patino wanted 20 more weapons but the dealer only had four in stock. the dealer told atf that if he were to sell the guns, he would have to obtain the additional 16 specifically for this purpose. an atf supervisor road back that our guidance is that we would like you to go through with the request an order additional firearms. at this point, atf already knew that he had bought 673 guns from cooperating dealers and that many have already been recovered time scenes. i want to be clear -- we don't know for sure whether this particular order was actually filled for these additional 16 guns. however, these new e-mails support what agents and dealers have been telling us for many months. according to them, dealers identified atf when any of the straw purchasers bought guns either before, during, or shortly after the sale. we don't know what the exact totals are but we know that the suspect "data base had at least 1880 guns related to this case. at least 30 of them were high- power, 50-caliber rifles. the straw purchasers bought 212 guns in just six days, dec

during those 11 months, he purchased another 34 arms, but patino purchased 539.ating gun dealers notified atf of each and every purchase. it usually talk about five days to enter the serial numbers into the atf data base, but atf had realtime or even advanced notice of the purchases from the dealers. atf even specifically approved a particular transaction. i'll give you an example. in august 2010, a gun dialer cooperating with the atf asked for guidance. patinomented 20 more -- mented 20 more weapons, but the dealer only had four in stock. the dealer told aatf if he were to sell the give ups, he had to obtain the 16 others to attain the october. we would like you to go through with the request and order additional firearms. at this point, atf already knew that he had bought 673 guns from cooperating dealers, and that many had already been recovered at crime scenes. i want to be clear that we don't know for sure whether this particular order was filled for these additional 16 guns, however, these new e-mails support what agents and dealers have been telling us for