Documents Suggest Holder Knew About 'Fast and Furious' Earlier Than He Claimed

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Justice Department Accuses GOP of Playing 'Gotcha' With Fast and Furious Memos
The Justice Department accused Republicans of playing a "political game of gotcha," after lawmakers investigating Operation Fast and Furious said Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five memos on the gunrunning probe starting in July 2010 in spite of testimony claiming he learned of the program this year.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released a series of heavily redacted memos apparently sent to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center. They appear to describe an operation involving the straw purchase of hundreds of firearms that went to Mexican drug cartels.
But as President Obama voiced "complete confidence" in Holder, the Justice Department put out a scathing statement Thursday afternoon suggesting the memos do not contradict Holder's claims that he was in the dark on the program last year.
"Here they go again. Chairman Issa and Senator Grassley can re-package and re-release the same documents every other day and it won't change the facts: the attorney general's testimony to both the House and Senate committees has been consistent and truthful," the department said.
The department said the "brief" passages were "buried in a few written reports" and did not detail the full extent of the operation.
"Instead of peddling selectively-edited transcripts and distorting questions and answers in some distracting political game of gotcha, these congressional leaders should be focusing their attention on the underlying public safety problem we confront as a nation -- that too many guns are being illegally trafficked to Mexico," the statement said.
The release of the documents comes as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, requests Obama instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.
In a statement Thursday, Issa claimed Holder "has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and other."
"With the fairly detailed information that the attorney general read, it seems the logical question for the attorney general after reading in the memo would be 'why haven't we stopped them?'" Grassley said.
Through Fast and Furious, hundreds of firearms were allowed to walk across the U.S.-Mexico border, some later turning up at bloody crime scenes. The focus has turned lately to what Holder knew and when he knew it.
He said under oath in May: "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
But documents that started to surface earlier in the week suggested Justice officials at least tried to inform Holder. The latest memos show he was notified of the program repeatedly, though it's not clear to what degree Holder paid attention to the memos.
Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said "some" at the Justice Department are treating Holder as "above the law."
"His answer was untruthful and hid what he and other top Justice Department officials knew about gun walking and Operation Fast and Furious," he said in a statement.
Obama on Thursday voiced confidence in Holder and his handling of the Justice Department.
"He has been very aggressive in going after gunrunning and cash transactions that have been going to these transnational drug cartels," Obama told reporters at a White House press conference.
"He's indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious and certainly I was not, and I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...#ixzz1a2rZ0wiO

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Justice Department Accuses Issa of 'Mischaracterizing' Evidence in Probe of Operation Fast and Furious

The Justice Department is accusing the Republican congressman who is leading an investigation into "Operation Fast and Furious" of "mischaracterizing evidence" and "maligning" federal law enforcement officials by questioning Sunday whether the FBI was trying to cover up the existence of a third gun at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry's murder last year.

"The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry's murder are false," the department said in a statement Monday.

This comes one day after Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, appeared on a Sunday morning news show and noted that a now-public FBI ballistics report labeled two guns tied to "Fast and Furious" as "K2" and "K3," but "there's no 'Ticket 1.'"
"One weapon has a '2,' one has a '3,' on it. There's no '1,'" Issa said on CBS. "When agents who were at Brian Terry's funeral made statements to his mother indicating that there were three weapons, when the two weapons that they have tested don't conclusively match up [to the bullet that killed Terry], then you look and say, 'Well, was there a third weapon at the scene?'"
Asked why the FBI would make such a move, Issa said the agency "has a history in some cases of working with felons and criminals and hiding their other crimes in order to keep an investigation going."

In its statement late Monday, the Justice Department offered its first public explanation of "K1."

"According to the FBI, the item that Chairman Issa refers to as 'K1' is a blood sample from Agent Terry, not a firearm," the statement said. "For this reason, it was not listed on the ballistics report prepared by the FBI."

The Justice Department said law enforcement officials refer to some items seized at scenes as "known" items -- or "Ks" for shorthand.

"Unfortunately, this most recent false accusation not only maligns the dedicated agents investigating the murder of Agent Terry, it mischaracterizes evidence in an ongoing case," the Justice Department said in its statement Monday night.

A spokesman for Issa, contacted only minutes after the Justice Department issued its statement, was not immediately available for comment.

Monday's statement is the latest in a broader back-and-forth over tactics used by ATF investigators to target major gun-runners in Arizona. Launched in late 2009, "Fast and Furious" investigators 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 that of Terry's murder in December 2010.

In its statement, the Justice Department said Issa's staff had been told "there were two - not three - guns recovered" from the scene.
For weeks -- as speculation over a third gun spread and some accused the FBI of trying to protect a confidential informant -- the FBI has insisted as much in statements to news outlets.

In addition, an ATF "briefing paper" about the murder, obtained by Fox News and sent to top Justice Department officials in Washington two days after the incident, said that "during the search of the area two ... AK-47 rifles, serial numbers 1983AH3977 and 1971CZ3775 were recovered near the scene of the shooting."

But emails in the hours after the incident show at least some ATF officials wondered whether a third gun had been recovered.

In one email, deputy ATF-Phoenix director George Gillett asks if two AK-47 rifles cited were "in addition to the gun already recovered this morning." It's unclear whether anyone responded to him.

Since then, some sources have accused the FBI of covering up evidence to protect an informant working inside a major Mexican cartel. That informant, sources have alleged, helped pay for the weapons used in the attack that killed Terry.

In addition, in recently disclosed recordings, a lead ATF investigator can be heard telling a Phoenix-area gun-dealer that an "SKS assault rifle out of Texas" had been found at the Terry murder scene.

In September, a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News it was "pretty clear" the ATF agent was talking about the Terry murder. Still, weapons involved in another case not tied to "Fast and Furious" -- the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico -- were traced to Texas.

The recordings are part of what led Issa and Grassley to state in a June report on “Fast and Furious” that authorities responding to the scene of Terry's murder in fact "recovered three weapons from the suspects, who had dropped their rifles in order to flee the scene faster." On Sunday, Issa posed it as a question: "Was there a third weapon at the scene?"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...#ixzz1b5TIgu6s