Frustrated by what they perceive of as a lack of cooperation, congressional investigators have traveled to Arizona as part of a probe into a controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun smuggling probe, CBS news reported Tuesday.
The Senate and House investigators are interviewing gun shop owners, ATF officials and others about “Project Gunrunner” and its “Operation Fast and Furious” component, which allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in an effort to track them.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, have sent several letters to the Justice Department and the ATF, a DOJ agency, requesting information about the program. Issa has threatened to try to hold ATF officials in contempt of Congress because they have not responded to his inquiries.
