Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five briefing memos about operation Fast and Furious, which runs contrary to what he told Congressional investigators in sworn testimony.
The memos were released today by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Fast and Furious was a program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that allowed thousands of guns to "walk" into Mexico, where they fell into the hands of drug lords -- several of the guns were found at the scene of the murder of a U.S. border agent.
“With the fairly detailed information that the Attorney General read, it seems the logical question for the Attorney General after reading in the memo would be “why haven’t we stopped them?” Grassley said in a statement. “And if he didn’t ask the questions, why didn’t he or somebody in his office?”
Issa added that, Attorney General Holder has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and other senior Justice Department officials knew about gunwalking and Operation Fast and Furious. The lack of candor and honesty from our nation’s chief law enforcement officials in this matter is deeply disturbing,” Issa said.
The documents released included five highly redacted memos that mention the program, the earliest dating back to July 2010. In his May Congressional testimony, Holder said, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
CBS first reported on some of the documents earlier this week. At that point, DOJ back tracked on Holder's testimony, saying that he misunderstood the question of the committee. DOJ now acknowledges he knew about the existence of the program, but says he wasn't aware of the details.
