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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has revealed portions of sealed wiretap applications related to the botched gun-tracking operation “Fast and Furious.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has revealed portions of sealed wiretap applications related to the botched gun-tracking operation “Fast and Furious.”
Issa entered the sensitive, and previously undisclosed,
information into the Congressional Record on Thursday during the floor debate
leading up to the passage of his resolution placing Attorney General Eric
Holder in contempt of Congress.
The powerful Republican might be protected from what
otherwise would be a criminal offense under Congress’s speech and debate clause
because the remarks were written into the public record during chamber
proceedings.
During his probe of Fast and Furious as chairman of the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa has focused on a series
of six wiretap applications that federal officials implemented in an attempt to
dismantle gun-trafficking rings in the Southwest.
The applications, which are under a federal court’s seal,
were given to Issa by a mole with access to the documents. Issa has claimed they
reveal that top-level Justice Department officials signed off on the documents
and knew about the controversial “gun-walking” tactics used in Fast and
Furious. Issa has called his source a “whistleblower” and refused to
disclose his or her identity.
“The enclosed wiretap affidavit contains clear information
that agents were willfully allowing known straw buyers to acquire firearms for
drug cartels and failing to interdict them — in some cases even allowing them
to walk to Mexico,” stated a letter Issa sent to his panel’s ranking member
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), which was put into the record on
Thursday.
“In particular, the affidavit explicitly describes the most
controversial tactic of all: abandoning surveillance of known straw purchasers,
resulting in the failure to interdict firearms.”
Gun “walking” occurs when a federal official allows
a gun to be transferred illegally into a suspected criminals’
possession and they make no attempt to retake possession of the firearm.
The tactic is at the heart of why administration and congressional
officials have criticized Fast and Furious so vehemently.
Issa argued the information in the wiretap applications raises
questions about whether Holder told Congress the truth. Holder has previously
testified that he has reviewed the documents and concluded that nothing in them
suggested senior DOJ officials should have known about the controversial
tactics being employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF), which ran the operation.
“The detailed information about the operational tactics
contained in the applications raises new questions about statements of senior
Justice Department officials, including the Attorney General himself,” said
Issa in his May letter to Cummings.
“The affidavit reveals that the Justice Department has been
misrepresenting important facts to Congress and withholding critical details
about Fast and Furious from the Committee for months on end.”
Issa has been investigating Fast and Furious for 16 months,
with specific emphasis on the role the DOJ played in approving the flawed
operation. President Obama and Holder have repeatedly said they didn’t know
about the “gun walking” tactics until after an ATF agent made news of them
public.
In testimony before the House Rules Committee this week,
Issa told lawmakers that he had no evidence that Holder was responsible for
Fast and Furious. But on Thursday, the California Republican
successfully passed civil and criminal resolutions placing Holder in contempt for
not responding to a congressional subpoena for documents.
Issa has demanded the DOJ to turn over internal
communications over a 10-month period that detailed how the department realized
that the ATF had let guns “walk” after stating in a letter to Congress that it
made every attempt to stop them.
According to one of the wiretap applications, which included
lengthy transcriptions of conversations between alleged straw buyers for
Mexican drug cartels, a suspect told an associate over the phone: “Can you hold
them [firearms] for me there for a little while there?”
The associate responded, “Well it's that I do not want to
have them at home, dude, because there is a lot of … uh, it's too much heat at
my house.”
The news about Issa's entry into the Congressional Record
was first reported by Roll Call.
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