Inside The Gun Smuggling Scandal That Could Take Down Attorney General Eric Holder


Grace Wyler|Aug. 18, 2011, 12:23 PM|2,438|12

Investigations into a gunrunning sting gone horribly wrong are creeping closer to the top of the U.S. Justice Department and its head, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.

A congressional report released last month revealed that top DOJ officials knew about the sting, known as Operation Fast and Furious, in which U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents allowed more than 2,000 firearms to "walk" across the U.S. border to Mexico and into into the hands of Mexico’s brutal drug cartels.

As many as 1,700 of those weapons have since been lost, and more than 100 have been found at bloody crime scenes on both sides of the border, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona last December. In a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times yesterday, Justice Department officials acknowledged that Fast and Furious weapons have been linked to at least 11 other crimes in the U.S.

The gunrunning operation is now the subject of a Congressional investigation, led by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), to identify who in the DOJ was responsible for or knew about the sting. Issa and Grassley have made it clear that Holder — a confidant of President Barack Obama — is a central focus of their probe.

“I do have serious concerns that the attorney general should have known a lot more than he says he knew,â€