Grassley News
Senate Committee Approves Grassley-Coons Officer Safety Act... Read More >>
Opening Statement at the Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing with FBI Director Robert Mu... Read More >>
Who Knew, What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
Last weekend, my office received a new set of documents from the Justice Department related to my investigation of the federal government’s ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious.
The documents were revealing. Included were several memorandums to Attorney General Eric Holder that disclose the Attorney General was briefed at least five times beginning in July 2010 in written memos about Fast and Furious.
What is concerning to many of us is the fact that the Attorney General told the House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, 2011, in a previously scheduled meeting in my office, I personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious.
Now, to find out he knew some pretty detailed information about the operation back in the summer of 2010, is troubling.
Those memos indicate the striking number of firearms supplied through Manuel Celis-Acosta (one of the main straw purchasers) and other straw purchasers. The memo specifically says that the straw buyers were “responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
With the fairly detailed information that the Attorney General read, it seems the logical question for the Attorney General after reading in the memo would be “why haven’t we stopped them?”
And if he didn’t ask the questions, why didn’t somebody in his office?
In addition, the documents showed several other people very high up in the Justice Department knew a great deal of information about Fast and Furious, including that guns were being walked.
An October 2010 email conversation between a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the criminal division and the head of the Organized Crime and Gang Section gave the distinct impression that the department knew guns were being walked. One email said, “It’s not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I’m not sure how much grief we get for ‘guns walking.’ It may be more like, ‘Finally, they’re going after people who sent guns down there.’”
The Justice Department continues to deny that anybody knew gunwalking occurred, but the emails seem pretty clear.
Congressman Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee whom I’m working with, and I will continue working to get to the bottom of this. We want to make sure a stupid program like this never happens again.
October 7, 2011
Last weekend, my office received a new set of documents from the Justice Department related to my investigation of the federal government’s ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious.
The documents were revealing. Included were several memorandums to Attorney General Eric Holder that disclose the Attorney General was briefed at least five times beginning in July 2010 in written memos about Fast and Furious.
What is concerning to many of us is the fact that the Attorney General told the House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, 2011, in a previously scheduled meeting in my office, I personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious.
Now, to find out he knew some pretty detailed information about the operation back in the summer of 2010, is troubling.
Those memos indicate the striking number of firearms supplied through Manuel Celis-Acosta (one of the main straw purchasers) and other straw purchasers. The memo specifically says that the straw buyers were “responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
With the fairly detailed information that the Attorney General read, it seems the logical question for the Attorney General after reading in the memo would be “why haven’t we stopped them?”
And if he didn’t ask the questions, why didn’t somebody in his office?
In addition, the documents showed several other people very high up in the Justice Department knew a great deal of information about Fast and Furious, including that guns were being walked.
An October 2010 email conversation between a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the criminal division and the head of the Organized Crime and Gang Section gave the distinct impression that the department knew guns were being walked. One email said, “It’s not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX, so I’m not sure how much grief we get for ‘guns walking.’ It may be more like, ‘Finally, they’re going after people who sent guns down there.’”
The Justice Department continues to deny that anybody knew gunwalking occurred, but the emails seem pretty clear.
Congressman Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee whom I’m working with, and I will continue working to get to the bottom of this. We want to make sure a stupid program like this never happens again.
October 7, 2011