The House Oversight and Government Reform and House Judiciary committees will hold joint hearings on the Operation Fast and Furious Gun operation, oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Monday.
Issa told ABC 15 in Phoenix Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the DOJ criminal division and former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke will be asked to testify. Burke resigned as a result of fallout from the failed operation.
“We want (the House Judiciary Committee) who has direct oversight over the Attorney General and of (the Department of Justice) to take a more active role, and we believe they will,” Issa told ABC 15.
Operation Fast and Furious was an ATF operation that allegedly resulted in the selling of at least 2,000 firearms to drug cartel members in Arizona via straw buyers. The ATF then allegedly permitted the guns to be trafficked to Mexico, where the bureau lost track of them. Two guns from the operation were recovered in December at the scene of a shootout between Border Patrol agents and Mexican bandits near Rio Rico, Ariz., that resulted in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. Other guns sold during the operation have been linked to violent crime scenes in Mexico. The Justice Department’s Inspector General is investigating the operation.
Earlier this month, Holder said that he and “the upper levels of the Justice Department” were not aware of the operation, according to Politico.
Michael Sullivan, acting director of the ATF under President George W. Bush, said that Holder’s refutation of prior knowledge is plausible.
He told Fox News that Operation Fast and Furious was “well within the rights of the director [of ATF] to approve or reject,” and that he would have been “surprised” to learn that “authorities outside the ATF” would have had detailed knowledge about the program.
Sullivan added that it is possible that Holder was briefed about the operation, however, given the severity of gang violence in Mexico.
The Obama Banda don’t need no Stinkin’ Badges!
The Obama banda pretended they didn’t know
That ATF was buyin’ up A.K.s at each gun show
But it’s an indisputable fact
They violated the Arms Export Control Act
Selling guns to drogas cartell, down in ol’ Mexico.
The arma vendedor knew things were out of sorts
So they called up the ATF to file reports
ATF said “Let the sales go thru”
But in their gut, the sellers knew
ATF would betray, and they’d take it in the shorts!
But a couple of honest ATF agents balked
So Holder had these desilusionados stalked
‘Cause he knew this EPIC FAIL
Could put the Obama crew in jail
If they went before the Congress and they talked!
Now they pressure the Yankee prensa to ignore
This pre-meditated, covert act of border war,
But forty thousand dead a year
Is what Americans need to hear
So we can fill Guantanamo with Obama arma corredor!
It’s time for American peons to gather torch and pike
To hang these traitors, not protest or general strike!
One thing history doesn’t hide
Is Disarmament precedes Genocide
So get the ropes before they establish their Fourth Reich!
______________________
Charles Ulysses Feney
Dismanteling the Second Amendment, one American at a time!
Disarmament preceded Genocide – ALWAYS!
Ask the 300 million victims in the last century.