Holder: Fast and Furious "has become political"

Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 2, 2012, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. / AP Photo

Updated at 1:29 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder squared off Thursday with Republicans on a House committee who are demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents about its handling of congressional inquiries into a flawed gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

At the start of a hearing, chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will do what is necessary to force the Justice Department to produce the information.

The attorney general said he will consider Issa's demand. But he said, with one exception, the department was inclined to follow longstanding tradition of withholding internal documents about congressional inquiries in order to preserve the ability to get candid advice from top officials.

"I think you're hiding behind something here," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Holder. "You ought to give us the documents. ... It appears we're being stonewalled."

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Burton, a former chairman of the committee, said he would urge Issa to seek a contempt of Congress citation if the Justice Department does not produce the congressionally subpoenaed documents.

Issa has already threatened to seek a contempt ruling against Holder for failing to turn over the documents. The lawmaker alleges the Justice Department is engaging in a cover-up.

"This has become political, that's fine," Holder said later at the hearing, but there is no attempt "at a cover-up." The Justice Department, Holder insisted, "will continue to share huge amounts of information."

Before the hearing started, Issa introduced Holder to federal agent John Dodson, one of the whistleblowers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who first told Congress a year ago about the use of a tactic known as gun-walking in the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious investigation.

The tactic involves allowing suspected "straw buyers" of weapons to walk away from gun stores with their illicit purchases, rather than arresting them there. Instead, agents tried to track the low-level buyers and the guns to smuggling ringleaders and financiers, including Mexican drug gang leaders, who have long eluded prosecution for their role in the flow of guns into Mexico.

ATF's Phoenix division has tried this tactic, with minor variations, in at least four investigations beginning in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. It began three such probes under Mr. Bush before launching Fast and Furious under President Obama. All of the probes encountered problems.

In Fast and Furious, agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers. Some 700 guns connected to suspects in the operation have been recovered in Mexico and the U.S., some at crime scenes, including the one near Nogales, Ariz., where border agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.

A month after Terry's death, Congress began hearing of problems with the probe. Under pressure from lawmakers, Holder has shaken up the leadership of ATF, and the Justice Department's inspector general is conducting an internal investigation of the operation.

After multiple congressional hearings, including six appearances by Holder, Republicans were still voicing outrage Thursday.

Guns that walked in Fast and Furious are going to show up in Arizona "from here to whenever," said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. "We should be sharing information."

On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department will provide documents created after Feb. 4, 2011, the day the department gave incorrect information to Congress about Fast and Furious.

Cole said the department had made an exception to longstanding policy in order to provide material on how the erroneous Feb. 4 letter was created, but he said other documents about the congressional inquiries on Fast and Furious would not be turned over.

Holder said Thursday that prior administrations have recognized that robust internal communications would be chilled if internal communications about congressional requests were disclosed to Congress.

In the Feb. 4 letter to Congress, the department said federal agents made every effort to intercept illegally purchased weapons. But in reality, agents in Fast and Furious employed the risky gun-walking strategy of trying to track the weapons after purchase by small-time, illicit buyers in order to make cases against ringleaders.

Allowing guns to "walk" — "whether in this administration or in the prior one — is wholly unacceptable," Holder said. He said the tactic appears to have been a misguided effort to stem the alarming number of illegal firearms trafficked each year from the United States to Mexico.

A Republican staff memo created for the hearing questioned why federal agents allowed the probe to go on for over a year.

Intercepts from a Drug Enforcement Administration wiretap on one of the suspects provided probable cause for federal agents to make arrests, or at the very least supplied the basis to seize the weapons, the Republican staff memo said. The memo said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not act on this information.

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[ksmit2]

I guess the next part of the program would have been to pass out
RPG's and Stinger missiles to "see who the terrorists are".

[whiskey_tango_foxtrot]

Fast and furious became political the moment these criminals concocted this illegal scheme to destroy the second amendment.

Their arrogance knows no bounds.

[boondoggles]

Obama is one and done and we will be happy to vote out the worst president in the history of our great nation. He has divided our nation but he has not conquered it. WE have millions and millions of American people who love our country and will do everything in our power to make sure he is a one term president. I will call and walk thousands of blocks to hand out material and talk to everyone I can and tell them about the truth of this adminstration because it appears the liberal press is not going to do their job.

[Achimaatz]

Arrest the SOB, run him through the same legal system that any of us would be subject to. Bail should be set at around $500K. Now, who's next?...

[Archie_Clements]

Right Holder, this is political. That is exactly why we need an Independent Counsel appointed immediately. He/she can cut throught the politics and find out who broke the law in the DOJ and ATF. Your IG won't find anything, because she is your buddy and will bury what she can to try to get past the election.

[ppaulville]

My government sold guns to drug cartels. And it's political?!?!??! WRONG!!!!!!

[ksmit2]

It is interesting that a politician can still still be angry
and indignant when he has presided over a program that placed
hundreds of weapons into the hands of hundreds of criminals
to use in commiting who knows how many crimes. How many years
in prison would a gun-runner be facing if he provided over
a thousand guns to criminals. This defies reality, and yet
sadly, defines what America has become. The insane running
the asylum.

[ammo17]

let me see two american border patrolmen murdered,thousands of innocent mexican citizens murdered and this idiot is crying that this is political.never mind the guns are in the hands of the drug cartels who we are at war with,this is why it is called a drug war.he and his people who are involved in this "FAST&FURIOUS "SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH MASS MURDER AND TREASON.

[arthanyel]

So you are proposing that Bush and his head of the DOj should also be prosecuted for murder? After all, they started it and ran the first three of the four "walks".

[whiskey_tango_foxtrot]

Yeah arthanyel, thanks for bringing that up,

The first 3 were coordinated with Mexican authorities and the guns were successfully tracked and the perps were arrested.

There was no intention to track the guns or to notify Mexican authorities under Fast and Furious.

It was a bald faced attempt to flood northern Mexico with assault rifles so as to impose a ban on assault rifle sales in the US.

Nothing more than a cynical attempt to manipulate Mexican homicides rates so as to destroy US second amendment rights.

Criminals, all of them.

[tsigili]

It is called "COVER UP" Mr. Holder. That is a no-no.

[Rick03466]

The facts are that Under Mr. Holder 3 Agencies under his control pooled their resources to run 1800 firearms to Drug Cartels. If he was unaware that 3 Agencies that answered to him were taking actions that violated international law and resulted in the deaths of 300 citizens of Mexico and at least 1 US law Enforcement Officer then he is a Bumbling Incompetent and Needs to be removed from office.
If as some believe this was part of a plan to promote a political agenda he needs be prosecuted, first in Mexico then here in the United States.
We are well past the time when a Special Prosecutor needs to be assigned as Clearly the DOJ investigative objectivity is VERY suspect in this matter. BTW if these crimes were also committed under the the Bush Administration those people need to be prosecuted as well. Clear Holder is very suspect in this case.