Cong. Lamar Smith Presses DOJ Staff for Fast & Furious Documents

3:37 pm CST - February 08, 2012

Texas Insider Report: Washington, D.C. – “As Attorney General, you have an obligation to ensure that the statements given to Congress are both accurate and complete. Unfortunately, the documents released by the Department continue to raise serious questions about the validity of statements made by senior Department officials,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) earlier this month as he continued to press Justice Department senior officials to be made available for interviews with the Committee regarding the Department’s knowledge of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious following the shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
Specifically, Chairman Smith requested to interview Monty Wilkinson, former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, and Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

Documents released by the Department on Friday indicate that the Attorney General’s former Deputy Chief of Staff may have been aware of the connection between Agent Terry’s death and Operation Fast and Furious within days of the shooting.

The emails also show inconsistencies between statements by Assistant Attorney General Breuer regarding his reaction to the initial discovery that ATF had engaged in gunwalking.
Said Smith: “The House Judiciary Committee and the American people have a right to know the whole truth, not just bits and pieces released here and there over several months.”

In January, the Justice Department released 486 new documents to the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees as part of compliance with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee. The emails show an exchange between Mr. Wilkinson and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke regarding the death of Agent Terry.

Mr. Wilkinson claimed to have notified the Attorney General about the death of Agent Terry and then pressed U.S. Attorney Burke for additional details regarding the shooting.

U.S. Attorney Burke later notified Mr. Wilkinson that guns found at the scene of the shooting connected back to “the investigation we were going to talk about.” The investigation in question turned out to be Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Wilkinson replied, “I’ll call tomorrow.”

It is not known if that call ever took place.

Chairman Smith requested that the Department contact the House Judiciary Committee by February 10 to arrange for the interviews of Mr. Wilkinson and Assistant Attorney General Breuer.


Texas Insider » Cong. Lamar Smith Presses DOJ Staff for Fast & Furious Documents

What else do they need?http://youtu.be/F8QB11Y1XJ8Eric Holder at the:DOJ Press Release - Remarks As Prepared For Delivery By Attorney General Eric Holder At The Mexico / United States Arms Trafficking ConferenceStates Arms Trafficking Conference

CUERNAVACA, MEXICO ~ Thursday, April 2, 2009

Remarks as prepared for delivery.

First, let me express my thanks to Attorney General Medina Mora and Secretary of Government Gomez Mont for making this conference possible.

This is my first trip to another country as Attorney General. I wanted to come to Mexico to deliver a single message: We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in this fight against the narcotics cartels. The United States shares responsibility for this problem and we will take responsibility by joining our Mexican counterparts in every step of this fight.

And, together, we will win — thanks in large part to the courage of my Mexican colleagues here today, who are on the front lines every day, and with whom I am proud to collaborate.

The topic that has been addressed over the past two days could not be more important — the development of an arms trafficking prosecution and enforcement strategy on both sides of the border.

I would like to thank the Mexican and U.S. experts who have worked so hard on this issue. On our side, Secretary Napolitano and I are committed to putting the resources in place to increase our attack on arms trafficking into Mexico.

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail.

But as today’s conference has emphasized, the problem of arms trafficking will not be stopped at the border alone. Rather, as our experts emphasized, this is a problem that must be met as part of a comprehensive attack against the cartels — an attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the cartel. This is the type of full-bore, prosecution-driven approach that the U.S. Department of Justice took to dismantle La Cosa Nostra — once the most powerful organized crime group operating in the United States.

With partners like those we have here today, I am confident that together, we will defeat these narcotics cartels in exactly the same way. I am proud to stand with you, and to join you in this fight. Thank you again for inviting me here.

Quiero que el pueblo Mexicano sepa que mi nación está con ustedes en la lucha contra los narcotraficantes.

México y los Estados Unidos comparten mas que una frontera-compartimos cultura, sangre e intereses comunes. Somos hermanos unidos contra una batalla que ganaremos.

Tenemos que aprender de uno a otro, trabajar juntos y luchar juntos. Si hacemos estas cosas, si nos dedicamos juntos a esta lucha, no tengo duda que tendremos éxito.Welcome to the United States Department of Justice Gun Runner!http://youtu.be/-PNhYk9NuNc