Smith Presses for Interviews with Senior DOJ Staff re: Fast and Furious

 

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today pressed the Justice Department to make senior officials available for interviews with the Committee regarding the Department’s knowledge of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious following the shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Specifically, Chairman Smith requested to interview Monty Wilkinson, former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, and Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

Documents released by the Department on Friday indicate that the Attorney General’s former Deputy Chief of Staff may have been aware of the connection between Agent Terry’s death and Operation Fast and Furious within days of the shooting. The emails also show inconsistencies between statements by Assistant Attorney General Breuer regarding his reaction to the initial discovery that ATF had engaged in gunwalking.
 
Chairman Smith: “The House Judiciary Committee and the American people have a right to know the whole truth, not just bits and pieces released here and there over several months.  As Attorney General, you have an obligation to ensure that the statements given to Congress are both accurate and complete. Unfortunately, the documents released by the Department continue to raise serious questions about the validity of statements made by senior Department officials.”  

Last Friday, the Justice Department released 486 new documents to the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees as part of compliance with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee.  The emails show an exchange between Mr. Wilkinson and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke regarding the death of Agent Terry. Mr. Wilkinson claimed to have notified the Attorney General about the death of Agent Terry and then pressed U.S. Attorney Burke for additional details regarding the shooting. U.S. Attorney Burke later notified Mr. Wilkinson that guns found at the scene of the shooting connected back to “the investigation we were going to talk about.”  The investigation in question turned out to be Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Wilkinson replied, “I’ll call tomorrow.”  It is not known if that call ever took place.
 
Chairman Smith requested that the Department contact the House Judiciary Committee by February 10 to arrange for the interviews of Mr. Wilkinson and Assistant Attorney General Breuer.
A copy of the full letter can be found here.

Smith to DHS: Produce Documents or Face Contempt

For Immediate Release December 8, 2011 Contact: Jessica Baker, (202) 225-3951

Smith to DHS: Produce Documents or Face Contempt  

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today sent another letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano following the Department’s continued delay in providing a list of illegal and criminal immigrants that have been flagged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) but have not been detained or placed in removal proceedings by the agency.  If DHS fails to produce the requested data in its entirety by December 9, the Committee intends to move forward and consider a resolution to hold DHS in contempt of Congress.

On November 18, Chairman Smith warned DHS in a letter that the Committee plans to seek enforcement of the subpoena to the fullest extent allowed by the law.  But in a letter dated December 2, DHS again did not provide documents responsive to the subpoena.  Instead, DHS officials requested another 30 days to compile additional information that has not yet been formally requested by the Committee.  According to DHS officials’ own statements, the subpoenaed information already has been compiled, but they refuse to hand it over to the House Judiciary Committee.
 
Below are excerpts from the letter. 


“The information DHS officials seek to provide is not the information required by the subpoena.  To comply with the subpoena, DHS must provide the Committee with a list of aliens ICE identified but did not process for removal including Alien Registration Numbers, Fingerprint Identification Numbers, and names.  But you still refuse to provide the initial list that contained this information.  Instead, DHS officials suggest ICE and the FBI will conduct their own analysis of 73,000 individuals that you believe fit the terms of the subpoena and would like 30 days to conduct this analysis.  This is not what the Committee requested.

“DHS must comply with the terms of the subpoena and provide the list of 220,955 individual’s along with identifying information – a list that has already been prepared.  Full compliance with the terms of the subpoena is necessary for the Committee to be able to verify independently and cross-reference the information provided by the administration and to conduct its own analysis of the data.

“The subpoenaed information must be provided in its entirety by Friday, December 9.  The information I requested is firmly within the jurisdiction of the Committee … If DHS does not comply with this demand, the Committee intends to go forward and consider a resolution to hold DHS in contempt of Congress and will proceed to a vote on such a resolution promptly.”

Background: As part of the Committee’s oversight responsibility, four months ago Chairman Smith requested unique identifiers for the criminal immigrants intentionally released by ICE so that the Committee can cross-check the information to see if they have gone on to commit more crimes.  This data will be used to inform Congress on the problem of criminal immigrants and their affect on public safety.  Following months of fruitless discussions over the initial request for information, the requested data was subpoenaed on November 4.

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PDF Text: Letter to Secretary Napolitano