President Barack Obama says he didn’t tell Mexico officials about a controversial gun smuggling investigation because he didn’t know about it, The San Antonio News-Express reported.
In an interview with the Spanish-language network Univision this week, Obama said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized “Operation Fast and Furious,” which allowed traffickers to bring weapons into Mexico in an effort to track them, the newspaper reported. The traffickers were not arrested. The program has come under fire from Congress, as well as the Mexican government. Two weapons found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were traced to the program.
Obama recently met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and discussed cooperation between the two nations on the gun running issue. However, the program wasn’t discussed, Obama said, because he didn’t know about it. “There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made; if that’s the case then we’ll find out and will hold someone accountable,” the president said.
He said that Holder has assigned the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General to investigate the operation.
However, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the OIG can conduct an independent investigation of the operation. In addition to Grassley’s questions about the probe, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he too is investigating the operation.
