House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is not giving up on tracking down further information from the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department about the controversial gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious.
In two letters sent to Attorney General Eric Holder this week, the California Republican requested that previously unavailable lower-lever attorneys in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office testify and for the Attorney General to “take responsibility” for the operation.
Last week, Patrick J. Cunningham, chief of the Criminal Division in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office, told the House Oversight Committee that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against giving possibly self-incriminating testimony after Issa subpoenaed him to testify before the committee.
In his second letter, Issa writes that the committee wants to question Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Morrissey and Emory Hurley, both of which have been previously unavailable because of Justice Department policy that bars line attorneys and other career staff from speaking for the department or testifying. But since Cunningham has effectively taken himself out of the picture, Issa writes, the committee should now be given the chance to speak to the two attorneys, who report to Cunningham in the Arizona office.
Hurley, who oversaw Fast and Furious on a day-to-day basis, was reassigned from the Arizona office’s criminal to the civil division following the outcry.
Issa wrote: “Mr. Cunningham’s broad assertion of the privilege is a startling development in the Committee’s Fast and Furious investigation. The implication that Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the Department’s culpability. The significance of these developments cannot be overstated, and this assertion raises many questions about ongoing criminal cases currently pending in federal court in Arizona — including prosecutions relating to Fast and Furious.”
Issa said the committee retains the right to subpoena Cunningham again at a later date.
Last week, Cunningham’s attorney, Tobin J. Romero of Williams & Connolly, wrote to Issa and explained his client’s position.
“Department of Justice Officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” Romero wrote.
In the other letter, Issa wrote that the Justice Department has put public safety and trust in jeopardy by keeping officials with possible criminal culpability on board.
“The possibility that senior Justice Department officials were either engaging in a cover-up or were so negligently unaware that a key employee feared criminal prosecution underscores deep concerns about your management of the Department of Justice both during the implementation of Fast and Furious and the subsequent congressional investigation,” Issa wrote.
The controversial gun-walking investigation, headed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, tracked about 2,000 guns purchased by straw buyers in the United States and intended for Mexico. The operation’s goal was to track the weapons’ movements in order to get proof of Mexican cartel involvement. But the operation backfired, with the ATF losing track of hundreds of weapons. Two AK-47s from the operation were recovered at the scene of a shootout between U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican bandits near Rio Rico, Ariz., in December 2010 in which Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry was killed.
Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, whose office oversaw Fast and Furious,  resigned under pressure in August.
I assume Mr. Cunningham has resigned his position. If not, I assume we can expect it shortly. A DOJ lawyer cannot take the Fifth Amendment on an employment related matter and retain his position.