Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Since Watergate, Congress has held just 12 senior U.S. government officials in contempt for failure to produce subpoenaed documents. On Monday, that process begins again.
A hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is laying the groundwork to compel U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to turn over documents related to "Operation Fast and Furious," a secret Obama administration program that put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Fast and Furious aimed to track gun sales to Mexico, allegedly, say critics of the program, to build up evidence to publicly blame cartel violence on U.S. gun store owners and lax American gun laws.
In the past two months, the Department of Justice, on behalf of ATF, has ignored subpoenas and seven letters demanding details of the program. It has refused to provide a single document to the oversight committee, according to chairman Darrell Issa.
"Now the question is will DOJ give us the documents or will law enforcement officials, little by little, as whistleblowers give us what we want to show this problem goes to the highest levels," said Issa, R-Calif. "What we would like to do is get the truth out quickly, that it's the judgment of the people involved that Congress needs to question."