Grassley News
Floor Statement on Proposed Budget Resolutions and Senate Leadership... Read More >>
Grassley: Drug Trafficking in West Africa Fuels Instability... Read More >>
New Developments in Fast and Furious Investigation
New documents Congress received this week indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the agency’s Criminal Division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping under the rug a previous gun walking strategy, known as Operation Wide Receiver, and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions about similarities between the cases.
The documents show that officials raised very appropriate questions related to Operation Wide Receiver at the very same time that many of these same officials were receiving briefings on Operation Fast and Furious. It begs the question, why they didn’t ask the same important policy questions about an ongoing case being run out of the same field division.
We now know that in 2009, Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, was first briefed on Operation Wide Receiver. At the time of the Wide Receiver briefing, Mr. Breuer and his deputies were also being briefed on an even bigger gun walking operation (Fast and Furious). Mr. Breuer’s deputy asked the most basic question of Wide Receiver that anyone should have known to ask of Fast and Furious upon becoming aware of the number of guns involved: “[D]id ATF allow the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL (Federal Firearm Licensee) began cooperating?” In Operation Wide Receiver, around 300 guns were walked by ATF. In Fast and Furious, just five of the straw buyers were allowed to purchase nearly 1,000 guns (of close to 2,000) while a licensed gun dealer was cooperating, while being watched by ATF, while their phone calls were being monitored by a wiretap approved by Justice Department headquarters, and while a prosecutor from the Criminal Division at headquarters was assigned to the case.
It fails the common sense test as to why these questions weren’t asked of Operation Fast and Furious.
As we receive more documents and information, it’s becoming clear just who knew that gun walking was going on. In addition, it’s alarming that these officials who knew that gun walking was happening allowed one false statement after another to be made by the department in the early stages of my investigation. This includes a February 4, 2011, letter sent to me by the Justice Department that read: “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.” Mr. Breuer finally admitted this week that the department’s claim was not true. What's worse, he admitted that knew it was not true. Yet he sat silently atop the Criminal Division for the last nine months as this controversy grew without correcting the record.
The American people—and especially the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry—deserve answers from Justice Department officials about why they claim they didn’t know gun walking was occurring in Operation Fast and Furious when the department’s fingerprints are all over it.
November 4, 2011
New documents Congress received this week indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the agency’s Criminal Division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping under the rug a previous gun walking strategy, known as Operation Wide Receiver, and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions about similarities between the cases.
The documents show that officials raised very appropriate questions related to Operation Wide Receiver at the very same time that many of these same officials were receiving briefings on Operation Fast and Furious. It begs the question, why they didn’t ask the same important policy questions about an ongoing case being run out of the same field division.
We now know that in 2009, Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, was first briefed on Operation Wide Receiver. At the time of the Wide Receiver briefing, Mr. Breuer and his deputies were also being briefed on an even bigger gun walking operation (Fast and Furious). Mr. Breuer’s deputy asked the most basic question of Wide Receiver that anyone should have known to ask of Fast and Furious upon becoming aware of the number of guns involved: “[D]id ATF allow the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL (Federal Firearm Licensee) began cooperating?” In Operation Wide Receiver, around 300 guns were walked by ATF. In Fast and Furious, just five of the straw buyers were allowed to purchase nearly 1,000 guns (of close to 2,000) while a licensed gun dealer was cooperating, while being watched by ATF, while their phone calls were being monitored by a wiretap approved by Justice Department headquarters, and while a prosecutor from the Criminal Division at headquarters was assigned to the case.
It fails the common sense test as to why these questions weren’t asked of Operation Fast and Furious.
As we receive more documents and information, it’s becoming clear just who knew that gun walking was going on. In addition, it’s alarming that these officials who knew that gun walking was happening allowed one false statement after another to be made by the department in the early stages of my investigation. This includes a February 4, 2011, letter sent to me by the Justice Department that read: “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.” Mr. Breuer finally admitted this week that the department’s claim was not true. What's worse, he admitted that knew it was not true. Yet he sat silently atop the Criminal Division for the last nine months as this controversy grew without correcting the record.
The American people—and especially the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry—deserve answers from Justice Department officials about why they claim they didn’t know gun walking was occurring in Operation Fast and Furious when the department’s fingerprints are all over it.
November 4, 2011