Darrell Issa Subpoenas Eric Holder Over 'Fast And Furious' Gun Operation

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) Wednesday issued a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. and other Justice Department officials over the agency's controversial gun-trafficking operation, dubbed "Operation Fast And Furious."

"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," said Issa in a statement. The subpoena asks for communications between Holder and DoJ officials. Issa has already issued a subpoena for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The operation, which began in November 2009, watched "straw buyers" of guns in border states hand over guns to middlemen who, in turn, transferred the guns to Mexican drug cartels. However, ATF agents let over 2,000 guns "walk," and the guns ended up at crime scenes on both sides of the border, including one where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered.

Holder testified in May that he had known about the program for only a few weeks, while Republicans say that memos show he knew of the program as early as July 2010.

Holder has said that his testimony was truthful and accurate. He said he had been briefed on the program, like dozens of others, but did not know of the more controversial aspects. "Prior to early 2011, I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation," he said. After Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) suggested he was an "accessory to murder," he said, "such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms."

UPDATE: 12:10 p.m.

On Wednesday, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, criticized Issa for issuing subpoenas to Holder and the Department of Justice, calling his action a "political stunt."

"As I have said all along, Fast and Furious was a terrible mistake with tragic consequences," Cummings said in a statement. "The committee is right to investigate what went wrong and why, but we must do so in a fair and responsible manner."

"This subpoena is a deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee’s authority. It demands tens of thousands of pages of highly sensitive law enforcement and national security materials that have never been requested before and are completely unrelated to Operation Fast and Furious," Cummings continued. "Rather than legitimate fact-gathering, this looks more like a political stunt."

Comments

[johnblack53]

10:33 AM on 10/19/2011

Cupofkoolaid4u....POOR Johnny....­.can't tolerate an opposing viewpoint, so he goes crying to his mommy. THAT, Johnblack5­3, is the TRUE definition of PATHETIC. Stand on your OWN two feet for once in your life.” .........................................You must be getting pretty desperate if you have to stoop so low to attack people's mothers. This is another example of Huffington Post and there allowing conservative hacks like you post drivel and not let people respond to it. So if they are protecting you how is that standing on your own two feet? Please go somewhere and get a life as well as a clue.

[AG creative]

03:31 PM on 10/18/2011

Hey ISSA, when you get Holder in there make sure you ask why he hasn't filed a complaint against a single banker or trader or institution responsible for the collapse.

[illdrinktothat69]

10:55 AM on 10/17/2011

Berlet,

The so called "clean government' Obama was supposed to bring is a complete joke. His administration is just as infested if not more so with lobbyists.

I see people on here also trying to blame Fast and Furious on Bush too because the idea had genesis under the prior administration. But the execution which resulted in the missing guns and the lies by Holder all happened under the Obama Administration.Now we see Solyndra becoming a hot issue because the 2010 restructuring of that loan was murky in how it put the investors ahead of the taxpayers on any default claim. The fix was in on this and the more it is investigated, the more it will become clear that very high members of the Obama Administration were involved in a sweetheart deal for a company with demonstrably lousy financials.

Cue the Obama apologists that will bring up Bush. Did you folks get the memo: Obama has been President for the last 3 years. It is all on him now.

[Berlet98]

03:31 AM on 10/16/2011

When the late economist-philosopher Friedrich Hayek coined the term “creeping socialism” in The Road to Serfdom, he couldn’t have envisioned the great socialist leap forward this America has witnessed under President Barack Hussein Obama. To complement the soaring socialism, Obama and his administration are now proving they are as guilty of creeping corruption as they are of perpetrating socialistic schemes.

It may all be a good thing.

In 2008, Obama was painted by his mainstream media as Mr. Clean, free of political contamination perhaps in part because he was so inexperienced in politics, and in everything else except community organizing. Perhaps, too, that cleanliness feature was on the mind of then-Senator Joe Biden when he described his future boss as “bright and clean.”

For the most part, the president somehow eluded significant scandal for two years but in the third year of his reign the dirt has hit the executive fan big time.

To be sure, there were relatively minor dings in Obama’s armor during his first two years. However, the out-of-control EPA and TSA, the WikiLeaks leaks, the black racism demonstrated at Eric Holder’s Justice Department, etc. and Obama’s scandalous mishandling of the economy weren’t comparable in gravity to the overt instances of corruption playing out now in both the White House and DoJ.

First came the “Fast and Furious” fiasco, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5724.)

[CrawfishFestival]

07:02 AM on 10/15/2011

www.washington­times.com/­news/2011/­0ct/12/gun­walker-is-­only-the-t­ip-of-a-sc­andal-iceb­erg/?page=­2

[CrawfishFestival]

07:02 AM on 10/15/2011

Operation Fast and Furious is just the tip of the iceberg - with Holder refusing to acknolwedge his direct involvment in supplying CRIMINALS with weapons:

www. washingtontimes.com/news/2011/0ct/12/gunwalker-is-only-the-tip-of-a-scandal-iceberg/?page=2

[johnblack53]

10:34 AM on 10/19/2011

If he had direct knowledge to admit to his involvement I am sure he would.

[CrawfishFestival]

12:48 AM on 10/20/2011

HEY - johnblack53:
If Holder was co-operating there would be no need to issue subpoenas!!!!

You needed to see the congressional hearing broadcast on C-SPAN - wherein it was obvious Holder was LYING - giving misleading information - and was called-out on it.

He would not admit to anything - was not forthcoming - and refused to co-operate to provide documents.

When Holder did provide documents - entire pages were blackened = redacted.
Holder has operated more as a defense attorney protecting his ideological allies - than to be in service to our country - as US Attorney General - to prosecute the laws of our country.

Some of us view Holder and his Department of Justice - filing lawsuits against the State of Arizona and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer - for their legal immigration state laws - and Sheriff Arpaio for enforcing legal immigration laws - as ACTS of WAR against THE USA - when Holder refuses to enforce legal immigration laws - and is causing harm to our country - in the process - furthering this ideology to ignore legal immigration laws when filing a complaint with The United Nations - against the State of Arizona and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

Obama refusing to control, close and enforce our US Borders - in spite of the VIOLENCE from drug cartels and illegal aliens - indicates that Operation Fast and Furious could not have continued if our borders were protected, closed and enforced.
and filing a complaint

[Iconcoclast]

04:08 PM on 10/14/2011

And in the "could it get any weirder" category, CBS has reported that the ATF and the DoJ allowed a grenade maker (yeah, you read that right) to make and send over 2,000 grenades to a Mexican cartel. The US Attorney with jurisdiction refused to prosecute this guy twice.

If this is true then this story, along with others involving funneling arms to a different cartel, indicates that the truth underlying all of these operations is even weirder than fiction. Since there is no groundswell in the USA to allow private access to grenades (no matter how good they are for fishing), F&F (and the 9 or so similar operations) really do not support the concern about constraining 2nd Amendment rights in the USA.

[smo1111]

10:15 AM on 10/14/2011

Darryl Issa has nothing else to do............except to vote on the Let Women Die Act. No "jobs, jobs, jobs" bills have been on the republican House agenda........for 10 months.

[Jerry Bourbon]

02:48 PM on 10/14/2011

Meanwhile, Holder lied and Mexicans died.

But you don't care.

[Whispers]

06:15 PM on 10/13/2011

For an Arab-American, Darell "Musa" Issa is strangely tone deaf about questioning other peoples' patriotism. When Mr. Issa uses the code word "competence" to suggest that African Americans lack American value I wonder if he still remembers the early days of his public life when he had to pretend to be Jewish and parasitically attach himself to Rabbis just to minimize the suspicions and whisperings he endured because of his Arab origins.

Could this be why Mr. Issa blows his tops anytime some mentions that he is an Arab?

[Igopogo]

01:42 AM on 10/14/2011

In the highly racially biased world of American-Jewish media, which has portrayed Arabs as villains and dolts for more than a half century, it is not surprising that someone like Issa might do that. He could even be forgiven if he had pressed charges against the 'Jewish Defense League' for firebombing his office in 2001, simply because he is Arab. Irv Rubin was subsequently arrested and conveniently 'committed suicide' on the morning of his first appearance in court by cutting his throat and jumping over a second balcony rail at the prison. The coroner's report was out before his blood was even cold. Another one of those 'mysteries' of Zionism.

[smo1111]

10:20 AM on 10/14/2011

His mother was a Mormon. It's surprising that he has any support in the republican party. Oh, but he's a criminal, too.......that must be where he finds his support in the republican party.

[ramman]

03:55 PM on 10/13/2011

Issa knows darn well this is going no where but he wants to investigate anything and anyone under the Obama administration since he claims Obama is the most corrupt President ever. The thing is he's talked mess and hasn't been able to prove his point for over a year now. If you read what this story was about and read about what and when Holder had to say about it you'll pretty much know this Issa distraction won't go anywhere meaningful. Issa is about to be if not already, investigated on fraud with is businesses and politics and he's trying to distract from attention being put on him.

[MalcolmKyle]

03:44 PM on 10/13/2011

Our own Federal government trafficked over 2500 guns to Mexico in a blatant, back-door attempt to rob us of our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Holder committed perjury when he claimed in congressional testimony that he knew nothing about 'Fast and Furious'. We now know for a fact that it was regularly reported on in weekly memos personally addressed to him. So what did Obama know and when did he know it?

These 'fast & furious' gun-running Feds are not only guilty of perjury and murder but also of bankrolling ruthless criminals, international terrorists, right/left-wing paramilitaries and various death squads with their counter-productive, sado-moralist policy of Prohibition.

Colombia, Peru, Mexico or Afghanistan with their coca leaves, marijuana buds or poppy sap are not igniting temptation in the minds of our weak, innocent citizens. These countries are duly responding to the enormous demand that comes from within our own borders. Invading or destroying these countries, thus creating more hate, violence, instability, injustice and corruption, will not fix our problem. We need to collectively admit that we are sick. -- Prohibition is neither a sane nor a safe approach; left unabated, its puritanical flames will surely engulf every last one of us!

Protect our Children; Legalize, Regulate & Tax!

[Pleroma]

07:04 PM on 10/13/2011

It's all part of the War on Drugs. Heroin in Cambodia, marijuana in Mexico, cocaine from Ollie North contingent, now poppies in (gasp) Afghanistan. It makes huge money for those in a position to know operational details about the international drug trade. Like the CIA and the Pentagon. Big big money. Eric Holder isn't the first to be thrown to the dogs, but, say now, such a thing hasn't even happened yet.

[mddunnings]

07:54 AM on 10/15/2011

What? Really!

[Pita44]

03:09 PM on 10/13/2011

The more I read about this issue, the angier I get. Isn't is weird how people scream about "gun control" but are suddenly just fine about allowing guns to be sold in order to go after Mexican drug cartels? I also don't understand why we are attempting to go after drug cartels in Mexico when we have them in America? I don't get any of this at all. Hello, we have problems here, let Mexico take care of that problem. Why in God's name are we arming them under any pretense? So, Americans having guns "bad", Mexican bad guys being giving 2000 American guns, "good". Oh, yeah, did no one learn a lesson about lying under oath after Clinton? This whole thing stinks.

[mayanindependentspeak]

02:15 PM on 10/13/2011

Signing off, gotta get back to work.

Hope that this investigation gets to the truth of the matter.

In closing, I will say that Fast and Furious is the strongest justification for the Second Amendment that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

When the US government uses taxpayer money and federal agents to break all sorts of federal and international laws in order to arm drug cartels, it is way past time to get ready to defend yourself.

[mrshep]

04:21 PM on 10/13/2011

Like so many actions this was not done according to plan, the idea was not to arm the drug cartels but to arrest the gun runners. The plan in the world will not be successful if it is not followed properly. I do exercise my second amendment rights, and incorage all law abiding citizens to do the same.

[mayanindependentspeak]

05:27 PM on 10/13/2011

You may be 100% correct. I don't know though, and neither do you or the rest of America.

What is known and has already been acknowledged and reported by agents is that they were ordered by their superiors to knowingly break federal and international laws.

They have already established that they were ordered to enable illegal gun sales in the US, even after the sales people protested and reported the illegality of the transactions.

The agents have acknowledged, and BATFE and DOJ have acknowledged that they deliberately allowed about 2,500 firearms to illegally cross the border into Mexico without informing the Mexican government.

All the players have acknowledged that the firearms went into the hands of known drug cartels.

All have acknowledged the subsequent murders of Mexicans and Americans alike by criminals using these firearms.

Again, you may be right. Maybe this was a tragic series of piss poor decisions and well intentioned violations of federal and international laws.

No matter how this pans out, the fact remains that Department Of Justice chief Holder, and the former-but-now-comfortably-relocated-to-a-different-government-position chief of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives knowingly and deliberately broke a whole bunch of laws and ordered others to do so.

I'm guessing that the investigation is supposed to determine how and why all this happened.

[Iconcoclast]

04:11 PM on 10/14/2011

Had the operation (and others) tried to track the guns or purchasers then attributing the massive failure to execution error would be legitimate. But there was no attempt to track the guns before they were delivered in Mexico and there was no attempt to halt the traffickers before they delivered the weapons.

If this is incompetence, it is incompetence on a breathtaking scale. Of course, in Holder's DoJ that is nothing special.

[uh clem]

01:14 PM on 10/13/2011

I appears to me that the conservative PACs are targeting Huffington Post to spread right wing propaganda.

[mayanindependentspeak]

01:38 PM on 10/13/2011

I just logged on, and although I'm an Indy, I was wondering what propaganda you are referring to.

[dwpfff]

01:12 PM on 10/13/2011

Let alone the fact that the Liberals in our Gub-mint are so opposed to citizens owning guns LEGALLY in the US and will not enforce our immigration laws and close our borders, our current President and Attorney General somehow thought it was a good idea to funnel guns to criminals, drug lords, and killers along our borders. Not the case of only one gun getting passed into the hands of killers, but 2000 guns were furnished by our own Justice Department to be used against our own police. What did they possibly think the outcome would be other than what happened? Who are these people that Mr. Obama brought with him to Washington DC? This decision was beyond stupidity.