Soviet military intelligence analyst. But the Soviet Union was collapsing, the Berlin Wall, it's coming down, and so then I reclassified SAMEMS. But I did a specialization with the Army called at the time LICK Low Intensity Conflict specializing in Central and South American countries. Oh so cool. So you kind of were on the cutting edge of what we would have gone into when the Global War of Terror kicked off. Yes, okay, all right, so you finished your stint in the military and you came back to Orange County, I'm assuming correct. Okay, what'd you do then? Well, I started out I had to dispatch for a couple of months until a position at the sheriff's office. I got a job at the sheriff's office. I started out dispatching for a couple of months until position on the road opened up, and then I went to the academy. All right, So what academy did you go to? It was the Rockingham Regional Criminal Justice Academy down just south of Fredericksburg. And at the time, my badge number was eighteen. I was the eighteenth deputy at the department. There were eight of us to work the road twenty four to seven road deaths. So eighteen's Warren deputies. Yes, okay, and then you finished your career there. How many years did you work as deputy? I was a deputy altogether for about well, I worked the road for five years, and I did that partially in Orange County, and then I eventually ended up in Louden County, which was a much bigger department right northern Virginia. Went to Louden County. I was there for working the road for less than a year and then got an initial It wasn't a promotion at the time. It was a pre assignment to narcotics because I was making a lot of dope cases out on the road. So they sent me what we would call ty but you know, temporary assignment to narcotics, and then until a position opened up there and I was promoted to detective vice narcotics investigator. So talk a little bit about what it looked like. I know we've talked at length about how law enforcement it's not. It's a little bit different now, not proactive, not nearly as proactive as you were going. So what would an average night look like when you were doing a proactive patrol? Thought of either orange or loud and counting. Well, I you know, I got to tell you I I was very fortunate when I first started. I had a great sergeant and he explained it to me very early that you know, we can track all the tickets that you write, and we can track the number of arrests that you make, but the one thing that we can never track is how many crimes you prevent. And those are the most important. So we were taught whenever you had paperwork to do, or you know, a phone call to make, and this is back before cell phones, like we were given issue to roll a quarters to go to payphones and make, you know call. When dispatched a call is you know, give the office of twenty one, we'd have to go and find a pay phone. But whenever you're driving by a business in the middle of the night, you know, stop, hit it with your alley lights, do a turn, go through, check cars in the parking lot. All these were the proactive things that we used to do and like, like it was explained to me and I didn't understand the importance of it at the time, especially as law enforcement agencies were getting into what the UCR reporting and trying to track stats on everything. Is that these are these intangibles that you can't keep track of, but they actually mean the most, Like this is what you're doing. You're protecting and serving at its utmost when you're preventing something from happening in the first place, that's awesome. So you finished your time in loud County become a narcotics investigator, how did you transition to federal service? Well, during my time in vice narcotics, I was assigned to the DAHI to task Force at Annandale, which is how does the high intensity drug trafficking area. And when I was with the county Okay, So to back up a little bit, when I was working the road, I'd make good dope cases. I'd have to turn those off to an narcotics investigator. That would frustrate me. So I became a narc after making good cases and narcotics, I get frustrated having to turn those over to the FEDS. So you can't beat them to join them. I got to sign no DA Task Force cool and so that was great. We weren't no longer confined by the county line, so to speak. Although work in vice narcotics, we did a lot of poaching where we would lure people over from Fairfax right there at Drainesville Road and get them into our county and do what we needed to do. But that kind of gave me the glimpse of not having those. Those boundaries. Boundaries exactly, that's what I'm looking for. And actually the the rules were different somewhat, but there was there was so much more availability to you to be able to because when again. And I was very fortunate to have good teachers when I went into vice narcotics. I was taught from day one that you know, for every gram of cocaine that we get, you know there is no domestic crop of cocaine, try to take it back to the source. So we tried to take every case we could climb that ladder to get to the ultimate source of supply. Right. And so at some point when you were doing narcotics, you were like, Hey, I'm really getting frustrated with the cases like this. So what made you decide to go to the federal government. Well, one of the designing factors was when I was at the time when I was with DA DA. In order for agents to get what's called their thirteen, the grade level thirteen, they had to submit a packet. It wasn't quite a promotion, but it had to be approved and they had certain boxes they had to check. So I was making all these cases and like my entire unit did, like we worked hard. Everyone but DA agents would come up to me and ask if they could sign off and be a co case agent on my case because they needed to check the box for wiretap or for informant handling. Or undercover operations or seizures of this and so that they could submit their thirteen packet and get their pay raise. So I was helping all these DEA agents get their pay raise to make what was nearly twice what I was making at the time. And so then that got me thinking I needed to throw my ring in the hat and try to get picked up by the FEDS. Okay, and what did How did you end up? So you you're still working narcotics. You put in an application. How did that work for you? Well, I apply for ATF. There was an ATF group in our building in a and Dale at the time, and so I applied there. And the only ATF agents I knew were a couple of guys that I work cases with back once at the Task Force and another time in Latin and so I applied and they kind of rushed me through the process. I did my my interview and my testing and at the time, ATF had to take the treasury in everybody. That's what they got. Wal I walked out of that room saying, Okay, well, I will never work for a treasure because there's no. Way I can't. I had cancer tract right, it was everybody I've ever talked to you said, the Treasury exam was just a beat. Yeah, it was a beast, there really was. But you made it through it, I guess. So a couple of weeks later I got a thing in the mail that said I had passed. And then, like I say, they brought me in for the interview and I did my psych and my physical and for the first I don't want to say four months, it was really hurry, like get me through, and then just quiet, nothing here, completely dark. And then two years later I was on a search warr in Sterling Park with the vice nar cork squad and my phone rings and my answer and it was this woman. Her name is Charlotte, I can't remember her last name. And she's like, yeah, I want to offer you a job with ATF And I said, what are you talking about, Like that was two years ago. I haven't heard from you. I thought I was a no go, And she says, no, we want to offer your job. Can you start? You know? I think it was a little less than a month and out of the Roanoke Field office. Eventually, Oh that's cool, So I accepted. And so what was the academy what was the training like for ATF. Well, the ATF training is two part. It's it's at Glencoe, Georgia. It was just outside of Brunswick, technically part of Brunswick. But you have to go through what's called the Shoot the Criminal Investigator course, right you see high school. That's to get your actual with the federal government series. It's called eighteen eleven for Criminal Investigator. So you go through See High School and at the time that was about ten or eleven weeks, and when I went through, it was still so close, so closely past nine to eleven that it was still six days a week because they were trying to rush agent through at the time. And so that was your basic law enforcement things, your control and arrest techniques, your law, your ethics, your driving pt almost every day, well definitely every day. If we didn't have it with Fletsy, then ATF Cadret came over from the academy and we'd have it with them, and it was pretty much it was very reminiscent of what I had done in my local police academy, but obviously more geared toward federal statute federal law throw standards. So after you complete that there's a brief break and then you start the ATF Academy, which is on center at Fletsy in Brunswick, and that was three months long and that's where you learn ATF's specific enforcement. Yes, okay, all right, so you get done with school in Georgia and then you come back. Where did you end up your first assignment? Well, my first assignment was out of the Roanoke Field office, but I was to be assigned to a satellite office, a brand new satellite office in Harrisonburg, Virginia. So it was me and a senior agent were the only two ATF personnel there, and we were housing a small ice facility, but we worked primarily with the Rush Drug Task Force at the time, the Rockingham University, Shenandoah and Harrisonburg Task Force. Okay, all right, and so talk about like the first any cases that stand out to you while you were in Roanoke that you're like, hey, this is significant. Well, yeah, we had several significant cases, and not only the ones in Roanoke, but the ones that we would come down and help the guys in Ronoke with regularly. But back then, at that time, the biggest problem that we were having was meth was hitting the area hard, and it was a lot. This is my time with the county when I was in vice narcotics. I went to DA Clete School, the Clean Lab Enforcement Team, and so even though we didn't have a lot of labs in loud and if your CLEAT certified, you would get called out to goal. So we would go out and do lab work and you know in other places, but in Harrisburg, we didn't have a lot of labs. A lot of the you know, the Nazi labs, the car trunk labs, things like that, but no, nothing major. It was just pounds and pounds of really high quality meth and fetamine crystal meth hit in the area and hitting the streets. And so we were working those, you know with the Rush Drug Task Force as well as anytime that you know a weapon was involved in the narcotics trafficking or you know, convicted felons with with weapons any other violent crime. What did you feel like was the calls? I mean, was it geographic location as far as Harrisonburg and Harrisburg has always had a high concentration of methanphetamine for whatever reason, any anything that stood out to you is why that is the case based on your experience there. I mean, my experience has always been it seems like the different areas, be they certain geographic or demographic situations exist to where one drug of choice takes over predominantly more than another one. And sometimes it's totally opposite to what you might think. But it just for whatever reason. And I don't even pretend to be you know, in the weeds or the psychology enough of it to understand why. But meth is what was hidden. But in Northern Virginia work in the DC area, it was cracking heroin. So I knew I knew cracking heroin like the back of my hand, and then I had to learn meth. And it's a different ballgame. Yeah, totally. Yeah. All right, So talk a little bit about So you work in Roanoke, at some point you end up where'd you go after Rono? I was assigned to start one of the new Southwest Border Firearms Trafficking strike groups in Phoenix, Arizona. All right, So what time frame is this? This was. My report date was November two thousand and nine, So two thousand and nine, who was who was? Like? What administration was that? This was the Obama minister. Okay, and I guess I'm trying to figure out I should have done a better job figuring out what the dates were. But I guess he took he became president in eight, correct. Well, he won the election in eight and then would have I believe, started, you know January. The Founder Initiative at that point was kind of his thing. Yeah, because what it happened was the US had had declared that the instability along the US the southwest US border and all the crime that was occurring was a threat to national security. Didn't specifically name the cartels as entities at the time, just that the disorder and the instability was a threat to our security. Okay. So that opened up the floodgates of how to work the artel problem in Mexico. So a lot of money was allocated to do this, not only to ATF but to other agencies. What ATF did with their part of the you know, the kitty, was to start these I don't not start. I don't really know where the genesis of it was, but these were prosecutorial led strike force groups rather than the old task force concept where officers from different agencies work together and it's commanded by one agency that's primarily you know, providing the funds or the office whatever, but officers have worked together. This was prosecutorial led, so it was run out of the US Attorney's Office. Although we weren't house area, didn't work there. They were knee deep in all of our cases from jump, straight from the very beginning. So if I'm understand it right, federal government determines there's a problem, correct, they allocate resources for that problem, and in this case, they allocated the resources at some point through the US Attorney's office, and y'all were part of that process. Right, But the funds, the resources didn't go through the US Attorney's Office. I was they were going to be in charge essentially, the ones with the hand on the pulse for what the problem is. Exactly. So, as as cops, we know how to enforce law, like a task force mission is to enforce the law. And we've always said, hey, what happens in court stays in court or is it not my job? Not like I'll do my job. My job, My shit will be tight when it gets there, you know, win or lose. Tell me where we're going exactly. Okay, this was information the money is still coming through regular DJ channels, but the US Attorney's Office is essentially calling the shots on how to work the investigations. Maybe not calling the shots, but has a large a much more greater input. Basically, it's top down instead of you coming in with the case and saying, hey, this is the case I have, this is a target I have correct and then reviewing the case and saying, okay, let's move forward this way, this was this. This is what DC wants us to pursue. And because we were a gun trafficking strikeforce, you know, obviously our primary concern was gun traffic. So talk about gun trafficking. Obviously, they I feel like they called it right when they said we had the unrest and the instability at the Mexican border. Southwest border is a big problem and still a big problem, continues to be a problem. They obviously identified that was a problem. Talk a little bit about the gun problem. Well, in part of that declaration, they declared that a huge part of that instability and that crime wave of occurring in the southwest border was due to the trafficking of US source firearms to the Mexican drug cartels that were then using those firearms to perpetrate that violence. Specifically, the claim was from the US civilian firearms market that people were going into gun shops all along the southwest border and in the interior of the country, purchasing large amounts of firearms, ultimately or subsequently having them traffic into Mexico and provided to the cartel, and then they were being used in crimes. Okay, So based on your experience with what you've seen and dealt with as far as trafficking and things like that, obviously they say there's a problem instability, that's definitely a problem. Their next step is the fact that they're trafficking guns from the US. There, from the civilian market, could explain the civilian market what that exactly means. I understand. We had the conversation at lunch, and that gave me a different view of it. What does us like civilian? Well, talk about the civilian Okay. So the civilian firearms market is when you go to your local gun shop or bass Pro shop or Cabell wherever. What you can buy there, Okay, all right, you can't buy military grade machine guns, right, you can't buy things like that. You can't buy you know, SBRs short bail rifles or even silence or you know suppressors. There is no silencer, but you can't buy those unless they're you know, a special class dealer, you know, can dealing NFA weapons. So you're not talking military grade. You're talking civilian grade firearms that you can purchase from the civilian firearms market. Any US civilian that's not otherwise prohibited can purchase and possess and use. So the whole point of the strike force was to combat this illegal trafficking of these civilian purchase firearms from gun shops in Arizona. Specifically, my group was to you know, entities in Mexico. We're preventing them from going south. So what were the numbers that they used to back up the fact of like, the civilian market is flooding Mexico with guns. So you're going to open a whole can of worms here. So while you're here, right, all right, So in two thousand and nine, when this is declared to be the problem, right and this is what we need to do to fix it, ATF needs a bunch of money, we'll start these strike forces. We're going to get people on the border and we're going to stop this flow a firearm south. So also in two thousand and nine, ATF initially also began to with some of the same money open up offices in Mexico or expand our offices in Mexico. We even launched what we call Spanish e trace, which E trace is a computer system. When a law enforcement agency in the country recovers a firearm or seizes a firearm, they entered an e trace and we can ATF Record Section can conduct a trace and get you to the first point of retail sale on that firearm. So what that means is you have the manufacturer, through the wholesaler, to the distributor, to the local gun shop, and who purchased it from them, who filled out the form the forty four to seventy three right the tracing center has access to that data. Sometimes it's a very slow process because it's still primarily just a paper system, although they have tried to automate it. So ATF launch a Spanish e trace and sends agents signs them to Mexico to teach Mexican governmental authorities how to submit traces of firearms into these things. Now what happens is rather than as a firearm is seized, they entered into the tracing system. Mexico takes their vaults, which is full of firearms that have been seized for sometimes decades, and they dump all of these into the system at one time. A matter of fact, ATF Tracing Center gets a disc from some of our people in Mexico too. I think it was two compact disc that has forty five thousand different firearms on it from various vaults in and around that section of Mexico. That someone does, they are all automatically dumped into the tracing center. Now, what people have to understand is in order to successfully trace a firearm, the only way that ATF can successfully trace it is it has to have the US nexus in the first place. Means it was manufactured in the US or imported into the US at some point, and it will literally be stamped manufactured in the US imported in the US. Other than that, we can't trace it. I can't trace a gun that was made in Pakistan or Brazil or Romania or former Soviet lock and went straight from there to somewhere in South America or to Africa or whatever. There's no way for ATF to trace it. So we can only trace US source firearms. So shortly after this operation begins, the threat on the US border has already been declared to national security issue. ATF comes out with I think originally they said seventy percent of all the crime guns traced in Mexico. Sorry, seventy percent of all the crime guns successfully traced in Mexico are US source fireums. It's all verbers now technically successfully traded. That should be one hundred percent because those are the ones, only the ones we can successfully trace are US source. So what's happening still is the Mexicans that are getting the training on E trays spantashy trades, they're still taking every gun, whether it's stamped made in the US, importing in the US or not, they're still dumping it into E trays. ATF UPS their training protocols for the Mexican officials to say, no, no, no, you know, unless it's stamped US, don't put it in there because you're it's garbaging the system. And it's also bringing that number down, right, that's that's stat number, right. Which is what we're looking for. What what agent, Well you could argue what they're looking for, but I'm telling you in order to successfully trace it, it's got to have that stamp on it, either manufactured in or import it into. So as this training starts to go through Mexico, those numbers start to rise up of the abount of trace, so they can say eighty five percent of the firearms successfully traced out of Mexico. Crime guns successfully trace come back to US sources. So this is fueling the fire of Okay, the American civilian firearms market is responsible for all this violence. I mean when you have you have a birthday party shot up and you know three of the five guns recovered come back to US sources. While that's horrible, we have to do something about this. However, what ATF is neglect to tell the public, and I believe neglecting to tell people on the hill when they ask for this information, is that their definition of a US firearm is not confined to the civilian firearms market, meaning it didn't come from a dealer. The vast majority of those crime guns were covered in Mexico that can be successfully traced trace back to either direct purchases from the US government to the Mexican government or direct purchases by the Mexican government from an American manufacturer, so much so that of the successful traces as the gun, seventy five percent of them are direct government to government sales or direct purchases by the Mexican government, never entering the US civilian firearms market, and the vast majority of them are not even weapons that you can purchase on the US civilian firearms market. They are military grade machine guns. And so what I'm hearing you say is ATF identifies the problem. The US government identifies the problem. ATF for RUSH is to correct that problem, because they are the preeminent investigative authority as far as guns are concerned. However, if I hear you correctly, the system that they have, the e TRA system only applies to one thing, and so we're what it's just not matching up. Is that? Would that be accurate? Close? I think your sequence is out a little bit. So the sequence, I don't think it's identifying a problem then coming up with a solution. I think it's saying, hey, we're the solution. Okay, So declaring a problem, whether it exists or not, right, declaring yourself the solution to it, right, and then when you realize that data doesn't match the problem. We'll get the data that matches the problem. We've already declared ourselves a solution. Now help me prove the problem, all right, right, And so this is where that big, you know, government machine kicks in. When I'm the only one that controls the data, I can use it to say whatever I want to make it. Say, it's the economy, whatever else, exactly manipulate the number. Right. This is the same thing that the government does with you know, the job statistics and the inflationary rate and everything else. It's all to achieve an I mean, I know I can tell you my I can't tell you specifically about stuff like that. I have opinions on a lot of things. But but you know, for a fact, I know we do it with tracing data, all right. And having known that, and see how it's used and see how it works, you can see how it's exploited in other aspects as well. So yeah, so atf there's violence happened on the Mexican government, and I think people genuinely believed and hate the US civilian firearms market so much then determine that it had to be the problem. So then they declare a solution when the data doesn't match it, they launch Spanish utrays. We start teaching the Mexican authorities how to use it. Then what we do is we either carefully disguise the definition of US source firearm or just refuse to define it at all. To an not that anyone has asked. To my knowledge, ATF has never been pressed on define a US source firearm. ATF I think they used to. I don't know if they still have been retired a couple of years. Now. Once a year have a press conference where they release this data, which they should not do. All right, It's clear that you can't release that data for other than criminal justice purposes. It says when anybody, anybody that has an e trace account can look on it, and it says right on there for that. So they still do it, and they still say the same. So you think, based on your experience, it is a effort by the ATF on an annual basis to release statistics. Explain that a little bit. Well, I don't think it's an effort that they do. I mean part for some people it's an effort. For some people it's a responsibility. It just it had become to the point of an annual thing where they just did it. Right. The information they're releasing is what they're. Releasing the trace data, which people have to understand E. Trace was never designed to be a data engine, right, it's not a statistical engine. What it is is designed to be a lead generation tool. Right. So if I'm in my area at working as an agent, and all of a sudden there are a lot of guns being recovered, and I can check where they're being traced from, and they're all coming out of a you know, Chicago or coming out of you know, Houston wherever, then I can say, Okay, what's the connection here, how are these guns getting from one area to another and why. That's what it's generated for. It's not a statistical engine. However, atf uses that data in that way to put out these numbers about the crime guns in Mexico now during this point where we are with these trade negotiations. So if you have the Mexican government who have openly said have been saying for years we're not going to do anything about the drugs going into the US until you do something about the guns coming down here. Whereas if anyone that was in the weeds on the information could go to the Mexican government and say, you know what, here, I can stop seventy five percent of the crime gun from hitting Mexico overnight, instantly with the stroke of a pen. No more government to government sales. And I'm revoking Mexico as well. We have foreign FFLs. We give them a license so that they can purchase directly from manufacturers, and the export licenses are in effect where they can ship them straight to the Mexican government. I'm going to stop all that overnight. Bam, seventy five percent of the crime guns hitting the straight in Mexico are done. But it also does away with the thing that you hear repeated on a constant basis, almost like a tip for tat the United States has this insatiable appetite for drugs, and they're saying, well, the Americans are extremely violent, they have all these guns. Stop sending ust your guns. And you know it's kind of like a blame game. Right, So I'm saying, in order to quell that, you could stop that by saying, okay, I will stop three quarters of all the crime guns from hitting Mexico by denying your government and the ability to purchase them hands right out. So when you say this seventy five percent. That's based on the Spanish e trades. No no, no, yeah, well that's based on e trace data. Any agent out there that has an e trace account can run this all right. When you open up your e trace account, it can generate a statistical report, do recovery location Mexico, and you can put in any twelve month time frame between two thousand and nine when we launched Spanish e trays until today, or actually until three months ago, the last time I had somebody to do it right, and during any twelve month period, you will see seventy percent of the crime guns that are recovered during that period are direct government to government sales or direct purchases by the Mexican government. So I don't want to get a little bit into what you dealt with when you dealt with the Phoenix, and then maybe circle back to like, how, as the average American citizen, how do you demand answers for exactly what you just described. I'd like to circle back to that, but let's talk a little bit about Phoenix. You get a sign down there, you're on this strike force, and what did you see? I'm we talked about it a little bit but like you've been at that point, what do you have eight years of experience between your law enforcement experience local law enforcement, federal service as a task force officer, and then with ATF how many years of service do you have when you hit Phoenix, Arizona. I know I'd been in law enforcement over fifteen years. By oh, right, so you have an extensive this is the way, this is, this is I don't want to say proper because I think we talked a little bit about that at lunch. We all understand there might be a bigger picture, and that bigger picture might tell me something different than what I'm actually seeing. You know, maybe there I don't know what the intent. I think we all in anyone in the military, the biggest part of an operation to order is the commander's intent. You may not know what the big picture is, So talk about what you experienced in Phoenix. So when I first got to Phoenix, and well, actually backtrack a little bit. So I got orders to go to Phoenix in probably September of two thousand and nine. Okay, sometime between then and November, I got a call from the gentleman who would be my supervisor, and it was his he was in Minnesota. I think at the time it was going to be his first assignment as a supervisor, and he's telling me about this case that they have going it's a really big case and we're going to do a wire. It's going to be awesome. And I remember sitting in my office and in Harrisburg and telling them. I was like, look, man, have you know big cases are big problems. Having done a couple of wires, like, if there's any way we can avoid doing a wire, let's do that. Oh no, this is gonna be great. Well, we'll see when we get there, like, let's take a look at it. Okay. So then I get to Phoenix and I get read in on the case, probably my second day, you know, after processing in and getting a car and stuff like that, and I get read in and at the time, it was two hundred and forty seven or two forty nine firearms that had been trafficked by this group that they had identified. These weapons were purchased out of three or four different gunshops in the Phoenix area. And we're had been recovered already these two hundred and forty at crimes in Mexico within a very short period of time. I'm talking what we called a time to crime. From the time of purchase a firearms purchased until the time it's recovered is a time to crime. We're talking days, all right. So there's a pipeline. There's a definite pipeline headed down there. So I'm getting read in. We have the suspects identified, the FFLs have been approached, we have the you know, the forty four seventy threes in hand, we have everybuddy's vehicle, everybody's address. We know everything's going on. Even some agents have been there at the time that these firearms were purchased. So I'm thinking, oh, well, great, this case is over. Like we're we're going to do We're doing warrance tomorrow, acting the dots, and we're gonna start kicking door. Yeah, I mean, this is we're probably gonna kick them sooner rather than later, because this is going you know, fast and furiously, you know. So here we go game one. So then I'm told, no, absolutely not. We've identified these people, but we're not. We've identifying people. We're going to do a wire. So why are we going to do a wire? Well, we want to find out this organization. We're going to take a cartel down, and so I'm trying to figure out how we're going to take a cartel down, and I'm asking the questions and I'm not getting any answers other than this is how we do things here. You know, you're from Virginia. You don't understand these vast international conspiracy investigations. And so then it's just it's very defeating. And I'm the new guy in the building. You know, there's a I think four of us had come in on the same day from offices all over the country assign of the strikeforce, and so we're all scratching our heads. But everybody in Phoenix thinks that this is the bee's knees, you know, that this is a great case. And so we're struggling with it. And then the next day, probably I think, we're in the office and we get a call to head up to one of the local gun shops that one of our targets is in their guns. So we go up there, sit in the parking lot. And this is one of the ones that had those two hundred and forty some guns. Yes, you know, one of the ones already identified, already had you know, X number of purchases that he had purchased that had already been recovered. And I see him literally come out of the gun shop with a hand truck and stacks of AK variant rifles on it. You know, the civilian version of AK forty seven. It's on an assault rifle. Well, I mean it depends on who you talk to exactly. I mean, when we have a when we have a violent event, the first thing they say is I. Saw right right right, So, for lack of a better just call them AK forty seven. Yes, even though they're just civilian AK variants. But he's got a hand truck full of them, I mean full, And we watch him lead forty of them into the trunk of his car and on the back seat, and then he gets in the car and starts to drive away, and we're told to follow him. And you're like, I'm over here, all right. We're not doing the warrant yet, but we're gonna do this. So this is this is going to kill the liar. Like I've seen this now, Like I wasn't sure if they actually watched this before, but now that. I've seen this, I know what's going to happen. Got muscle memory all right. So I'm throwing my gear on as I'm surveiling this guy and we're driving down the road. We get south of the Tucson a little bit and we reach him. We watch him meet somebody at an old arm. It's like a like a quick mar stopping rob that's what we call it. So uh and yeah. So he meets a guy on the side of the parking lot and they start pulling stuff out of one putting it into the other vehicle. So, like, great, two targets, When are we taking them? Taking them? Now? No, we're waiting. We're waiting, all right, everybody get ready. Here we go. So they load the forty aks into the other vehicle. I think it was a jeep Cherokee. Our guy heads back north toward Phoenix. That vehicle heads south. So I'm calling on the radio, who's got who let's go? And I'm told to stand down, head back to the office. We got what we need. And I'm just dumbfounded. All right. So at that point you've worked a ton of cases. Yes, don't let money walk. I let moneywalk. Definitely don't let guns. Never let guns walk. As matter of fact, if a gun got if you lost sight of a gun during a case, even if it was a gun that had been altered to never allowed to be fired, right, nobody went home until it was found. Nobody went home. And this is ten years worth of experience, and you're sitting there going would just happen? I don't understand what happened. So I'm like, I say, the whole ride back to the office, I'm trying to reconcile what just happened in my head, like maybe I didn't see this right right, or I'm thinking there's something that I don't know, like I'm missing something. There's a bit of this information that wasn't provided to be at the ADA. So I go in and go straight to the boss's office and say, hey, look I did Army intel. I understand if there's stuff going on, I just need to know because what I just witnessed I've never seen before in my entire career, especially with ATF, and I didn't know what's going on. Oh, this is a big case. We're going to take down a. Cartel by giving them guns, right, And so we later described that by keep saying that, you know, taking down a cartel. We later described that as there's an old episode of South Park where they talk about the underwear nomes. Yeah, everybody's underwear is missing, right, and have this power point. It's like step one still underwear, you know, Step two is a big question mark, and then it says equals big profit. So they got the first part in the last part figured out, but not the middle part. So that's what this felt like. All Right, we're gonna but to combat a legal firearms trafficking to Mexico. We're going to allow firearms to be illegally trafficked to Mexico. And not with the normal source that you're experiencing. Trace has shown you they normally get them. You're flooding it with a different. We're flooding them from the civilian firearms market. Okay, and we're going to take down a cartel like you can't get there from here. It doesn't make sense. So that's when the beatings start, you know, for lack of a better way to putting it, I. Mean you've always struck me as somebody that just rolled with the punches. Did that not happen in fainted Uh No. It took some some pretty heavy handed convincing and and still then ultimately I complained and bitched so much that they threw me out of the building, turned off all my passes, denied me access to my computer systems, assigned me to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force on the other side of town, and told me not to come back. So you got the red tag doesn't play well with others. Why you buy exactly the FBI and maybe they can fix it. I even told them. At one point in the office, I asked the case agent and she asked me, she said, uh. And there was a part of her where I think because she had been a cop before as well, and I think there was a part of her that understood her that that she has had some internal turmoil over it. But when you have everyone in your agency, I mean all the way up to the director, you know, playing slap and to give me out of boys about how good it is, and then you got DJ all the way up to the you know, assistant Attorney General, deputy Attorney General telling you how great this case is and what a good job you're doing. Everything like that, that she was struggling with it. And so she asked me what I thought about the case, and I said, don't ask me questions. You don't know the answer to And so. What did you tell her about the case, Like, what is your unedited version of the case? Well, I told him it was no different. Why don't we just do you remember turning cases? I was like, why don't we just do this as Atorney case, Like we'll sell the guns directly, because it's no different from what we're doing right now, Like, not only are we watching this happen, first of all, happen? Inderstand, not only are we watching this to happen? Okay, well facilitating The reason we identified these people, we knew about it was because the FFL's called us and said, hey, I get a guy bringing a Crown Royal bag full of cash in here once by twenty ak forty seven's like, what do you want me to do? Nah, we got this, go ahead and sell it to them. So the FFLs are trying to report it. The ones everybody wants to say, the ones everybody wants to shut down to blame for everything, are the ones that gave us the information in the first place. So they're not like the sneaky back back. The vast majority are just small American business owners right that have been more than helpful and them trying to do the right trying to do the right thing and being lied to by us, tell us telling them that we've got this, like don't worry about We're on this, but I don't want to do the sale. It's okay, We've got you, and telling them essentially reassuring them that we're not going to let these guns be used. It like we've they think ATF saying we've got this, that it's okay. So this is not. So they're even more than you, as an agent in the field, are thinking. We know how ATF regulates what we do. Everything that we do is regulated, checked, rechecked. There's no wiggle room for us as an FFL. There's no way this regulatory agency is going to do what we reported is going to happen and not take care of right. It's something that if they had done on their own, not only do they face you know, criminal prosecution, but immediate eravocation of their license. I mean, I bring in like this story, but like I was listening to the other day ATF anddighted the Larry Vickers, the tag guy, and you know, obviously he's done some things, but I just think it's I think it's ironic in some way, Like you have this regulatory agency that is just blowing up regulations left and right to prove a point. I mean, And so what is the point in your like based on your experience with it? Well, I gotta tell you, having not done the regulatory side of the house, I can't speak for them. I have heard from FFLs before the unfairness that they feel from our regulatory side. I know some regulatory inspectors. Some of them are really good people. I know some that I would I would not disagree if you said we're ajenda driven in a certain way. So I understand the FFL's frustration with them, and I understand, like I said, the good ones when they go in there, the FFL thinks that they don't know that that's one of the good ones, you know what I mean? They just know the last ATF regulatory person that came in here tried to shut me down. Ye bust of their balls, right, And I'm not saying it doesn't need to happen. Like not all FFLs are perfect. Some make honest mistakes, some make a lot of them, some are careless, and there are some dirty ones. But my experience has been very few very few. The vast majority are just you know, hardworking small business owners. So let's go to like, what what was the final straw for you to take all that you had invested into an agency and look at it and go, I've got to do something. What was the what was the event that caused you to be like, I can't deal with this anymore. I mean, I feel like you. It is very clear. I read your book and it was very clear you were like you were telling everybody that would listen, this is a problem, this is a problem. What what What did you describe that was going to be a problem that happened just like it? So I told them in the middle of heated argument in the office one day with the boss, and I think the ASAK was there in the case agent, everyone else in the group that you know, were they ready to watch that widow of a Border Patrol agent or coaches county deputy except that folded flag because it was gonna happen. It wasn't a matter of if it was only a matter of wind. We folded flag is like the because they were killed in the line, right. Off their casket, because they were killed in the line of duty, and. And you know after that I was. I was, that's right before I was thrown out. And so once I was sent to the FBI, and I'm not proud of this point, but being away from it and not having to see it and not having it thrown in my face and not getting beat up every day, the mentality was, you know, they're going to sink their ship. We'll let them do it. I'm out. I got nothing to do with it. I told them at that point. I mean, I think it's easy for you as a person to sit there and go like I could have done more, But I think at some point you look at it and go, I'm gonna do what I I'm going to do what I feel like is best i've got. I'm on this Joint Terrorism Task Force. I'm sure y'all are doing great things. I mean, would that be accurate? Yeah, And so like I mean, you can't. You can beat your head against a wall a certain amount of time. And I think we talked about that and we'll circle back to that. Yeah, it's just it's that, you know, complacency. It's not bothering me anymore. So why am I worried about it? You know? And that's that's the part that I struggle with, but and that was me, Like, that was me saying that, and it's been okay, it's on them. Now I'm out. I've done everything, I've said, everything I've said my piece, nobody listens. All I got was beat up for it. So I'm out, and I'm glad. I'm out. Drive your train off the tracks. I don't care. I'm done. And then December came and my wife and I were having coffee in the morning like we always do, and there was a news report about a Bordertraal agent that was killed in pet Can, which is down to Rio Rico, south of Tucson, and we both instantly looked at each other and we thought, you know, it's just it happened that the one And just a few minutes later, my phone rang and it was a friend of mine that was back at Division office atf Division office, and he told me if I heard about the word Troy, and his name was Brian Terry, and I said, yeah, I just see you on the news and he said, well, at least one of the guns recovered comes back to fast. And fears your strikeforce case. And my heart sank, man just sank and it was like it wasn't It wasn't even a surprise because I knew it was going to happen. It was just one of those things you really. Hope doesn't as much as you wanted to be wrong. Right, Yeah, please prove me wrong on that one any day. And so I was sick and I didn't know what to do. And I went to my office at the title at the well and my office was in a skiff, so there was no television, and I mean there are parts of the skiffs at that time, but we didn't have anyone in ours. And I was just sitting there just pounding my head or with my head in my hands, wondering what to do. And then I got a phone call from another friend and at the division office, and they had said that and this might have even been the next day. That rumor was there were some congressional oversight people that were looking into it, like things had started to get out. The bullets are rolling correct the problem. And I told them, I said, well, if if you have anything to do with like if you're talking an about it, you know anyone that is, you make sure to tell them to talk to me. If somebody in DC calls down here and talks to the sack they're going to get lied to, all right, or even the the group supervisor or that. You tell me. If somebody really wants to know what happened, to call me and I'll tell them. And a few days go by and I get a phone call on my work phone and it's a gentleman that identifies himself as a congressional investigator with Santah Grasse's office. And it was three of them on the phone. We were all having on speakerphone, and they wanted to They said that they had heard they had questions about the operation fast and furious to ask me. So I asked them to hang on for a second. I was able to verify that they were who they said they were, and I said, okay, I will answer any question that you have except for one. And that's why, because the story I'm about to tell you it makes no sense, and you're gonna ask me why, and I don't know the answer to it. I can tell you what they told me, but I cannot answer. I can't even wrap my head around. And I was in it, and I said, the second thing I want to tell you is the minute I'm done talking to you. I'm gonna tell ATF that I talked to you because I'm not going to stab them in the back. And they said, we we encourage you not to do that. We don't want to retaliate against what your release. You know, your disclosures to Congress are confidential. We will never tell them. And I said, I'm not going to do that. Like I said, if that's going to hurt your investigation, talk to me last, do everything else you need to first, and then talk to me, because I'm going to tell ATF. And they said, no, it's not going to hurt us. It might hurt you, but okay, And so I told him and. So you not only did you so at that point did you have whistleblower status or how did how exactly does that work? I don't want to say. We were laughing at lunch, but we were talking about, like one of the things that was a benefit for you is your annual training that you had about with the whistleblower I paid. All for your Yeah. Yeah, they used to make us do the online training and once one two hour block of it every year is whistleblower training. So I'll never need this. But I went back and took it like during this try to refresh memory on wheneverything You're like, right, what can be disclosed and what can and who you can talk to? And I think that frustrated him as much as anything else, the fact. That I stayed on the line, right, okay. And so yeah, from the minute I disclosed to Congress, the whistleblower protections were enacted. The problem is there's not much much protection people think that it is. It's not. The burden is on the whistleblower to prove that not only you were retaliated against, but it was done specifically because of your act of blowing the whistle. So that it's a narrow road. It's a very narrow road when all your agency has to do is, you know, pull up some you know, your next evaluation. They tell your supervisor to give you a bad one. Oh, here you go. Then you can for that or you dealt with for that or any actions. So it's not like a complete white wallsh like, hey, everybody thinks John's a good John's a good employee. So we're not going to retaliate. We're just's he seems like his heads and right place, or we're just gonna. And people that think, oh whistleblow or protections, Oh you're untouchable. No, no, no, no, far from it, right, far from it. So talk a little bit about so you what you've recounted today. You pretty much said that and with all the smoking guns, for lack of a better way of saying it, presented all that to congressional investigators. And what happens. I mean you you you had to go in front of Congress, just go through that process. It's so hard. I don't even know where to start. Like, I mean, you're talking about the minute sho of what happened d in the process or ultimately the end at the end. Just like skim over, like the like the basic process. You report this you so you reported to these congressional investigators, Go back and tell your rack. I guess at that point I called my ASA because at the time, once they threw me out of the strike force, I was told that only communication I could have with ATF would be through him through my asack at the time. All right, so they pushed you completely out the China Command and you were reported directly. To directly to an a SEC and asach who had made it clear to everyone that communications with agent Dotson was detrimental to anyone's ATF career. You weren't singled out, were you? No, not at all all? Right, So you go through the whistle. So at what point do you end up in front of Congress? And I mean, what what triggered that? Well? Well, first of all, I want to say, apparently there were other people talking to Congressional investigators, and I still do this day, don't know initially how they caught wind of it in the first place. So I'm by no means want to say that I was the only one. But you're here telling your story, right, I'm just here telling my story. So how I ended up in front of Congress? Was it? Because? Okay? So Senator Grassley's office had sent and you go figure at the time, the Republicans were in charge of the Senate, but the Democrats had the House. Okay, so subpoena, No, that was wrong. Democrats had the Senate, Republicans had the House. Subpoena authority only belongs in the party that's in power, that controls out. So like Senata Grassley at the time was the minority head of the commission that he was on, So they were trying to get Chairman Isa who was with in the House side a congressman because he would have subpoena power as the head of the HOGAR the House Oversight and Government Forum Committee. So until that happened, like, there's I guess all kinds of stuff happening on on that up on the hills. So the information that at that point what you had told him had gotten out, the information was available. Well it was about to get out and see what happened was I was told that it's dead in the water. I give him the information and the reports, like the documents. To the Congressional Investigator. To the Congressional investigators, they had sent a letter to the Attorney General of the United States at the time, Eric Holder, and Eric Holder had replied categorically d oj category or categorically denies the allegations. So you have the Attorney General for the United States going on there and saying you didn't tell the truth. I read the letter as John Dotson is a liar. Okay, and needless say that pisses me off. Yeah, you got a little frustrated, right. So right around the same time, I get a call from a reporter. Okay, calls me on my wife's cell phone as a matter of fact, and I answered the phone. My wife says, yeah, it's right here and hands me the phone and I said, who is this Cheryl? I can send with CBS News. She's asked me who am I talking to? And I said, well, you called me and she said, well, I know you're one of two people. You either John Dotson or something another person. And I said, I'm John Dotson and she said, I'm doing a story. I've talked to Brian Terry's family, the borb of Troy, and I'm trying to get them the information because they've heard about the congressional investigation and DJ has told them that it's absolutely not true. The attorney, the US attorney for the District of Arizona, had flown up to Michigan, sat down with them and told them specifically it wasn't true. And she said, I'm trying to do a story. I'm trying to do them right, and I want to know if I could interview. And I was like, Noah, I have nothing to say to you. And she said, well, disguise your voice and I'll hide your face. And I said no man. My said, but I promise you. If I ever do have anything that I want to say the American people, I'm gonna say it like I'm not doing that. And she said, well, I'm doing the story Arizon, I think a Thursday, and it was like the next night or something, and she said, well, you watch it and just I want you to see it, and you can see I'm trying to do the right thing for his first family. And so I watched it and I could tell by the people that she was talking to and the information that she had it's incomplete. Hunter was incomplete, but they were people that knew, people that had information, like none of them were direct information and all that. There were a couple of voices. There was nobody's picture. There was little silhouette things. There wasn't even silhouettes of them. It was like clipboard silhouette things. People up there, and the voices were distorted, and I knew the information was at best second party, probably third. Party, definitely not somebody said where you were sitting right, But I. Could tell she was trying to do the right thing. And I remember watching it and thinking about Brian's family watching it, and this was their hope, like this was their hope to try to find out some answers about their brother, their son, you know. And and I was like, this is the best that they have. You have entire building full of federal agents, and nobody will step up and say the right. Nobody will just fucking say it. So I called Grassley staff and I said, you sent me up in an interview with Cheryl Atkinson, and they said, we recommend against that because we can't disclosing. The Congress is covered under whistle blow and protection. The once you hit the press, we can't do anything to help you. And I was like, well, you can't do anything anyway. You said it's dead in the water because the Attorney General has stated then I'm full of shit. So I said, either you set it up or I will. So she I met her at a hotel in near Phoenix Airport two days later and I sat down in the interview. So you gave her everything, Yeah, I mean everything that you could get. And so for you, I think we talked a little bit about this. It's just I think we go into this occupation and we think we're here to do or higher good, and then there's a defining moment what did you call it? At lunch it's a red pill moment, a red pill moment that you realize, like you know, everything I think I've seen up until this point is this. Maybe it's not. And I don't know. I mean, I just, I just I'm always amazed at just people, like a single person like you. I know who you are, I know, I know what you stand for, but like, it takes a huge person to stand up to the entire federal government and to have somebody that is what two or three from the very top of the most powerful country in the United States calling you a liar had to be a lonely feeling, didn't it. Oh it was. It was lonely. But it's it's not. I am two things. I'm nobody's hero and I'm nobody's victim. All right, No, I'm not saying you're a victim. I'm just saying, like, I think that's a heavy burden to bear. Oh, it's I think. I think. I mean, the Attorney General himself went out of his way to get a direct message to me that he did not want me in the Department of Justice, and so talk talk, Bree. I think there are a lot of people out there that could be in a very similar situation than you that are either involved in the government or something else that they're like, Man, I don't want to be the only one standing. Am I really going to make a difference. Talk about like, after you do the whistle blowing and everything else. You said something at lunch about how it changed your daily routine. Talk about that a little bit. As far as being expendable at this point. Oh am, I mean it's it's like I said, you know, when you're looking around once the Attorney General of the US caused you a liar, and then you realize. And there's a lot of other things that led up to this too. There was an article in the Washington Post that was throwing the and this is before I blew the whistle when Agent Terry got killed atf still used that to say US sourced fire arms were the problem, right, And they were throwing these gun dealers under the under the bus, openly leaking E trace data to the Washington Post to paint the gun dealers that had been working with US under this investigation as the bad guys, right, and then the Attorney General categorically denies everything. I am, I look around unless these are deep, dark, murky waters, and I'm the most expendable dude there with a zero life wrap. You know, if somebody's going to go, it's going to be me. I was told quite clearly by congressional staffers that the first play in the playbook for them is shoot the messenger. Like you kill the messenger, kill the message. So they were going to come after me with everything they had, So you go down this road, and I mean they did that. They put a tracker on my car, They had a surveillance team on me, they were tapping my phones, they were in my wife's on her phone, in her computer. Everything I did was they were just looking for a reason. And you know, every ATF agent knows how to build a bomb. So I would wait for my wife to go to work and my kids go to school before i'd start my car in the mornings. I had to give her a list of names and numbers about where to start if I don't come home today. I had to have my own range day to qualify because I didn't want to be killed in a training accent. And actually that didn't come for me. That came from DC arguing that. And you know, people around my house, you know that movie, what is that Russell Crowe movie, The Informant or whatever they said. Somebody told us to watch that, you know, to get an idea of like what might be in store for that motherfucker had it easy. You have to watch it, like we watched that going That was fucking That was a weekend for us. It was, I mean, it was just amazing. But anyway, if you're in that point, what I like, I say, and the reason that I wrote the book, one of the reasons was my wife and I had always said, if what we've been through can ever help anyone else, then we have to do it. You have to put it out there. And I would just tell people, yeah, you're going to feel alone. Like I stood up when I told atf that I just spoke to congressional investigators and I went on the news and put my face out there. I thought it was my Spartacus moment, you know, where everybody else was going to stand up and say, Yep, he's right, he's right. Instead the guys that I had been through doors with, that i've been working with, right that I thought had my back and I knew I had theirs. All I got was crickets. The only people that I could talk to. Were three guys on a phone from DC that I've never met, never met, never seen, had no idea what they looked like, but they were there for me. The only other people I could trust were the people that has cops. We said we could never trust. And that was two reporters, Cheryl Atkinson and William launching us with Fox News Cheryl will CBS at the time. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of shit had reporters out there that DOJ hired to do hit pieces on me. I'm not saying all reporters, but during that time. She stood up. It's like you stood up, So I mean I could I mean seriously, like I could keep you in that seat all day. But like from my standpoint, like, what would you like after the experience that you had, What would you tell people in the environment. We talked a little bit about COVID today and everything else. Would you tell the average citizen that doesn't have the depth of knowledge that you have of government? Would you tell them when they see something that's problematic, don't believe what you read? Yeah, you know, don't you can't the government? Okay, this I see. The government is a giant self looking ice cream count the federal government all rightfully. I like it. It's there, It exists solely to enjoy itself. Yet we all have to pay for it, like that's what it's there for. Do not think that that someone is coming to save you, right, because they're not. It's gonna save itself. It is that big you You're not even a cog in the wheel to it, all right. And people don't care until something happens that affects them. And I was one of those, right. I think I had heard, you know, you hear about all these conspiracy theories and government and things like that, and I never thought about it. I knew we couldn't organize a bake sale, much less pulled together something like that. Right then I find out then you find yourself in it, and you realize it isn't if we're capable of this, what are we capable? It's one thing to know what your government can do, right, It's another thing when you learn what they're willing to do. And it's terrifying. Yeah, Well, I, like I said, I know we mentioned at lunch today. You know, as far as you know Brian Terry's family, you know, I do think that you've done them right. I know you feel a certain way about what happened when you went to the task force, you know, the Terrorism task Force. But like I said, man like you were the one that stood up, Like you're the one that took that step, and without your step, it wouldn't have gotten to where it's gotten to. So we'll beat yourself up. Man like, you did the right thing. You did a great job. I think you had like a big person in the corner over there helping you. Oh yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be her day with that or trust man. Yeah, I think we're all better because of the people that were affiliated with and in this case married today. So thanks brother, I appreciate I appreciate you guys.
