government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and to reform the government's bureaucracy thus far the committee has heard testimony from atf agents who reported that they were ordered to let guns destined for mexican drug cartels to walk away from the hands of known criminals today this committee will have the opportunity to question supervisors of these agents who knew about and believed these tactics were appropriate the committee will also hear from atf agents who worked in mexico and who were horrified to learn ultimately about this program the task before the committee is very serious the acting director of atf in a transcribed interview with investigators has said that the justice department is trying to push all of us away from its political appointees indeed the justice department continues to withhold key information and has inappropriately interfered with this investigation let me be clear the justice department is not our partner in this effort they are the subject of this investigation and their continued interference will not be allowed to derail the committee's work last month members of this committee traveled to mexico on a factfinding mission where we were briefed on how the u s and mexican law enforcement agents are working together to fight the drug lords who are responsible for more than thirty four thousand deaths in the last four and a half years that effort cannot be derailed by the fallout of fast and furious one of our goals is to ensure that the mexican government can have confidence in its partner here in the u s from this date forward that in fact will not let guns walk that we will be as open and transparent as  possible in the time atf officials in mexico have been increasingly alarmed by both volume and location of weapons that have been recovered after reporting these concerns to atf and justice department officials in washington these agents were told nothing about fast and furious again our trip to mexico city taught us that atf agents and more importantly likely dea agents and likely ambassadors were not informed about a program that was causing an increase in violence and an increase in guns arriving throughout mexico from tijuana to mexico city to sonora and beyon we have before us today witnesses who worked in mexico for years and they will tell the committee their frustration about being kept in the dark by officials in washington and in phoenix  and about what really happened as a result of operation fast and furious they are going to have the opportunity to tell this committee about what happens when the justice department intentionally lets weapons flow across the border and how mexican officials reacted when they began to learn the truth the committee will also offer atf supervisors the opportunity to publicly explain why they thought it was okay to let weapons flow from phoenix to mexican drug cartels without making an effort to interdict them the committee is eager to know why one particular suspect was permitted to purchase six hundred and eighty five before he was arrested we are also eager to hear justifications for decisions that have created deep divisions within the atf and outrage in both the united states and mexico we have yet to we have not yet seen the end of the violence from operation fast and furious the deadly consequences of this irresponsible program could last for years to come today the committee estimates at least  weapons including caliber sniper rifles are still out there waiting to kill the possibility that administration officials perhaps at the highest level of the justice department approved this strategy and are now trying to cover up their own involvement by stonewalling the committee is alarming today we are focusing primarily on the effects of fast and furious in mexico president o keen to talk about who didn't know about the program and who didn't authorize it but the american people have a right to know once and for all who did authorize it and who knew about it the ranking member and i both pledged the terry family that we would focus our efforts on finding out who was responsible for fast and furious until we have those answers the committee will remain focused on these basic questions and with that i yield to the ranking member for his opening statement mister cummings i want to thank the chairman for this hearing and i want to thank all of our witnesses for your service to our country and for what you do every day to protect so many lives we have an important responsibility in this committee to thoroughly investigate allegations of waste fraud and abuse and to follow evidence wherever it may lead and to base our conclusions on the evidence before us the committee has now been investigating allegations relating to operation fast and furious for five months committee staff have conducted sixteen transcribed interviews of atf managers and field agents in phoenix washington and mexico during these interviews officials at various levels have acknowledge mistakes in the planning execution and oversight of this operation that is most unfortunate although key questions remain i would like to make four points first the head of a stated during his transcribed interview on julyhth that he did not become aware of any allegations about socalled gun walking until they were reported publicly and this is what he said that issue had never been raised it had never been raised to our level by the whistleblowers in phoenix that stayedhinhouse down there second the officials interviewed by the committee did not support the allegation that the controversial tactics allegedly employed in this operation such as suspending surveillance or failing to interdict weapons were part of a topdown strategy devised by senior atf management or the justice department again acting director melson said that no justice department officials ever told him or anyone at atf that these tactics were part of a new strategy to let guns attorney general's office he also rejected this allegation when asked whether these tactics were part of a topdown policy he responded no sir it is my firm belief that the strategic and tactical decisions that deputy attorneyh the department attorney general's office was aware of the techniques being employed in fast and furious that's just not that's not the case because i certainly didn't brief them on the techniques being employed  third although these tactics may not have originated in headquarters of atf or the justice department the evidence before the committee indicates that after receiving briefings in marchh deputy director hoover and other senior atf officials became seriously concerned about the number of weapons being trafficked by the suspects as a result deputy director hoover ordered an exit strategy those seek indictments within hdays although this exit strategy was developed there were no indictments until this past january one question i hope to explore today is strongly supported additional law enforcement tools to combat the flood of highpowered military grade assault weapons from the united states into mexico mexico is our neighbor our ally and our friend s weapons are arming the world's most violent and powerful international drug cartels costing the lives of forty thousand mexicans in the last four hyears while i will continue to work with chairman member all members will have seven days to submit opening statements and extraneous material for the record chairman issa we now recognize our first panel of witnesses darren gil is a former a west and i apologize as usual for never getting names quite right pursuant to the rules of this committee all witnesses must be sworn would you please rise and raise your right hand to take the oath do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative thank you please be seated now even for this committee this is a large panel so if each of you take five minutes we have hminutes if you take more than five minutes the guy next to you will also take more than five minutes so please observe the green yellow and red light realize that any official material or even additional material you choose to submit will be put into the record so you can provide us what is exactly in your opening statement which often happens read in a verbatim way or you can summarize and get it all done in five minutes or less it is your choice and i appreciate your staying within the time so that we can have maximum time for questions  inviting me to the conference hearing this morning first i offer my sincere condolences to the families of agents brian terry and jaime zapata i'm deeply sorry for their loss and for the grief that this illconceived operation may have caused also i ice special agent victor avila for his services and sacrifices in fighting the narcoviolence in mexico and along the border i can only imagine the horror of helplessly watching a brother law enforcement officer die in the line of duty as a former head of atf in mexico i also to apologize to my former mexican law enforcement counterparts and to the people of mexico for fast and furious i hope they understand it was kept secret from me and my colleagues unfortunately as a result of this operation it is the mexican people who will continue to suffer the consequences of narco related firearms violence i have no doubt as recent media reports have indicated that american citizens will also face more firearms related violence as a result of this operation i would like to provide the committee with a brief description of my background i received a bachelor's degree in criminology from the university of maryland a master's degree in criminal justice from the university of alabama and am currently completing my dissertation at the university of southern mississippi focusing on international affairs and security studies i've been in service to our nation since my enlistment in the united states army in attache to mexico until i recently retired i chose atf because it was a small organization with a focused mission combatting the most violent offenders in america during my first twelve years as a field agent i participated in or directed investigations that targeted the worst of the worst for the remainder of my career i supervised managed and led agents who conducted similar investigations throughout my career not once never did firearms walk from any investigations i directed or fell under my command this includes my services as a mexico to put it bluntly it is inconceivable in my mind or the mind of any competent atf agent to allow firearms to disappear at all furthermore it is even more inconceivable that a competent agent would allow firearms to cross an international border knowing that they are destined for the worst of the worst criminals in the western hemisphere i recall my first days at the atf academy where it was drilled into us that under no circumstances would any firearms in any investigation leave the control of atf instructors stressed that even if a weapon was lost by accident the agent was still subject to termination my point is that atf agents don't allow and atf as an organization has not tolerated firearms to disappear yet apparently that happened here after retiring from atf i started receiving inquiries from former colleagues including special agents vince cefalu and jay dobyns as well as from the press they all wanted to know whether i was aware that atf had allowed firearms to walk into mexico i advised my former colleagues that i was not aware but i refused to speak to the media without a complete understanding of the issue after talking with several agents i became convinced that firearms might have been walking to mexico by atf thankfully congress and the media continued to investigate and fast and furious began to receive greater notoriety nonetheless i remained reluctant to speak out about what i had come to suspect since retiring from atf but was never told about this operation when i later learned that atf executive staff would not make statements exonerating my former staff in mexico of any knowledge of the gun walking aspects of this operation executive staff to provide their own support in this matter to their personnel in mexico during dissertation research i came across a study entitled the waco texas atf raid and challenger launch decision management judgment and the knowledge an the paper's title could have been substituted operation fast and furious for waco texas atf raid and the conclusions would have been the same namely poor management poor judgment and poor leadership resulted in disaster operation fast and furious is indeed a disaster i'm here today to answer the committee's questions but i also have a few questions of my own for example who actually presented this operation for implementation what was the objective my staff was already working with mexico in tracing thousands of firearms recovered from crime scene why the need to introduce even more firearms into a country that is seized by narcoviolence why did atf leadership fail to exercise oversight of this disaster and why were atf personnel in mexico kept in the dark from this operation which has now imperiled trust and cooperation between  result of their leadership they have become targets of mexican drug organizations i find it grotesquely ironic that as a representative of u s law enforcement in mexico my staff and i were asked to expose ourselves and our families to the same sort of risks while speaking to our american counterparts of integrity honor and duty in policing meanwhile members of our own atf and department of justice for whatever reason appear to have refused to follow the same principles as a career special agent i believe in the mission of people of atf the men and women of atf go to work every day with a strong sense thank you chairman issa ranking member cummings and members of the committee for inviting me to speak today i am saddened by the circumstances that bring me here today as an employee of atf i know that this situation is an anomaly and not reflective of the good work that atf does in the service of this country and i am hopeful that this process will shed light on what has occurred so that we in atf do not have to travel down this path again this year marks my th year of federal service and my th as an atf special agent during my years as an atf special agent i have been involved in hundreds of firearms trafficking investigations these investigations date back to the early s i have seen firearms trafficked internationally from the united states to countries as diverse as the netherlands canada and macau these international investigations were as unique as the places to where the guns were going however one aspect shared by most of these investigations was the fact that most international gun trafficking is being done in the interest of organized crime in late two thousand and seven i became the border liaison officer for the phoenix field division my duties allowed me to develop a working relationship with mexican authorities and to travel into mexico to examine guns or meet with officials it was at this time that the struggle against the drug trafficking cartels was started by the government of mexico large scale gun battles and murder became a daily occurrence in mexico to me and other agents it became apparent that the level of firepower being used was more than we had ever seen as the level of firearms trafficking increased we in the phoenix field division realized that this was an arms race between the various cartels an arms race that could very well determine the future of mexico and tremendously impact our own country's future phoenix agents initiated many good investigations during this time these investigations served to disrupt the trafficking of guns and prevented them from reaching mexico but the urgency displayed by the agents in stopping these gun traffickers was not apparent in the prosecution of these cases as we saw some of our best trafficking cases languish at the u s attorney's office in an effort to do more against this tide of weapons in the fall of two thousand and nine i transferred to the newly opened atf field office in tijuana mexico there i worked closely with atf and other agents i also traveled to some of the most heavily fought for areas in mexico  these contested areas i examined hundreds of firearms among these i examined some that can now be traced to the fast and furious investigation the majority of these firearms had been seized from criminals engaged in drug trafficking kidnapping extortion and other crimes having firsthand knowledge of the reality in mexico i was skeptical when the first whistleblower came to this committee with allegations of hundreds maybe thousands of guns being allowed to walk into the country of mexico i could not believe that someone in atf would so callously let firearms wind up in the hands of criminals but it appears that i was wrong that hundreds and quite possibly thousands of guns have been allowed to reach the hands of organized crime in mexico and that this activity has seemingly been approved by our own justice department and atf management in the misguided hope of catching the big fish having had enough experience with gun trafficking investigations i can only imagine that once the d report was released a report that was critical of atf efforts in stopping gun trafficking the emphasis changed to following the food chain up to the leaders what the persons approving this debacle failed to realize is that the end does not justify the means these firearms that are now in the hands of people who have no regard for human life pose a threat to all of us a threat to which none of us is immune i am especially concerned for the brave law enforcement officers and military in mexico and here in the united states i fear these firearms will continue to exact a terrible toll long after these hearings are over finally i have a request of this committee that the serious problem of gun trafficking not be forgotten i don't believe we need another toothless law what we need is vigorous enforcement and prosecution of those that would traffic in firearms a policy of no tolerance for straw purchasers and a change in the sentencing guidelines that would dictate mandatory sentences for these crimes would go a long way in curbing this month to get a bootsontheground perspective on behalf of charge john feeley i want to convey his deep appreciation for your interest in mexico and u s mexico relations i'm not here today to lay blame point the finger or assign punishment that will be for others to determine i am simply here to discuss these events as i know them and let the committee and the american people know what the atf mexico country office referred to as the mco knew and when we knew it during my twenty two year career with distinguished service medals and two medals of valor i mention this not to boast but to illustrate my recognized dedication to atf and public service i paid my dues i can say with authority that walking guns is not a recognized atf investigative technique these guns went to ruthless criminals u s law enforcement and our mexican partners will be recovering these guns for a long time to come as they continue to turn up at crime scenes in mexico and the united states it infuriates me that people including my law enforcement diplomatic and military colleagues may be killed or injured with these weapons in my professional opinion this investigative strategy was flawed it was allowed to  th ranger regiment has approximately two five hundred rangers that means that as a result of this investigation the sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regimen under these two thousand weapons thirty four were caliber sniper rifles that is approximately the number of sniper rifles a marine infantry regiment takes into battle that's three thousand men for the mco this case is one of the many atf traffic investigations with a u s mexico nexus i would like to inform this committee and the american public that i believe what happened here was inexcusable and we in mexico had no part in it we were aware of this kept in the dark because the atf leadership in phoenix feared that we would tell our mexican partners reasonable people can disagree on investigative techniques but there is no room for walking guns this goes against everything we are taught at atf and i hope the committee gets to the bottom of these allegations in mexico atf has been doing great work and i'm proud of our efforts in combatting violent crime with our mexican counterparts the whole point of law enforcement mission in mexico  government officials and support their efforts to combat the transnational organized crime that plagues both our countries and threatens the security of our people these allegations stemming from this case that a few atf agents and supervisors deliberately allowed guns to walk have destroyed atf's credibility with our mexican law enforcement partners and the mexican public as this committee knows mexico is plagued by terrible violence time and again my mexican counterparts blame the united states for contributing to i make mention of it because it is what i hear on a daily basis in my dealings with my mexican colleagues however in this particular case with these specific guns i'm unable to defend this position this case has made my life more difficult for me personally imagine my shame distance she could see that walking guns was a terrible risk the public safety must always come first please remember regardless of good intentions walking guns will never be right the atf rank and file this and we have not been given a satisfactory explanation for what happened so what i would like to say to my atf colleagues is simply this stand tall hold your heads high we work for a great agency look around because there are heroes at atf we do not quit we will not lie down we will continue to honor our commitment to each other and to the public i thank you for your time and i issa ranking member cummings and designated excuse me distinguished members of the committee my name is lorren leadmon and i'm honored that you've summoned me here today to serve as a witness for the citizens of the united states i'm an intelligence operation specialist with the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives and a law enforcement veteran with hyears of dedicated service i'm appearing before you today with a heavy heart laden with sorrow to provide this committee with testimony that i hope will prove to be useful first i would like to express my grief by extending a sincere apology on behalf of myself and likeminded atf colleagues to the family of border patrol agent brian terry likewise i offer an apologize to all mexican law enforcement officers and military personnel placed in harm's way while confronting the violent criminals armed by the targets and their associates in the fast and furious investigation i started july of two thousand and eight i became the team leader of the newly established field intelligence support team for the southwest border the team works in partnership daily with osii personnel assigned to the el paso intelligence center and a personnel working in mexico each of the partners work toward a common goal to determine the location and circumstances surrounding firearms recovered throughout mexico identifying the criminal element associated with the firearms collecting intelligence pertaining to the criminal elements and ensuring the firearms are traced the team coordinates the information with case agents and the field intelligence groups a major function of the team is to identify the firearms trafficking trends and patterns and to establish links between firearms trafficking cases and seizure events in mexico the team is dedicated to atf's strategic mission as set forth in the two thousand and seven project gunrunner southwest border initiative report that is summarized as follows working with its domestic and international law enforcement partners atf will deny the tools of the trade to the firearms trafficking infrastructure of the criminal organizations operating in mexico through proactive enforcements of its jurisdictional areas in the affected border states in the domestic front as well as through assistance and cooperative interaction with the mexican authorities in their fight to effectively deal with the increased violent crime the report had the following strategic outcome suppression of the firearms and explosives related violence occurring on both sides of the border through effective law enforcement collaboration involving the focused training investigation and interdiction of the illicit trafficking and illegal use of firearms explosives and ammunition  the southwest border team first learned of the fast and furious investigation novemberh two thousand and nine i had located the seizure event in sonora the mexican authorities had recovered forty two guns from two transporters in a vehicle that just crossed the border from firearms there were thirty seven that related back to the fast and furious investigation and the informationh this information became the foundation for the fact that all the firearms obtained in the operation fast and furious investigation were potential were buying the types of firearms preferred by drug trafficking organizations in record numbers by this time they had purchased over one thousand firearms and some of the purchases were procuring them in lots of ten to twenty at a time at the same time approximately two hundred firearms in this investigation were recovered in the united states and mexico the types of firearms and the volumes of the purchases the seizures and circumstances surrounding the seizures along with the information provided by our law enforcement partners investigation with the atf senior management staff in headquarters during each briefing i provided detailed information depicting the progression of the acquisition of firearms and described the location number type and identity of the purchaser for ea firearm recovered i provided the briefing to acting director the acting director in the first part of two thousand and nine concerning firearms trafficking to mexico in which he was briefed on the upstart of the fast and furious investigation he later attended one of the field operations briefings in the first part of january in marchh i conducted a video conference briefing with the managing officials from the four atf border divisions an attorney from the department of justice and every one of the atf senior management staff except for the acting director with the assistance of the group supervisor in charge of the fast and furious investigation i provided a briefing outlining the amount of firearms purchased and the expenditures up to the end of february along with the number of seized and seizure locations the totals briefed were the same as previously stated here the issue of the firearms not being seized by the case agents was brought up briefly and discuss and twenty seven in mexico and they're still coming i would just like to say at the end here the strategy of the fast and furious investigation did not take into account the public safety of the citizens of the united states and mexico and blindly concentrated only on the goals of the investigation the blatant disregard for public safety has had tragic consequences that will continue in the unforeseen future and the rest of my testimony you can furious an ongoing and active ocdetf strike force investigation of a largescale firearms trafficking organization for the past hyears i fully dedicated myself to confronting violent crime especially firearms related violent crime along the southwest border having s fifteen of these years along the southwest border combatting firearms trafficking i am keenly aware that this violence fueled largely by mexico's drug cartels poses a serious challenge for u s law enforcement u s and mexican law enforcement threatens the safety of innocent civilians and law enforcement personnel on both sides of the border at the conclusion of every investigation of this magnitude a thorough review is appropriate in order to determine whether tactics whether changes in tactics and strategy are in order with that in mind i recognize that in this case and future largescale investigations  that there exists an effective flow of information between the field and headquarters elements to ensure that critical investigative information is being shared timely second in retrospect in a case of this magnitude it is incumbent upon me to communicate a greater sense of urgency to my staff and the u as to the need for the return of expeditious charges finally i now recognize that in these types of investigations more frequent risk assessments would be prudent firearms trafficking investigations are not always easy to conduct for a variety of reasons including a lack of a federal  agents must use a wide variety of investigative techniques this can take time and considerable effort throughout this case conscientious and dedicated agents pursued numerous leads in order to determine who the decision makers of this organization were in an effort to get beyond the straw purchasers and thus potentially disrupt and dismantle the entire organization through experience we have learned that the arrest and prosecution of straw purchasers alone does little to frustrate the capacity of the mexican cartels to continuously obtain firearms as new straw purchasers are easily recruited to replace those arrested and continue the cycle of purchasing firearms finally our conduct of this investigation as with any large scale ocdetf investigation was coordinated with atf's supervisor at headquarters in washington d c and with federal firearms prosecutors at the phoenix united states  october of two thousand and nine the department of justice proposed a southwest border strategy to combat mexican cartels which was finalized in januaryhof two thousand and ten and which outlined successful strategies related to the identification disruption and dismantlement of mexican cartels through recognized the ineffectiveness of merely interdicting weapons absent identifying and eliminating the sources and networks responsible for transporting them it was with this guidance in mind that operation fast and furious originated to be clear fast and furious was a nostep operation designed to authorities four to develop intelligence on other firearms trafficking organizations and five to charge arrest and dismantle the entire organization in this regard there are some key points i would like to make one it was not the purpose of the investigation to permit the transportation of firearms into mexico and to the best of my knowledge none of the suspects in this case were ever witnessed by agents crossing the border with firearms two our agents in compliance with atf policy were engaged in the strategic effort to determine who the decision makers and actual purchasers of the firearms were in order to disrupt the entire criminal organization the effectiveness of this strategy has been recognized by the department of justice office of inspector general in a review in their review of operation gunrunner three we attempted to be innovative in tracking and seizing firearms purchased by the suspected straw when appropriate during the investigation we made reasonable effort to share and coordinate the relevant investigative details to our mexican law enforcement counterparts finally throughout my past hyears in law enforcement i have lost some very good friends to firearms related violent crime i witnessed firsthand the grief and despair suffered by families who have lost loved ones in the law enforcement profession that is why i take very seriously my responsibility and dedicated myself to doing everything within my authority to confront and curtail these criminal organizations that would seek to do harm to my peers and innocent civilians i did not discard that responsibility in the conduct of this investigation the death of border patrol agent brian terry is one i will mourn for the rest of my life as i do for all those brave heroes who have taken up the badge to serve and protect and then made the ultimate sacrifice i express my deepest condolences to the terry family and may our heavenly father bless him and the terry family through this very difficult time distinguished members i now stand ready to answer your questions and thank you for the opportunity to make this opening statement  good morning mister chairman ranking member cummings and distinguished members of the committee i am bill mcmahon deputy assistant director office of field operations for of bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms and explosives thank you for inviting me to this important hearing let me be clear from the onset as the atf senior executive in charge of the west region i share responsibility for mistakes that were made in the fast and furious investigation the advantage of hindsight the benefit of a thorough review of the case clearly points me to things that i would have done differently however good our intentions regardless of our resource challenges and notwithstanding the legal hurdles we face in fi but know that i am very proud of the men and women who risked their lives investigating this case under tremendous pressure they continue to work this case and many others we have in the american southwest please do not let our failings impact their noble deeds mister chairman i was the assistant special agent in charge of new york city on septemberh two thousand and one our offices were in the world trade center i have witnessed great human suffering brought to bear by those  violence is a stock and trade this is one of the reasons i was so committed to bringing down the complex network of criminals operating in our homeland and bringing violence on both sides of the southern border but  battle mistakes were made and for that i apologize mister chairman i am no stranger to the great and ultimate sacrifices made by my fellow law enforcement officers i have lost friends in the line of duty whether it was in the rubble of the world trade center on the streets of our communities or in the desert southwest nothing hurts more than losing a fellow law enforcement officer in the line of duty with that in mind i want to express my sincere condolences to the terry family and while the investigation into his tragic murder remains ongoing and because of this i may not be able to comment on that investigation please know that i honor his great sacrifice and i am truly sorry for his family's loss with that in mind i appear before you today o my own free will to answer to the best of my ability questions you have regarding this operation and my role in it thank you chairman issa thank you all before we begin i have been made aware that all of you presumably all of you received from the department of justice counsel a letter that speaks specifically to your testimony here today and  subpoena by defense or others chairman issa okay i want to make some clarifications the letter infers that you may not be able to answer certain questions here number of other people who have worked before they came here in law enforcement i am asking all of them if a question occurs from any of us that clearly would lead to something believed to involve compromising the ongoing investigation or the actual chances of convicting somebody that we take a pause i am not beyond that if you believe any of you that you are asked a question that in this format would by it being open to the public would compromise the ability to convict any of the twenty people now charged or others who you reasonably believe will be charged i want you to take a pause on the other hand i want you to understand every question we ask you are compelled to answer unless you assert your fifth amendment rights there is no executive order or executive branch decision that can stop us from compelling that answer if you believe that you are protecting the ability to reach convictions or to save somebody who is undercover  any other way would be harmed by your giving an answer in open hearing i want you to assert that we need to be in executive session the committee can go to executive session at any time by a simple vote of the committee or concurrence of the chairman ranking member we probably will not go to executive session at that moment but would pend that question until the end so understand our intention is to be very clear we know that in fact the cartels continue to operate we do not want to have material here unreasonably disclosed i want to make one other thing clear before we start and then i will recognize the ranking member this committee has been made aware that there were wiretaps in this fast and furious investigation that was not by the justice department turning over material required by subpoena we will not be going into the details of any subpoena in our questioning and we do look forward to justice providing the subpoenaed material in a timely fashion they have not yet done but again those are under seal so their existence which was obtained and has been fairly widely understood is no longer under seal but the details of those at this point including kenneth melson's statement that when he read the details he was sick to his stomach is as far as are going to go on the details of wiretap at this time this hearing is about our relations with mexico what they knew in mexico what they didn't know how the agency did or didn't communicate that doesn't mean that we may not want other information from you in due time but i think we want to be very careful that today we have no reason to go into some of these areas and so we are going to avoid them with that if the ranking member has any comments mister cummings thank you very much mister chairman just some clarifying  items first of all mister chairman i want to thank you for what you just said i think that is a very balanced approach to take and we are all concerned about ongoing investigations and putting people  jeopardy that should not be as a result of our efforts here but i just want to there may be some things mister chairman where say for example these gentlemen may not even know that they are crossing a line  and i know that we are looking into the justice department i have no problem with that but if we have a situation where justice and i understand we have some justice attorneys here where they think that there gentleman's question although i want that very carefully and sparingly used and the justice is not an invited guest here today if you believe that a line of questioning is going down that way we will entertain a request from representatives of justice again this investigation is about justice it is about your bosses we believe that in fact there are people culpable for what happened for the mistakes as special agent mcmahon said the mistakes that were made besides special agent mcmahon so we do intend to get to those errors and mistakes but for the ranking member absolutely we want to make sure that if somebody inadvertently starts down a line of questioning whether you see it somebody from justice brings this to our attention mister gowdy who certainly understands what it takes to preserve a prosecution mister meehan or anyone else that i want this to be a little bit like  the quality control line on a toyota production anybody can pull the stop if you see a mistake about to happen now that doesn't change the fact that this letter is a little out of line and it may be boiler plate but it  implies that you don't have to answer yes you do have to answer but we will use executive session or another setting to get additional information so as to ensure that what we must do does not get in the way of what he just said all right very well i just want to make sure chairman issa and i use the english language so poorly that sometimes my wife does mention that perhaps just because i say what i mean doesn't mean that they can figure out what it means to o but again set it off at the right tone because this is important that we get to where we have to get to but do it in a respectful way for the fact that there are lives at stake on both sides of the border of many of your breth will now recognize myself for a line of questioning mr hmcmahon you said that you made mistakes that people made mistakes would you like to give us just one of those mistakes mister mcmahon sure again as i said after a thorough review of everything after the fact i do see that one of the mistakes that i made personally was maybe more thoroughly reviewing some of the documents that were coming across my desk on this case and i think that has been brought out in  review and it is something that i know will not happen again chairman issa special agent newell as recently as yesterday you called this you said fast and furious is a phenomenal program now it was okay let me rephrase the question this is back to my inability to work with the english language did you ever think that fast and furious was a phenomenal program mister newell well mister chairman to answer your question i believe that fast and furious was conceived with the idea of who you knew in fact were straw purchasers including two felons and in the opening statement when people talk about people that had every right to buy them felons at that moment that they bought them were criminals they could have been stopped they could have been arrested there was an inherent crime so at least in the case of two of the buyers they were felons they bought guns they committed a crime by buying them they were allowed to move on and eventually turn those weapons over to intermediaries who got them to the drug cartels that was always part of the program do you think that that was in fact whether you say phenomenal do you think that that was a good idea mister newell well mister chairman with all due respect i am unaware of two felons involved in this am informed they became felons during the pendency of the case so i may not know the exact date but let's go on beyond that even if they weren't felons documents that we have seen provided by whistleblowers show that in fact all along in this program you knew that the weapons purchased were destined for drug cartels you knew all along that the weapons that someone buying over six hundred weapons was not buying them for sport hunting number of your colleaguesh you were not there at the timeh that when they entered into the database into the trace database fast and furious weapons they got a system error in other words they didn't get a hit or a miss they got a network error are you aware of that mister canino yes sir chairman issa so when your agents your federal agents with twenty or more years entered in the information that would have allowed them to contact a special agent in phoenix they did not get the the second call i would have made would have been on the ambassador the first call i would have made would have been directly to the acting director of atf to find out exactly what this case was all about chairman issa so in my remaining time and special agent wall this would of course apply to tijuana too if you are operating in a foreign nation as an american law enforcement individual as a liaison invited on behalf of a government not having law enforcement power in that country don't you owe it to t he ambassador to keep him or her fully informed of anything you learn because you're not there to do law enforcement you're there to help them do law enforcement through the embassy so for all three of you first three witnesses isn't  reasonable to believe that one of the reasons that you were not told about fast and furious is had you been told in addition to the acting director the ambassador and the rest of the state department would have had to have been read into this program considering it to follow what darren said we weren't aware of the technique that atf agents were actually following known gun traffickers away and letting them go that is insane it was inconceivable you would never think that because atf does not do that if i had known that that was in fact occurring i would have called atf headquarters and if we did not get relief from them we would have gone upstairs and told the ambassador and hopefully he would have been able to stop  gentlemen from early on in this case various atf agents and officials raised concerns about the number of guns purchased by fast and furious suspects that were flowing from arizona to mexico mr hleadmon you cummings and in his interview mr hhoover told the committee that this was the first time in his career he had ever asked for an exit strategy but that he felt that he needed one because he was very concerned about the large number of guns being purchased by these suspects mr hmcmahon did you share mr hhoover's concern about the large number of weapons in this case with  januaryh when indictments were finally issued can you help with us that mister mcmahon well again we were working day to day with the u s hattorney's office and it is a partnership when you put a case like this together and we thought we had enough obviously we have to prove that to the prosecutors you sir that is not in the makeup of an atf agent we do not allow guns to walk what we did in this investigation was investigate a large group of individuals that were breaking the law and we were trying to put our case together so that we could actually make an impact if we pick off these one or t straw purchasers they get replaced in a day and we have even more guns going into mexico that was the plan chairman issa i thank the gentleman we now recognize mr hburton for his hminutes  firearms is that correct mister newell that's approximatelyh yes sir mister burton and you were allowedh you allowed two thousand firearms to go in the system this fast and furious program yeah if you have two thousand firearms that are out there that are going in the program or the investigation and you're putting them out there it seems to me you would want toh if you are trying to make a case you would want to track those and know where all of them went mister newell well we did track the ones that we knew about am a littleh the weapons were being purchased by a criminal organization mister burton okay mister newell so when we found out about that information be it through weapons seizures or through cooperating dealers or through other means we would keep track of that yes s believe the number was they had already purchased that we believe to this date and the number changes something like four hundred firearms by the time we initiated our ocdetf strategy to focus on the entire organization i think it was close to one thousand firearms by the time  burton i must have missed something because it seems to me if there were two thousand weapons that were sold and went into theh and you were investigating this and you were trying to find the criminals that were buying them that there would be a identifying additional suspects as we go yes would the gentleman yield yes so let me understand from previous testimony agents were there at the scene videotape or video observance digital video observance occurred as they bought them the agents in many many cases followed the suspect leaving with six ten twenty weapons for a period of time and then they were ordered by this task force to break off and let those weapons continue going and you have charged mr hacosta one of the  twenty defendants the only one that is not just a meth user who was straw buying you have charged him with being trafficking when did you know that acosta was trafficking weapons his intent was to traffic weapons into mexico and when weapons occurred in mexico that you knew acosta had received from straw buyers and they turned up at crime scenes in mexico then what did you do  went to third parties and ended up in mexico and yet this program continued as though you somehow didn't know they wereh that the purchasers the same purchaser who had purchased guns that were already in mexico was purchasing more i yield back briefly how the mexican drug cartels get firearms from the united states mister leadmon yes sir i guess one way to kind of summarize this this came to light to me so that kind of gives you a groundwork of the culture and the reason why we have this problem because we have these firearms being sold and the mexicans are coming up these cartels and they are purchasing these weapons that is a fact in your experience what type of weapons are in demand by the cartels mister leadmon like i alluded to in my written testimony which i didn't get to finish but there is ah we have actually gone lot today about the problem of gun trafficking in mexico and i am hoping that you can help me better understand the problem based on your experiences in mexico where are the cartels guns from my experience the majority come from the united states mister davis are you seeing a representative sample of all guns used in crimes in mexico or are the mexican authorities just maybe showing you firearms that they believe come from the united states mister wall they make them available to us in the last hyears since two thousand and seven i have probably looked at slightly over two thousand firearms in mexico these are firearms that i went out and soon after they were seized at a crime scene or a stash house the u s possibly from south america guns that maybe were tied back to even the guerilla wars in central america mister davis so you believe that these statistics  people seem to think that some actually are coming from central america do you think that many of them are mister wall some do yes especially with some groups certain cartels have more of a tendency to firearms in central america or south america possibly even from guerilla groups however the other cartels the ones that i am familiar statement here it is not the purpose of the investigation to permit the transportation of firearms into mexico mister newell when we were lawfully able to seize firearms in this case and the many many firearmstrafficking cases we conduct in phoenix and arizona and across the southwest border we take albeit at a much slower pace in order to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional coconspirators who would continue to operate and illegally traffic firearms to mexico drugtrafficking organizations so it was the goal it was the intention of the seizures in mexico it seems very inconsistent at best to suggest that it was not the purpose to allow them to go to mexico yet you know in two thousand and nine that they are going to mexico and you put it in a publicized the wording in that the way my understanding was when that briefing paper was drafted was that our efforts to allow the transfer to identify additional coconspirators was so that we could further the investigation take out the whole organization otherwise these individuals would in fact knowingly allowing the guns to go to mexico and you have information in two thousand and nine that it is being successful yet you never put a stop to it it is meeting the goals and intentions you laid out in this memo in january ofh and it continued on and on and consequently there were thousands of weapons that ended up in mexico killing people killing people that's the reason that we're here today when did you first know or think that guns were walking mister newell sir in this investigation  decemberh two thousand and ten hdays after brian terry was killed quote since i don't like the perception that we allowed guns to walk i had david voth pull the numbers of the guns recovered in mexico as well as those we had a dodson went on cbs news with the accusations that the case was still an active investigation why did you have mr hvoth pull the numbers hday after the terry murder for the number of guns recovered in mexico and the united states did you know fast and hissa were asking this what procedures did you have in place to follow where the guns went from that point where they were dropped off to wherever they ended newell i know we had surveillance teams out there that their job was to do that yes sir mister welch but you got a report i am an agent i observe a straw purchaser i watch the purchaser go to a delivery point so the next step is following the guns from that delivery point to wherever they may end up now i understand how this plan worked from the point of watching the str purchaser make the purchase watching the straw purchaser make the drop but i don't understand what happened after that or what your system was in order to follow where those guns went mister newell well sir it wasn't my system it was decisions  welch i don't get that trained law you guys have plans right about how you're going to execute a complicated and very dangerous situation so i am just wondering what it is a load of assault rifles has been delivered to a middle man was there an explicit plan by which you would follow where those guns went after the drop to the middleman  know where those guns went from the drop to the next step mister newell because in some instances guns would go to a home and unless we had anyh unless we had any lawful basis to approach those individuals we sat on surveillance as much as resources would allow and then other priorities other cases would take them away from that house mister welch all right so then basically there was not either the resources to follow those guns from the drop to wherever they ended newell not in every instance but in some instances yes sir mister welch all right mr hleadmon in your testimony you discussed the two thousand and seven project gunrunner you highlighted the strategic mission of the atf and the need to cooperate with domestic and international law enforcement partners to deny the tools of the trade to the firearmstrafficking infrastructure can you clarify one important issue about what happened do you have an opinion that it was a mistake in this operation  focus on the mexican cartels the criminal organizations that are trafficking firearms or was it a mistake or a failure to prioritize public safety as atf targeted the cartels mister leadmon it is not an opinion it is my observation what i will say is that i think there is a term here everybody said let these guns walk i personally believe our agents walked away from the guns as they were traveling down the road similar to seeing something off at a train station  to skirt around this to me is ludicrous these firearms right like i testified earlier were crime guns murder weapons we knew it in two thousand and nine we knew that based on our information out of mexico we knew where these our partners in mexico down there recovering them and researching them there is no doubt that this was going to a criminal organization as early as two thousand and nine as every day went on thereafter it obligation to the mexican people and the u s government and the citizens of the united states there is other ways to stop the flow of guns other than arresting people you can go and seize the guns you don't have to arrest them you can approach the people right and put an obstacle in front of them so they will stop the purchase of these firearms instead of allowing thousands of guns to be purchased and try to tie the cases to make it a big case because you have got big numbers what we should have done is broke these people down as they came up before we let these guns go south and then through our intelligence assets and through our hard work of our other agents and networking from the other divisions we could tie these cases together and go after and get the big people newell you said firearms are not in and of themselves contraband that's true unless they are sold to possessed by or acquired by a prohibited person which would include a straw purchaser so my question to you is this did atf have contemporaneous or preknowledge of any straw purchasers purchasing weapons in arizona purchasers are not prohibited individuals unless they have been convicted of some crime mister gowdy no it is against the law to purchase a gun knowing you're going to transfer it to someone else to therefore get around the fact that the person you're going to give it to is a prohibited person agreed you've got a gun that was purchased in mexico that was purchased in the united states that makes it into mexico you know through your trace that that's the gun did you go back to the person who purchased it that's an oldfashioned investigative technique it is not as complicated as letting guns walk it is more effective though to actually go interrogate the person who made the acquisition did you do that mister newell sir as i stated earlier in this investigation realizing that if you take out one was to share that information with mexico mister gowdy but you didn't share the information with mexico ahead of time so they are supposed to trust american law enforcement who has been conducting an investigation and knows firearms are going into mexico and you tell them after the fact and they supposed to thank you and be partners in this endeavor mister newell sir it wasn't only until we had information on who the specific recipient or the drug kingpin was that we felt it was prudent to share that information because we weren't mister gowdy how are you going to dismantle mexican drug cartels if you are not going to extradite the kingpins back to the united states mister newell because we hoped that the mexican officials would in fact prosecute them for that mister gowdy so you're doing this to help the mexican criminal justice system you're just not going to tell the mexican criminal justice system about it trace that tells you a u s gun is found in mexico why did you not go interview the person who acquired the gun why not do the investigation the oldfashioned way with car stops with search warrants with active surveillance if mexico had extradited these kingpins if you want to disrupt dismantle destroy the only way it could work is if you told mexicoh or i would have settled for you just telling your own fellow agents about it ahead of time because knew about it sir weapons go into mexico all the time that you knew about let me ask you this if mexico were to ask us to extradite the law enforcement officers who knowingly aided and abetted weapons going into mexico what would your reaction to that  to them that our concern in an investigation of this type is to take out the whole organization so we have the greatest impact possible if you just take off one straw purchaser you're not having an impact on the greater effort which is the hmonths in congress it may be the saddest day atf has a wonderful reputation in south carolina we never once contemplated letting firearms walk ever a firstyear  i think that's what we are all scratching our heads about here today and the embarrassment that you have put on atf generally an outstanding organization of line agents is deeply troubling to all of us but what i am really concerned about is but for the fact that there were whistleblowers but for the fact those whistleblowers went to senator grassley but for the fact cbs did an investigation this travesty would still be going on today that's my big objection who did you tell did mr hmelson know about this fast and furious came on it we had a large group of people that were buying a lot of guns in a short period of time and then we were having recoveries in mexico what we had was purchases in the u s recoveries in mexico we didn't have what was in between and that's what the agents in monitor money being wired to the middle east and we take down actual information about people who buy sudafed because we are concerned about meth labs we know that gunrunning is coming from the united states into mexico that is the source of it why aren't we required why aren't we requiring people who purchase multiple long arms from reporting that and my question to each of you is should we be doing that we do it for things like sudafed but we don't do it for long arms mister mcmahon i believe that we put forward a demand letter requiring gun i think that if we are going to do this it should be in a balanced approach maybe through legislation but we also have got to take in mind that we do have second amendment rights and this needs to be balanced and i think that we should approach this with caution ms speier what does that period to be reported to us however the situation in mexico right now and along the southwest border i think it is an exigency that we have some type of well some help along that line with the assault weapons or gil i would disagree to some extent that that would be beneficial i would rather have a relationship with the federal firearms licensee for when an individual does come in and wants to purchase multiple weapons of any  just hearing some of the responses this morning i am kind of surprised that the mexico federal police met us with such openness in providing information to us of what they are attempting to do when it is apparent we let them down i guess to try to come at it from the other side to get some answers let me ask  looked at it i thought three things about this case number one i thought that the case was out of phoenix anybody who has ever talked to any agents in phoenix or worked in phoenix knows that the u s hattorney's office there has been reluctant to prosecute firearms cases that's number one number two i thought that our agents in phoenix had stumbled upon a guntrafficking group and in their due diligence were realizing okay these guys have beat us for these many guns and number three i thought somehow our agents are losing these loads or a combination of all three never never in my wildest dreams would i think that atf agents were ordered or participated in actually following known gun traffickers and just walking away that is to me inconceivable and to this day and shredded the best practices all the techniques that you use to investigate a guntrafficking case it is not rocket science if it was i wouldn't be here mister walberg had you received any warning from atf in phoenix or washington about the possibility of a traced them hey okay now we found out there was a case out of phoenix but out of that case out of those nine guns that person who purchased those nine guns purchased close to seven hundred guns so nine we knewh we meaning atf atf phoenix atf mexicoh we knew that at least one person involved in that case had guns recovered in mexico and like i said that person was walberg and your reaction to that mister gil i picked up the phone we discussed it i picked up the phone i called the phoenix field division to find out what was going on with this investigation we were recovering an abnormal number of weapons and if they were aware of it and if so what was going on mister walberg and you received no warning prior to that  system we have a flagging system called suspect guns and in that suspect gun database right it is utilized to notify case agents when a weapon that they suspect is being used in a criminalh a crime gun th perhaps the most obvious special agent mcmahon was it your intention to go back and get these weapons after this all took place people left these stores with guns your intention was to go back and get all these weapons correct mister mcmahon our intention was to prove that they were doing something illegally when they bought those weapons and that's easier said than done proving that someone's a straw purchaser actually means that you have to prove the day that they came in to fill out that form that they lied when they answered one of the questions and proving that we had to prove that they knowingly lied when they filled out that form so trafficking into mexico which is totally different than any type of firearms trafficking we have ever done beforeh i am from new york i worked firearms trafficking cases all the time but it is totally different in mexico what you will have is a plaza boss that orders guns from the u s he will give someone in the the person in mexico is still going to get his seventy thousand dollars worth of guns and that's what happens so knocking off straw purchasers one by one yeah it makes life hard on the money person in the u s but it doesn't make an impact in mexico and that's the key to what we're trying to do at atf and there has to be that balance obviously as i said the mistakes in no way should we have ever allowed anyone to get up into the six hundred purchases without talking to that person trying to find out what they were doing seeing if they would cooperate but again i think we learn things in every case we ever do and we are learning an awful lot from this one mister quigley well this is a network people talk so they would talk about what it is like to be a straw purchaser from an weapons that would help us an awful lot to have a hammer over their head to either cooperate or ultimately never do this mister quigley we've heard the expression that many feel like this is doing sixty in a fifty five or some reference to that that always trying to stress that these individuals that think they are just doing maybe a paper violation are actually causing havoc in another country or else here in the u s because the people that need them to buy guns aren't using them to protect their store or protect their residence they're using them to weapons can you buy  there were mistakes made in how we handled this investigation we should haveh one of the things i said in my opening statement was it was incumbent upon me to have more risk assessments throughout the investigation i acknowledge that i acknowledge the fact that one of the things i should have done was more frequently throughout the investigation conduct risk assessments to ensure whether this was still a prudent strategy to occur but i will tell you sir that from years and years of experience as mr hmcmahon just said  these mexican drug cartels are going to get their firearms they're going to get them so we have to do everything we can in terms of taking out the infrastructure that manipulates the straw purchasers straw purchasers are the lowest rung on the ladder they are like a streetcorner drug dealer if you just focus your investigations on straw purchasers you're not having a lasting impact but to answer your question sir i acknowledge that yes in fact that there should have been more frequent risk assessments i acknowledge that f