Republicans Furious After ATF Posts Huge Update About Firearms Associated with Operation Fast and Furious: 'Preserve the Evidence'
House Republicans are trying to put the brakes on a plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to destroy guns linked to the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious.
The concept of the 2010 ATF operation, under then-President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, was that guns would be allowed to be sold to suspected “straw buyers” and then tracked so that federal agents could arrest gun traffickers and disrupt criminal activity in Mexico.
The results were far different, with more than 1,000 of the guns going missing. The debacle came to light when two weapons sold in the scheme were found at the scene of the killing of a Border Patrol agent, according to Fox News.
In an update on the status of the weapons, the ATF informed Congress that they were going to be destroyed, The Washington Times reported last week.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has alerted Congress that it intends to destroy the guns it still possesses from the botched Fast and Furious operation, which saw the U.S. inadvertently arm Mexican cartels. https://t.co/TbdCICTwoG
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) December 7, 2022
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, responded by saying the weapons should not be destroyed, according to the website of the House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans.
In a Twitter post, he was blunt: “Preserve the evidence.”
🚨#BREAKING: The ATF notified @Jim_Jordan that it intends to destroy the firearms associated with the botched Operation Fast and Furious.
The scandal is still a matter of public concern.
Preserve the evidence. pic.twitter.com/n7mWsCrc3i
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) December 7, 2022
“Although the ATF apparently intends to forget its dangerous misconduct in Operation Fast and Furious, the scandal is still a matter of public concern. Given the potential for ongoing criminal and possible civil actions, it is not in the interest of justice for the ATF to destroy potential evidence associated with Operation Fast and Furious,” Jordan wrote in a letter to the ATF.
“Given the potential for ongoing criminal and possible civil actions, it is not in the interest of justice for the ATF to destroy potential evidence associated with Operation Fast and Furious. I request that you immediately take steps to preserve all evidence associated with Operation Fast and Furious and confirm in writing that you have done so,” wrote Jordan, who is expected to chair the Judiciary Committee when the House opens in January with a Republican majority.
The ATF was prompted to propose destroying the guns after a Department of Justice audit of the storage site in West Virginia where the guns were warehoused said that “thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition had been stolen,” according to Fox News.
The audit found that guns from Operation Fast and Furious were stored on top of a vault when they could have been stored inside of it.
“While these firearms were secured in shipping cases, the cases could be accessed by an individual using one of the ladders kept in the same area of the facility,” the inspector general’s report states.
The ATF agreed to destroy the guns after deciding no more prosecution from the operation will be conducted, the report states.
The Obama Administration had many scandals — but the worst may have been Fast and Furious, the DOJ’s illegal gunrunning operation that got a brave Border Patrol agent named Brian Terry killed.
To this day, Obama claims his White House years were scandal-free.
— Rep. Darrell Issa (@repdarrellissa) December 7, 2022
In his letter, Jordan disagreed.
“In fact, earlier this year, prosecutors in Mexico charged seven individuals with crimes related to Operation Fast and Furious, including Mexico’s former top police official and a former Mexican Federal Police commander,” he wrote.
ATF had not issued any public response to Jordan’s letter as of Sunday.
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