Inspector General report on Fast and Furious '10 times worse' than expected

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued a draft of his report on the Fast and Furious scandal, which is now being poured over by DOJ officials who have 30 days to provide feedback.

One source who has seen the report told National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea today that the report is “10 times worse” than expected.

Although few details have been forthcoming concerning the report, leaks from DOJ have indicated that the OIG identifies the Phoenix Field Division of the ATF as the source for much of the scandal. The leaks have led field agents to express the fear that they will be forced to take the brunt of the blame in the scandal.

But it will be difficult if not impossible for ATF supervisors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, and top ATF supervisors at DOJ in Washington to escape culpability given the mountain of evidence that has been presented to Congress during the past 20 months.

Further, Arizona attorney David Hardy has already provided proof that the process of “gunwalking” was approved as a strategy out of the Phoenix Field Division, a strategy that would require approval from the top layers of DOJ leadership.

Gunwalking was the illegal strategy developed by the ATF and the DOJ to place U.S. guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Using illegal “straw purchasers,” the ATF bought thousands of guns at U.S. firearms dealers along the southern border. The straw purchasers would then “walk” the guns across the border into Mexico where they would be given directly to criminals involved in drug, firearms, and human trafficking.

A report issued on June 30, 2012 indicates that such an operation would have to originate at the very highest levels of the DOJ, receiving the approval of the attorney general himself, or his surrogates, under the general oversight of the president of the United States. The key issue is wiretap applications from 2010 that the ATF requested from DOJ in order to conduct Fast and Furious. Wiretap applications must be approved at the highest levels of the DOJ as part of the agency’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Thus, if the OIG’s report on Fast and Furious is to be taken seriously, then it must not stop with laying the blame at the feet of the Phoenix Field Division.