WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans investigating a bungled U.S. gun-trafficking probe that resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico see vindication in a report that criticizes one of their favorite targets: Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department.
LawOfficer's "Fast and Furious" Coverage
But Justice's inspector general absolved Holder himself of blame.
The department's internal watchdog, Michael Horowitz, will be the only witness Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a day after he faulted the department for misguided strategies in an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to reach Mexican drug gangs. One U.S. border agent was killed.
Republicans point to the probe as a sign of incompetence in the Obama administration, while Democrats say the other side is turning the probe into a political attack weeks before the presidential election.
The Republican committee chairman says Horowitz's report on a bungled gun-trafficking probe in border state Arizona is a step toward restoring public faith in the Justice Department.
At the start of the congressional hearing, Rep. Darrell Issa says the report confirms what the committee has known for quite some time: The Justice Department let the American people down.
The operation begun in late 2009 was known as "Fast and Furious."
"The inspector general's report confirms findings by Congress' investigation of a near total disregard for public safety in Operation Fast and Furious," said Issa.
However, the report knocks down some accusations Republicans have made about the Obama administration during the investigation of the operation by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"We found no evidence" that staff at the department or at ATF informed the attorney general about Operation Fast and Furious before 2011, the report says.
Still, the report said lower-level officials should have briefed Holder about the investigation much earlier.
Operation Fast and Furious involved "gun-walking," an experimental tactic barred under long-standing department policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed people believed to be working for Mexican drug gangs to leave gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution, but they lost track of most of the guns.
Two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been acquired by illicit buyers in the Fast and Furious investigation were recovered at the scene of a shootout that claimed the life of U.S. border agent Brian Terry. About 1,400 guns have yet to be recovered.
The traditional strategy of arresting suspected buyers for drug gangs as soon as possible had failed to stop the flow of tens of thousands of guns to Mexico — more than 68,000 in the past five years.
Fast and Furious has produced charges against 20 gun traffickers, 14 of whom have pleaded guilty so far.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.