Two leading Republican lawmakers have again voiced suspicions that the FBI is not telling everything it knows about the botched Operation Fast and Furious, in which a gun-tracing attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives was linked to the death of a Border Patrol agent.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Committee on oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed their skepticism in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, in which they asserted that the FBI has released “very little information” about the Dec. 14 death of agent Brian Terry in a shootout with Mexican bandits in Arizona, and indeed may be withholding key facts.
Their letter prompted Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on Issa’s committee, to accuse Issa of trying to “spin this conspiracy theory,” particularly by suggesting that three guns, not just two, that were linked to Fast and Furious were found at the scene of Terry’s death.
Issa’s and Grassley’s letter, and Cummings’ heated response, were just the latest salvos in a war of words over Fast and Furious, in which the ATF tried to trace a gun-running operation through straw buyers, then lost track of many of the weapons that wound up in Mexico.
“Does the FBI believe that a third weapon killed Agent Terry?” Issa and Grassley asked. “If so, what steps has the FBI taken to locate that weapon and what is the status of the FBI’s search?”
The letter asked that materials related to the investigation be turned over by Nov. 2 in the interests of “comity between our separate branches of government.” Issa and Grassley said they are only interested in getting at the truth, not in making “false accusations” against the Department of Justice, as a DOJ spokesman recently asserted.
Comity between the branches of government seems light-years away, at least when it comes to Fast and Furious, which has embarrassed the ATF and its parent agency, the DOJ, and triggered accusations and counter-accusations that show no sign of abating.
Fast and Furious was NOT a botched operation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No chain of custody/ no transponders (actually USED in Wide Receiver, and resulted in relatively-quick termination when our technology failed to keep tabs on the whereabouts of subject guns.), no jurisdiction and no allied authorities having jurisdiction across the border….
And, now, this:
Multiple sources have reported that Hope Mac Allister told Andre Howard, in 2009, that large amounts of cash was headed from DC to the straw purchasers, who were going to move the guns into cartel hands, and that he needed to increase his on-hand stock of certain firearms so that he could handle the load when it hit.
Such specificity and agreement among sources indicates the existence of an audio or document trail. Given the use of non-blackberry devices to conduct “clandestine” operations, I suspect Andre Howard thought that he was being played, and decided a tape or digital record would prove to be invaluable when the table-turning time arrived.
It has.