Published October 12, 2011
| FoxNews.com



Rep. Darrell Issa, left, and Attorney General Eric Holder.


Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a subpoena Wednesday to Attorney General Eric Holder as part of his investigation into the gun trafficking operation known as "Fast and Furious."

"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," the California Republican said in a statement. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth."

The subpoena seeks, among other things, all communications regarding the operation from 16 top Justice officials, including Holder, his chief of staff, Gary Grindler, and the head of the department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, as well as correspondence on specific dates to and from the former head of the ATF's Phoenix field division, William Newell.

It also asks for all documents and communications referring or relating to the murder of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, including any correspondence outlining the details of Zapata's mission at the time he was murdered.

Zapata was killed in a drug cartel ambush on a northern Mexican highway with a gun that was purchased in a town outside Forth Worth, Texas. Three Dallas-area men -- one accused of buying the gun, his brother and their neighbor -- are facing federal weapons charges, although none related to Zapata's death.

Congressional investigators are also demanding information regarding the investigation into the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Two guns found at Terry's crime scene were linked to the failed operation that allowed more than 2,000 weapons to "walk."
The subpoena also asks for correspondence that Justice Department officials had with the White House about the gun trafficking operation, as well as what information was shared by Justice officials in Mexico.

This second subpoena follows the first one issued in March to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Asked about the development Tuesday, Holder said his department "will undoubtedly comply with them," noting that Justice officials have already sent "thousands of pages of documents up to the Hill."

But Holder wouldn't answer whether he or anyone else at the department knew about the controversial tactics.

Holder addressed the matter at the end of a press conference about an alleged Iran-tied terror plot foiled by U.S. investigators. "What I want the American people to understand is that in complying with those subpoenas and dealing with that inquiry, that will not detract us from the important business that we have here to do at the Justice Department, including matters like the one that we have announced today," Holder said.

The new subpoena follows a week of back and forth between congressional investigators and Justice Department officials of "who knew what, when." Under scrutiny was Holder's testimony from May 3 when he told Issa that he "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Fox News obtained documents addressed to Holder as early as nine months before that, which described the concept of Fast and Furious.
In addition to the congressional investigation being led by Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is calling for a special counsel to look into the matter.

Fox News' William Lajeunesse and Mike Levine contributed to this report.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/12/issa-issues-subpoena-to-holder-in-fast-and-furious-investigation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#ixzz1aaCTK3WG

A federal operation dubbed Fast and Furious allowed weapons from the U.S. to pass into the hands of suspected gun smugglers so the arms could be traced to the higher echelons of Mexican drug cartels. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the operation, has lost track of hundreds of firearms, many of which have been linked to crimes, including the fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/atf-fast-furious-sg,0,3828090.storygallery

*THEY TOOK THE WORDS OUT OF MY MOUTH DEPARTMENT:


If the Saudi Ambassador Had Been Killed with Fast and Furious Weapons, Would Holder Be an Accomplice?

by AWR Hawkins

On October 11, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference to announce that FBI and DEA agents had stopped an Iranian plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. The men behind the plot were “Manssor Arbab Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri.” And of these two, only Arbabsiar has been arrested.



The plot became known when Arbabsiar traveled to “Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas, and negotiated a $1.5 million payment for the assassination of the Saudi ambassador.”
Unbeknownst to Arbabsiar, the contact he made in Mexico was a DEA informant. And soon thereafter, with the help of the FBI, the DEA office in Houston launched an investigation that appears now to have ended successfully.
It’s important to note there were also bombing plots allegedly associated with these plans. Thus the criminal complaint filed against Arbabsair and Shakuri accused “the men of conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction: specifically explosives; and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism.”
Ironically, during his press conference on these things, after Holder said the plot was “conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran,” he actually had the gall to describe crossing international borders to plan and execute crimes as a “flagrant” violation of U.S. and international law.
When he used the word “flagrant,” a few questions arose in my mind:
Was he describing a flagrant violation similar to selling 2,500 weapons to straw purchasers who were going to knowingly pass them to criminals?
Or was he talking about a flagrant violation like we’ve witnessed via the smuggling of those weapons across an international border via gun walking?
Or did he mean flagrant as in the flagrant cover-up of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder with Fast and Furious weapons?
I am just so confused.
Of course, I don’t expect Holder to answer any of these questions, because I watched him walk out of the room following the press conference as soon as the reporters began asking about Fast and Furious.
Yet I still have one more question that I must ask – If the two Iranians had talked to real Mexican cartel members (instead of DEA agents) and if those cartel members had killed the Saudi Ambassador with guns they acquired via Fast and Furious, would Holder be an accomplice to that murder?

Source: http://biggovernment.com/awrhawkins/2011/10/12/if-the-saudi-ambassador-had-been-killed-with-fast-and-furious-weapons-would-holder-be-an-accomplice/

'Fast and Furious' Memos Show Conflicting Accounts

Updated: Thursday, 13 Oct 2011, 2:48 PM PDT
Published : Thursday, 13 Oct 2011, 2:48 PM PDT





(FOX News) - Newly disclosed Justice Department documents show that the author of memos mentioning "Operation Fast and Furious" was later unaware of the name of the program, raising questions about who at the Justice Department was actually sending and reading memos on the controversial gunrunning program.

Attorney General Eric Holder has insisted he did not know about the investigation until this year, even though several memos from July and August 2010 addressed to him cite the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) probe by name. Similar memos were sent to Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

On March 4, 2010, a memo from Gang Unit chief Kevin Carwile to three of Breuer's top aides noted that days earlier a gang-unit attorney "met with ATF HQ to be briefed on developments in Operation Fast and Furious and various firearms tracking investigations based in Phoenix, AZ." On March 11, 2010, Carwile sent a similar memo to the same three aides, again mentioning "Fast and Furious" by name.

But according to newly disclosed emails, Carwile did not know the name "Fast and Furious" five days after sending the second memo. In an email to the gang-unit attorney mentioned in the memos, he asked the attorney for "the name of the Arizona case/investigation."

The broader back-and-forth focuses on an ATF investigation in Arizona targeting major gunrunners. Launched in late 2009, the investigation planned to follow gun purchasers in hopes that suspects would lead them to the heads of Mexican cartels. But high-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry late last year.

In a letter to critics on Capitol Hill last week, Holder said suggestions the memos addressed to him show he must have known about the investigation "mischaracterize the process by which I receive information." He said his office typically receives more than 100 pages of "so-called 'weekly reports' that, while addressed to me, actually are provided to and reviewed by" his staff and the deputy attorney general's staff. He said he does not and "cannot read them cover-to-cover."

On Wednesday, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is leading the congressional investigation into the matter, sent a subpoena to the Justice Department, seeking more documents related to his committee's probe. Issa and others have accused the department of "stonewalling" their investigation.

"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about 'Operation Fast and Furious' than they have publicly acknowledged," Issa said in a statement.

In addition to the congressional investigation, the Justice Department's inspector general is looking into the matter, at Holder's behest, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is calling for a special counsel to investigate.



Source: http://www.myfoxla.com/dpps/news/fast-and-furious-memos-show-conflicting-accounts-dpgonc-20111013-ch_15467759#ixzz1ahjDFHT5