The US Justice Department has finished their probe of the “Fast and
Furious” gunrunning program that moved thousands of illegal firearms
between the United States and Mexico, clearing Attorney General Eric
Holder in the process.
Although Holder has been let off the hook by the Justice Department
over the highly criticized program, the DoJ has determined that at least
14 other officials from across the United States were at fault in
overseeing the flawed operation. “We concluded that the
Attorney General’s Deputy Chief of Staff, the Acting Deputy Attorney
General, and the leadership of the Criminal Division failed to alert the
Attorney General to significant information about or flaws in those
investigations,” the Justice Department determined on Wednesday when they published the results of their probe in a 471-page report.The program itself, the Department declared, posed a "significant danger to public safety” and was plagued by a “pattern of serious failures” and "a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment and management failures” by
both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the US
attorney’s office in Arizona. Within an hour of the report’s release on
Wednesday, two officials singled out in the DoJ probe announced their
immediate resignation.Both former ATF acting head Kenneth E.
Melson and Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Jason M. Weinstein resigned
moments after the report was released. Also in the aftermath,
Senate Judiciary Committee’s Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) lashed out
at the report, labeling it as incomplete but agreeing that the operation
itself was flawed behind repair."Operation Fast and Furious
was the height of irresponsibility on the part of a number of people
from the ATF Phoenix field office all the way up to the Justice
Department headquarters,” Sen. Grassley said. “And, we still
don't know the full extent of any White House involvement because they
refused to be transparent and provide documents requested by the
Inspector General. It's clear that both the ATF and the Justice
Department failed to provide meaningful oversight of Operation Fast and
Furious."Earlier this year, the US Congress held Attorney
General Holder in contempt for refusing to hand over internal documents
on the program that he was subpoenaed to provide. Although lawmakers are
currently pursuing a case to disbar Mr. Holder, the Inspector General
overseeing this week’s report says the attorney general "did not learn about Operation Fast and Furious until late January or early February 2011,”
therefore removing him from any liability. The New American and other
news outlets covering the unfolding of the investigation have noted,
however, that Holder went on the record as early as April 2009 to
discuss the program. On December 14, 2010, one of the firearms
tied to the program was used in the slaying of Border Patrol Agent Brian
Terry, an event that helped bring the Fast and Furious program and its
flawed operation to the public eye."[W]hat began as an
important and promising investigation of serious firearms trafficking
along the Southwest Border that was developed through the efforts of a
short-staffed ATF enforcement group quickly grew into an investigation
that lacked realistic objectives, did not have appropriate supervision
within ATF or the US Attorney's Office, and failed to adequately assess
the public safety consequences of not stopping or controlling the
alarming purchasing activity,” the Justice Department concludes.
http://rt.com/usa/news/doj-fast-furious-investigation-603/