Issa, Grassley Press Holder on Fast and Furious

Wednesday, 26 Oct 2011 05:00 PM
By Martin Gould

Republicans investigating the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal piled more pressure on attorney general Eric Holder on Wednesday, insisting he answers questions on the death of immigration officer Jaime Zapata.

Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley gave Holder two weeks to tell them why agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not intercept the guns that were used to kill Zapata as he worked in Mexico in February.

Issa, the Californian who chairs the House Oversight Committee and Iowan Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee have relentlessly pursued Holder for answers surrounding the Fast and Furious case in which guns were bought by so-called straw purchasers and smuggled into Mexico. At least four Republican Congressmen have called for Holder’s resignation.

The plan was to follow the weapons which, it was believed, would lead them to leaders of Mexico’s violent drug cartels. But hundreds of weapons went missing and have been used in crimes on both sides of the border including Zapata’s murder and the killing in December of Border Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Three men, brothers Otilio and Ranferi Osorio and their next-door neighbor Kelvin Morrison , were arrested at their homes in Lancaster, Texas within two weeks of Zapata’s murder. They are awaiting trial on charges of possessing firearms with obliterated serial numbers and could each face 15 years in jail.

In their letter to Holder, Issa and Grassley say the men bought the weapon that killed Zapata on Oct. 10 last year and it was trafficked into Mexico within two weeks.

They claim ATF officers even watched on Nov. 9 as the Morrison and the Osorio brothers unloaded 40 weapons in large bags into a confidential informant’s vehicle which was being kept under surveillance.

“Local law enforcement officials stopped the vehicle later in the day – presumably in concert with ATF and for the purpose of identifying the vehicle’s inhabitants. Inexplicably none of the suspects were arrested,â€