Project Gunrunner

Our Government’s Project Gunrunner and its off-shoot Operation Fast and Furious, funneled nearly 2,000 guns into the illicit gun trafficking pipeline to Mexican drug cartels.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa confronted Attorney General Eric Holder on the DOJ's Operation Fast and Furious, which is a highly controversial operation where federal authorities facilitated the purchase of assault weapons for drug cartels in Mexico.Attorney General Holder was unwilling to provide answers to questions about who at the Department of Justice authorized or was aware of the project.  He wouldn’t even say whether he still defended Operation Fast and Furious.Following a second day of Capitol Hill hearings in which he professed little or no knowledge about the controversial Project Gunrunner or Operation Fast and Furious, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms called for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder.

"For the second day in a row, Attorney General Holder has stated on the record that he didn't know about one of the most egregious government scandals in memory," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.

GIVE ME A BREAK.   Someone in the Justice Department had to authorize this stupid plan and I cannot believe they would do so without the Attorney General’s approval.  If he was indeed ignorant of an operation that allowed thousands of guns to be illegally exported to Mexico, on his watch, and apparently right under his nose, then he should be fired for incompetence.   If he was aware, and allowed it to happen, then he should be brought up on criminal charges.

"Two federal agents are dead," said Chairman Issa. "While Attorney General Holder and other top officials at the Justice Department have refused to address the reckless decisions made in Operation Fast and Furious that have created a serious public safety hazard, investigations led by Sen. Charles Grassley and I continue to receive information from deeply concerned insiders who believe those responsible for what has occurred cannot be trusted to investigate themselves."

A January 8, 2010 memo from the ATF Phoenix Field Division Office on Operation Fast and Furious noted the involvement of US Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke, who was in "full agreement with the current investigative strategy." The memo states that "currently our strategy is to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place . . . in order to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators who would continue to operate and illegally traffic firearms to Mexican [Drug Trafficking Organizations]."

A March 10, 2011 email from Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer authorizing a wiretap application revealed his participation in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.

Gottlieb called it an "outrage" that Holder has been unable to answer critical questions about the bungled operation, conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ATF whistleblowers have told Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) that Project Gunrunner, and its off-shoot, Operation Fast and Furious, apparently funneled nearly 2,000 guns into the illicit gun trafficking pipeline to Mexican drug cartels.

"It is simply unbelievable that the attorney general can act as though he never heard of an operation that has been exposed on national television by CBS News," Gottlieb stated. "How could he not know, almost six months after the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, that guns recovered at the scene are linked directly to the Gunrunner sting?

"Holder is either monumentally stupid," he added, "or he is telling a monumental lie. Either way, it is obvious that Holder is either hiding something or he is hiding from something. For the attorney general to not know about Gunrunner and its direct link to the Terry slaying is a sign of gross incompetence.