Wednesday - October 05, 2011

Fast and Furious: It’s Bush’s Fault?

WASHINGTON — The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers — the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama’s administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans have been hammering the Obama Justice Department over the practice known as “letting guns walk.” The congressional target has been Operation Fast and Furious, which was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers. In the process, federal agents lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.

When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to “walk.”

On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, called on Obama to direct the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate. Smith said that newly released department documents suggest the attorney general knew about Operation Fast and Furious as early as July 2010.

Federal law enforcement officials familiar with the matter say Operation Wide Receiver began in 2006 after the agency received information about a suspicious purchase of firearms. The investigation concluded in 2007 without any charges being filed.

After Obama took office, the Justice Department reviewed Wide Receiver and discovered that ATF had permitted guns to be transferred to suspected gun traffickers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the practice is under investigation by Congress and the Justice Department inspector general’s office.

In a statement, Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that “whether it’s Operation Fast and Furious, Operation Wide Receiver, or both, it’s clear that guns were walked, and people high in the Justice Department knew about it. There’s no excuse for walking guns, and if there are more operations like this, Congress and the American people need to know.”

Following the discovery that agents in Tucson let the guns “walk,” a tactic which has long been against Justice Department policy, the department under Obama decided to bring charges against those who had come under investigation in 2006.

To date in Wide Receiver, nine people have been charged with making false statements in acquisition of firearms and illicit transfer, shipment or delivery of firearms. Two of the nine defendants have pleaded guilty and a plea hearing is scheduled for Oct. 13 for two other defendants.

Last October, Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, raised concerns about investigative methods in Operation Wide Receiver and about the timing of announcing indictments in both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/05/2011 at 09:45 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • Guns and Gun Control •  
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