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Read more: Issa Issues Subpoena To Holder In Fast And Furious Investigation | Fox News"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," the California Republican said in a statement. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth."
The subpoena seeks, among other things, all communications regarding the operation from 16 top Justice officials, including Holder, his chief of staff, Gary Grindler, and the head of the department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, as well as correspondence on specific dates to and from the former head of the ATF's Phoenix field division, William Newell
Eleven Republican congressmen piled on Holder on Monday, demanding that he quit, adding to 17 others who had already said it is time for him to go. Others held off on calling for his immediate resignation, but said he has one last chance to redeem himself, when he appears before the House judiciary committee on Dec. 8. Holder has come under increasing fire for stonewalling on Fast and Furious. On Monday he released 652 pages of documents to congressional committees that are probing the scandal. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee are now combing through the documents for evidence of wrongdoing.
The documents are understood to draw a parallel between Fast and Furious and a similar scheme called Operation Wide Receiver that was in operation during the George W. Bush presidency. This is providing some cover for Holder who can claim that he wasnt in office when such programs started. But Grassley said, At first glance the documents indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the criminal division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping the previous Operation Wide Receiver strategy under the rug and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions.
Once the documents were sent to Congress it became clear that Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general for the Department of Justices criminal department, was being set up as the administrations fall guy. Breuer admitted that he failed to connect the dots between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious, both schemes run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Knowing what I now know was a pattern of unacceptable and misguided tactics used by the ATF, I regret that I did not alert others within the leadership of the Department of Justice to the tactics used in Operation Wide Receiver when they first came to my attention, Breuer said in a statement issued after the document dump.
When the allegations related to Operation Fast and Furious became public earlier this year, the leadership of ATF and the U.S. Attorneys Office in Arizona repeatedly assured individuals in the Criminal Division and the leadership of the Department of Justice that those allegations were not true, said Breuer. As a result I did not draw a connection between the unacceptable tactics used by the ATF years earlier in Operation Wide Receiver and the allegations made about Operation Fast and Furious, and therefore did not, at that time, alert others within Department leadership of any similarities between the two.
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This is a deep concern for me. I know others disagree, but we have very lax laws when it comes to guns, Feinstein, an advocate of gun control, said during Tuesday's hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that theres been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made, Feinstein said. But I think this hunt for blame doesnt really speak about the problem. And the problem is, anybody can walk in and buy anything.
In Operation Fast and Furious, a Justice Department program that began in September 2009, law enforcement knowingly allowed about 2,000 U.S. guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels, with the intent of tracking the weapons and making arrests. However, law enforcement lost track of most of the weapons. The program was halted in December 2010 after two weapons from the program were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Departments criminal division, revealed Monday that he knew about Operation Fast and Furious going back to April 2010, but did not inform Attorney General Eric Holder about the matter. Feinstein asked Breuer about the number of U.S. guns in Mexico.
From my understanding, 94,000 weapons have been recovered in the last five years in Mexico. Those are just the ones recovered, Senator, Breuer said. Of the 94,000 weapons that have been recovered from Mexico, 64,000 of those are traced to the United States. We have to do something to prevent criminals from getting those guns, Feinstein said. Then she asked Breuer, Do you believe that if there were some form of registration when you purchase these firearms that would make a difference? I do, Senator, Breuer said, adding that information is the tool we need to challenge the people that are committing this crime.
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Facing tough questioning by Senate Republicans, the attorney general said in remarks prepared for a hearing Tuesday that he wants to know why and how firearms that should have been under surveillance could wind up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. "Unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crime scenes both here and in Mexico," the attorney general said. Several federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have testified that they were ordered by superiors to let suspected straw buyers walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with AK-47s and other weapons believed headed for Mexican drug cartels, rather than arrest the byers and seize the guns there. The goal was to track the guns to trafficking ring leaders who long had escaped prosecution. ATF lost track of some 1,400 of the more than 2,000 weapons whose purchases attracted the suspicion of the Fast and Furious investigators.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa was expected to lead the questioning of the attorney general for Republicans. Grassley's investigation brought problems in Operation Fast and Furious to light early this year. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was expected to question Holder on whether federal agents in Texas adopted the same controversial tactic called gun-walking used in Arizona in Operation Fast and Furious. Holder also may run into questioning by Democrats on the panel over new FBI rules on intelligence collection activities, an issue of importance to civil liberties groups concerned that in a post-Sept. 11 world, the government is loosening restrictions on investigative tactics. In the years since 9/11, Congress and the Justice Department have granted the FBI "ever-greater powers to investigate Americans with less basis for suspicion and less oversight," said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Holder, who says he learned of problems in Fast and Furious early this year, has become a focal point for criticism in a congressional investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Republican critics have suggested Holder was informed of the problems as early as July 2010 when the operation's name turned up repeatedly in weekly departmental reports. The reports provided updates on dozens of investigations, including Fast and Furious, but do not mention the gun-walking tactic. Holder is using what is likely to be a contentious hearing as an opportunity to urge support for ATF. The attorney general cited congressional testimony by some of the ATF agents in the probe who said they lack effective enforcement tools. They have sought clearer authority to arrest straw purchasers and tougher prison sentences for them. Holder asked Congress to "fully fund our request for teams of agents to fight gun trafficking."
On Monday, the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked whether the Justice Department's inspector general has expanded its probe of Operation Fast and Furious to include earlier Bush-era arms trafficking probes that relied on gun-walking. The Associated Press reported on Friday that a briefing paper prepared for then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey during the Bush administration in 2007 outlined failed attempts by federal agents to track illicitly purchased guns across the border into Mexico. Those failed attempts involved an earlier gun-walking probe run out of the same ATF office in Phoenix that later handled Operation Fast and Furious. A month ago, the AP also disclosed that several hundred weapons wound up in the hands of arms traffickers in a second Bush-era gun-walking probe beginning in 2006. It was called Operation Wide Receiver and was run out of the ATF's office in Tucson, Ariz. The IG's office says in a semiannual report that it is reviewing Operation Fast and Furious "and other investigations with similar objectives, methods and strategies." A spokesman for the IG's office, Jay Lerner, declined to comment on whether the investigation has been expanded to cover Wide Receiver and the probe that the briefing paper to Mukasey referenced.
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The letter, addressed to President Obama and the first of its kind, highlights Holders role in the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious, which was run under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Walsh and about a dozen other Republicans held a press conference on Tuesday blasting Holder for not being more responsive to congressional demands for information about Fast and Furious. Most of the lawmakers called for Holders resignation.
Republicans have been investigating who authorized and had knowledge of Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of thousands of weapons in the Southwest region to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels. The majority of the weapons were lost, and two of the guns were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. We call on you today to hold Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for Operation Fast and Furious and urge you to ask for his immediate resignation, the letter reads. In intentionally letting over 2,000 firearms walk across the border into Mexico, it continues, the [ATF] under the leadership of Attorney General Holder carried out an operation that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead, broke federal law and attempted to build a case for gun control. Operation Fast and Furious has proved to be one of the most serious errors in judgment carried out in recent history by a federal agency.
Holder requested an independent inspector general (IG) report on Fast and Furious, which is ongoing, and has said he will hold responsible the people involved in authorizing it. The operational tactics used in the botched program include gun walking, which occurs when weapons are knowingly allowed into the hands of known or suspected criminals with no immediate effort to retake possession of the firearms.
Walsh began circulating the letter on Tuesday and pointed to an interview that Obama did with ABC last month in which he promised to hold officials responsible for the bad decisions that led to Fast and Furious. We ask you to fulfill this promise to the American people because, like you, they are upset and deserve answers, said Walsh in his letter to Obama. They also deserve accountability on behalf of their federal officials, especially those who are unelected, like Holder.
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The confirmation of a former aide to Attorney General Eric Holder to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces may be in peril over his response to questions posed by Arizona Sen. John McCain about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious. Kevin Ohlson, who worked as Holder's chief of staff from January 2009 to January 2011, faces a confirmation hearing on Thursday for the post. The panel with jurisdiction is the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which McCain is the ranking Republican and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., is chairman.
In his response Monday to a questionnaire sent from McCain last week, both obtained by Fox News, Ohlson said he knew nothing about the operation while he was at the Justice Department. "During my tenure as chief of staff and counselor to the attorney general, I took no actions in regard to, had no knowledge of, provided no advice about, and had no involvement in Operation Fast and Furious," he wrote. Ohlson wrote he did participate in a prep session with Holder on Fast and Furious earlier this month before Holder testified to Congress. In the letter sent by McCain, he wrote that as Holder's chief of staff Ohlson was "in a position to be informed about the Operation, to make decisions regarding the operation, and to know what information about it was and was not provided to the attorney general."
But in his response, Ohlson wrote he had "been informed that routine courtesy copies of weekly reports were forwarded to me that referred to the operation by name, but that did not provide any operational details and did not refer to gun walking or anything similar." But Ohlson said nothing on the cover sheets of the reports indicated they contained important or sensitive materials and he didn't review them. The latest response highlights a recurring theme coming from the Department of Justice about Fast and Furious that has raised troubling concerns for Republicans, specifically, that officials there did not get into details or make the effort to look further into the botched gun-walking program.
Fast and Furious was run out of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and aimed to allow straw purchasers illegally buy guns from U.S. shops in order to trace where they went. Hundreds of those guns disappeared into Mexico, and the operation blew up in late 2010 after the murder of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. Two guns linked to the operation were found at the crime scene. But in response to questions raised about the program, Holder said memos about Fast and Furious addressed to him were never brought to his attention. Holder's then No. 2, Gary Grindler, did receive a briefing on Fast and Furious, but didn't discuss it with others, he says, because the tactics were never mentioned.
Read more: Former Holder Chief Of Staff Nomination To Court Imperiled Over 'Fast And Furious' | Fox News
Holder should resign.
