Politics
AG Eric Holder, GOP spar over Fast and Furious
Though neither side said so, negotiations are almost certain to be the next step.
Before the hearing started, Issa introduced Holder to federal agent John Dodson, a whistleblower in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who told Congress a year ago about the use of a tactic known as gun-walking in the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious investigation.
This tactic allows suspected “straw” buyers of weapons to walk away from gun stores with their purchases, rather than arresting them there. Instead, agents tried to track the low-level buyers and the guns to smuggling ringleaders and financiers, including Mexican drug cartel leaders, who have long eluded prosecution for their role in the flow of guns into Mexico. Straw buyers are those who discreetly purchase guns on behalf of someone else.
ATF’s Phoenix division has tried this tactic, with minor variations, in at least four investigations beginning in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. It began three such probes under Bush before launching Fast and Furious in the Obama administration. All of the probes encountered problems.
In Fast and Furious, agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers. Some 700 guns connected to suspects in the operation have been recovered in Mexico and the U.S., some at crime scenes, including the one near Nogales, Arizona, where border agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.
A month after Terry’s death, Congress began hearing of problems with the probe. Under pressure from lawmakers, Holder has shaken up the leadership of ATF, and the Justice Department’s inspector general also is investigating the operation.
After multiple congressional hearings, including six appearances by Holder, Republicans were still voicing outrage Thursday.
Guns that walked in Fast and Furious are going to show up in Arizona “from here to whenever,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. “We should be sharing information.”
