After 'Fast and Furious,' Holder to Blame Congress For Not Supporting ATF





Executive Branch - POLITICS
After 'Fast and Furious,' Holder to Blame Congress For Not Supporting ATF

By Mike Levine

Published November 08, 2011

FoxNews.com

Attorney General Eric Holder, under pressure over his department's handling of "Operation Fast and Furious," will say at the start of a Senate hearing Tuesday morning that Congress is not doing enough to support the agency responsible for the botched operation.

"The mistakes of 'Operation Fast and Furious,' serious though they were, should not deter or distract us from our critical mission to disrupt the dangerous flow of firearms along our Southwest border," Holder will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to excerpts of his opening remarks released by the Justice Department.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have told Congress their agency "suffers from a lack of effective enforcement tools," and a "critical first step should be for congressional leaders to work with us to provide ATF with the resources and statutory tools it needs to be effective," Holder is expected to say.

"Unfortunately, earlier this year the House of Representatives actually voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles and shotguns in Southwest border gun shops," Holder will say, according to the prepared remarks.

Over the summer, the House passed an amendment blocking federal funds from being used by the ATF to require thousands of gun stores in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to report multiple sales of certain weapons.

While Tuesday's hearing is intended to be a more general "oversight" hearing, Holder is expected to be on the hot seat over tactics used by ATF investigators in Arizona to target major gunrunners and his department's role in the matter.

Launched in late 2009, "Fast and Furious" planned to follow gun purchasers in hopes that suspects would lead them to the heads of Mexican cartels. But high-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry late last year.

In his opening remarks Tuesday, Holder is expected to say "any instance of so-called 'gun walking' is unacceptable," and he will say "Fast and Furious" was "flawed" and "should never have happened."

"Unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crimes scenes both here and in Mexico," he will say, according to the prepared remarks. "It must never happen again."

While Holder will apparently refer to "headline-grabbing Washington 'gotcha' games and cynical political point scoring," it's unclear if in his opening remarks he will address accusations that he may have misled Congress in May over when he first heard of "Fast and Furious."

Lawmakers will have a chance to ask Holder whatever they desire, and they are expected to grill him over his department's handling of the scandal.

Thirty-four House members already have called for Holder to resign, along with the National Rifle Association, and more could join the chorus depending on Holder's testimony. Sources close to the investigation say other lawmakers want Holder out but have declined to say so publicly out of deference to Sen. Charles Grassley, the quiet and deliberate Republican from Iowa.

Last month, Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, distributed five memos addressed to Holder in July and August 2010, citing the gunrunning investigation by name. Nearly a year after those heavily redacted memos were sent, the attorney general in May told lawmakers under oath he "probably heard about 'Fast and Furious' for the first time over the last few weeks."

Later at the same hearing, in response to a follow-up question, Holder said he was probably aware of the operation at least six weeks earlier, by the time President Barack Obama talked about it with a Spanish-language media outlet in late March.

Still, after the release of the memos last month, Republicans said Holder had "failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and others knew about gun-walking and 'Operation Fast and Furious.'"

Responding to such criticism from Republicans, Holder sent a letter to Capitol Hill saying he has "no recollection of knowing about 'Fast and Furious' or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it." But Republicans have remained skeptical, with Grassley wondering at the time why Holder or other Justice Department officials never asked how suspects were able to traffic so many guns to Mexico.

Holder will ask such a question Tuesday during his opening remarks, according to the excerpts released by the Justice Department.

"Like each of you, I want to know why and how firearms that should have been under surveillance could wind up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels," Holder will say. "But beyond identifying where errors occurred and ensuring that they never occur again, we must be careful not to lose sight of the critical problem that this flawed investigation has highlighted: we are losing the battle to stop the flow of illegal guns to Mexico."

A congressional aide Monday told reporters that Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, will question Holder over any Texas ties to "Fast and Furious" and any similarly flawed operations conducted in Cornyn's home state.

More than 100 weapons linked to "Fast and Furious" have been found in Texas, with several of them possibly involved in crimes, according to the aide.

On the other side of the aisle, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., sent a letter Monday to the Justice Department's inspector general, wanting to know if the inspector general’s office would be looking at Bush-era operations as part of its inquiry into "Fast and Furious," which was launched at Holder's behest

Recently disclosed documents show the ATF in Arizona lost track of hundreds of guns between 2006 and 2007 during investigations that involved so-called "gun-walking."

Last week, the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, issued a statement saying he learned of one of those investigations, "Operation Wide Receiver," in April 2010, and he now regrets not saying anything to Holder or others within the department at the time.

In addition to the inspector general's investigation into "Fast and Furious" and a congressional probe into the matter, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is calling for a special counsel to investigate. Holder will be appearing before Smith's committee in December for a hearing focused specifically on "Fast and Furious."

Fox News' Laura Prabucki contributed to this report.

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