Darrell Issa asks Eric Holder why gun suspect let go

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Republican lawmakers are demanding to know why one of the main gun trafficking suspects in the Fast and Furious operation was released after being interrogated by an ATF agent in 2010.

Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta was not arrested until February 2011, another eight months after he was first questioned, over which time five straw purchasers the ATF knew to be working with Celis-Acosta illegally acquired more than 284 weapons, say Rep. Darell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a joint letter.

By TIM MAK | 3/20/12 7:55 AM EDT
POLITICO LLC

Grassley and Issa demand in their Monday letter to Holder that the Justice Department brief their two committees on why Celis-Acosta was not arrested on the scene in 2010. The two Republicans request that the briefing take place no later than March 26.

Issa and Grassley also asked Holder why a document describing his interrogation and the fact that Celis-Acosta lied to the ATF agent about having ammunition in his vehicle when he was stopped wasn’t previously provided under a subpoena issued last year that requested documents related to Fast and Furious.

“This May 2010 stop was yet another opportunity to apprehend Acosta, put him in jail and most importantly, take him out of commission as a trafficker. The ATF case agent with responsibility for Fast and Furious was on the scene and allowed the trafficking network’s ringleader to leave him a free man,” Becca Watkins, a spokesperson for Issa, told POLITICO. “This new information, obtained by the committee late last week, is further evidence that Fast and Furious, from its inception, was a reckless program that permitted guns and criminals to endanger the public.”

From the start of the Fast and Furious operation, Celis-Acosta was the main target for the ATF, according to the L.A. Times, which first broke the story that he was let go. It remains unclear why he was not arrested at the scene of his May 2010 interview with an ATF agent.

According to a ATF “Report of Investigation” obtained by POLITICO, Celis-Acosta was stopped heading into Mexico from Arizona on May 29, 2010.

Despite his claim that he had no ammunition in his BMW, a Customs and Border Patrol Officer found an AK-type high-capacity drum magazine holding 74 rounds of 7.62 ammunition underneath the spare tire in Celis-Acosta’s trunk.

Later, after the Customs and Border Patrol officers learned that Celis-Acosta was under investigation for firearms trafficking, ATF Special Agent Hope MacAllister arrived at the scene to question him.

After an interview, the special agent wrote her contact information on a 10 dollar bill, and Celis-Acosta promised to cooperate with federal agents and call her upon his return from Mexico. He was then allowed to go free.

The Fast and Furious operation attempted to investigate drug cartels and weapons traffickers but instead ended up supplying them with weapons. Investigators lost thousands of firearms, many of which crossed the border into Mexico. The program drew public attention when firearms linked to the program were found to be involved in the December 2010 shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.