Janet Napolitano Still Giving Non-Answers on Operation Fast and Furious

Katie Pavlich
News Editor, Townhall
Oct 27, 2011

Earlier today House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa grilled Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Capitol Hill about Operation Fast and Furious. Not surprisingly, Napolitano still gave non-answers to specific questions asked by Issa about the lethal program, what she knew, when she knew it, if she was outraged about the program and more

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As Issa points in the first clip, two federal agents under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, were killed as a result of Operation Fast and Furious, yet Napolitano denies knowing anything about the program or speaking to Attorney General Eric Holder about the operation up to this point. When asked if she would assign an inspector general within DHS to investigate the connection between Operation Fast and Furious and the death of two of her agents, she refused to give a straight answer. Napolitano also says "we should all be outraged by the death of Agent Terry," yet doesn't show any outrage, just as Holder and Obama have not shown any outrage over the program.

Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday asking for further information about unanswered questions surrounding the murder of I.C.E. Agent Jamie Zapata. As a refresher, Zapata was gunned down and killed in Mexico on his way back from a meeting in Mexico City in February 2011. It is suspected the guns used by drug cartels who attacked Zapata's SUV, were obtained by the cartels through Operation Fast and Furious courtesy of the U.S. Government. Grassley wrote in a letter to ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson (at the time, he has since been moved to a position within the Justice Department) in March 2011:

As you know, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata was murdered in Mexico on February 15. According to a press report based on an unnamed source, the weapon used to kill Zapata “was shipped through Laredo with the possible knowledge of the ATF,â€