New Document Dump Reiterates This Justice Department's Knowledge of Gunwalking

For Immediate Release
January 5, 2012

Senator Chuck Grassley released the following statement after the Justice Department provided additional documents related to the gunwalking scandal that has plagued this administration. The documents were provided only after being issued a subpoena from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“The documents dumped today by the Justice Department prove that this administration knew that guns were walked in Operation Wide Receiver, yet did nothing about it even as it was happening again in Fast and Furious. I’ve said all along that walking guns is wrong, period. I don’t care who did it. We know that Lanny Breuer knew about guns being walked in Operation Wide Receiver, which is why he needs to do the right thing, hold himself accountable and resign.”

Here is a copy of Grassley’s statement given on the Senate floor outlining his call for Breuer’s resignation.

***Supporting documents can be found here.***

Prepared Floor Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Holding People Accountable for Gunwalking
Wednesday, December 7, 2011

I have been investigating ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious for almost 11 months now.

It is past time for accountability at the senior levels of the Justice Department.

That accountability needs to start with the head of the Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer.

I believe it is time for him to go, and I’d like to explain why I have come to that conclusion.

The Justice Department denied in a letter to me on February 4, 2011 that ATF had ever walked guns.

Mr. Breuer had been consulted in the drafting of that erroneous letter.

On May 2, 2011, rather than acknowledging the increasingly obvious facts and apologizing for its February letter, the Justice Department reiterated its denial. Thus, when the Justice Department revealed on October 31 of this year that Breuer had known as far back as April 2010 about gunwalking at ATF, I was astounded.

This was a shocking revelation.

The controversy about gunwalking in Fast and Furious had been escalating steadily for 10 months.

The Justice Department had publicly denied to Congress that ATF would ever walk guns.

Yet, the head of the Criminal Division, Mr. Breuer knew otherwise and said nothing.

He knew that the same Field Division was responsible for walking guns in a 2006-2007 case called Wide Receiver. But the real shock was how Mr. Breuer had responded within his own Department when that earlier gunwalking was first brought to his attention in April 2010.

He didn’t tell the Attorney General.

He didn’t tell the Attorney General’s Chief of Staff.

He didn’t tell the Deputy Attorney General.

He didn’t tell the Inspector General.

Instead, he simply told his deputy to meet with ATF leadership and inform them of the gunwalking “so they know the bad stuff that could come out.”[1]

Later, his deputy outlined a strategy to “announce the case without highlighting the negative part of the story and risking embarrassing ATF.”[2]

For 18 months, the embarrassing truth about ATF gunwalking in Wide Receiver and Breuer’s knowledge of it was successfully hidden.

It only came out because of the Congressional investigation into gunwalking in Fast and Furious.

The public outrage over Fast and Furious comes from average Americans who cannot understand why their own government would intentionally allow criminals to illegally buy weapons for trafficking to Mexico.

Next week, it will be one year since Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered by bandits armed with guns as a direct result of this policy of letting guns walk.

The Terry family and all Americans who sympathize with their loss are rightfully outraged and astonished that our own government would do such a thing.

Yet when Mr. Breuer learned of a case where ATF walked guns in a very similar way, all he did was give ATF a “heads up.”

There seems to be a vast gulf between what outrages the American people and what outrages Lanny Breuer. Mr. Breuer showed a complete lack of judgment by failing to object to the gunwalking that he knew about in April 2010.

If Mr. Breuer had reacted to gunwalking in Wide Receiver the way most Americans reacted to gunwalking in Fast and Furious, he would have taken steps to stop it and hold accountable everyone involved.

Fast and Furious might have been stopped in its tracks.

When Mr. Breuer came before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism the day after those revelations, I gave him a chance to explain himself.

I listened to what he had to say.

He told us that he “thought that … dealing with the leadership of ATF was sufficient and reasonable.”

Clearly, it was not sufficient.

Mr. Breuer even admitted as much, saying: “I regret that I did not alert others within the leadership of the Department of Justice to the tactics used in Operation Wide Receiver when they first came to my attention.”

He regrets not bringing gunwalking in Wide Receiver to the attention of the Attorney General, but what about bringing it to the attention of Congress?

He didn’t even step forward to express his regret until emails that detailed his knowledge were about to be produced under Congressional subpoena.

It is astounding that it took the public controversy over Fast and Furious to help the chief of the Criminal Division realize that walking guns is unacceptable.

He’d had nine months after the February 4 letter to step forward, correct the record, and come clean with the American public.

He’d had 18 months after learning of gunwalking in Wide Reciever to put a stop to it and hold people accountable.

He failed to do so.

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