ATF chief: Response to gun-tracking inquiry a 'disaster'

[Dave]

Here's an update on the Operation Fast & Furious fiasco that we had a thread about back a few months ago. Its looking like things are getting worse and worse for ATF and/or the DOJ as someone or several someones that were higher up in one or both of those departments is going to find themselves in big trouble and maybe even some prison time. Who knows, might even cause problems for the White House.

 

The acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the Justice Department has been withholding key information from congressional officials and that the department sought to protect its political appointees from criticism over a failed anti-gun trafficking operation that allowed hundreds of weapons to be smuggled to Mexico.

Kenneth Melson told investigators earlier this month that among the materials in Justice's possession was "a smoking gun" document related to the inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious that is being headed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Judiciary Committee's ranking member, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"My view is that the whole matter of the department's response in this case was a disaster," Melson told congressional investigators in a July 4 interview.

Grassley and Issa released passages of the interview Monday in a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding increased cooperation in the congressional inquiry.

ATF agents have told the House committee that dozens of gun traffickers suspected of working for Mexican drug cartels were "allowed to walk free" during the controversial investigative operation that resulted in the transfer of guns to cartel enforcers and other criminals on the southwest border.

Two of the weapons purchased in the risky ATF program were recovered at the scene of last year's slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

"Any notion that the department has failed to cooperate with the investigation is simply not based in fact," Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. ]

"These allegations serve only to distract from the concerns raised by ATF agents that the committee and the department's inspector general are investigating," she said. " The department, like the committee, is interested in determining whether Operation Fast and Furious was appropriately handled and that is why the attorney general, several months ago, asked the IG to investigate the concerns raised by ATF agents."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/07/atf...