Holder to Testify on Fast and Furious and says "Fast and Furious consequences coming"

Attorney General Eric Holder will face off with House Republican Darrell Issa Thursday over Mexican border gun-running, a showdown that comes after Issa and the Justice Department exchanged sharp letters in recent days.

Holder is scheduled to appear before Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday to discuss the controversial sting operation called "Operation Fast and Furious."

The operation, designed to monitor the flow of weapons, allowed illegally purchased firearms to be taken from U.S. gun stores across the Mexican border to drug cartels. However, hundreds of weapons were lost or unaccounted for, and a storm of outrage erupted when two of the missing weapons were found at a site where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

Democrats and Republicans have since been at odds over who knew what about the operation and when.....Mexico Institute

Video of yesterday "perhaps I should be given credit"  says Holder

Updates follow this CNN wire story

CNN Wire Staff

Firings and charges against Justice Department officials who oversaw the agency's flawed gun-running operation are likely to come in the next six months, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.

Holder was speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the controversial sting operation called Operation Fast and Furious.

Asked what steps he had taken since the controversy came to light 13 months ago, Holder said he is awaiting the conclusions of an internal investigation.

Regarding people found culpable in that inquiry, he said, "I can assure you those people will be removed from federal service."

Any possible charges will not be filed until the department has the evidence to get a conviction, he said at the hearing.

The operation, designed to monitor the flow of weapons, allowed illegally purchased firearms to be taken from U.S. gun stores across the Mexican border to drug cartels.

However, hundreds of weapons were lost or unaccounted for, and a storm of outrage erupted when two of the missing weapons were found at a site where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

Terry's family filed a $25 million wrongful death claim Wednesday against the federal government, charging that U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals.

"The murder of Agent Terry and other acts of violent crimes were the natural consequence of (the) decision to let dangerous weapons designed to kill human beings 'walk' into the hands of violent drug-trafficking gangs," the claim said.

Democrats and Republicans have been at odds over who knew what about the operation and when.

At the outset of the hearing, new information on the operation was scarce, and the back-and-forth between members of the two parties dominated.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, threatened to begin a contempt proceeding against Holder to force him to release more documents and pressed him for proof that such gun-running will not happen again.

Republicans are investigating how high up the operation was sanctioned, while Democrats defended Holder's testimony that he did not know about it.

The showdown comes after Issa and the Justice Department exchanged sharp letters in recent days.

The Justice Department sent a pointed letter to Issa late Wednesday, rejecting his demand on Tuesday that certain documents be turned over by next week.

In his letter to Holder, Issa blasted the Justice Department for dumping -- after the close of business Friday -- important, long-sought documents that disclosed that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer had discussed with Mexican officials a plan to allow illegal guns "to walk" into Mexico, where Mexican officials would arrest the gun-runners.

Issa said an e-mail showed that "Breuer suggested allowing straw purchasers cross in Mexico so (Mexican authorities) can arrest, prosecute and convict."

"These new documents show that Breuer made this statement on February 4, 2011, the same day Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Congress denying that the department allowed guns to walk," Issa said.

The Justice Department fired back Wednesday, claiming that Issa's letter showed "significant misunderstanding both of the documents we recently produced and of the Department's position on the issues you raise."

The five-page letter signed by Deputy Attorney General James Cole strongly rejected the claim that the documents show that Breuer supported letting illegal guns make their way to Mexican cartels.

"Assistant Attorney General Breuer proposed to his Mexican counterparts a scenario in which those carrying illegal weapons across the border would be arrested at the border by Mexican officials and charged in Mexico. While these officials ultimately did not pursue that strategy, it is neither fair nor accurate to say that this was advocacy of 'gunwalking'. It was not."

Republicans have pressed to learn whether top Obama administration officials were aware of the controversial tactics, but to date, Breuer is the highest-ranking official shown to have any awareness of any possible gun-running operation.

Democrats have released documents suggesting that the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives field office in Phoenix were at the heart of the decision-making in developing sting operations, including Operation Fast and Furious.

Issa said in his letter to Holder that, "if the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress."

The Justice Department response Wednesday rejected Issa's February 9 deadline to produce all demanded documents. Cole called the deadline "impossible" to meet because of the broad scope of the request.

He did not directly refer to the threat of a contempt charge by Issa.

UPDATE:

RANCOROUS EXCHANGE:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder repeated to the panel that allowing guns to go across the border unmonitored was wrong, but he and other senior officials at the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were in the dark until the operation had ended.

"It's unacceptable, it's stupid, it's dangerous and not something that this Department of Justice can ever do," Holder told the panel, referring to the tactics used in the operation.

The hearing got testy when Republicans questioned Holder's honesty and integrity. New York Republican Ann Marie Buerkle asked "how many more border patrol agents would have had to die as a part of operation Fast and Furious for you to take responsibility?"

Holder became especially angry when Republican Raul Labrador of Idaho brought up unrelated partial remarks he had made more than a decade ago about his involvement in the pardon of financier Marc Rich during the Clinton administration.

"Have I been perfect? No. Have I made mistakes? Yes. Do I treat the members of this committee with respect? I always hope that I do. And what you have just done is, if nothing else, disrespectful," Holder said.

Read more from Reuters report here

UPDATE:

House panel to Holder: Give us 'Fast and Furious' documents 

Attorney General Eric Holder squared off Thursday with Republicans on a House committee who are demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents about its handling of congressional inquiries into a flawed gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

At the start of a hearing, chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will do what is necessary to force the Justice Department to produce the information.

The attorney general said he will consider Issa's demand.

"I think you're hiding behind something here," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Holder. "You ought to give us the documents. ... It appears we're being stonewalled."

 Burton, a former chairman of the committee, said he would urge Issa to seek a contempt of Congress citation if the Justice Department does not produce the congressionally subpoenaed documents.

Issa has already threatened to seek a contempt ruling against Holder for failing to turn over the documents. The lawmaker alleges the Justice Department is engaging in a cover-up.

Before the hearing started, Issa introduced Holder to federal agent John Dodson, one of the whistleblowers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who first told Congress a year ago about the use of a tactic known as gun-walking in the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious investigation.

The tactic involves allowing suspected "straw buyers" of weapons to walk away from gun stores with their illicit purchases, rather than arresting them there. Instead, agents tried to track the low-level buyers and the guns to smuggling ringleaders and financiers, including Mexican drug gang leaders, who have long eluded prosecution for their role in the flow of guns into Mexico.

ATF's Phoenix division has tried this tactic, with minor variations, in at least four investigations beginning in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. It began three such probes, including one called "Wide Receiver," under Bush before launching Fast and Furious under Obama. All of the probes encountered problems.

Brian Terry

Problems recognized after agent's death
In Fast and Furious, which ran from 2009 until early 2011, agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers. Some 700 guns connected to suspects in the operation have been recovered in Mexico and the U.S., some at crime scenes, including the one near Nogales, Ariz., where border agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010. A month after Terry's death, Congress began hearing of problems with the probe.

Parents of Slain border agent seek 25M from Fast and Furious

Issa, who issued a memorandum detailing the operations before Terry was killed, and other Republicans on the panel said Thursday at the hearing that senior Justice Department officials should have also known that guns were trafficked without surveillance from wiretap applications and details about "Wide Receiver."

"All of those people should be ashamed that Brian Terry is dead because they didn't do as good of a job as they should," Issa said during the hearing.

Lawmakers want to know "how you'll ensure for the American people that this will not happen again," he said.

Holder has said he and other senior Justice Department officials and its ATF were left in the dark about Fast and Furious until the controversy erupted.

"It's unacceptable, it's stupid, it's dangerous, and not something that this Department of Justice can ever do," Holder told the panel Thursday about the tactics.

He said two senior aides who knew that guns were allowed to be trafficked during the Bush administration regretted not making the connection to "Fast and Furious".

Holder raised questions about whether the wiretap applications did in fact discuss the tactics and said talking about those documents publicly could violate court orders.

Holder said he expected to hold people accountable in a court of law, with maximum criminal charges, for Terry's murder within six months and possibly by the end of March. He also said whoever authorized the tactics would likely be fired.

Republicans expressed frustration that it was taking so long for disciplinary action.

"You told people that you were mad, you were upset. That to me is silly. You've not taken action, you've not fired anybody," said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

Holder said he had moved ATF personnel around and barred the use of gun walking. Further action against those responsible would have to wait for the Justice Department's inspector general to finish her investigation and report, he said.

"To the extent that we find out who precisely was involved in this or who gave that order, I can assure you that unless there is some truly compelling circumstance, that person, those people, will be removed from federal service," Holder said.

On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department will provide documents created after Feb. 4, 2011, the day the department gave incorrect information to Congress about Fast and Furious.

Cole said the department had made an exception to longstanding policy in order to provide material on how the erroneous Feb. 4 letter was created, but he said other documents about the congressional inquiries on Fast and Furious would not be turned over.

Holder said Thursday that prior administrations have recognized that robust internal communications would be chilled, and the executive branch's ability to respond to such requests impeded, if internal communications concerning responses to congressional oversight were disclosed to Congress.