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Old 06-24-2011, 12:59 PM   #5
Fair&Balanced
Operations Operative
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 495
Just to add a little context, Issa, the Chairman of the House Govt Oversight Committee received a classified briefing on the program last year and made no objections.

Quote:
A chief Republican critic of a controversial U.S. anti-gun-trafficking operation was briefed on ATF’s “Fast and Furious” program last year and did not express any opposition, sources familiar with the classified briefing said Tuesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), who has repeatedly called for top Justice Department officials to be held accountable for the now-defunct operation, was given highly specific information about it at an April 2010 briefing, the sources said. Members of his staff also attended the session, which Issa and two other Republican congressmen had requested...

...At the briefing last year, bureau officials laid out for Issa and other members of Congress from both parties details of several ATF investigations, including Fast and Furious, the sources said. For that program, the briefing covered how many guns had been bought by “straw purchasers,’’ the types of guns and how much money had been spent, said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the briefing was not public.

“All of the things [Issa] has been screaming about, he was briefed on,’’ said one source familiar with the session.

Frederick R. Hill, a spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, acknowledged on Tuesday that an ATF briefing on “weapons smuggling by criminal cartels” took place in April 2010 but declined to specify what Issa or his staff were told.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...5eH_story.html
I think it was reckless operation, but Issa evidently didnt see a need at the time to attempt to prevent it or take any action at all.

The head of the ATF should probably resign.

The rest is partisan political grandstanding.
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