Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said Tuesday he intends to stay in his job as head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Asked if he had any intention to comply with a demand from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) that he resign, Breuer said on a conference call with reporters: “None whatsoever.”
Breuer was participating in a conference call with Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Division Director Rob Khuzami to discuss foreign bribery-related charges that were unveiled Tuesday against former executives of German engineering giant Siemens AG.
Grassley has said the highest-ranking Justice Department official who knew about a botched gun-tracing operation called Fast and Furious should resign. Last week, Grassley singled out Breuer, saying he should step down after his involvement in a letter to Congress that contained inaccurate information about the investigation, in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed guns purchased in the U.S. to make their way across the border and into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
“I have been clear and transparent and continue to lead this division,” he said. The Siemens arrests are an example of that work, he said.
Sen. Grassley was in the Senate when the Bush 41 ATF began the gun-walking exercises. It seems to me Sen. Grassley failed in his oversight of the DOJ during those years, and not only that, allowed the practice to be reinstituted in the Obama Administration. Sen. Grassley failed utterly in his oversight and should resign immediately after a press conference in which he apologizes for his blatant hypocrisy to AG Holder.