WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Sunday he thinks U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder knew more about Operation Fast and Furious than he has admitted.
Issa is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Terry was killed by guns the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives sold to purchasers in Mexico in an attempt to build a case against organized crime in the country. Issa said Holder told him he only knew about the operation after Terry's death.
"In this case, these inconsistencies and the fact that the family is still not getting the kind of treatment you would expect as crime victims and crime victims of a law enforcement officer cause us to say, well, let's look at the FBI," Issa said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
"And, as you know, the FBI has a history, in some cases, of working with felons and criminals and hiding their other crimes in order to keep an investigation going. We thought that was behind us, but it might not be," he added.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the committee said Issa is on a witch hunt and that Operation Fast and Furious was a bottom-up program that Holder knew nothing about.
"The attorney general, when he found out about it, the first thing he did was immediately order an investigation by the inspector general," Cummings said.
"And the second thing he did is he sent out a memo to all of his staff saying, look, this is not the way we operate. We do not let guns walk. And so basically you had an operation that started bottom up and not top down. And so in other words, it was hatched in the Phoenix office of the ATF."
