Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) office said Thursday that the congressman first learned about a controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation this year, rejecting reports that he had known much earlier.
Spokesman Fredrick Hill said that Issa first learned about ATF’s “Fast and Furious” operation early this year after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Issa had been briefed on specifics of the operation as early as April 2010 and had raised no objections. Hill criticized that report and said the anonymous information cited by the Post was most likely part of a Justice Department attempt to disrupt Issa’s congressional probe.
“They’re scared – they realize that they may have done something wrong and they’re desperate to avoid accountability,” Hill told Main Justice. “It creates a dangerous situation when the Justice Department is willing to go to this length – to talk falsely about things that were discussed in a classified meeting.”
Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have led a congressional probe into the ATF operation for the past three months.
During that investigation, Issa has subpoenaed thousands of documents from the department – which he says DOJ has been reluctant to deliver – as well as testimony from several ATF agents and DOJ officials. He has said he will hold high-level officials accountable for approving the operation.
Operation Fast and Furious had planned to track and build a case against Mexican gun-traffickers in Arizona, but the operation allegedly allowed thousands of firearms to escape law enforcement surveillance and be “walked” across the border into Mexico – a violation of federal law.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that two guns involved in the operation were found at the scene of a shootout with the suspected killers of a well-known Mexican attorney. Investigators later linked the guns to suspects in the torture and killing of Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez, the brother of a former attorney general for the state of Chihuahua.
Two more guns involved in the operation were discovered after a firefight between Mexican bandits and Border Patrol agents near Rio Rico, Ariz., in December, which ended with the the death of agent Terry.
