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OPERATION FAST AND FURIOUS: THE OTHER SIDE

OF THE BORDER

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 26, 2011

Serial No. 112–100

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform
(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

CONNIE MACK, Florida

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

JOE WALSH, Illinois

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JACKIE SPEIER, California

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 26, 2011 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Gil, Darren, former ATF Attache to Mexico; Jose Wall, ATF Senior Special Agent, Tijuana, Mexico; Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attache in

Mexico; Lorren Leadmon, ATF Intelligence Operations Specialist; William Newell, former ATF Special Agent in Charge, Phoenix Field Division; and William McMahon, ATF Deputy Assistant Director for Field

Operations West, including Phoenix and Mexico ....................................... 10

Canino, Carlos ........................................................................................... 23

Gil, Darren ................................................................................................. 10

Leadmon, Lorren ....................................................................................... 30

McMahon, William .................................................................................... 46

Newell, William ......................................................................................... 37

Wall, Jose ................................................................................................... 18

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 57

Canino, Carlos, ATF Acting Attache in Mexico, prepared statement of ...... 25

Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 80

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 8

Gil, Darren, former ATF Attache to Mexico, prepared statement of ........... 13

Issa, Chairman Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 4

Leadmon, Lorren, ATF Intelligence Operations Specialist, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 33

McMahon, William, ATF Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations

West, including Phoenix and Mexico, prepared statement of ................... 47

Newell, William, former ATF Special Agent in Charge, Phoenix Field

Division, prepared statement of ................................................................... 40

Wall, Jose, ATF Senior Special Agent, Tijuana, Mexico, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 20

(1)

OPERATION FAST AND FURIOUS: THE OTHER

SIDE OF THE BORDER

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa (chairman of

the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Issa, Burton, Jordan, Chaffetz,

Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Buerkle, Gosar, Labrador, Meehan,

DesJarlais, Gowdy, Ross, Guinta, Farenthold, Kelly, Cummings,

Maloney, Norton, Kucinich, Tierney, Connolly, Quigley, Davis,

Welch, Murphy, and Speier.

Staff present: Robert Borden, general counsel; Steve Castor, chief

counsel, investigations; John Cuaderes, deputy staff director;

Carlton Davis, Henry J. Kerner, Jonathan J. Skladany, and Jessica

L. Laux, counsels; Kate Dunbar, staff assistant; Adam P. Fromm,

director of Member liaison and floor operations; Linda Good, chief

clerk; Jean Humbrecht, professional staff member; Ashok M. Pinto,

deputy chief counsel, investigations; Laura L. Rush, deputy chief

clerk; Ashley Etienne, minority director of communications; Carla

Hultberg, minority chief clerk; Justin Kim, Scott Lindsay, Donald

Sherman, and Carlos Uriarte, minority counsels; Dave Rapallo, minority staff director; and Susanne Sachman Grooms, minority chief

counsel.

Chairman ISSA. The hearing will come to order.

Today’s hearing continues the committee’s ongoing investigation

into the reckless program known as Operation Fast and Furious.

The Oversight Committee exists to secure two fundamental principles: First, Americans have a right to know that the money

Washington takes from them is well spent; and second, Americans

deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our

duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to

protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold 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.
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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 United

States and Mexican law enforcement agents are working together

to fight the drug lords who are responsible for more than 34,000

deaths in the last 41⁄2 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 United States from this

date forward that we 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

two U.S. 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

beyond.

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 685 weapons 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
3

irresponsible program could last for years to come. Today the committee estimates at least 1,600 weapons, including .50-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 Obama is 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.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Darrell E. Issa follows:]
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Mr. 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 5 months. The committee staff

have conducted 16 transcribed interviews of ATF managers and

field agents in Phoenix, Washington and Mexico.

During these interviews, officials at various levels have acknowledged 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 ATF Acting Director Ken Melson stated during

his transcribed interview on July 4th that he did not become aware

of any allegations about so-called 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 stayed in-house 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 top-down 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 go. He stated, ‘‘we never discussed those types of

tactical strategies.’’

William Hoover, the acting director of the ATF, is the principal

liaison between ATF and the Deputy Attorney General’s Office. He

also rejected this allegation. When asked whether these tactics

were part of a top-down policy, he responded, ‘‘no, sir, it is my firm

belief that the strategic and tactical decisions made in this investigation were born and raised with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and

with the ATF and the OCDETF strike force in Phoenix.’’

He added, ‘‘there’s been reports that deputy attorney—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 March 2010,

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 are his words, to close the case and seek indictments within 90 days.

Although this exit strategy was developed, there were no indictments until this past January. One question I hope to explore

today is why it took nearly 10 months, from March 2010 to January 2011, to close this operation and bring indictments.
7

Finally, nearly all of the officials interviewed by the committee

strongly supported additional law enforcement tools to combat the

flood of high-powered military grade assault weapons from the

United States into Mexico. Mexico is our neighbor, our ally and our

friend; yet U.S. weapons are arming the world’s most violent and

powerful international drug cartels, costing the lives of 40,000

Mexicans in the last 4—5 years.

While I will continue to work with Chairman Issa to investigate

the facts of Operation Fast and Furious, we must also examine opportunities for reform. And I look forward to, again, following the

evidence where it may lead.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]
8
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Chairman ISSA. I thank the ranking member.

All Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements and

extraneous material for the record.

We now recognize our first panel of witnesses. Darren Gil is a

former ATF attache in Mexico. Jose Wall is ATF Senior Special

Agent in Tijuana, Mexico. Carlos Canino—I’ll get better in time—

is the ATF acting attache in Mexico. Lorren Leadmon is the ATF

team leader, Field Intelligence Support Team Southwest Border.

William Newell is the former ATF Special Agent in Charge of the

Phoenix Field Division. And William McMahon is the ATF Deputy

Assistant Director For Field Operations 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 hands to take the

oath?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman ISSA. 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 5 minutes, we have 30 minutes. If you take more than 5 minutes, the guy next to you will also

take more than 5 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 5 minutes or less. It is your choice. And I appreciate your staying within the time so that we can have maximum

time for questions.

Mr. Gil.

STATEMENTS OF DARREN GIL, FORMER ATF ATTACHE TO

MEXICO; JOSE WALL, ATF SENIOR SPECIAL AGENT, TIJUANA, MEXICO; CARLOS CANINO, ATF ACTING ATTACHE IN

MEXICO; LORREN LEADMON, ATF INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS SPECIALIST; WILLIAM NEWELL, FORMER ATF SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, PHOENIX FIELD DIVISION; AND

WILLIAM MCMAHON, ATF DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

FOR FIELD OPERATIONS WEST, INCLUDING PHOENIX AND

MEXICO

STATEMENT OF DARREN GIL

Mr. GIL. Thank you, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member

Cummings and——

Chairman ISSA. You’re going to have to pull the mic close.

They’re deliberately designed to be somewhat insensitive, so you almost have to kiss them to make them work.

Mr. GIL. Very well. Well, thank you again for 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 ill-conceived operation may have caused.
11

Also, I thank ICE Special Agent Victor Avila for his services and

sacrifices in fighting the narco-violence 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 would like 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 U.S.

Army in 1980. After service in the Army I joined the Las Vegas

Metropolitan Police Department and later received my commission

as an ATF Special Agent in 1987. I then served for 23 years in various positions in ATF, including intelligence and assignments and

as 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 12 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 ATF attache in 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.
12

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, only then did I

decide to speak to the press. My understanding is that my initial

interview with Sharyl Atkinson of CBS News did have some

calming effect on relations between the Mexico government and

ATF personnel in Mexico. To this day, I do not understand the failure of ATF 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 Analytic.’’ 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 scenes. Why the need to introduce even more firearms into a country that is seized by narco-violence? 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 United

States and Mexican law enforcement at a time when trust and cooperation is more essential than ever?

During my tenure in Mexico, I observed firsthand the extraordinary changes occurring there. The heads of the agencies leading

these changes are some of the bravest people I ever met. As a 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, rule of law,

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 of duty. I hope that once all the facts are known about

this operation, that ATF will emerge a stronger, more effective organization, focused on its core mission, taking the worst of the

worst armed violent offenders off the streets.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I’ll be

happy to answer your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gil follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Wall.

STATEMENT OF JOSE WALL

Mr. WALL. 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 26th year of Federal service and my 19th

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 1990’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 2007, 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 2009, 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. In 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
19

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 DOJ OIG 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 criminal activity. I thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wall follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Special Agent Canino.

STATEMENT OF CARLOS CANINO

Mr. CANINO. Thank you, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member

Cummings and members of the committee for inviting me to speak

today. I want to thank you for taking the time and effort to visit

Mexico last month to get a boots-on-the-ground 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 22 year career with ATF, I proudly spent 15 years as

a street agent investigating violent crime and gun trafficking and

the last 7 supervising others doing the same. I’m a recipient of the

U.S. Attorney General’s Award for Excellent Law Enforcement, two

ATF 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 continue due to ineffective oversight in

the Phoenix Field Division and possibly beyond. It’s alleged that

over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that

in context, upon information and belief the U.S. Army 75th Ranger

Regiment has approximately 2,500 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 regiment.

Under these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That

is approximately the number of sniper rifles a Marine infantry

regiment takes into battle; that’s 3,000 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 investigation, but we were never aware of the policy

to walk guns in this investigation.

Since these questions have surfaced, I have become aware that

critical details were deliberately kept from the MCO as well as

ATF’s Office of Strategic Intelligence. I have reason to believe that

we were 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
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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 is to liaise

with Mexican 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 that violence. But paramount to ATF, they

blame us for an uncontrolled flow of weapons that end up in the

hands of Mexican criminals.

I do not endorse the view of the Mexican government that American indifference is responsible for the violence and deaths. 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 when my mother called me on the telephone

and said, please tell me you weren’t involved in this. My mother

is a very wise person. She may not know much about law enforcement, but she knows right from wrong. Even at great risk—even

at great 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 know 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 welcome any questions the committee may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Canino follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Leadmon.

STATEMENT OF LORREN LEADMON

Mr. LEADMON. Good morning, Chairman 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 40 years 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 my employment with ATF in December 2004 in the Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information. I was designated to

support ATF’s Project Gunrunner from the inception of the initiative in April 2005. In July 2008, 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 ATF 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 2007 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
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illicit trafficking and illegal use of firearms, explosives and ammunition.

The Southwest Border Team first learned of the Fast and Furious investigation November 20, 2009. I had located the seizure

event in Sonora. The Mexican authorities had recovered 42 guns

from two transporters in a vehicle that just crossed the border from

Arizona. With the assistance of the U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement, I was able to obtain the information on the firearms,

submit traces, and the results of the—ascertain the results of the

investigation.

From those firearms, there were 37 that related back to the Fast

and Furious investigation. And the information—this information

became the foundation for the fact that all the firearms obtained

in the Operation Fast and Furious investigation were potential

crime guns and murder weapons predestined to be utilized by outlaws and assassins affiliated with a violent criminal organization

in Mexico.

In the months leading up to February 2010, the Fast and Furious purchasers were buying the types of firearms preferred by drug

trafficking organizations in record numbers. By this time, they had

purchased over 1,000 firearms and some of the purchases were procuring them in lots of 10 to 20 at a time. At the same time, approximately 200 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 fully corroborated the fact that these firearms were being acquired by a violent criminal organization in Mexico.

In December 2009, I began—to the beginning of March 2010, I

conducted numerous briefings on the 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 each firearm recovered.

I provided the briefing to acting director—the acting director in

the first part of 2009 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 March 2010, 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 firearms 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 discussed. From this point on——

Chairman ISSA. If you could summarize, the rest will be placed

in the record.
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Mr. LEADMON. All right. So, basically, what we are talking about

is by the end of it, we had the 2,000 guns. To date, there’s about

590 that have been recovered; 363 in the United States; 227 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 see.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Leadmon follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. I thank you very much.

Special Agent Newell.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM NEWELL

Mr. NEWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Issa, Representative Cummings and distinguished

members of the committee, I am William Newell of the Bureau of

Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. As a former Special

Agent in charge of the Bureau’s Phoenix Field Division from June

2006 to May of this year, I oversaw ATF operations in the States

of Arizona and New Mexico, which includes 552 miles of the U.S.-

Mexico border.

I appear before you today to discuss ATF’s Operation Fast and

Furious, an ongoing and active OCDETF strike force investigation

of a large-scale firearms trafficking organization. For the past 23

years, I fully dedicated myself to confronting violent crime, especially firearms related violent crime along the Southwest border.

Having served 15 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—United States 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 large-scale

investigations, it is imperative 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.S. Attorney’s Office 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 statute that specifically

prohibits firearms trafficking related activity, the fact that firearms, unless altered in some way, are not in and of themselves

contraband, a lack of adequate punishment for straw purchasers,

thus impacting our ability to identify the leadership of the criminal

organization and the limited resources at our disposal.

These types of investigations are made even more challenging

when none of the individuals in the firearms trafficking chain are

presumptively prohibited by law possessing firearms. Consequently, in order to identify and investigate the responsible higher-level individuals, 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 decisionmakers of

this organization were in an effort to get beyond the straw purchasers and thus potentially disrupt and dismantle the entire organization.
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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, DC, and with Federal firearms prosecutors at the Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In October 2009, the Department of Justice proposed a Southwest border strategy to combat Mexican cartels, which was finalized in January 2010 and which outlined successful strategies related to the identification, disruption and dismantlement of Mexican cartels through comprehensive multi-agency criminal enforcement operations with an emphasis on impacting the leadership and

command structure of such organizations in order to have a substantial and sustained impact.

The DOJ strategy 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 no-step operation designed

to, one, identify the purchasers, financiers, transporters and decisionmakers in a Mexican cartel-based firearms trafficking organization; two, to interdict, when lawfully possible, firearms presumptively destined for Mexico; three, to share, when appropriate, relevant information with United States and Mexican law enforcement 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 decisionmakers 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 buyers. Four, 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 23 years 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
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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.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Newell follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Special Agent McMahon.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM MCMAHON

Mr. MCMAHON. Good morning, Mr. 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 fighting firearms traffickers, we made mistakes.

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.

Mr. Chairman, I was the Assistant Special Agent in charge of

New York City on September 11, 2001. Our offices were in the

World Trade Center. I have witnessed great human suffering

brought to bear by those to whom 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 in our zeal

to do so and in the heat of battle, mistakes were made, and for

that, I apologize.

Mr. 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 of 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.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McMahon follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you all.

Before we begin, I have been made aware that all of you, or presumably all of you, received from the Department of Justice counsel a letter that speaks specifically to your testimony here today,

and it’s from Barry S. Orlow. Did all of you receive that letter?

Mr. GIL. No, sir.

Chairman ISSA. You did not?

Mr. GIL. No, I did not.

Mr. MCMAHON. No, sir. Those letters were only issued to people

that were actually under subpoena. And that is normal for any case

we have agents that are under 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 today. And I

want to make sure it is clear that where it says, for example, you

may not reveal any information covered by Rule 6(e) of the Federal

Rules of Criminal Procedure related to a manner that occurred before a Grand Jury, and it goes on, up and above.

Now, we have a former 20-year defense attorney to my right. We

have a former prosecutor in Mr. Gowdy down below; Mr. Meehan,

a former U.S. attorney; and a 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 20 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 in 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 and 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.
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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 we 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.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Just some clarifying items. First of all, Mr. 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 in jeopardy that should not be as a result of our efforts here.

But I just want to, there may be some things, Mr. 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 may

be a crossing of the line, is there a way that we can at least pause

and just make sure that we are not crossing over into some territory, the very type of territory you are talking about?

Chairman ISSA. And I appreciate the 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, Mr. Gowdy, who certainly understands what it takes to preserve a prosecution, Mr. 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

you all must do.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, just one other thing.

Chairman ISSA. Of course.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. I was just looking at the expression, particularly

of Special Agent McMahon.

I want to make sure that they understand what you just said.

I mean, can you inquire? Do you all understand 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,

too.

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 brethren.

I will now recognize myself for a line of questioning.

Mr. McMahon, you said that you made mistakes, that people

made mistakes. Would you like to give us just one of those mistakes?

Mr. 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 my 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, I hope not is. Do you stand by that?

Mr. NEWELL. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman?

Chairman ISSA. This was quoted in the Washington Post. It came

out yesterday, that, and they quoted you by name as having called

this a phenomenal program. Do you think—did you at one time

think and do you think today that Fast and Furious was a phenomenal program?

Mr. NEWELL. Chairman, that quote, I don’t know the date of that

quote, it wasn’t yesterday, it was—I am sorry.

Chairman ISSA. But it came out. 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, Mr. Chairman, to answer your question, I believe that Fast and Furious was conceived with the idea of disrupting and dismantling an entire organization.

Chairman ISSA. But let’s get into the details. Fast and Furious

was at its heart about letting guns walk. Your agency knew that

if you let guns leave—be bought by straw purchasers, 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
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you think that that was in fact, whether you say phenomenal, do

you think that that was a good idea?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I am unaware of two felons involved in this case.

Chairman ISSA. I 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 600 weapons was not buying them for sport hunting, especially 50 calibers. So do you, and my time is running lean on trying

to get an answer, did you think it was a good program? It appears

as though you thought it was a good program at some time.

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, as I said in my statement, I acknowledge now

that we did make some mistakes in this initiative, in this program.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. I think we all acknowledge that you are

right on that.

When I was in Mexico, I observed a lot of things. And, Special

Agent Canino, my understanding, I was told in Mexico by a number of your colleagues—you were not there at the time—that when

they entered into the data base, into the trace data base 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?

Mr. CANINO. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. So when your agents, your Federal agents, with

20 or more years entered in the information that would have allowed them to contact a special agent in Phoenix, they did not get

the information that would have allowed them to contact the special agent in Phoenix; isn’t that correct?

Mr. CANINO. That’s correct, sir.

Chairman ISSA. So you were blocked.

Mr. Gil, and I have run over a lot of my time with the other

questions, but for both you and Mr. Canino, if you had known

about this program, were you or were you not obligated to tell the

Ambassador?

Mr. GIL. Sir, upon my arrival, I had discussions with the Ambassador about arms trafficking being the number one issue. 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 the 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 it reasonable to believe that

one of the reasons that you were not told about Fast and Furious
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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 its magnitude?

Mr. CANINO. Sir, 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 it.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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. Leadmon, you testified in March 2010 that you provided

a detailed briefing about Fast and Furious to Acting Deputy Director Hoover, Assistant Director Chait, and several others; is that

correct?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Mr. McMahon, after this March 2010 briefing, Mr. Hoover directed the Phoenix field office to prepare an exit

strategy to shut down the operation within 90 days; is that correct?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s correct, sir. We did ask for an exit strategy, a 30–60–90-day exit strategy.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And in his interview Mr. Hoover 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. McMahon, did you share Mr. Hoover’s concern about the

large number of weapons in this case with others?

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely, sir. I think we were all concerned

about the large number of case. But this magnitude of a case was

something we had never encountered before in my career.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did you ask Mr. Newell, Special Agent Newell, to provide with you an exit strategy?

Mr. MCMAHON. I did, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when did the exit strategy envision indictments arriving?

Mr. MCMAHON. We received the exit strategy, I believe, the end

of March.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of what year? Of 2010?

Mr. MCMAHON. Of 2010, I am sorry. And we had a 30–60–90-day

plan. If certain things were accomplished by 30 days, we would be

able to seek an indictment. If certain things were accomplished by

60 days, we would obtain indictments. That sort of thing.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you had more or less some sort of a time

schedule; is that correct?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Were you following that schedule? In other

words, were you checking back every 30 days, 60 days, whatever?
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Mr. MCMAHON. We were actually—I was checking back more

than that. Bill and I were probably talking weekly about the activity of what was going on in the case and how much closer we were

to completing our investigation.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, according to that strategy from the very beginning, what was the day that you expected, envisioned indictments arriving? You did it in March, what, 2010?

Mr. MCMAHON. Correct. We were expecting indictments sometime in the summer of 2010.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, I want to understand why it took from

March 2010, when Mr. Hoover ordered the operation to be shut

down, until January 2011, when indictments were finally issued.

Can you help with us that?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, again, we were working day to day with

the U.S. Attorney’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 that we have

enough, and that does take a little bit of extra time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. That was more than a little bit of extra time;

was it not? I mean, you were talking initially, I guess, about the

summer of 2010, and you end up January 2011. You’re approaching

a year as opposed to a few months. Is that right?

Mr. MCMAHON. It was about 6 months, sir, yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Mr. Newell, when did you eventually shut

down ATF’s investigative portion of this operation?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, the investigation is ongoing as we speak.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But at some point—I am talking about what we

were just talking about, Special Agent Newell.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. There was a plan to shut this piece down, an exit

strategy. And I am asking you to refer to what I just asked Special

Agent McMahon, Mr. McMahon, about.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What was the plan?

Mr. NEWELL. The plan was end of July present to the U.S. Attorney’s Office what we believed to be the evidence that we needed to

secure the first round of indictments. And as the exit strategy said,

the 30, 60, 90 days was not a firm, depending upon, you know,

what type of investigative material or information we get, depending on each 30–60–90-day timeframe. So it was roughly about—I

believe about mid-August when we felt that we presented to the

U.S. Attorney’s Office all the evidence we needed to secure the first

round of indictments. So in essence we probably went over a couple

of weeks.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, I assume, Mr. McMahon, did you approve

this going beyond the time period that you initially stated for the

exit strategy? Is that right?

Mr. MCMAHON. There was nothing to approve, sir. I was getting

updates from Bill about his work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So basically if he said, look, we need more time,

you just assumed you needed more time?

Mr. MCMAHON. And he would give me a reason why we needed

the more time. Correct.
54

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so Mr. Issa, Chairman Issa, said the purpose of the program was to let guns walk. And I just want Mr.

Newell and Mr. McMahon to be clear. We are trying to get to the

bottom of this. We have been going ring around the rosy forever.

What was the purpose of this operation to the best of your knowledge, Special Agent Newell, and then yours, Mr. McMahon?

Mr. NEWELL. Mr. Cummings, thank you for the question. The

purpose of this investigation was to identify, and disrupt and dismantle an entire firearms-trafficking organization that was linked

to Mexican drug cartels. That was the purpose. And to do so we

needed an extraordinary amount of work on the part of the agents

to, in fact, achieve that goal.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But it was not to let guns walk; is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. No.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Go ahead.

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir. As I said in my statement, sir, one of the

things that I—that frustrates me to some extent is there is that belief. And at no time in our strategy was it to allow guns to be taken

to Mexico. No, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I don’t know if you heard Special Agent Canino,

but he was almost in tears and very frustrated because he felt that

all of this went against the very things that he stands for and

these other agents stand for.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would just like Mr. McMahon to just

answer my question, and then I’ll——

Chairman ISSA. Without objection.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MCMAHON. I totally agree with 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 to two 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. Burton for his 5 minutes.

Mr. BURTON. First of all, Agent Newell, what was the origin of

this program? Who came up with this idea? Where did it come

from?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, it was based on—it was based on the fact

that when we—the OCDETF Strike Force was initiated, the idea

of the OCDETF program is to disrupt and dismantle entire organizations.

Mr. BURTON. Who came up with this idea? Was it you or Mr.

McMahon or somebody higher up the food chain?

Mr. NEWELL. Idea for what, sir?

Mr. BURTON. For the whole program.

Mr. NEWELL. It is one investigation, sir. Fast and Furious is one

investigation.

Mr. BURTON. Where was—I mean, the selling of the guns, or the

giving of the guns in Fast and Furious, where did that come from?

Who made that decision?
55

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, we have a policy that allows for the transfer of firearms in order to pursue targets in investigation,

identify——

Mr. BURTON. As I understand it, there was as many as 2,000

firearms; is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. That’s approximately—yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. And you were allowed—you allowed 2,000 firearms

to go in the system, this Fast and Furious program. How were you

tracking those?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, Fast and Furious—I apologize, but Fast

and Furious was not a program, it was an investigation that

was——

Mr. BURTON. Okay. How did you track the weapons, the 2,000

weapons?

Mr. NEWELL. Depending on how the information got to us. Sometimes the information got to us after the sale. Sometimes it got to

us through investigative means that firearms were——

Mr. BURTON. Did you have a set of records that showed who got

them and who reported to you where they went and all that?

Mr. NEWELL. Through our tracing system we have a way to determine when firearms were seized. And we also received information from——

Mr. BURTON. On all the firearms did you get this information?

Mr. NEWELL. No, I don’t believe so, sir, no.

Mr. BURTON. Why not?

Mr. NEWELL. Why not we didn’t get all the information?

Mr. BURTON. Yeah. If you have 2,000 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 to—if you are

trying to make a case, you would want to track those and know

where all of them went.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, we did track the ones that we knew about,

yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Well, there were 2,000 firearms. Did you have control of those at any time?

Mr. NEWELL. We seized, sir, over approximately 300 guns in this

case in the United States through our efforts. And the other firearms we put into our suspect gun data base.

Mr. BURTON. I must be missing something. You had 2,000 firearms.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. You put them into the system, into the investigation, correct?

Mr. NEWELL. I did not, no, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Who did?

Mr. NEWELL. Agents in the group, agents in Group VII.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. Who kept records of that? The agents that

were doing it, did anybody keep records who they were giving the

guns to?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, I am a little—the weapons were being purchased by a criminal organization.

Mr. BURTON. Okay.
56

Mr. 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, sir.

Mr. BURTON. So you have a record of all of the weapons that

were put into—that were sold.

Mr. NEWELL. To this day we are still discovering more, because

this was a very prolific firearms-trafficking organization. When we

first initiated this investigation in November 2009, I believe the

number was—they had already purchased that we believe to this

date, and the number changes, something like 400 firearms. By the

time we initiated our OCDETF strategy to focus on the entire organization, I think it was close to 1,000 firearms by the time we

opened up our OCDETF.

Mr. BURTON. I must have missed something, because it seems to

me if there were 2,000 weapons that were sold and went into the—

and you were investigating this, and you were trying to find the

criminals that were buying them, that there would be a record of

all of the weapons that were sold.

Mr. NEWELL. We have a record of——

Mr. BURTON. All of the weapons that were sold.

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir, because we are still to this date discovering

firearms that were purchased by these individuals that we weren’t

aware of.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. So do you have a record of the ones that purchased those weapons, the individuals that purchased those weapons?

Mr. NEWELL. The ones we are aware of, yes, sir, we do have

them.

Mr. BURTON. You have the records of all those?

Mr. NEWELL. I do believe so, yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. And you’re still in the process of making the case

on this?

Mr. NEWELL. Because we are identifying additional suspects as

we go, yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. I will yield to you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
57
58

Chairman ISSA. 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 6, 10, 20

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. Acosta, one of the 20 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, regarding Mr. Acosta, I believe it was Mr.

Acosta, sir, or——

Chairman ISSA. Acosta.

Mr. NEWELL. Mr. Acosta.

Chairman ISSA. He is the money man.

Mr. NEWELL. Actually Mr. Acosta in this investigation right now

is the head of the Phoenix cell of this trafficking organization.

Chairman ISSA. Right.

Mr. NEWELL. So——

Chairman ISSA. And you knew he was trafficking. You knew he

was receiving these weapons. You knew these weapons were showing up at crime scenes. I am just trying to understand, and my

time has expired, but why you couldn’t seem to answer the gentleman’s question straightforward? You knew guns that you had

watched be delivered or bought to be purchased went to third parties and ended up in Mexico, and yet this program continued as

though you somehow didn’t know they were—that the purchasers,

the same purchaser who had purchased guns that were already in

Mexico, was purchasing more.

I yield back. Who do we have next? Mr. Davis is next for 5 minutes.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Leadmon, you have been at ATF for 7 years studying gun

trafficking on the southwest border. Before that you were a homicide detective here in Washington, DC, for many years. Can you

describe to us briefly how the Mexican drug cartels get firearms

from the United States?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir. I guess one way to kind of summarize

this, this came to light to me several years ago when an individual

describing it to me put it as follows: He says the Mexican people

have been trafficking drugs into the United States since 1880. They

have also been buying Sam Colt’s guns since 1880. 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.

Mr. DAVIS. In your experience, what type of weapons are in demand by the cartels?
59

Mr. LEADMON. Like I alluded to in my written testimony, which

I didn’t get to finish, but there is a—we have actually gone in and

identified a lot of what we call DTO-preferred weapons. And these

are usually your AKs, your ARs. They like the .38 Supers, the .45s.

We have a list of them. And in this particular case, the firearms

are being purchased by—all the firearms being purchased by these

individuals were——

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask you, why do you think they focus on these

type weapons?

Mr. LEADMON. Because they are weapons to use to—one, they

have to protect theirselves against their rivals. Two, they are confronted by law enforcement in Mexico and the military, so they

need this type of firepower and that heavier firepower to exist

down there.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Wall, you have spent the last 19 years as an ATF special

agent and have most recently served as the ATF representative in

Tijuana, Mexico. We have heard a 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 coming from?

Mr. WALL. From my experience, the majority come from the

United States.

Mr. 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?

Mr. WALL. They make them available to us. In the last 4 years

since 2007, I have probably looked at slightly over 2,000 firearms

in Mexico. These are firearms that I went out, and soon after they

were seized at a crime scene or a stash house, I went out and examined the guns. And of those 2,000, less than 50—let’s just say

50 of them I could tell were from foreign manufacture, meaning

outside the United States, possibly from South America, guns that

maybe were tied back to even the guerilla wars in Central America.

Mr. DAVIS. So you believe that these statistics are accurate, that

they are real?

Mr. WALL. I know guns, and I know what I see. And I am the

person on the ground, yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS. Are you finding many of the weapons coming from

Central America? Some people seem to think that some actually

are coming from Central America. Do you think that many of them

are?

Mr. WALL. Some do, yes, especially with some groups. Certain

cartels have more of a tendency to acquire their firearms in Central America or South America, possibly even from guerilla groups.

However, the other cartels, the ones that I am familiar with, most

of their firearms are U.S.-sourced firearms.

Mr. DAVIS. So you think the United States is the main source of

these weapons?

Mr. WALL. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.
60

We now go to the gentleman from Utah Mr. Chaffetz for 5 minutes.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Chairman.

Agent Newell, when did you first become aware, know, anticipate, or maybe even suspect that these firearms in this program

were being transported or transferred into Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, I think we started getting the first traces I

want to say I believe sometime in November 2009, yes, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So in November 2009 you believed they were

being transferred or transported into Mexico. Did that cause you

any concern?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. It always does.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But you say here the program continued on,

knowing full well that these guns were going to Mexico. You said

in your opening statement here, it is not the purpose of the investigation to permit the transportation of firearms into Mexico.

Mr. NEWELL. When we were lawfully able to seize firearms in

this case, and the many, many firearms-trafficking cases we conduct in Phoenix and Arizona and across the southwest border, we

take every effort to stop that, yes, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But in January, coming out of your office, in a

January 2010—I mean, you testified today in your opening statement it was not the purpose of the investigation to permit the

transportation of firearms into Mexico. That’s today.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yet in March—I am sorry, January 8, 2010, in

this memo, point number 13, you write, or it is written, ‘‘Currently,

our strategy is to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take

place, 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 drug-trafficking organizations.’’ So it was the goal, it was the

intention of the program to allow guns to be trafficked to Mexico

based on this memo; is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is wrong—that is from your statement. It

also says in here, a number of different 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 2009 that they

are going to Mexico, and you put it in a memo in 2010, January

2010. How are those statements compatible?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, if I may, and I am glad I am given the

opportunity to clarify that paragraph that has been obviously well

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, continue as part of a

larger——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you allowed is it hundreds or is it thousands

of weapons to continue to flow through this program and go into

Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. I am sorry, can you repeat the question, sir?
61

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How many hundreds or thousands of weapons did

you allow to be purchased, knowing that they were going to Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, the purchase was being done by a criminal organization, a large——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But you facilitated it. You allowed it; did you not?

I mean, that was part of the program, allow these straw purchases

to happen so that the guns could end up in Mexico. And you know

in 2009 that that is happening.

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, again, the goal of the organization, the goal of

the investigation was to disrupt and dismantle the entire organization.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I know. I understand the goal. But the problem

is you’re purposely, knowingly allowing the guns to go to Mexico,

and you have information in 2009 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 2010, 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, in this investigation, as best of my knowledge,

we didn’t let guns walk for that perspective.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When did you first think that they were?

Mr. NEWELL. Were what, walking?

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Walking, yes. Did you ever—have you ever

thought that they were walking?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, the policy regarding transfer of firearms regards the fact that we were trying to develop an investigation.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I know what you are trying. When did you first

think that guns were walking?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, again, the goal of the investigation——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When did you first think that guns were walking?

Did you ever think that? Do you think that here today?

Mr. NEWELL. I truly believe, as I have said before, that we didn’t

intentionally let guns walk.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let’s go to slide two, if we could, please. This is

an email from Mr. Newell to Mr. McMahon on December 21, 2010,

6 days after Brian Terry was killed. ‘‘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

direct role in taking off here in the U.S.’’

So you’re telling me you didn’t suspect that the guns were walking?

Mr. NEWELL. As my email says, it is about the perception. There

was—I didn’t want people to think there was a perception, because

in my mind that was not the case.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How were guns not walking?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, knowing and proving that the transfer or purchase of firearms is illegal are two different things.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am asking. This is 1 month before the indictments and 2 months before John Dodson went on CBS News with

the accusations that the case was still an active investigation. Why

did you have Mr. Voth pull the numbers 1 day after the Terry mur-
62

der for the number of guns recovered in Mexico and the United

States? Did you know Fast and Furious was about to come under

massive scrutiny?

Mr. NEWELL. I did not know at that time that it was going to

come under this level of scrutiny, no, sir.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is the difference—explain to me why you

don’t think that guns were walking. You obviously thought that

others had that perception.

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chaffetz, could you summarize?

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My apologies. I am way over. Thank the gentleman.

Chairman ISSA. We now go to the gentleman from Vermont Mr.

Welch for 5 minutes.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much.

Mr. Newell, I am also trying to justunderstand the sequence here

that some of my colleagues were asking about. As I understand it,

agents would watch a straw purchaser purchase guns. Correct?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. WELCH. They would follow the straw purchaser and come, in

some places, to another location where they would observe that the

guns were left. Correct?

Mr. NEWELL. Left. Yes, sir. I believe.

Mr. WELCH. They were dropped off by the straw purchaser and

delivered to whoever the middleman was. Right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. WELCH. All right. And then on a couple of occasions the

agents called in for permission to make an arrest, and they were

denied that permission because of the overall objective of the plan.

Correct?

Mr. NEWELL. I am aware of that in one instance, yes, sir.

Mr. WELCH. All right. So the question I have, and I think Mr.

Burton and Mr. Issa 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 up?

Mr. NEWELL. I know we had surveillance teams out there that

their job was to do that, yes, sir.

Mr. 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 straw 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.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, it wasn’t my system, it was decisions that

were made in the field by dedicated agents that——

Mr. WELCH. No, no. There has to be a system. What is the system? Whoever’s system it is.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, agents in the field do the best they can to follow firearms, follow loads and see where they are going and——

Mr. 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 middleman. Was there an ex-
63

plicit plan by which you would follow where those guns went after

the drop to the middleman?

Mr. NEWELL. The best of my knowledge, we did everything possible to, in fact, do that with the resources we had out in the field.

Mr. WELCH. Right. But I am asking how you did it.

Mr. NEWELL. With surveillance, with agents on the ground, boots

on the ground.

Mr. WELCH. Well, if you had boots on the ground, how is it that

you wouldn’t know where those guns went from the drop to the

next step?

Mr. NEWELL. Because in some instances guns would go to a

home. And unless we had any—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.

Mr. WELCH. All right. So then basically there was not either the

resources to follow those guns from the drop to wherever they

ended up.

Mr. NEWELL. Not in every instance, but in some instances, yes,

sir.

Mr. WELCH. All right. Mr. Leadmon, in your testimony you discussed the 2007 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 firearms-trafficking infrastructure. Can you clarify one

important issue about what happened? Do you have an opinion

that it was a mistake in this operation to 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?

Mr. 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 2009. We knew that based on our information out of Mexico.

We knew where these guns were ending up by 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 2009. As every day went on thereafter, it became more and more

substantiated.

My thing here is we have been talking about lawful ways of arresting or going in. Well, we have an 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 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
64

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. That’s how our law

enforcement partners do it, and that’s how we should do it.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you.

My time has expired. I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina Mr. Gowdy for

5 minutes.

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Special Agent 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, straw purchasers are not prohibited individuals unless they have been convicted of some crime.

Mr. 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. Well, that’s a straw purchaser. Someone who

is going to give the gun to a prohibited person is a straw purchaser.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. GOWDY. So now that we have that cleared up, did you know

that anyone who was acquiring firearms from firearms dealers in

Arizona were straw purchasers? Contemporaneous with the acquisition, did ATF know it?

Mr. NEWELL. We have to prove that, in fact, that it’s a violation,

yes, sir. We presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office evidence that

we believed that these individuals were, in fact, straw purchasers.

Mr. GOWDY. Let’s do it another way. The very first weapon recovered in Mexico through a trace, did you go back to the purchaser

of that weapon and interrogate them?

Mr. NEWELL. I did not, no, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Did anyone with ATF?

Mr. NEWELL. I am not aware of that, no, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Why not?

Mr. NEWELL. I don’t know, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. 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 old-fashioned 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?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, as I stated earlier, in this investigation, realizing that if you take out one straw purchaser you’re not making

an impact on the greater organization——
65

Mr. GOWDY. I want to ask you about the greater investigation,

because I have read now four different times you have said ‘‘disrupt, dismantle, destroy.’’

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. How are you going to extradite drug kingpins from

Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. We don’t have plans do that, no, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. So once the guns make it to Mexico, there was nothing you were going to do about those drug kingpins.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, there was.

Mr. GOWDY. What?

Mr. NEWELL. One of the things we wanted to do was as soon as

we had solid information on who the drug kingpin, if you will, was,

to share that information with Mexico.

Mr. 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 are supposed to thank you and be partners in this endeavor?

Mr. 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——

Mr. GOWDY. How are you going to dismantle Mexican drug cartels if you are not going to extradite the kingpins back to the

United States?

Mr. NEWELL. Because we hoped that the Mexican officials would,

in fact, prosecute them for that.

Mr. 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.

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir, I disagree with that premise.

Mr. GOWDY. That’s exactly what you just said, Special Agent,

that you were going to tell them about it after the fact.

Mr. NEWELL. We had to know it first. We had to know who the

drug—we had—through this investigation, and as it continues——

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. You have the first 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 old-fashioned way, with car stops, with search warrants, with active surveillance? Why do it this way? It was never going to work.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, again, years of experience have shown us, sir,

that removing one straw purchaser will not have an effect on the

larger investigation.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, Special Agent, the only way it possibly could

have worked would have been if Mexico had extradited these kingpins. If you want to disrupt, dismantle, destroy, the only way it

could work is if you told Mexico—or I would have settled for you

just telling your own fellow agents about it ahead of time. Because

ATF and Mexico didn’t know about it, did they?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir——

Mr. GOWDY. Yes or no? Did Mexico ATF office know about this?

Mr. NEWELL. They were aware of the investigation, yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. They were aware that weapons were going into Mexico and you knew about it?
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Mr. NEWELL. That we knew about it? Sir, weapons go into Mexico all the time.

Mr. GOWDY. From straw purchasers 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 be?

Mr. NEWELL. I would explain 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 whole organization.

Mr. GOWDY. Special Agent, my time is up. I will just say this in

conclusion. I worked with ATF for 6 years directly. I worked with

ATF indirectly for 10 years as just a State D.A. This is one of the

saddest days in my 6 months 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 first-year Quantico

or Glencoe person knows that.

I will yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now recognize the gentlelady from California Ms. Speier.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Special Agent Newell, what were you thinking? 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. Melson know about this?

Mr. NEWELL. About the investigation?

Ms. SPEIER. Yes.

Mr. NEWELL. My belief is yes. I briefed him and——

Ms. SPEIER. When did he know about it? When you started it?

When you were conceiving it?

Mr. NEWELL. I am not exactly sure when the first time he was

made aware of the investigation.

Ms. SPEIER. Who did you make aware of the idea of this investigation?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, when the investigation first initiated, in, I believe, November, we sent up—or I sent up a briefing paper, we sent

up a briefing paper, I believe, the first part of December.

Ms. SPEIER. To whom?

Mr. NEWELL. To my supervisor.

Ms. SPEIER. Who is?

Mr. NEWELL. Mr. McMahon.

Ms. SPEIER. And, Mr. McMahon, what did you then do?

Mr. MCMAHON. When I was briefed on the initiation of this investigation, I passed it up the chain. This is the initiation of an investigation. We had a—pretty early on, that is why the title 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
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United States, recoveries in Mexico. We didn’t have what was in

between, and that’s what the agents in Phoenix were trying to

prove.

Ms. SPEIER. So you all thought this was a great idea.

Mr. MCMAHON. To stop guns going into Mexico, yes, ma’am.

Ms. SPEIER. No, this particular investigation of letting guns walk

into Mexico.

Mr. MCMAHON. We didn’t have an investigation of letting guns

walk. We had an investigation into a group of individuals who were

breaking the law and trafficking guns into Mexico.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. So 2,000 guns walked into Mexico. You

have retrieved maybe 300; is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe the current number is roughly 600 firearms have been recovered.

Ms. SPEIER. And my understanding is that the way you were,

‘‘surveilling them,’’ is that you were putting GPS systems on them;

is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. On the firearms or on vehicles? Depends on—we

used all kinds of investigative techniques to further the investigation to try to determine if, in fact, the firearms were going into

Mexico.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentlelady yield? We have previous

testimony that three times and only three times were any electronic tracking devices placed on the products.

Ms. SPEIER. Only three times?

Chairman ISSA. That’s correct.

Ms. SPEIER. And that those batteries ran out is what I was told

as well; Is that correct?

Chairman ISSA. Exactly.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. What Peter Forcelli, the special agent, testified earlier said that in his opinion, you know, if we 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.

Mr. MCMAHON. I believe that we put forward a demand letter requiring gun dealers along the southwest border to report the sale

of two or more firearms that fire from the shoulder at greater than

.22-caliber that accept a detachable magazine.

Ms. SPEIER. What’s the penalty if they don’t?

Mr. MCMAHON. If the FFL doesn’t? It would be part of the revocation process if they don’t follow our rules.

Ms. SPEIER. They would lose their license.

Mr. MCMAHON. Correct.

Ms. SPEIER. That’s like a slap on the hand, isn’t it?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s all that we have at our disposal.

Ms. SPEIER. I am asking you if there should be a law passed requiring the reporting of long arms that exceed a certain number.

Mr. MCMAHON. I think that is the job of this body.
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Ms. SPEIER. No, we are asking you. You are out in the field. You

are telling us that the gunrunning into Mexico, the drug cartels are

getting those guns from the United States. They are originating

here. So I want everyone on the panel to just answer that question.

Mr. MCMAHON. Demand letter three that is going forward is

going to be a great tool for us to combat this.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. Mr. Newell.

Mr. NEWELL. Thank you, Congresswoman.

Yes. Yes, any tool that we have to assist us in detecting early on,

to detect, help us assist to detect early on a firearms-trafficking organization that is trafficking in large quantities of multiple—of assault-type weapons would help.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you.

Next.

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, ma’am. I think that if we are going to do

this, it should be in a balanced approach, maybe through legislation. But we also have 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 mean? Either you think we should

have one or we shouldn’t.

Mr. LEADMON. That means to me that there is a common good

in this idea and this legislation, but there is a responsibility for us

to balance it also.

Ms. SPEIER. Next?

Mr. CANINO. Yes, ma’am, it would help.

Mr. WALL. Yes, ma’am. I agree with Mr. Leadmon, though, we

need to balance it with the Second Amendment rights. We require

purchases of handguns within—two or more handguns within a 5-

day 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 the long guns.

Mr. 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 sort, handguns or long guns,

that they would work with us on that. And that would provide us

some information targeting those individuals. So I would somewhat

disagree with that.

Ms. SPEIER. My time has expired.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady.

We now go to the gentleman Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for

also giving us the opportunity to go to Mexico City and meet with

the officials down there, both our hardworking agents and agencies,

as well as the Federal police in Mexico. I 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 Mr. Canino—and thank you for your service——

Mr. CANINO. Thank you.
69

Mr. WALBERG. When did you first learn that a large number of

guns were being seized in Mexico and traced back to Phoenix?

Mr. CANINO. Well, sir, it was around November or so. My intel

officer in Mexico reported to me that there was a large amount of

weapons in the suspect gun data base.

Mr. WALBERG. What was your reaction to that?

Mr. CANINO. Well, sir, I 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. Attorney’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 gun-trafficking group, and in their due diligence were finally 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 I still am trying to get my head around this.

What happened in this case is this is the ATF gun trafficking

book, something we have done since 1972, and we do it well, and

they went in Phoenix to the shredder and shredded the best practices, all the techniques that you use to investigate a gun-trafficking case. It is not rocket science. If it was, I wouldn’t be here.

Mr. WALBERG. Had you received any warning from ATF in Phoenix or Washington about the possibility of a spike in guns showing

up in Mexico?

Mr. CANINO. No. I was talking with Lorren and the folks at the

Office of Strategic Intelligence, you know. We became aware, okay,

there is a gun-trafficking case in Phoenix. The first guns that I became aware of that were related to that case were in November

2009, where nine guns turned up in a seizure of 42 guns in Sonora,

Mexico.

Mr. WALBERG. So no warning.

Mr. CANINO. Once those guns came up and we 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 700 guns. So in 2009, we

knew—‘‘we’’ meaning ATF, ATF Phoenix, ATF Mexico—we knew

that at least one person involved in that case had guns recovered

in Mexico. And like I said, that person was allowed to buy 700

guns.

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Gil, let me ask you the same questions. When

did you first learn that a large number of guns were being seized

in Mexico and traced back to Phoenix?

Mr. GIL. Sir, I learned actually during the same event that Mr.

Canino just referred to. He and my chief analyst, Dennis Fasciani,

came into my office. And I had just arrived in early October, and

this event came across. So they briefed me at that time.

Mr. WALBERG. And your reaction to that?

Mr. 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
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number of weapons, and if they were aware of it, and if so, what

was going on.

Mr. WALBERG. And you received no warning prior to that?

Mr. GIL. No, sir.

Mr. WALBERG. In the few remaining seconds let me move over to

Mr. Leadmon. What’s eTrace?

Mr. LEADMON. It is the ATF’s electronic tracing system. It is the

system we use to submit traces and to get the results.

Mr. WALBERG. Was the data base useful for tracing guns, or did

you face obstacles with the tracing system?

Mr. LEADMON. Well, within the tracing system we have a flagging system called ‘‘suspect guns.’’ And in that suspect gun data

base, right, it is utilized to notify case agents when a weapon that

they suspect is being used in a criminal—a crime gun, that it is

flagged, and then the agent’s notified.

Mr. WALBERG. Were they any delays in the uses of eTrace on this

particular issue?

Mr. LEADMON. No, the tracing comes out of—especially the Mexico guns or the U.S. guns—that comes from the recovering officers

or their agency. But the flagging system has a mechanism in it—

or it did in the inception of Gunrunner—excuse me, project—this

project, Fast and Furious, it had a system that was—we couldn’t

have it through our electronic system.

Mr. WALBERG. Why was that?

Mr. LEADMON. It was just a matter of just merging the systems

together. It is now part of our eTrace system, and it is all fully

available.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired.

We now go to the gentleman from Illinois Mr. Quigley for 5 minutes.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. There is

several committee meetings going on. So if I ask a question that’s

been answered, I apologize.

But 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?

Mr. 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 once we have determined

that someone is a straw purchaser, yes, we want to be able to get

the weapons that they are responsible for as quick as possible.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Did you believe that you could get these weapons

back, if that was the case, regardless of where they went?

Mr. MCMAHON. Again, I think our problem with this case is

proving that a violation occurred in the United States and then determining how those weapons were being transported into Mexico.

We know that of all the people we identified in this case that are

purchasers, none of them were actually physically taking the weapons into Mexico. We were checking border crossings, all of those
71

sort of things, and that was not happening. So there was a great

unknown at the beginning of this case trying to figure out what the

size of this network was and how it was operating.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Well, if you and Special Agent Newell have used

the line, if we pick off one or two straw purchasers today, they simply get replaced, in your words, in your mind, why is that the case?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, because I think the way I understand firearms trafficking into Mexico, which is totally different than any

type of firearms trafficking we have ever done before—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 United States. He will give someone in

the United States, say, $70,000 and says, I want $70,000 of guns.

And he expects to get $70,000 worth of guns.

Mr. QUIGLEY. How do they find each other typically?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s an established network from the drug

trade of drugs going north. So that individual——

Mr. QUIGLEY. I am sorry, so that relationship is already there because of the drug trade?

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely.

Then that person will recruit individuals that have clean records

that are U.S. citizens to buy weapons. Now, if we start picking off

one or two people, that hurts the money in the person in the

United States, but the person in Mexico is still going to get his

$70,000 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 United States, 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 600 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.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Well, this is a network. People talk. So they would

talk about what it is like to be a straw purchaser from an economic

point of view. They encourage someone else, as you say, to do this.

What would discourage someone from being a straw purchaser that

we could do?

Mr. MCMAHON. I think obviously, you know, stiffer sentences for

some of these individuals. We are tied to—when we make a case

against these individuals, obviously they have all clean records.

The Federal system is tied into punish individuals that have a

criminal history. Obviously, straw purchasers will not have a criminal history. That makes them viable to purchase weapons. That

would help us an awful lot to have a hammer over their head to

either cooperate or ultimately never do this.

Mr. QUIGLEY. We’ve heard the expression that many feel like this

is doing 60 in a 55, or some reference to that, that it is not particularly strongly punished, and typically not with a jail term. Is that

your understanding?

Mr. MCMAHON. It is. It shouldn’t be. Every time I talk about

this, whether it is through the media, or other people, or Members

of Congress, always trying to stress that these individuals that
72

think they are just doing maybe a paper violation are actually

causing havoc in another country or else here in the United States,

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 create mayhem.

Mr. QUIGLEY. And the last question. Editorials about the Second

Amendment aside, if you go into a store, a gun store, in Arizona,

how many AK–47-type weapons can you buy?

Mr. MCMAHON. As many as he has.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you.

I yield back.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Yes.

Chairman ISSA. Ask unanimous consent the gentleman have 30

seconds.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Special Agent Newell, I must tell you that your testimony has

been quite frustrating, I think, for both sides. I just want you to

answer one question. Mr. Leadmon said the way this should have

been conducted. Do you remember hearing what he said? He said

the way this should have been done.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted to know your reaction to that.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, as I said in my opening statement, I recognize that in retrospect there were mistakes made in how we handled this investigation. We should have—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. McMahon 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 street-corner 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 fact.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

We now go to the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. DesJarlais.

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the

panel for appearing here today.

Regretfully, I have to attend a teleconference, but I would like

to yield my time back to the chair, as it is very important we continue this discussion.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would like to follow up somewhat along the lines that the ranking member was on. Mr. Patino bought 730 weapons is our best

count right now. He worked through Mr. Acosta. For both of Spe-
73

cial Agent Newell and McMahon, was there a time in which either

one of you were aware that Mr. Acosta, buying weapons, the total

of 730 from this particular straw buyer, who was on food stamps,

who had no income—was there a time that you became aware Mr.

Acosta intended on transporting those weapons to the drug cartels

to sell them? You have charged 19 straw purchasers, who are all

out on their own recognizance right now just waiting for trial sometime next year. You have charged one person with trafficking. Was

there a time you became aware that, in fact, you had a known

group of buyers, including Mr. Patino at 730 weapons, and you

knew that the purchaser, the money man, intended on transporting

those to Mexico? Was there ever a time that you knew that? Mr.

McMahon first.

Mr. MCMAHON. There was never a time that I knew that, no.

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Newell.

Mr. NEWELL. There was never a specific time that we knew that,

no, sir.

Mr. ISSA. Please stay awayfrom words like ‘‘specific.’’ They worry

me. Was there ever a time? Did you get to an understanding that

you had a known buyer buying from these people with an intent

to traffic them to the cartels? Was there a time?

Mr. NEWELL. Throughout the investigation we had information

that——

Chairman ISSA. What was the first time that you had that information?

Mr. NEWELL. That this group was trafficking firearms to Mexico?

Chairman ISSA. That you had a known buyer, Mr. Acosta or that

group, and that the purchasers—some of the straw purchasers they

were buying from were, in fact, providing to these people for their

purpose of transporting?

I ask you this question very simply. Now, wait a second. You

have been here as a paid not answerer so far. And I appreciate that

you have been here as a paid not answerer, but there comes a point

where I go, wait a second, 730 weapons bought by a man who had

no money. Every penny he bought with he had to get from somebody. You knew that at some point. You knew who was buying

them, and you allowed it to continue.

Now, there comes a point where, as we go through the rest of the

investigation—and this was about Mexico, and I want to get back

to that very quickly—but there comes a point where we have to

have more than just mistakes were made. My understanding is you

knew from credible information, your organization knew that, in

fact, you had a buyer providing the money to Patino and others,

that he was taking possession of those weapons, and you knew

with specificity that those weapons, some of them had already

ended up in Mexico; is that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. And what was the first date; 2009, what was the

first date?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, to answer your question, throughout the investigation we had information that Patino was—Mr. Patino was

working with Mr. Acosta throughout the investigation.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So from day one you had a straw purchaser with no means of support buying hundreds of weapons, pro-
74

viding them to his intermediary, which meant that both of them

were very much a part. You didn’t have a buy and lie situation at

this point, you had an individual who could be charged with his

participation in the actual trafficking of weapons. You had somebody who was trafficking specifically for the intent of getting it to

the drug cartels, providing huge amounts of information—I’m

sorry, huge amounts of money. You had that early on. We’re now

2 years later, and you’ve only charged 18 other people with buy

and lie and the one person you knew early on was doing this.

Where, quite frankly, is any semblance of roll-up or any semblance of going further? It looks like you knowingly allowed these

to be sold, waiting to see if the other end in Mexico would give you

information. It seems like you knowingly allowed these weapons to

get out of your control knowingly to someone you knew was trafficking into Mexico. You saw the results, you allowed it to continue,

and now you’re telling us, we don’t let guns walk.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, before this investigation ends, I’ve got

to have somebody in your position or at Justice admit you knowingly let guns walk, because right now your agents, both the agents

here today from Mexico and the agents that were part of Phoenix

and part of this program who became whistleblowers, had told us

you were letting guns walk. It’s only you and Mr. McMahon and

other people at Justice who continue to come before this committee

and say, we don’t let guns walk. Are they lying, or are you lying?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, in this investigation it is my opinion that we

did not let guns walk.

Chairman ISSA. You’re entitled to your opinion, not to your facts.

With that we go to the gentleman Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wall, before you were transferred to the ATF field office in

Tijuana, Mexico, you were in the Phoenix office; is that correct.

Mr. WALL. Yes, sir, I was.

Mr. TIERNEY. And you said in your written testimony that you

personally saw some of the AFT’s best trafficking cases languish in

the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Is that an accurate statement?

Mr. WALL. Yes, that’s accurate, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, we also had other ATF agents tell us the

same thing, that there was a lagging of proceeding on these cases

in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

When was that period of time that you were assigned to the

Phoenix office?

Mr. WALL. Well, I was working primarily gun trafficking to Mexico from 2007 until I left for Tijuana in 2009, fall of 2009.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Newell, a number of ATF witnesses that the

committee interviewed have said that this case was ready for indictment probably in August 2010, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office

didn’t really seek the indictments until January 2011. Is that an

accurate reflection of your memory?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you know why you experienced these delays?

Mr. NEWELL. I think that’s a question better asked of the U.S.

Attorney’s Office, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Did they ever give you an understanding of why it

was that they were seeking to delay?
75

Mr. NEWELL. That they were continuing to put together information they needed to seek indictments.

Mr. TIERNEY. And it was that broad an explanation, no certain

specifics?

Mr. NEWELL. Certain specifics regarding financial for the money

laundering statutes that are in the—money laundering violations

that are in the indictment.

Mr. TIERNEY. Did you consider those reasons to be legitimate, or

did you think that they were somewhat suspect?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe that they were legitimate in the sense of

the return on some subpoenas, yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, Mr. McMahon, you said that a number of

your agents were certainly frustrated from time to time with the

U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, correct?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s what was being relayed to me from Bill,

yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. But you didn’t have direct knowledge of that;

agents hadn’t expressed it to you?

Mr. MCMAHON. I shouldn’t say that. Yes, there is a personal

friend that I had that works in Phoenix that I hired in New York.

He did express his frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, at some point in time when, Mr. Newell and

Mr. McMahon, you thought that the case was ready for indictment,

the August 2010 and after that, did you start using seizure warrants to interdict some of the weapons?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. We started doing that, I believe, in September 2010 in an effort to seize firearms as we were waiting for

the indictment.

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. So——

Mr. NEWELL. Civilly. Seize firearms civilly.

Mr. TIERNEY. So once you thought that the case had been

made——

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Then you started to take extra actions

to make sure that the weapons didn’t get beyond a certain point.

All right. And when would you exercise the seizure warrants in relation to this whole trafficking activity that was going on?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, I thank you for the question. During the

summer of 2010, we finally convinced certain individuals in the Judiciary that we had a very strong—we believe we had a very strong

ability or theory on being able to seize firearms civilly in order to

stem the flow, and we got that approved, I would say, September

2010.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, this problem with the U.S. Attorney’s Office

in Phoenix, the lag of time between when the people in the field

thought that they had their case made and waiting for the indictments to go down, is that a problem that exists with the current

U.S. attorney?

Mr. NEWELL. I will say, sir, that having been there 5 years when

I was there from 2006 to 2011, the current U.S. attorney has been

much more aggressive and much more proactive than previous administrations, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. The previous administrations, however, were insistent in having that issue, a lag on that?
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Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. McMahon, you told the committee that ATF

agents had secured confessions from straw purchasers to develop

certain cases, but that your agents presented those cases to the

U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, and the assistant U.S. attorney

declined to prosecute and said there was no violation. Do you remember telling the interviewers that?

Mr. MCMAHON. I do remember speaking about a single case that

was relayed to me by Bill Newell, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can you give us some specifics of what it was you

related?

Mr. MCMAHON. What was told to me was we were working an

operation at a gun show. Our agents observed someone that looked

suspicious pushing a baby carriage with a couple of long guns in

it. They followed her out to the parking lot where she actually

transferred that to an individual, and our agents saw a transfer of

money. We had other agents follow the car that had the guns now

out of the parking lot, pulled him over, did a traffic stop, identified

him as a multiple convicted felon with not only the two guns this

woman gave him, but also a third gun. We also confronted the

woman, and she confessed that she was paid to purchase these

weapons. I believe it was a Saturday or Sunday when this happened. Bill relayed to me that it was presented to the duty agent

in Phoenix, and they suggested that we take the case to State

court.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I’m going to yield back to the ranking member at this point in

time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Chairman ISSA. We will ask that you also have another 30 seconds.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Special Agent Newell, I want to go back to something the chairman asked you, because I want to make—I want us to be real

clear, and this is for the benefit of the entire committee.

I’ve got a—I’m trying to figure out what your definition of ‘‘walking guns’’ is. Maybe that’s part of the problem. I think we—because

I think almost everybody up here has our opinion about this, and

I’m just wondering if there’s a difference between your definition

of walking—allowing guns to walk and ours.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to answer that.

My definition of walking, and I believe it’s the common law enforcement term, is when a law enforcement agency, be it ATF, be

it DEA, be it a State and local agency, actually puts some sort of

evidence into the hands of a suspect in furtherance of an undercover operation, in furtherance of an investigation, and then does

nothing with that property. That property, for instance, with ATF

it can be a prop gun, one of our evidence guns. You put it in the

hands of that suspect and then don’t take—don’t do the follow-up,

don’t attempt to determine where that gun is going.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you don’t think there was any walking allowed in this based on that definition in this case?

Mr. NEWELL. Based on that definition, yes, sir.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from Arizona Mr. Gosar for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Newell, one of my colleagues on the other side brought it up

about new laws. Now, I want to emphasize, it wasn’t the gun sales

operator. And let me emphasize that again. It wasn’t, was it, because they were alarmingly bringing forth these sales; were they

not?

Mr. NEWELL. I’m sorry, Congressman.

Mr. GOSAR. Oh, here we go again.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, I didn’t understand.

Mr. GOSAR. It seems like this is the Moe, Curly and Larry show,

and we’re looking for Larry. I mean, it’s disruptive to actually see

what I’m seeing here. As a business person coming from Main

Street America to actually see what I’m seeing here, you’ve got to

be disgusted about this. And to go round and round the corner, it’s

ridiculous.

Agent Canino, I watch your body language. I’m a health care

physician.

Mr. CANINO. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOSAR. I watch body language like crazy. Tell me what you

disagree with that man right there.

Mr. CANINO. On this specific case?

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. Talking about records. Let’s talk about records.

Are there adequate records being kept?

Mr. CANINO. At the FFLs?

Mr. GOSAR. Yes.

Mr. CANINO. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOSAR. And how they relate between the sale of these guns

and Mexico.

Mr. CANINO. I think ATF does a great job in regulating the firearms industry.

Mr. GOSAR. But in this case in tracking, were they actually able

to track them? They had no idea where they were going, did they?

Mr. CANINO. No, sir. The reason—you’ve got to put this in context. Everybody is saying, oh, this case was so big, it was complicated. Firearms-trafficking cases are not complicated, sir, okay?

They’re not complicated. The reason this case was so big was because we didn’t do anything, plain and simple. Everybody wants to

make this bigger than it is.

Like I said earlier, you don’t have to—I spent 19 years, 15 as a

street agent, 4 leading a street group, okay? You don’t have the

luxury or the right, in my opinion, as an ATF agent to say, I like

this law, I like that law, okay? That’s you guys set the law; we follow it. Now, it’s up to me as an ATF agent how best to make up

an investigative technique and best practices so I can make a case

and present it to the U.S. attorney. I’ve done my job. Now it’s up

to the U.S. attorney if he wants to prosecute it or not. I’m going

to bring him the best case I can.

In this case, like I said earlier, we have the ATF trafficking

guidelines and best practices, and we just threw it out the window.

Nobody got stopped. Like I said earlier, how can you let somebody
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buy 730 guns, and at what point are you going to stop them? I

mean, I am embarrassed, sir. I have agents, guys who I consider

American heroes, my friends, who I never thought I would hear

this, who they’ve told me since this broke, Carlos, I’m ashamed to

carry an ATF badge, to me. I have cried over that literally, and I’m

unashamed to say that. This is not a job to me, it’s a profession.

I don’t have a hobby. My hobby is being an ATF agent. I love this

job. I hit the lottery when I came on. And I’m proud of what I do,

and I’m proud of the ATF agents in this country. We have heroes,

we really do. But—and I’ve been watching your body language, too,

and Mr. Burton’s. I’m sorry, sir, but that’s all I could say. I have

no other way to describe this.

Mr. GOSAR. Well, I mean, I look at this, and I look at—you know,

when we’re doing medical procedures, we look at what’s our end

game and what’s all the processes in between, and there’s collateral

damage. And the problem is that collateral damages are crimes,

and there are going to be deaths like we just saw, and there are

going to be many more. And they’re on this side, and they’re on

that side. And do you know what that tells me? That tells me that

when you were in this planning stage, we’ve got a problem. It’s not

on the field, it’s right there in the office, in the head office coming

up with this. This was absurd to even have this idea. And to hear

this merry-go-round bantering back and around where we can’t get

an answer from Mr. Newell, I mean, the buck stops to somebody.

Who is it? It’s obviously to me. It’s not these two gentlemen right

here.

I want to find out who Larry is. That’s where we’re going to have

to go with this. But this is absurd. And the fact that we used people’s lives and their—and our friends from Mexico as pawns in this

without even discussing it, how absurd. It’s reprehensible to even

conceive of what’s transpired here. And I hope the buck stops, and

I hope you take accountability all the way through, because this

can’t go on again. This is—I mean, both sides of the aisle are furious, and the American people ought to be furious at you. If this is

what you would get for higher ups in ATF or the Department of

Justice, shame on you.

And I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from Virginia for his 5 minutes, Mr.

Connolly.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I’m sure all of

our panelists are so pleased to be here today.

I guess I have a slightly different take on the subject. I don’t defend Fast and Furious, and I don’t defend the actions of the U.S.

Attorney’s Office at the time in Phoenix, and I certainly believe

that it was a botched attempt that led to a tragedy, perhaps many

tragedies. And I think this committee and this chairman are right

to raise those issues and to try to assign blame.

But there’s another part of the story I doubt very much the press

will print in tomorrow’s headlines, because it’s so much easier to

print who screamed the loudest at ATF and that you got beat up.

But what the press won’t print tomorrow, sadly, is the fact that

Congress’ hands are hardly clean on this subject. We have done everything to make sure that the ‘‘F’’ in ‘‘ATF’’ is nullified. We have
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made sure that you haven’t got a permanent Director for 6 years.

We laud the private sector. What private company would think it’s

okay to lack a permanent CEO for 6 years? We have done everything in our power in Congress to try to defang the ATF to make

sure that it’s toothless. We’ve done everything we can to fight your

budget and reduce it so that you don’t have the resources to do the

job. We’re not criticizing you for not doing well. We had testimony

before this committee by one of your colleagues called by the committee majority who said there are more New York police officers

per square mile in New York than there are ATF agents in all of

the State of Arizona, and yet somehow we’re going to stop the hemorrhaging of arms trafficking going into Mexico with that kind of

paltry set of resources. But that won’t be in the headline tomorrow.

Some of the loudest critics of ATF today are also on a bill misnamed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Enforcement

Act. What does that bill do? It allows firearms dealers to liquidate

their inventories after having their arms dealer license revoked,

and would decriminalize gun sale recordkeeping violations even if

they contributed to cross-border gun trafficking. How does that

help ATF and its mission? Where is the accountability here in Congress on this subject?

It’s easy to beat up on you, it’s easy to look for a scapegoat when

the agenda really is to make sure that we make it harder, not easier, to enforce gun trafficking. We had testimony from one of your

colleagues before this committee who said there’s more regulation

on over-the-counter Sudafed than there is in arms trafficking going

into Mexico. And he testified, and was interrupted in this testimony because it wasn’t welcome, that he believed we needed to

toughen enforcement laws as a tool for ATF to be able to fulfill its

mission along the border.

So I have no doubt that we can all pile on, and correctly, criticizing ATF for a botched mission. But what isn’t said, and sadly

what the press isn’t going to bother to write about, but they should,

is the fact that Congress for 6 long years and maybe longer has

done everything in its power to make sure, in fact, you can’t do

your job. And this set of hearings needs to explore that, too.

With that I yield back the balance of my time to the ranking

member.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. There is no currently no Federal statute that

criminalizes firearms trafficking. Instead traffickers are often prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. Section 922, which prohibits engaging in

firearms business without a license. The need for a Federal firearms trafficking statute was also a common refrain of law enforcement agents interviewed by the committee, as Mr. Connolly said.

They told us that a dedicated firearms trafficking statute would

give them the ability to address patterns of activity by traffickers

who divert firearms from legal to illegal commerce.

Mr. Leadmon, based on your decades in law enforcement, do you

believe a Federal firearms trafficking statute would be helpful in

disrupting the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir. I have viewed your proposed legislation.

I agreed with it wholeheartedly. One of the things I think that

might be added to that is a little more emphasis on international

trafficking. Maybe we can tighten it up a little bit as far as going

to drug cartels. I, too, think that if you reach a certain amount of

weapons, that can even be a life offense.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from Texas Mr. Farenthold, also a

Member who went to Mexico City.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to take a moment to address something I heard, before I asked the questions, from the other side. They were talking

about how much more difficult it is and how much more regulated

the purchase of Sudafed is. I don’t see anywhere in the Constitution where we’re guaranteed the right to bear Sudafed, but we are

guaranteed the right to bear arms. So I think that is an inappropriate distinction.

Mr. McMahon, when my friend the former prosecutor, the gentleman from South Carolina, asked you what the goal of this was,

you said that it was to bring down a drug kingpin in Mexico. Is

that a fair assessment?

Mr. MCMAHON. Did I say that, sir?

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I’m sorry, I guess that was Mr. Newell.

Did you say that, Mr. Newell.

Mr. NEWELL. I believe what I said was the goal of the investigation was to disrupt and dismantle an entire firearms-trafficking

network, yes, sir.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And so I believe you said a drug kingpin.

Let me ask Mr. Gil—and to identify some drug kingpins. Let me

ask Mr. Gil, does the Mexican Government know who the drug

kingpins are in Mexico?

Mr. GIL. Sir, they are aware of the heads of the organizations.

To answer your question shortly, yes.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And so let me go ahead and ask you another

question there, Mr. Gil. In your time working with the Mexican

Government as a former ATF attache in Mexico, did they ever ask

us to do anything like that; you know, you let guns come across the

border so they could track them or find or bring down government

king—or drug kingpins?

Mr. GIL. No, sir.
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Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Let me go on to Mr. Canino. I want

to applaud your service and your candor with this committee.

We’ve heard that we’re trying to bring down the drug kingpins, or

whatever the words were, as far as stop the trafficking. If you were

put in charge of developing an investigation to do that, how would

you do that? Would your plan involve letting firearms move across

the border, or how would you do it?

Mr. CANINO. To stop a drug kingpin?

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Or if you want to go even more simply with

the firearms, stop the firearms trafficking?

Mr. CANINO. Well, to stop a drug kingpin, I would call DEA because that’s what they do, number one. Number two, you work the

traffic investigations paint by the numbers. It’s frustrating to be an

ATF agent. That comes with the badge, okay? Trafficking investigations, the laws, like I said, you have to be open-minded, I guess

is the word I’m looking for. I don’t know if that’s the best description.

But like I said, it’s paint by the numbers. You have to work—

it’s like building a house. You start building a foundation; you work

from the bottom up. In this case nobody got stopped. They didn’t

grab somebody and say, okay, hey, we’re going to roll you. And I

don’t want to get into sources and methods, but there’s a whole—

you know, we have schools on this.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. If you watch a cop show, you know how it’s

done.

Mr. CANINO. Right.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You follow the guns, or you arrest them at the

first stop and try to flip them both. Or if you really want to partner

with the Mexican Government, you follow the guns until it crosses

the border and radio across to your colleagues in Mexico, and they

move it up the line there. It seems like common sense to me.

Let me ask—I want to ask this question to everybody on the

panel, because I think this is really important. We’ve seen Operation Fast and Furious. We’ve recently heard about Operation

Castaway, a similar program in Florida. Are any of you all aware

at this time of any similar operations going on that allow guns to

flow across the border to friendly countries now? Are you all aware

of those, and if you are, are we doing anything to stop them? And

if you could just come on down the line. We’ll start with Mr.

McMahon.

Mr. MCMAHON. I am not aware of any case like that of friendly

or unfriendly government, no.

Mr. NEWELL. Neither am I, sir.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Is anybody?

Mr. LEADMON. No.

Mr. CANINO. No, sir. I’m unaware of any.

Mr. WALL. No, sir.

Mr. GIL. No, sir.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And we only found out about this one through

whistleblowers. And my prayer is that if there is anybody watching

this committee hearing, ATF or another agency, that knows of

something going on like this, that they let this committee know

about it. This is one of the most shameful moments, I think, in our
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government’s history when we are letting guns go across the border

to our friends in Mexico.

Let me just ask another—I only have 32 seconds left. I’m going

to stick around for a second round of questioning, so I’ll yield back

my remaining 30 seconds.

Chairman ISSA. And I’ll pick it up.

Special Agent Newell, what did this program expend in money;

millions of dollars, right?

Mr. NEWELL. The program or the network?

Chairman ISSA. Well, Fast and Furious. Up on this side we think

of it as a program, you think of it as a simple investigation. The

investigation, you spent millions of dollars over the course of 2

years, correct?

Mr. NEWELL. I don’t believe it was millions of dollars, sir.

Chairman ISSA. Hundreds of thousands?

Mr. NEWELL. Probably a couple hundred thousand dollars, yes,

sir.

Chairman ISSA. Agents were camped out in some cases for a period of time at a drop location?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. So when you were trying to do the big hit, the

big fix, the big get the roll big guys, why is it that testimony shows

us that only three times were there any kind of detection plants?

And I don’t want to get into sources and methods either, but only

three times we have been told that they tried to do any detection,

and one of these, GPS tracking, was a Radio Shack make-it-yourself. Why in the world would the quality and the quantity of agents

and time, video cameras planted with Internet connections, etc.,

why is it there wasn’t some tracking to track the weapons?

Mr. NEWELL. We had trackers on vehicles, sir. We had the trackers you mentioned on weapons. But again, it goes to resources. I

mean, it’s resources. We have agents that are out there working

16-, 18-, 20-hour days.

Chairman ISSA. Unfortunately you have just made my case, and

time has expired. Eighteen hours of an agent’s time is so much

more money than one of these tracking devices that you were

penny wise and pound foolish by not having sophisticated devices.

With that we go to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia

for her 5 minutes. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Well, suppose you had had a tracking device. Then

what would have been the next step?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, ma’am, it depends on how long the firearms

stayed in the area. For instance, many of the—in many of the

transactions here, the firearms never left the Phoenix area, and

trackers, the battery life of a tracker is only good depending on——

Ms. NORTON. So if it didn’t leave the Phoenix area, what could

you charge this so-called trafficker? This law-abiding citizen who

doesn’t have a record, but he’s buying many, many guns, what

could you charge him with?

Mr. NEWELL. There’s nothing to charge him with at that point.

We have to prove a violation has existed, has occurred.

Ms. NORTON. I just want to say, to sit in a hearing and hear people beat up on the ATF is very, very interesting to me. You sit in

a Congress where the gun lobby controls the Congress of the
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United States. On the Republican side of the aisle, they’re totally

controlling; on my side of the aisle, they are virtually controlling.

And the Second Amendment is cited as you try to do your job to

keep guns from essentially bringing down the government of an

ally.

So when it comes to Mexico, let me ask you, what kind of gun

control laws does Mexico have? Any of you know about their gun

control laws? Yes, sir.

Mr. CANINO. Yes, ma’am, I do.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, sir. Would you speak up?

Mr. CANINO. Civilians could buy nothing greater than a .38-caliber. Anything after that is for the exclusive use of the military and

the police.

Ms. NORTON. So here is Mexico who does its job on its side of

the border. It says—essentially it makes it very difficult for anyone

except someone in law enforcement or the military to get a gun. So

they come to the United States where trafficking is wide open.

Let me ask you this: We are concentrating on Mexico now. Let

me ask you about trafficking to Chicago. Let me ask you about

trafficking to the District of Columbia, to Baltimore. Let me ask

you about trafficking to L.A. Do these same traffickers operate as

effectively in our country as we have now seen them operate taking

guns to Mexico?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, I believe that the organizations are a little

bit different. That’s why I said earlier about we’ve never encountered an organization like this for Mexico. Trafficking in the United

States, my experience anyway, is a little bit different. It’s a little

bit more association-related. But obviously trafficking domestically

is a major issue for us. And I spent the majority of my career working those kind of cases.

Ms. NORTON. If a person, let’s say, buys 200 guns, and here you

made mistakes. If I had a dollar for every mistake this Congress

has made when it came to guns, I would be a very rich woman.

You made a mistake. It was a fatal mistake, it was a mistake for

which you are being held accountable. Let’s say you hadn’t made

a mistake, that someone without a record bought guns. That’s me.

You found me with 200 guns. What could you do to me?

Mr. MCMAHON. Nothing at all, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Did you feel disarmed in your fight against this

wholesale movement of guns from our country to Mexico, or did you

feel you were equipped to, in fact, by law enforcement to do what

was necessary?

Mr. MCMAHON. I think in my experience, ATF agents are very

resilient. You have to be to make the case. And that’s what our

people do. And they do that every day, and they’re out there doing

that today.

Ms. NORTON. And they may design tactics to try to make them—

to make themselves more effective on the ground?

Mr. MCMAHON. I think that’s what we should always be doing,

yes.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask each of you, would you feel better able

to stop this traffic if the Congress passed a law that made it and

added to our Criminal Code a section that prohibited the transfer

of a gun when an individual knows the gun will be transferred to
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a person who is prohibited from carrying a gun or intends to actually use the gun illegally?

Mr. MCMAHON. We currently do have a statute that does handle

that. That’s the whole ‘‘lying on the Federal form’’ violation.

Ms. NORTON. But lying on the Federal form gets you to where?

Mr. MCMAHON. Gets us to—if we can prove that someone knowingly filled out that form incorrectly or lied——

Ms. NORTON. Can you seize guns? We’ve been talking about seizures here. In order to seize guns, what does the ATF have to

show?

Mr. MCMAHON. That a violation of law is committed with that

firearm.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time is expired, but if anyone

else wants to answer the question——

Ms. NORTON. What’s the law that’s been violated?

Chairman ISSA. If anyone else wants to answer.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that that firearm

was somehow used in the violation of a—furtherance in violation

of a crime or in violation of a crime. We can’t just go out and randomly seize firearms from individuals. Firearm are in themselves

not contraband. If we stop someone on the street with 5 AKs, 10

AKs, 20 AK–47s——

Ms. NORTON. Or 100 AKs.

Mr. NEWELL [continuing]. Or 100, and they’re not prohibited, as

frustrating as that may be, and believe me it is extremely frustrating, but as frustrating as that may be, we may not have any

legal ability to take those—to seize those firearms.

Chairman ISSA. Does anyone else want to answer that? Mr. Gil.

Mr. GIL. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

In my experience, and as I look around the room here, I’ve had

the opportunity to work in pretty much every State of the Union,

and I’ve always been able to use the current laws to success in investigations. Whether you’re pulling somebody over with 100 AK–

47s, I found that ATF special agents are very qualified in interviewing techniques; 99.9 percent of the time we’ll get confessions

from those individuals, we’ll take those guns. And if not that case,

then we would at least end up getting an abandonment from them

for those weapons so they don’t hit the streets.

So there are other avenues to approach versus—that we could

use under the current laws.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

We now go to the most qualified person on the committee to ask

questions, the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr. Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Special Agent, you’re a trained special agent for ATF. Are you

trained in the issue of walking guns?

Mr. CANINO. No, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. With regard to walking guns, when you are in

training, what do you know about—what does ATF tell you about

walking guns?

Mr. CANINO. You don’t walk guns. Sir, I teach at the ATF National Academy, I teach at our first-line supervisor school, I teach

at our command-and-control school for GS–15s and above.
86

Mr. MEEHAN. Are you aware of anybody who has been disciplined

for walking a gun in ATF?

Mr. CANINO. No, sir. But Darren was talking to me last night

and put it in perspective. If you’re an ATF agent, and you lose your

gun, it’s 3 days, no questions asked, up to termination on the circumstance if you lose your gun.

Mr. MEEHAN. If you lose your gun.

Mr. CANINO. If it was your gun, it’s 3 days.

Mr. MEEHAN. What do you define as walking a gun?

Mr. CANINO. What exactly happened in this case.

Mr. MEEHAN. In your words what do you think walking a gun

is?

Mr. CANINO. Walking a gun is when you have custody and control of that firearm, and you let it get in the hands of a suspect,

and you don’t interdict that suspect. In this case we had cooperators at the gun stores, so they’re acting as agents of the government. So it doesn’t matter if those guns came out of an ATF prop

vault or——

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Agent Newell, is that what you meant when you said that if ATF

puts evidence into the hands of the gun—or into the hands of a

suspect, there’s a distinction somehow between a straw purchaser

getting it or ATF putting it? Please explain to me what you talk—

what you meant by the distinction of ATF putting it in the hands

of a suspect.

Mr. NEWELL. The distinction for me, Congressman, is that it’s

ATF actually putting evidence or some sort of prop firearm in the

hands of a suspect.

Mr. MEEHAN. So that’s a distinction from a straw purchaser who

goes and under your observation?

Mr. NEWELL. In that aspect, yes, sir, it is.

Mr. MEEHAN. So you’re suggesting here that the distinction is because you did not put the hand—the gun in the hands of the purchaser here, that somehow there’s a distinction from allowing a

gun to walk?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, Congressman, I disagree with something Mr.

Canino just said regarding the fact that the FFLs were acting as

agents of the government. My recollection of this case, two FFLs

in particular were clearly instructed as to follow the letter of the

law, to abide by the rules and regulations.

Mr. MEEHAN. Let’s move on because that’s a distinction. The

strategy. You were asked a specific question who defined the strategy for Fast and Furious?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, a case like Fast and Furious goes through

several levels of approval, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. Who originated the strategy for Fast and Furious?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe it was at the street level.

Mr. MEEHAN. Tell me who the person is who created the strategy

for Fast and Furious? You are the special agent in charge of your

area. It emanated from your district.

Mr. NEWELL. Right.

Mr. MEEHAN. Who originated the concept for Fast and Furious?
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Mr. NEWELL. Sir, it’s not one person who did that, it was a group

of individuals who looked at the set of facts in this case and determined that this was the best strategy to follow to take——

Mr. MEEHAN. Where did it start? Where does the stream start?

Mr. NEWELL. It starts——

Mr. MEEHAN. Tell me who participated in that conclusion.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, it’s several individuals. It was a group supervisor, assistant special agent in charge, myself and individuals in

headquarters.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. So there were a number of people who were

very learned in this process. Now, you testified here today earlier

no part in the strategy to allow guns to be taken to Mexico. It was

no part in the strategy to allow guns to be taken to Mexico; is that

right?

Mr. NEWELL. To knowingly allow guns to go to Mexico, yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. To knowingly allow guns to go to Mexico.

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, in this case we did everything. We had seizures

in this case. When we had evidence——

Mr. MEEHAN. I asked you a specific question. I said that there

was no part in the strategy to allow guns to go to Mexico; is that

accurate?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. Would Mr. McMahon have participated in any way

in the development of this policy or this the Fast and Furious strategy?

Mr. NEWELL. I know he was aware of it, yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. He was aware of it.

Mr. McMahon, you testified a plaza boss. He has $70,000, he wants $70,000 worth of guns. What’s a plaza boss?

Mr. MCMAHON. It’s someone who controls an area for a cartel.

Mr. MEEHAN. And where is that plaza boss?

Mr. MCMAHON. In Mexico.

Mr. MEEHAN. So you testified that part of the theory here, your words, is the plaza boss expects $70,000 worth of weapons.

Mr. MCMAHON. Correct.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Newell, the strategy Mr. McMahon identifies that you expect, you understand that he expects $70,000 worth of

weapons, where does that get in that there was no part in the

strategy to allow guns to be taken to Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. We still—during the beginning parts of

this case, we did not know who the plaza boss was. We didn’t know

who——

Mr. MEEHAN. That’s not my question about who the plaza boss

was. The question is is there a plaza boss? Agent McMahon just

said he’s in Mexico.

Mr. NEWELL. Right.

Mr. MEEHAN. And the plaza boss expects $70,000 worth of guns.

Now you’re saying no part of this strategy was allow the guns to

go into Mexico. Who is right here?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, the strategy wasn’t to allow guns to go to Mexico.

Mr. MEEHAN. But what did Agent McMahon just say? This was

an OCDETF case.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.
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Mr. MEEHAN. Who else participated in this, in the form of this

going up the chain——

Chairman ISSA. I ask unanimous consent the gentleman be allowed to have another 30 seconds.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Was this an OCDETF case?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, it was.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. That implies that at a certain point in time,

it moves beyond your agency; does it not?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. What does that mean with regard to OCDETF?

What kind of other participants were there as part of OCDETF?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, there are other agencies who are involved in

this.

Mr. MEEHAN. Other agencies. What other agencies were involved

in this?

Mr. NEWELL. In this investigation, they were full partners in this

case, was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, now known

as Homeland Security Investigations; we had Internal Revenue

Service; and we had assistance to some level from DEA.

Mr. MEEHAN. So are you saying DEA, IRS and ICE all knew

about this program to participate in the OCDETF?

Mr. NEWELL. They participated in the investigation, yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. In the investigation. Were they aware that guns

were being walked to Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, again, I’m assuming that they—I mean, I know

they would know of the strategy.

Mr. MEEHAN. They were aware of the strategy?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. Which included what Special Agent McMahon

talked about, allowing $70,000 worth of guns to go to the plaza

boss?

Mr. MCMAHON. Sir, I never said that we were allowing $70,000

worth of guns to go on.

Mr. MEEHAN. You said it was the expectation.

Mr. MCMAHON. I was giving a scenario of how it works. There’s

a plaza boss in Mexico that’s requiring $70,000 worth of guns. So

if he’s not getting it from the network we’re investigating, he’s getting it from somewhere else. It wasn’t—the $70,000 example I gave

you wasn’t specific to this investigation, it was an over-real generalization of how trafficking to Mexico works.

Mr. MEEHAN. But we’re talking about plaza bosses, we’re talking

about plaza bosses in Mexico.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. We are going

to have a second round in just a moment.

The gentlelady from New York Ms. Buerkle.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m uncertain as to where to start here because of what I’ve

heard. I think that I’ll start with Mr. Canino.

Mr. Canino, your comments were that it’s inconceivable to let

guns go, it’s not the way the ATF does things. So in your experience is what happened in Operation Fast and Furious an aberration from the usual way that ATF does business?
89

Mr. CANINO. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of anything

like this in 20—I start my 22nd year on Friday. This is the first

time I’ve heard anything like this.

Ms. BUERKLE. And during the course of this operation, were you

advised that there was going to be—at one point did you become

aware that there was going to be a different method of operation?

Mr. CANINO. Ma’am, I need to put this in context. I didn’t—the

first time I ever heard of someone accusing ATF agents of actually

watching suspected gun traffickers just drive away was when Special Agent Dodson was on CBS. I had—and I didn’t believe them,

and I was very vocal about that. I didn’t become aware until it

started coming out little by little, talking to fellow agents. And

then mid-April I saw some documents, and that convinced me that

what Special Agent Dodson was alleging was, in fact, correct.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you.

And the other special agents that are here, Mr. Gil, Mr. Wall,

Mr. Leadmon, in your experience is this the first time you’ve ever

seen ATF operate this way?

Mr. GIL. Again, I recently retired. And after—going on 23-plus

years. It’s inconceivable. And again, I didn’t believe it even after

seeing Mr. Dodson as well. And I still didn’t believe it until after

I talked with Mr. Dodson and others that then I became convinced

that perhaps ATF did walk these weapons.

Ms. BUERKLE. And Mr. Wall.

Mr. WALL. As I stated in my opening remarks, yes, it’s the first

time I have ever seen it. And I was very skeptical. I didn’t believe

Mr. Dodson at all.

Ms. BUERKLE. And Mr. Leadmon.

Mr. LEADMON. Ma’am, part of my duties and functions is to look

at the southwest border cases, all of them, and this is the first one

I’ve seen.

I would like to add something that the panel was asking earlier.

You asked when we first became aware that Mr. Acosta, right, was

involved as the leader of the straw purchasing ring and some of the

other issues as to Mr. Patino. That was in 2009, and it was early

on. I briefed it to my senior directors January 2010. And we know

this, and one of the driving forces behind how we know that these

were going to Mexico and there were Mexico people involved is because our other law enforcement partners provided us with information, specific information, that allowed us to know exactly what

was going on and to what cartel it was going to. This was not a

mystery. We knew this in December 2009. I briefed it in 2010, January.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you, sir.

So, Special Agent Newell and Special Agent McMahon, we’ll get

to you because you’re his supervisor. So at some point, based on the

IG’s report and DOJ, they said, we’re going to try something different here. I’m assuming, because that’s the way things work in

government, and maybe I’m wrong, that someone said, we need to

have this operation, and we’re going to make a determination that

for the first time ATF is going to conduct business this way, we’re

going to let these guns walk. Now, maybe he didn’t say it, but in

essence that’s really what happened, because this is a different way

of conducting business with ATF.
90

Where would that plan have come from? Somebody—and I know

you said you sat down with this group, Mr. Newell, but somebody

higher up than you made a determination that for the first time

ATF was going to run this. We’ve heard from this panel, we’ve

heard from the panel prior to today that this is a complete aberration from the way ATF has done business. Where would that have

come from?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, ma’am, in putting a strategy together for this

case, the strategy came from several places. The Department of

Justice issued originally in a draft in 2009, October 2009, and January 2010 about how to combat southwest border drug trafficking

by Mexican drug cartels, and one of them dealt with firearms trafficking, which said through use of the OCDETF colocated strike

forces, mere interdiction is not the answer; you have to go after the

structure of the organization of the—whatever it be, firearms,

human, drug-trafficking organization to make the biggest impact.

Ms. BUERKLE. Okay. And who would that memo have come from?

Mr. NEWELL. I do believe that memo came down from the Deputy

Attorney General’s Office.

Ms. BUERKLE. And then—so this is now we’re going to change

strategy. This is going to be a different way to conduct an operation. So you get your directive from them. And then these groups

that you talked about, you sat down and you came up with a plan,

or did that plan come from up on high?

Mr. NEWELL. The plan figured into—or the memo figured into

how we were going to address this. When we first looked at it in

November 2009, it was already a very active, prolific firearms-trafficking organization, as Mr. McMahon testified. In my 23 years we

have never seen an organization that was this prolific in buying

firearms in such a short period of time. So we felt that at that

time, in conjunction with the OCDETF Strike Force where this

Group VII was located, that the best way to attack this organization was through the use of a multiagency, conspiratorial-type investigation would dismantle the whole organization.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time is expired.

We now go to the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Amash.

Mr. AMASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to yield my

time to Mr. Gowdy.

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Leadmon, for those who are perhaps watching and not familiar with the full panoply of investigative techniques, surveillance is

a tried and true investigative technique, correct?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. What about consensual encounters where you just

do a knock and talk, where you walk up to somebody and ask

them? There’s a reason Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment,

there’s a reason Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Tell-Tale Heart. Sometimes people confess, don’t they?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir. There’s several tools in the toolbox, especially when you’re faced with the fact that we know that these

weapons are going to be used in such carnage down in Mexico and

the United States. We should have pulled every tool out of that

toolbox, not just to make our case. Our case should not have been

the priority here. The stopping the flow of those firearms should
91

have been the number one priority. And we should have reached

into that toolbox, we should have conducted interviews, or we

should have done interviews to surrounding people. We should

have tracked these weapons better. We should have followed everything by the letter to stop them. I mean, just where do we stop

with the number of guns; 1, 5, 10?

Mr. GOWDY. Have you ever heard tell of a law enforcement officer stopping someone for speeding when really they may have had

another purpose in mind?

Mr. LEADMON. I have heard that——

Mr. GOWDY. It happens from time to time, doesn’t it? Crossing

the yellow line?

Mr. LEADMON. Sooner or later you are going to make a mistake.

Mr. GOWDY. Exactly. And when you do a lawful, nonpretextual

car stop, it also opens up a full panoply of other search options,

right, like searching the vehicle or a pat-down?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes.

Mr. GOWDY. How about a proffer? Is that in your toolbox to go

to a U.S. attorney and say, I would like to proffer this person, I

would like to send them a grand jury subpoena?

Mr. LEADMON. Correct.

Mr. GOWDY. It’s the same way you conduct every other investigation other than this one, right?

Mr. LEADMON. Correct.

Mr. GOWDY. From shoplifting to murder, we do them all the

same way except this one?

Mr. LEADMON. Correct.

Mr. GOWDY. Special Agent Newell, I happen to think this was illconceived from its inception. You have testified repeatedly that the

purpose was to destroy and dismantle drug cartels. So I’m going to

ask you again, how would this ever have succeeded? What was

your purpose? How would we have known, hey, this was a great

investigation, it succeeded?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, you said to disrupt a dug cartel. The purpose

of this investigation was to disrupt and dismantle a firearms-trafficking organization that was feeding firearms——

Mr. GOWDY. In Mexico.

Mr. NEWELL. In the United States. A firearms trafficking organization in the United States. Not only the straw purchasers; the

middlemen, the transporters, the financiers.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, then, when the guns were going into Mexico,

you should have known that this was an abject failure, because

that’s not what you wanted, right?

Mr. NEWELL. Absolutely. We didn’t want any guns.

Mr. GOWDY. So when you found out the first gun went into Mexico, why did you not abort the investigation?

Mr. NEWELL. Because we were still putting the facts together to

be able to convict all——

Mr. GOWDY. When is the very first time you knew or should have

known that firearms were going to Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, I believe it was when I got the—when we got

the first traces, I was advised of the first traces, which I believe

was November 2009.

Mr. GOWDY. 2009. And when did you abort the investigation?
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Mr. NEWELL. The investigation is ongoing, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Right. That’s my point. So you knew the weapons

were going to Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Right.

Mr. GOWDY. Were you at some point going to let Special Agent

Canino know about it?

Mr. NEWELL. Mr. Canino knew about the investigation.

Mr. GOWDY. He knew that weapons were going into Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, absolutely, yes.

Mr. GOWDY. When were you going to let your Mexican counterparts know about it?

Mr. NEWELL. I’m assuming they knew that firearms—because I

have—you know, sir, one of the issues about that is there’s only

one field division in this country, only one, that has a PGR representative in it. That’s the Mexican Department of Justice. In all

my years of working with Mexico—I spent 4 years in Bogota, Colombia, representing ATF in South America. I am very, very, very

key on the fact that we need to share information with our foreign

law enforcement partners.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you testified earlier that you were going to

turn the information over to Mexican prosecutors and let them

prosecute. Because I asked you were you also going to allow U.S.

law enforcement officers to be extradited to Mexico for breaking

their law, and you said no. So my question to you is this: How in

the world are you going to get our brothers and sisters in law enforcement to trust—why would you trust the prosecution if you

don’t trust them during the investigation?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, to answer your question about the drug cartel,

the kingpin, or—in your words, the kingpin that we’re going to get

the guns in Mexico, we did not have information until late in this

case, an ongoing part of this case, who that individual was. And I

invited with Mr. Canino, we invited in December 2010, as well as

in January, Mexican prosecutors to come in. And I don’t think

that’s ever been done before. And I’m the one that requested it.

Mr. GOWDY. Did you debrief them on Fast and Furious?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. GOWDY. Did you tell them the guns were going into Mexico?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, yes.

Mr. GOWDY. You told them when?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, my PGR representative that I have in my office who has been there for 2 years knew about this case, not in

specifics.

Mr. GOWDY. When the first gun showed up in Mexico that you

knew was from Phoenix, the first one that was connected to this

showed up in Mexico, did you go interview the straw purchaser?

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir, we did not.

Mr. GOWDY. Why not?

Mr. NEWELL. Because, again, our strategy was that we, knowing

from years of experience, you take off one straw purchaser, you’re

not having an effect on the greater organization, which is at that

point—in November 2009 you have to realize it wasn’t——

Mr. GOWDY. Have you ever flipped a cooperating witness before?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, I have.
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Mr. GOWDY. How do you do it without asking them? How do you

do it without interviewing him?

Mr. NEWELL. It depends on what your goals in investigation are.

Mr. GOWDY. Your goal is to bring down an organization. It’s very

compelling testimony to have someone from within the organization

testify against his comrades, right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. So why didn’t you go—why didn’t you approach him?

Mr. NEWELL. Approach who, sir, the one straw purchaser?

Mr. GOWDY. Yes, the straw purchaser.

Mr. NEWELL. Again, the goal, sir, in this case was to take out the

whole organization. We felt that by just trying to flip one straw

purchaser, if he, in fact, did flip, it would not affect the overall

goal.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. We’ll have a

second round.

We now go to the gentleman from Idaho Mr. Labrador.

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Special Agent Canino, I just think I just heard Special Agent

Newell say that you knew about this gun walking. Can you

please——

Mr. CANINO. Yes, sir. I want to make it perfectly clear to you,

the American people, the Mexican Government, my family, my

friends, at no time ever did I know that ATF agents were following

known suspected gun traffickers, one of which bought 700 guns,

and we knew about his guns showing up in Mexico 6 weeks after

we opened up that investigation—never, ever would I imagine that

we were letting that happen. We have 4,000 investigations, plus or

minus, with a Mexico-U.S. nexus. There are guns coming in. That’s

trafficking, that guns are coming into Mexico. I had no clue that

we were allowing these guys to operate like this.

Like Mr. Gowdy said, there was no interdiction to start any case.

You have to—you have a toolbox. We have classes. Jose Wall teaches those trafficking classes. I’ve been to them. It’s like building a

house. You start from the bottom, and you try to work your way

up, you know. At one point you’re only going to reach so far. And

then you come in and you have a meeting and you say, okay, how

can we advance this? You meet with the U.S. attorney. From what

I see here, none of this was done, or if it was, it wasn’t very effective.

Mr. LABRADOR. So when did you first realize that the gun-walking allegations were true?

Mr. CANINO. April.

Mr. LABRADOR. Of this year?

Mr. CANINO. Yes. April—I mean, I was starting to lean that way,

and then I was at ATF bureau headquarters in April for a meeting,

and I sat down with Mr. Leadmon, and he convinced me.

Mr. LABRADOR. Did you come across any specific evidence to

prove that ATF had taken part in these actions?

Mr. CANINO. One more time. Sorry.

Mr. LABRADOR. Did you come across any specific evidence to

prove that ATF had taken part in these actions?
94

Mr. CANINO. Well, from the totality of the circumstances, and

then speaking with different agents and speaking with Mr.

Leadmon, yeah. And, you know, the guns showing up in Mexico.

Mr. LABRADOR. Did you review any documents or anything?

Mr. CANINO. You know, sir, when I visited Mr. Leadmon, I saw—

I took a look at the management log, and if I read it correctly,

there are three instances in the first two pages where we walk

away from guns. At that point I was so disgusted, I didn’t even

want to look at the case file anymore.

Mr. LABRADOR. And when was that?

Mr. CANINO. That was in mid-April or so of this year.

Mr. LABRADOR. Why were you so upset with this information?

Mr. CANINO. Because it goes against everything we’re taught. I

mean, like I was explaining earlier, you don’t do that. We’re not

taught to do that from the first day we walk into the academy all

the way until you leave this job, like Darren said. It’s not a recognized investigative technique. This is not a special case, this is just

a trafficking case that we do. This is what we do, you know,

amongst other things. But trafficking is what we do, especially on

the southwest border. This was—this wasn’t a one of, this wasn’t

a who done it. This was, you know—this was a ground ball.

Mr. LABRADOR. Just a basic case?

Mr. CANINO. Yeah.

Mr. LABRADOR. What you do every day?

Mr. CANINO. Exactly.

Mr. LABRADOR. Special Agent Newell, do you know who Kevin

O’Reilly is?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. LABRADOR. What’s the nature of your relationship with him?

Mr. NEWELL. I’ve known Kevin for, I would say, probably 10 or

12 years.

Mr. LABRADOR. How often do you communicate with him?

Mr. NEWELL. I haven’t communicated with him in a while, but

probably three or four times a year, something like that, or maybe

more depending on him reaching out to me.

Mr. LABRADOR. Isn’t it a little bit unusual for a special agent in

charge of an ATF field division to have direct email contact with

the national security staff at the White House?

Mr. NEWELL. He’s a friend of mine.

Mr. LABRADOR. How many times did you talk to him about this

case?

Mr. NEWELL. The specifics of this case? I don’t think I—I don’t

think I had one specific conversation with him about the specifics

of this case.

Mr. LABRADOR. Who——

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman allow me to help him a little? Not that you need it. But could you take the word ‘‘specific’’

out and answer the general, did you talk to him about this case?

Mr. NEWELL. I might have talked to him about this case, yes, sir.

Mr. LABRADOR. Do you know when that was?

Mr. NEWELL. I was probably—as I recall, I think it was during

the summer. It might have been the summer or early fall of 2010.

Mr. LABRADOR. So, Special Agent McMahon, you took responsibility this morning here for the actions of the agency, and I appre-
95

ciate that. Who at the highest levels—I can’t imagine that this is

something that you decided to do on your own. Who did you communicate with at the highest levels about this case?

Mr. MCMAHON. I communicated to my chain of command within

ATF. We were all very much made aware of this investigation and

what was going on.

Mr. LABRADOR. And who was aware at—who was aware that this

investigation was occurring and that guns were being walked to

Mexico?

Chairman ISSA. You can answer that question. The time has expired, but go ahead.

Mr. MCMAHON. I mean, no one was aware that guns were walking at my level or above me. And again, we’re getting caught up

in this whole definition of ‘‘walking.’’ But even given whatever the

definitions are, no one from my level up knew of any gun walking.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from Florida Mr. Ross for 5 minutes.

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McMahon, I had an opportunity to read your opening statement. I apologize, I have been in and out of here.

First of all, appreciate your service. And I understand your remorse with what is going on here. I have to talk to you a little bit

about your interview that you had, your transcribed interview. And

I would like to review some of that with you.

In fact, if I could get slide six brought up. This is a transcript

of your interview that you had for the committee when you were

asked whether you read the wiretap applications for the Fast and

Furious. And you responded, ‘‘No, I did not.’’ Do you recall that

question and that answer?

Mr. MCMAHON. I do.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. Then you were asked if it was your job to sign

off on the wiretap applications, you stated, ‘‘No, I never signed off

on a memo for a wiretap application.’’

Mr. MCMAHON. That is correct.

Mr. ROSS. That was your statement, and it is still today?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, it is.

Mr. ROSS. Slide seven. Could we see slide seven? Okay.

This is a memorandum dated February 5, 2005, addressed to you

from the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII. And the first line

states, This memorandum serves to request authorization to initiate a Title III cellular telephone intercept. It is addressed to you.

Do you recall that memorandum?

Mr. MCMAHON. I recall seeing it just recently, yes.

Mr. ROSS. Just recently? You don’t recall seeing it before?

Mr. MCMAHON. I do not.

Mr. ROSS. At all.

Mr. MCMAHON. I do not.

Mr. ROSS. Okay.

Slide eight. If we could get slide eight up there.

And this is an email from William Newell to you on February 5,

2010. Attached to this email was an email—was a memo that we

just saw in the past slide. And the email states that attached to

the coverup memo requesting authorization to conduct a T-III
96

intercept on the main suspect of the OCDETF Strike Force firearms trafficking case out of the Phoenix entitled, ‘‘The Fast and

Furious.’’ I am FedExing that to you. Do you recall receiving that

email?

Mr. MCMAHON. I don’t recall, but I mean, I obviously received

that email, yes.

Mr. ROSS. Okay.

Mr. MCMAHON. I don’t specifically recall receiving this email, no.

Mr. ROSS. Do you recall seeing the attachment that was attached

to it?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, I do not. And I think our email records show

they weren’t able to scan the attachment because it was so large,

and they said they were going to FedEx it.

Mr. ROSS. Who said that to you?

Mr. MCMAHON. I think it says it here in this email.

Mr. ROSS. Told you it was too large?

Mr. MCMAHON. That is what I read here. It says, I could not

scan the actual affidavit due to its size, so I am FedExing it. So

scanning it would mean attach it to this email.

Mr. ROSS. Now, this is a request for a wiretap. Yeah. This is a

request for a wiretap that is attached to the email.

Mr. MCMAHON. A wiretap is actually an affidavit that is prepared at the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Mr. ROSS. Okay.

So let’s go to slide nine then. Okay. This is an affidavit prepared

by Special Agent Hope MacAllister in support of an application for

authorization to intercept wire communications. It is attached for

your review.

Now, the signature block is for Mark R. Chait, but there is someone else’s signature there. Do you recognize that signature?

Mr. MCMAHON. I do.

Mr. ROSS. Whose signature is that?

Mr. MCMAHON. That is my signature.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. So you were aware of this request for a wiretap.

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. And having seen these documents now, is there

anything you—would you like to clarify any of your testimony or

your interview at all?

Mr. MCMAHON. Not at all, no. I know that we forwarded the application for the wiretap through the legal counsel process to get

their approval before it went back to the Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s

office and then on to the OEO in Main Justice.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. But you just testified just minutes ago that you

weren’t—don’t recall ever requesting authorization for the T-III

intercept.

Mr. MCMAHON. No, I said that I never recall receiving this request. I did get the actual application for the wire—many wiretaps,

and then they were forwarded on.

Mr. ROSS. And this is one of those requests for the wiretap that

you authorized, the affidavit.

Mr. MCMAHON. The last slide that you put up that had my signature for Mark Chait——

Mr. ROSS. Yes.
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Mr. MCMAHON [continuing]. That would transmit the actual application for wiretap, yes.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. Now, in your interview, were you asked about

this?

Mr. MCMAHON. Not this specifically, no.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. Did you volunteer it?

Mr. MCMAHON. Not that I recall, no.

Mr. ROSS. Okay. Any reason why not?

Mr. MCMAHON. I am trying to figure out what I need to volunteer. I think I did tell the staff when I was interviewed that I don’t

recall—I did recall receiving applications.

Mr. ROSS. You downplayed to Mr. Kumar your knowledge about

any of this.

Mr. MCMAHON. I downplayed to Mr. Kumar my knowledge about

this?

Mr. ROSS. Yes. Didn’t you?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, that is not correct. I told Dan Kumar everything I knew about this case.

Mr. ROSS. When was that? In March 2010?

Mr. MCMAHON. It was throughout this investigation. I think Dan

sat in on some of the briefings. We discussed it.

Mr. ROSS. I see my time has expired.

Chairman ISSA. I ask the gentleman have an additional 30 seconds.

Would the gentleman yield that 30 seconds?

Mr. ROSS. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. So if I am to understand, just as a lay person,

I am one of the nonlawyers up here, so that is why I introduced

the qualified people early on. But as a lay person, it looks to me

like you had an intimate part in the wiretap request. Your signature was part of a request process. And yet when we asked you

about your being involved in them, you did not volunteer to tell us

about this part. You simply relied on you didn’t actually sign the

affidavit. Is that what you are saying? The truth was you didn’t

sign the affidavit, even though you signed this document and saw

other documents and were sent other documents that you may not

remember?

Mr. MCMAHON. I signed this document that transmitted the application for the wiretap to our counsel’s office for them to review.

Chairman ISSA. But you never looked at it?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, I did not. Again, I think I said earlier on

mistakes were made. And one of the first questions you asked me,

sir, is what mistakes. And that mistake is not doing a thorough

enough review of the documents that were coming across my desk.

I accept full responsibility for that.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

Would the gentlelady from New York like to have a round of

questions?

Mrs. MALONEY. First of all——

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady is recognized.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much.

And I thank you and the ranking member for holding this hearing, and all of you for your service to our country. We appreciate

it.
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We have had a series of hearings. I regret I was also in a hearing

that we are having in Financial Services that I am ranking member on it, so I had to be there. So I wasn’t here for most of it. But

Mr. Cummings is going to brief me completely on everything that

happened.

But in one of our prior hearings, we had Special Agents that basically testified that the enforcement was not strong enough, that

that was one of the problems on the border, that there wasn’t an

express law against trafficking in guns. And that a lot of times the

penalties were, to use the terms of one of the agents, he called

them toothless, that you really couldn’t do anything with it.

And they said that the penalties, even in trafficking guns and

very serious offenses, and straw purchases and all kinds of things,

really ended up in nothing more than probation. So, therefore, they

didn’t even feel like pursuing convictions because the penalties

were so lax. And it was inadequate either to deter illegal purchases, and it wasn’t strong enough to encourage the cooperation

of suspects when they were cooperating. They had to have stronger

laws.

So I put in a bill with other members of this committee to make

trafficking in guns a Federal crime. And I would like to ask Special

Agent McMahon and Newell whether or not you think this would

help in combating violence, drug trafficking, illegal gun trafficking

at the border.

Mr. MCMAHON. Currently, obviously, we have some laws that are

in place that we are using and we are enforcing to the best of our

ability. I think any extra tool is going to be helpful to us. I think

when it gets more specific, as I think some of the legislation that

has been presented would be more specific, would make things obviously easier.

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you think it would disrupt the flow of guns

on the border? Do you think it would help in that way?

Mr. MCMAHON. I think a tool like that would help, yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. And Newell, would you also like to testify on it?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, ma’am, I believe, as a matter of fact, the Congressional Research Service in July 2009 published a report which

said, I believe the title of it was ‘‘Gun Trafficking in the Southwest

Border.’’ And in there, they talked about the need for a specific

statute to address the trafficking of firearms by a group of individuals that would aid law enforcement, a statute that would aid law

enforcement in being able to address the specific activity that is

currently not illegal. So any tool that we would have to assist us

in that obviously would be welcome.

Mrs. MALONEY. Does everyone else on the panel agree? If you

disagree, would you like to express why? Does everyone agree that

this would be a tool that would be helpful or——

Mr. GIL. I would somewhat disagree.

As I stated earlier, I think the lying and buying, the straw purchase is by definition itself, you are buying a weapon or purchasing

a weapon or obtaining a weapon for transfer to some other third

party in and of itself is trafficking. We have some personnel that

give outstanding trafficking courses throughout my career, certainly in the last few years. And we provided this training to State

and locals, as well as to our Federal partners. And lying and buy-
99

ing, straw purchasing is of itself is trafficking. And that is what we

promoted during these sessions.

Now, I would agree with you that, by definition, a straw purchaser has no criminal history. Therefore, we would have to increase the penalty for those folks that are actually making the initial purchase.

Mrs. MALONEY. That is what the bill does. And I think oftentimes I listen to the people that are in the combat, that are on the

streets trying to get the job done, which is our Special Agents. And

in several panels, including today, they have said that a strong

anti-gun-trafficking bill would help them do their jobs. So I think

we should listen to them.

One of the testimonies in our last hearing, one of the agents said

that they were military-type weapons, that it wasn’t—no one wants

to inhibit a hunter for getting a gun to go hunting with or someone

to protect themselves. But these were really the type of weapons,

like AK–47s, that are used in military combat. And they were

training and trading in these very deadly, deadly guns. And I understand even the protective equipment has to be reinforced for

military-type guns.

And the rule that was put in place to report on rifles that are

being—long guns that are being sold was also, they testified, very

helpful. And I would like to hear what your view is from the front

lines, Mr. Newell and Mr. McMahon.

Mr. MCMAHON. We were asked that question earlier. We all

agreed that the demand letter reporting the multiple sale of those

rifles would be helpful for us, yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Is there any other tool that this Congress could

give you that would help you save lives? We are all for the Second

Amendment for a lawful person to own a gun. But for a criminal

and a drug cartel to have easy access, I think the number was

40,000 deaths last year.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Is there a

question?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes. I just want to know if there are other tools

we could give you that would help you combat on the front lines

the illegal sale of guns that is leading to the violence on the border.

Mr. MCMAHON. I have testified before Congress a number of

times. And it is not my place to ask. I know ATF will do whatever

we can with the resources and the laws that Congress provides us.

Mrs. MALONEY. Any others?

Chairman ISSA. With that, we now go to the gentleman from

Pennsylvania, Mr. Meehan.

And this is a second round, folks.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And Mr. Newell, I am certainly struggling to find out who knew

what, when, in the form of the not only formulation of this process,

but the approvals as well. So it is my understanding that this was

conceptualized in November 20, 2009. Is that correct? Fast and Furious?

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir. The investigation first began in November

2009 under the name of Jacob Chambers, who at that time was

identified as one of the more prolific straw purchasers. As the case

progressed, and I will say that in November, about mid-November
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2009, when the Special Agents started looking into what appeared,

obviously, to be some connected activity in terms of straw purchases, she did a phenomenal job in putting a bunch of pieces to

the puzzle together, if you will, and noticed that one individual by

the name of Jacob Chambers seemed to be at that time one of the

more prolific straw purchasers.

At that time, I think when she put all the pieces together, she

knew at that time it was something like 350 guns that had been

purchased by this group. As the case progressed through December

and then early January, we were working out of the OCDETF

strike force, I think she realized——

Mr. MEEHAN. When did you begin the process of having this be

an OCDETF strike force case?

Mr. NEWELL. In mid-January, yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. In mid-January 2010?

Mr. NEWELL. We submitted it as an OCDETF proposal in January 2010, yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay, 2010. Okay.

Mr. Leadmon, am I correct from your testimony, I just heard you

make a comment with respect to you are an intelligence analyst,

among other things. Isn’t that correct? One of the things that you

do is try to take a global perspective on how guns may be moving

in the United States and Mexico and anywhere?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. So part of this is to follow the flow of guns.

Your testimony was that within 6 weeks of the beginning of this,

other law enforcement—yeah, other law enforcement providers provided us with information in December 2009, because you were

concerned about guns that were in Mexico being found in Mexico.

So, in essence, December 2009, prior to really the beginning of

Fast and Furious, you as the analyst are already identifying for

people that guns are being trafficked into Mexico that you are concerned are coming from Phoenix.

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir. Let me kind of explain that a little bit

and bring things in perspective. In November 20, 2009, there was

an interdiction by the Mexican authorities in which there was approximately 41, 42 weapons, firearms recovered. The information

we got through the assistance of ICE and so forth down there, they

covered the interviews——

Mr. MEEHAN. Was this in November 2009, 42 guns were seized?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. So 42 guns were seized in Mexico.

Mr. LEADMON. Correct.

Mr. MEEHAN. And you are just beginning this OCDETF in January, which means you are moving up the chain and getting approvals from other people beyond you, Special Agent Newell, beyond

you, Mr. McMahon. You are getting approvals to pursue this. You

know 40 guns have already left Phoenix and gone into Mexico at

that point in time. Mr. Newell.

Mr. NEWELL. You are correct.

Mr. MEEHAN. I am correct that in January, when you begin this,

you were aware that those guns were trafficked from Phoenix into

Mexico.
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Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. To be clear on that seizure, I believe Mr.

Leadmon has better information. I think it was seven of those guns

were Fast and Furious guns.

Mr. LEADMON. Thirty-seven.

Mr. NEWELL. Thirty-seven of those guns were Fast and Furious

guns. And we did submit in mid-January, for OCDETF approval,

of the Fast and Furious plan.

Mr. MEEHAN. What was the plan then? Because you knew at this

point in time—before you testified that there was no part of any

plan that guns would be known to be going to Mexico. Now you are

telling me that you are part of bringing in OCDETF because now

you have confirmed that guns are going to Mexico and things are

going well. So, at some point in time, I am trying to get clear when

it was that you are now participating in helping to get authority

from up higher for a broader investigation. OCDETF, as you said,

is multiple agencies that are participating in this.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, like I said, in mid-January 2010, we submitted for OCDETF approval the investigation, which eventually

was approved by the Southwest Region OCDETF Office in Houston, I believe, the first week of February.

Mr. MEEHAN. You testified before OCDETF, right here today, including in this OCDETF from DOJ, the Deputy Attorney General.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. Those are your words. At what point in time are

you aware that the Deputy Attorney General became aware of any

aspect of this investigation?

Mr. NEWELL. I am not aware at what time he became aware, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. When do you believe that he became aware?

Mr. NEWELL. I am not sure. I believe it was earlier this year, but

I am not sure.

Mr. MEEHAN. But you stated that OCDETF from the beginning,

these are your words, as this was being conceived, this is your testimony today, it was not just—I asked you where this came from.

Mr. NEWELL. Right.

Mr. MEEHAN. And then in your subsequent testimony, you identified that this is from DOJ, the Deputy Attorney General. This is

the conception phase, Mr. Newell, the conception phase. Your

words. The Deputy Attorney General. So when did he know it?

What did he know?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, what I mentioned about the Deputy Attorney

General was that, in October 2009, a draft, and then eventually,

in January 2010, a formalized strategy on the DOJ strategy to combat Southwest border violence, drug—Mexican drug cartel, Southwest border violence came out, which highlighted, among other

things, how to attack different levels of criminality by the Mexican

drug cartels, be it firearms, be it drugs, be it full cast smuggling.

When it came to firearms, there was a strategy outlined there

which said, you know, mere interdiction is not the only solution.

You know, working with co-located OCDETF strike force, it is imperative that we attack the infrastructure, and the command and

control infrastructure of these organizations to have a lasting impact. That’s not verbatim, but it is something along those lines.

Mr. GOWDY [presiding]. The gentleman’s time has expired, the

distinguished former U.S. Attorney.
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At this point, the chair would recognized the distinguished gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member of the full committee,

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Special Agent Newell, I want to pick up on the

last questioning. You testified that Fast and Furious originated

with street agents and local supervisors of Group VII. Do you remember saying that?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so what did you mean by that? I mean—go

ahead. Because we have a lot of questions as to how this thing

came about. And that seems to be leading us somewhere. And I

just want to see where we are going.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. Agents in the field, in pursuit of evidence

in further of some investigation, some sort of criminality, be it a

firearms case, an explosives case, an arson case, will open up an

investigation, with their supervisor’s concurrence, into whatever

they believe to be, you know, some sort of criminality by one or

more individuals. That’s how a case is initiated, and that’s how this

case was initiated. It was initiated under the name of Jacob Chambers, et al.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay.

And Special Agent Canino, you testified that you are a senior

trainer and instructor for ATF agents, but have never heard of

noninterdiction, or gun walking, as an approved tactic. It is just

not done?

Mr. CANINO. No, sir. I’ve never heard of it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And Mr. McMahon, did anyone at the ATF headquarters instruct Phoenix Group VII to conduct the investigation in

the manner that we know it ended up being conducted in and to

not interdict weapons of known straw purchasers?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, sir, we did not.

Mr. CUMMINGS. That’s a fact?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So this was not a new DOJ policy?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, sir, it was not a new DOJ policy. I think

what we got to realize is guns to Mexico from the United States

has been a problem for an awful long time. We have been trying

to make an impact, and it is something that we are continuing to

try to do.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, going back to you, Special Agent Newell,

you know, if we listen to all the testimony, this is what it boils

down to. I listen to your definition of walking, and you’re basically

talking about a commission, and it sounds like we have an instance

here of omission; in other words, failing to stop guns from going

through. So but there is something bigger than that. And that is,

it seems like we need to balance, knowing guns are going into Mexico, and this grand plan to try to get to the cartel, and the whole

idea if we omit—you know, making sure that these guns don’t go

in—in other words, we let them go—they go in, let them go in, and

stand by and watch them, where these guns end up and the harm

that, when they got in the wrong hands, what they would do. Was

there ever a balancing of that? Because that seems like what this

boils down to.
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I mean, I think that is why these agents are so upset. They are

trying to figure out, you know, did anybody say, okay, this is going

against the policy that we normally do? Our number one goal is to

make sure weapons don’t get into the hands of the wrong people.

But then they are trying to get their arms around it. Was there

some greater, greater cause that was worth it, the risk to see these

guns actually land in the hands of the wrong people? Can you comment on that? Do you understand the question?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, I understand the question. And one of the

things I said in my opening statement, sir, was that—one of the

things I readily admit is that there should have been more—it was

incumbent upon me that there should have been more, throughout

the case, risk assessments to determine where we were in the investigation. Because as I’ve said before, the whole plan was to take

out the whole organization. But I realize in retrospect that there

were times when I should have conducted more risk assessments.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And to your fellow agents here, I think you

would agree then that if you truly did a balancing situation, you

probably would not have gone along with this the way things went.

Is that right? In other words, the omission piece. You follow me?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know what bothers me here? You got agents

here who are very emotional about this. I mean, and I appreciate

these are honorable people who go out there and put their lives on

the line every day. And then they’ve got you, who is more of a supervisor type, and they use I guess some of sort of a military style

operation where you’re supposed to do what the folks over the top

of you tell you. But then you start looking at the folks over the top

of you, and you say, well, you know, what is this about? So you can

comment because I am running out of time.

Mr. NEWELL. Like I said, Congressman, in my opening statement, was I realize now in retrospect there should have been more

risk assessments. I realize that. I acknowledge that. And that was

one of the mistakes that were made. I should have had more risk

assessments throughout the case.

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

Special Agent Newell, there has been some talk this morning and

this afternoon about tools in the toolbox so to speak. What is the

penalty for 924(c), first offense?

Mr. NEWELL. Five years, 60months.

Mr. GOWDY. What is the penalty for the second offense?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe it is 15 years.

Mr. GOWDY. What is the penalty for the third offense?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe it is 30 years.

Mr. GOWDY. And so you are quickly approaching 60 years with

the 924(c)’s. And OCDETF, this was an OCDETF case, right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. What does the D stand for in OCDETF?

Mr. NEWELL. Drug.

Mr. GOWDY. And 924(c) is a Federal statute that proscribes the

use of a firearm during the commission of a drug trafficking offense

or other Title XVIII offenses, right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.
104

Mr. GOWDY. So this had to have a drug connection, or it wouldn’t

have been an OCDETF case.

Mr. NEWELL. Actually, sir, I believe in 2008, 2009, the OCDETF

office issued guidance which said that you can in fact—you can use

the OCDETF program to attack firearms trafficking organizations

because the other related crimes.

Mr. GOWDY. These were drug cartels, though, right?

Mr. NEWELL. The firearms trafficking organizations?

Mr. GOWDY. Right.

Mr. NEWELL. It was related to a drug cartel, yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. What is the statutory maximum for lying and buying?

Mr. NEWELL. The statutory maximum, I believe, is 5 years.

Mr. GOWDY. What is the statutory minimum for 924(e)?

Mr. NEWELL. Fifteen years.

Mr. GOWDY. What is the statutory maximum for 924(e)?

Mr. NEWELL. It can be up to life.

Mr. GOWDY. Up to life. So if you can get up to life for 924(e), you

can get over 60 years in theory for 924(c)’s, and you don’t think you

have enough tools in the toolbox?

Mr. NEWELL. I did not say that, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Do you believe you have enough tools in the toolbox?

Mr. NEWELL. I believe the laws that we have now, the ones that

we have, that’s the ones we have to use. Any additional tool would

be welcomed.

Mr. GOWDY. Let me ask you this. When you begin a sentence,

‘‘You didn’t get this from me,’’ what does that mean to you?

Mr. NEWELL. This means that you didn’t get it from me.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, but that’s kind of a pleonasm, isn’t it? Because

you are getting it from them. So it’s a—what do you mean by that,

you didn’t get this from me? I am referring to your email to Mr.

O’Reilly.

Mr. NEWELL. Well, obviously, Mr. O’Reilly was a friend of mine.

And it’s—I shouldn’t have been sending him that. Obviously, I recognize that. Being a friend.

Mr. GOWDY. What do you mean, ‘‘you didn’t get this from me?’’

Does that mean you should not have been talking to him about it?

Mr. NEWELL. Not that I shouldn’t have been talking about it. He

is a friend of mine. He asked for information, and I provided it to

him.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, then why wasn’t it appropriate for you to give

it to him? Why would you preface it by saying ‘‘you didn’t get this

from me?’’ Was it an improper communication?

Mr. NEWELL. No, it wasn’t an improper communication.

Mr. GOWDY. Then why would you preface it by that?

Mr. NEWELL. He has been a friend of mine for a long time, and

he asked me for information. So I gave him information that just

probably is an improper use of the term or phrase.

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. I yield my remaining time to the chairman.

Chairman ISSA [presiding]. So following up on where Mr. Gowdy

was, and I apologize, we are trying to keep going during the votes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are there votes?

Chairman ISSA. Yes. You have 1 minute left. Actually, you have

36 seconds left. You sent something to somebody because they were
105

a friend that works in the White House on the National Security

Team who requested something about a rather esoteric single investigation. Why do you think he asked you for that information

that you didn’t get these from me? Why do you think he asked for

that information you said he didn’t get from you?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, the way I am reading the email now, and

my recollection, he wasn’t asking about a specific investigation, he

was asking about our efforts during the Gunrunner impact team

over the summer of——

Chairman ISSA. Why do you think he was asking?

Mr. NEWELL. If I recall that email, he was asking for information

to brief his boss, I believe, in preparation for a trip to Mexico, in

our efforts along, in our area along what we were doing to combat

firearms trafficking and other issues.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So this is September 2010.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. Wasn’t it already a failed program that you had

recognized needed to be shut down, that there was a 30, 60, 90-

day shutdown some time ago? Wasn’t this after you had been frustrated by a U.S. attorney who couldn’t seem to end this thing?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, at this time, sir, I believe our case had been

over at the U.S. Attorney’s Office now for about probably 2 to 3

weeks.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Let me go on another line of questioning

for you, because I have these ATF agents who don’t see the world

the way you, Bogota, and your other experience see it. And I just

want to understand the difference. You saw this as necessary. You

saw that you had to make your case. You saw that 30, 60, 90 days

went by even after you recognized that an awful lot of guns had

walked. You may not have said you walked them, but they walked.

They are in Mexico. They are distributed broadly. So 2,000 weapons are gone and you still think this program was a good program.

Right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So you would do this program again?

Mr. NEWELL. As I said earlier in my opening statements, I would

do several things differently if we were to do something like this

again.

Chairman ISSA. But you would do a program in which you contact federally licensed gun sales organizations, tell them, in response to what they believe are suspected straw purchasers, to go

ahead and install video cameras, watch these people buy, and follow them to a location and then wait to see where they turned up.

Mr. NEWELL. That would be one of the things in the risk assessments that I would seriously consider changing.

Chairman ISSA. What about the American people? You said risk

assessment. You know, that sounds like the doctor telling you that

you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and there is a zero percent

chance, but we think we can operate and get you an extra month.

Risk assessment.

Mrs. Maloney, Ms. Norton, they are radically against the Second

Amendment. They absolutely, positively do not want anyone having

any guns. They are pretty straightforward about it. They will say
106

they respect the Second Amendment, but they have never seen a

gun limitation they don’t want.

In your case, your agency has a special, special obligation. Maintain the Second Amendment, law-abiding citizens’ rights to keep

and bear arms; stop bad people from getting them. Now, you said

you need more laws.

I am going to go to some of the other agents for a moment. Mr.

Canino, if the U.S. attorney agreed to prosecute every case, or in

a State where there were strong gun laws, if he or she only gave

up that prosecution if the State agreed to prosecute, would we have

dramatically reduced gun violence on both sides of the border if

there was 100 percent prosecution of existing laws?

Mr. CANINO. Eliminate gun violence?

Chairman ISSA. No, I said greatly reduce.

Mr. CANINO. I don’t think—what is the word I am looking for—

I don’t think Federalizing—I don’t think Federalizing street crime

is the answer. I think there’s plenty of gun laws. Now, some of

them are better than others. Some of them there’s really no deterrence; there’s no significant time that people are facing. That’s the

frustrating part.

But in my opinion, you know, the political reality is that right

now there is no appetite or will for any substantive legislation. I

am an ATF agent. I can’t worry about that. I got to worry about

catching bad guys. And I’m going to do the best can with what I’ve

got. And that’s it.

Chairman ISSA. Agent Wall, you happen to be just south of the

San Diego border right now. I am just north of it. President Bush

fired Carol Lam to a great extent on my request. I don’t worry

about the other eight U.S. attorneys that got fired. I helped get her

fired because she wouldn’t prosecute trafficking in human beings,

and she wouldn’t prosecute gun crimes. She basically said, turn

them over to the State, and then walked away, knowing that in

most cases, they wouldn’t prosecute. Does it make a difference if

you have a U.S. attorney at each of those border areas who takes

trafficking in human beings, trafficking in drugs, and trafficking in

guns seriously enough to basically not let anyone walk away not

being prosecuted just because they might only get 6 months or a

year?

Mr. WALL. Yes, sir. Unequivocally. Federal agents, police officers

on the Federal task force, and agents in ATF, in my opinion, we

have a tremendous effect on crime.

However, when cases don’t get prosecuted, when they languish,

as I said in my opening statement, and the cases are either declined or given the minimal sentence, it doesn’t send a message to

the people engaged in this type of activity. Take, for example, gun

trafficking. When you have individuals that aren’t prosecuted, however maybe there was a search warrant served and guns were

taken from them, all they are going to do is tell the next guy, hey,

watch out for these guys that do this because this is how I got

caught. But there is no deterrent. We need to prosecute people. We

need to put them in prison for this. And we need to put them there

for a while.

Chairman ISSA. Special Agent Canino, in your experience, if you

have somebody dead to rights, you have them with the weapons,
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let’s just take our 730 man, if you walked in and said, look, we’ve

got you, we know who you’ve been selling to, we’ve got you, if you

don’t give us testimony right now, if you don’t roll, you’re not leaving here, and you’re going away for a very long time; in your experience, is there a high likelihood that they’re going to essentially

flip on the next guy up in return for essentially the minimum

charge of simply buying and lying? Is that an effective tool when

you have what we had in this case? We knew that he had sold to

a trafficker. We had hundreds. Any jury is going to consider him

part of the trafficking charge you can bring. And we had evidence

of exactly who he sold to, so we could tell him we already know

who you sold to. But if you are not willing to testify, we are going

to put you away with him. And by the way, people have died in

Mexico. And then we are going to allow you to be extradited to

Mexico. Does that technique—and I am not asking you for your

techniques, I am giving you the NCIS one, because that way we are

not get into sources and methods, but does that work?

Mr. CANINO. Yes, sir. I mean depending. Each individual is different. But if it is done correctly and respectfully, and you treat the

person like a human being, and you honestly tell them, hey, you

know, these are your choices——

Chairman ISSA. So here it is, I really don’t want to hit you with

the stick, but I will.

Mr. CANINO. Pretty much. I mean——

Chairman ISSA. Let me go to Mr. Leadmon for a second.

On March 5, 2010, you did a briefing at ATF headquarters on operation Fast and Furious. At that time, did you brief that over

1,000 weapons had been sold?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, 1,026.

Chairman ISSA. Did you in that presentation brief and show the

links between the straw purchasers and the Sinaloa cartel?

Mr. LEADMON. I identified the cartel. And in the briefing, I

showed the links toward the seizures in Mexico and how they

moved from Sonora over to Juarez area.

Chairman ISSA. So was it clear on March 10th, when you gave

that briefing, that everyone in the room that guns were going to

gun dealers in Arizona and then going into Mexico?

Mr. LEADMON. Absolutely.

Chairman ISSA. Who was in the room at that time?

Mr. LEADMON. Everybody in senior management, ATF field operations, except for Mr. Melson.

Chairman ISSA. Were there representatives of the Department of

Justice?

Mr. LEADMON. Yes.

Chairman ISSA. Who?

Mr. LEADMON. Mr. Joe Cooley.

Chairman ISSA. So Justice was fully informed that guns were

walking?

Mr. LEADMON. I don’t think he is very high hanging fruit, but he

was there.

Chairman ISSA. Did anyone express concern at this meeting that

the number of weapons appearing in Mexico, or the number of

weapons bought by straw purchasers seemed to be too high?
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Mr. LEADMON. Yes, someone on the other end of the—in the

video, because we had a video conference, I believe it was somebody

out of the Dallas Field Division voiced that concern, and there was

some discussion.

Chairman ISSA. And we also have a memo that says we got to

close this down, basically, at that same time. So at a thousand, it

was too many.

Let me ask our two defenders of this program. And I am sorry,

but that does appear as how your role here today has been. Did it

ever occur to either one of you after Mr. Leadmon’s March 10th,

or before, that you could let some of these walk and interdict others? Meaning, quite frankly, when somebody had already bought

100 of them and transported them to him, they weren’t going to

sell them to somebody different. You knew it was a straw purchaser. He basically usually had one customer. He has made the

sale once, twice, 20 times. Did it ever occur to you to go ahead and

at least stop these guns a few times?

As you said, Mr. Newell, make it expensive by intercepting some

of them?

Just blind dumb luck they had to figure—and this is just me

talking, but I think I have lived this thing long enough. The cartels

had to realize at some point that you were helping them buy guns

because they were having such a good batting average. Isn’t that

true? The fact that these guys weren’t interdicting the guns almost

had to be conspicuous at some point. Couldn’t you have at least

stopped some of these guns to make it look more real?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, sir, as I said in my opening statement, that’s

one of the things I would do different.

Chairman ISSA. Well, we are going to take a short recess. There

will be a little bit of voting. We will come back. And I know you

have been patient.

During the recess, our restrooms are available to you. I would

suggest that on that side, there is a restroom where you don’t have

to go out and be accosted by the cameras and so on.

But what I would like you to do, Special Agent Newell and Special Agent McMahon, but for all of you, I would like each of you,

if you will agree, to give me back a list of the things that you would

do differently.

And Special Agent Newell, I would like your list because you’re

the one that has most said it.

Special Agent McMahon, I would like yours because you oversaw

it and you said some things. But each of the four of you, from your

experience, would you each be willing to give me what would be

done differently?

Now, I know the easy thing is, I wouldn’t have done the damn

stupid thing. But short of that, case-by-case breakdown, what

would have to be different if this would be done? Because this is

the Committee on Oversight and Reform. The minority suggests

that we pile on a bunch more gun laws. And maybe that will happen someday. But I am looking for answers that we can do to get

effective work that you need to do, effective prosecution. And if it

needs legislation, we are happy to look at it and put it into the mix.

But I am looking for the kind of reform for the most part that

doesn’t just assume that a stronger gun law, selectively enforced by
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U.S. attorneys who lose interest in these cases, is necessarily the

only answer.

So, with that, we stand in recess until about 5 minutes after the

last vote.

[Recess.]

Chairman ISSA. The hearing will come to order.

We now recognize the chairman emeritus, Mr. Burton, for his

round of questioning.

Mr. BURTON. That means the old guy.

Chairman ISSA. Well, that, too.

Mr. BURTON. First of all, I want to start off by saying that the

ATF, the FBI, the CIA, all of our intelligence agencies, we have

high regard for all of you. And I know some of my colleagues indicated today that we were beating you over the head. We are not.

We are investigating this issue. And we are certainly not investigating the good work that you guys do.

And I know some of your colleagues have been killed; some of

you have been injured. We know you lay your lives on the lines for

us. And so you have our respect and admiration for what you do.

Now, let me just say to Mr. McMahon and Mr. Newell, you know

that you are under oath.

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. Both of you know that. What I want to know

is do you know who was involved in the decisionmaking process to

start this whole program?

Mr. MCMAHON. Again, I think this was not a program; this was

a criminal investigation.

Mr. BURTON. Well, okay, this criminal investigation. Do you

know who suggested or started this criminal investigation?

Mr. MCMAHON. The agents on the street are the ones that will

initiate the investigation.

Mr. BURTON. I know, but someone said this is what we are going

to do. Who started it? Where did you get the instructions to do

this?

Mr. MCMAHON. We don’t give our agents instructions to do

things. They go out and produce cases on their own.

Mr. BURTON. So what you are telling me now is that this investigation that we are talking about, what is the name of it again?

What is it called?

Chairman ISSA. Fast and Furious.

Mr. BURTON. Fast and Furious, this just came from an agent in

the field, and that was it; nobody else had anything to do with it.

You didn’t get a letter of instruction or anything like that.

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely not.

Mr. BURTON. What about this—you say you got a memo. There

was a memo from a Deputy Attorney General about this. What was

that?

Mr. MCMAHON. I believe that Bill Newell was referencing a

memo the Deputy Attorney General put out regarding our strategy

on how we are going to combat firearms——

Mr. BURTON. Who was the Deputy Attorney General?

Mr. MCMAHON. I believe that one came from Deputy Attorney

General Ogden.
110

Mr. BURTON. Deputy Attorney General Ogden. When did that

come?

Mr. MCMAHON. It had nothing do with Fast and Furious.

Mr. BURTON. What did it have to do with?

Mr. MCMAHON. It had to do with the government’s strategy to

help combat the violence that is going on in Mexico.

Mr. BURTON. Did it have anything to do with the weapons that

were going down there?

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. So it did have something do with what we

are talking about.

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, it did.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. And his name is what?

Mr. MCMAHON. I believe it was David Ogden, but I am not positive.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. But you also said earlier in testimony that

there were a number of other agencies that were involved in this

whole investigation process. You mentioned IRS, Customs, DEA,

FBI, and so forth. You remember that? What were the names of

the people that were involved in that?

Mr. MCMAHON. Again, I think Bill Newell answered those questions regarding this case being conducted out of——

Mr. BURTON. What I want is the names of the people that were

involved in the investigation from each agency.

Mr. MCMAHON. I don’t know the names.

Mr. BURTON. Somebody does. Do you know, Mr. Newell?

Mr. NEWELL. I know a couple of the names, yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. We want those names. The reason why we

want those names is I am going to ask the chairman to talk to

them about continuing this investigation to find out how involved

everybody was, and why it went on as long as it did when we knew

in 2009 that this kind of thing was going on. And if there were IRS

agents, FBI agents, DEA agents, Customs, or others, we want to

know who was involved so we can question them as well. So I want

their names. Do you have any of their names right now?

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir, I don’t.

Mr. BURTON. And you don’t remember any of their names?

Mr. NEWELL. I remember one of their names.

Mr. BURTON. What’s his name.

Mr. NEWELL. I believe that the ICE agent assigned to the case

was a young man by the name of Lane France.

Mr. BURTON. Lankford?

Mr. NEWELL. Lane France.

Mr. BURTON. Lane French?

Mr. NEWELL. France, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Okay, you got that. How about the other agencies?

Do you remember any of the names? Were there other people involved?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, but I don’t know their names, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Can you find their names for us?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Can you get those names for us?

Mr. NEWELL. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. Will you get those names for us?
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Mr. NEWELL. Absolutely.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. And every single one of those names from

those various agencies that were involved in the whole thing. We

would like to have their names and their titles and the agencies

they work for.

Mr. NEWELL. Okay. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. And you will get those for us?

Mr. NEWELL. I will do my best, yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. No, no, no, no. I don’t want you to do your best. I

want the names. Can you get us the names?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir, I will.

Mr. BURTON. And you do know who they are and you know how

to get their names?

Mr. NEWELL. I will find out who they are, and I will get their

names, yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Okay.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BURTON. I would be happy to yield.

Chairman ISSA. Would you also include the dates that they were

read into this program with sufficient specificity that they would

understand the details of how the gun following that you say is not

gun walking occurred? In other words, we don’t want to just have

names of people on lists; we want to have the names of people who

were read into the program.

Mr. BURTON. And the dates that they were involved.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. And if I can clarify a point, sir.

Mr. BURTON. But before you go clarifying, I want to make sure

I get all this.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make absolutely sure we have their

names, dates, times, places that they were involved in this investigation so that we can trace it all the way back to its origin and

see where we went, see who was involved, and how all these weapons, 2,000 weapons got down in there into Mexico, and whether or

not somebody higher up in the Justice Department or the food

chain might have been involved. And the only way we can get that

information is from you two, or the other people who were involved

in the investigation from these other agencies. So I just want to say

one more time, this is very important that you understand that you

are telling us right now that you will get us this information, you

can get us the names, times, dates and places that we need. And

you will do that.

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Okay. Very good. I just want to make sure you’re

under oath and you understand that. I yield to the chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from Cleveland, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Newell, on June 15, 2011, three agents under your command

testified before this committee. And they outlined the very serious

allegations that prompted this investigation. The line agents told

us that as part of Operation Fast and Furious, one, they were instructed to cut off surveillance of suspected straw purchasers; two,

they were ordered to forego arrests of straw purchasers; and three,

they were prohibited from seizing or interdicting weapons from
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straw purchasers on several occasions when they believed they had

the lawful authority to do so.

Mr. Newell, these are very serious allegations. But in your transcribed interview with the committee, you said you never heard

these complaints before they became public in February of this

year. Is that right?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Here is what you said. You said, To the best of

my recollection, I don’t remember any time ever being advised that

there was some discourse amongst the agents. I became aware of

that when some of the documents were released that I saw, and I

want to say it was probably February, early February, something

like that of this year. Isn’t that information you would have expected to have received earlier?

Mr. NEWELL. I would have hoped to have received that earlier,

yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Who would have been responsible for bringing

these agents’ concerns to your attention?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, if they followed the chain of command, I

would hope that that information had gotten to me, yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. But who specifically would have been responsible?

I mean, there are people in your chain of command. Can you——

Mr. NEWELL. If they had voiced those specific concerns to their

supervisor, I would hope that—and they did not get a response that

they felt appropriate from their supervisor, then obviously—they

obviously have the right to go over his or her head, in this case his

head, and go to the second line, and so on from there.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, obviously, the committee has the names of

the people who were in those various lines of command. So Special

Agent McMahon, in your interview, you said the same thing, that

you didn’t hear about these allegations until they were reported in

the press. Isn’t that right?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. And is that information you would have expected

to receive sooner? Did you feel you should have received it sooner?

Mr. MCMAHON. I would have hoped to. If the concerns that were

expressed this late on were expressed earlier on, I would hope that

if there was so much urgency, it should have been brought to our

attention earlier.

Mr. KUCINICH. The line agents testified that they made their concerns known to their group supervisor, David Voth. Yet he, too,

told the committee that he knew nothing about their allegations.

He said this, ‘‘I don’t recall people coming to me with those concerns.’’ Now, Mr. McMahon, as the line agents’ immediate supervisor, should Mr. Voth have known about the allegations?

Mr. MCMAHON. I am assuming if they were expressed to him, he

should have known about them, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. The committee has apparently identified a conflict

in the testimony. Either the line agents are having difficulty being

able to communicate the truth or their supervisor is having that

difficulty. Now, what steps, Mr. McMahon, did the ATF’s management take to ensure that line agents can make headquarters aware

of their concerns if their direct supervisor is not responsive? And
113

can they do that without in effect bringing upon themselves some

kind of sanctions for going other the head of a line supervisor?

Mr. MCMAHON. I believe they can. I think the processes that we

have set up in ATF headquarters allow that. We have an ombudsman program. We have obviously the chain of command anywhere

in there. I think our director, every time he has actually been out

to visit offices, he has told people about his open door line of communication. He receives emails from line agents. I have tried do

the same thing on my visits to the field divisions that I oversee.

You know, you try to make yourself as open as possible to everyone

within the Bureau.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. And I just want to say we

all appreciate the very difficult and challenging work that everyone

at the agency has to carry out, so I’m sure you can understand the

questions that have been raised about the conduct of this particular operation, that things don’t fit, and when they don’t fit, it

makes it difficult for Members of Congress to be able to defend the

kind of support that they want to maintain for the Bureau. So I

want to thank you for being here.

I yield back.

Mr. MEEHAN [presiding]. I want to thank the gentleman from

Ohio. At this point in time I will give myself 5 minutes for further

questioning.

Mr. Leadmon, when we last left, you were talking about law enforcement partners providing you information in December 2009

that had given you concern about guns that had actually showed

up in Mexico; isn’t that correct?

Mr. LEADMON. They didn’t provide it to me, they provided it to

the Phoenix agents, and it was routed to me.

Mr. MEEHAN. So when you say ‘‘other law enforcement partners,’’

is this partners outside of ATF?

Mr. LEADMON. Correct.

Mr. MEEHAN. Can you identify what other partners at this point

in time in December 2009 were part of this investigation?

Mr. LEADMON. They weren’t part, to my knowledge, but they

were running a parallel, and it was DEA. I don’t want to get into

their investigation, even though they wrapped up that investigation I want to say February or so of 2010, but they were——

Mr. MEEHAN. February 2010, but they became part of the

OCDETF case; isn’t that right, Mr. Newell, DEA?

Mr. NEWELL. There were several investigations involving DEA.

But what Mr. Leadmon is talking about is I believe the information

on that seizure came from DEA to us, and then it was routed to

Mr. Leadmon.

Mr. MEEHAN. Came to you.

Mr. Gil, at point in time—or, Mr. Canino, while you were in the

field doing this, were you aware of any other agencies that had information pertinent to this that you believed was not being shared

with you?

Mr. GIL. The only other agency that we worked with while in

Mexico would have been ICE, and we actually used them to a certain extent to conduct interviews either with us or on our behalf

regarding arms trafficking.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Leadmon.
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Mr. LEADMON. A clarification. That investigation was not originating out of Mexico. That was a U.S. investigation that DEA was

doing out of the Phoenix area.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. Thank you.

Special Agent McMahon, you just responded partially to a question, and unfortunately you weren’t allowed to give a full answer,

but I was intrigued by what you were beginning to say when,

again, there was a once more question about the genesis of the

case, and you began to talk about agents in the field. You know,

the agents were the ones that begin to make these cases. Can you

explain to me what you mean by that?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, the way ATF works is our agents are the

ones that conduct the investigations, they’re the ones that generate

investigations. Obviously they should get approval from their firstline supervisor of which investigations to open or not.

Mr. MEEHAN. So those agents, what were they investigating, just

straw purchasing in general?

Mr. MCMAHON. When you have a division group, the division

usually breaks down those groups into specific types of cases. You

might have an arson explosives group, you might have a gang

group, you might have a firearms trafficking group. If you’re out

in the field——

Mr. MEEHAN. The agents working on this case.

Mr. MCMAHON. The agents were assigned to a gunrunner group

that was specifically assigned to investigate firearms trafficking to

Mexico.

Mr. MEEHAN. At what point did the gunrunner group take it up

higher to the chain as part of this? Did they include the assistant

U.S. attorney? Was there an assistant U.S. attorney appointed to

that group?

Mr. MCMAHON. I’m not sure if it was appointed to that group,

but I know we usually try to get an assistant U.S. attorney onto

the case as early as possible.

Mr. MEEHAN. How early do you think, Mr. Newell, do you recollect, that an assistant U.S. attorney was assigned to this case?

Mr. NEWELL. From the very beginning.

Mr. MEEHAN. From the very beginning?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. Did the assistant U.S. attorney to you

knowledge communicate with the U.S. attorney about this case?

Mr. NEWELL. To my knowledge, I don’t know, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. You don’t know the answer. But this case began

somewhere in November 2009, and we have testimony that by December 2009, there was already concern about scores of weapons

that were being recovered in Mexico. But what was the response

of the assistant U.S. attorney to that revelation?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, as outlined in the January 8th briefing paper,

they felt that there was not enough evidence at that time to secure

anymore—or to secure for prosecution, so to continue monitoring

the sales.

Mr. MEEHAN. They continued monitoring the sales, but were they

aware and did they believe that guns, ultimately thousands, were

continued to be trafficked with the approval of the assistant U.S.

attorney?
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Mr. NEWELL. I’m not sure exactly what they were aware of, sir,

but I know they were informed.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Gil, at any point in time, did you get a visit

from anybody? And who was the highest person that visited you

from the Department of Justice with respect to this matter?

Mr. GIL. To a certain extent it would have been a DOJ contingent to business, I believe, during the summer or spring, and I believe it was Kevin Carlisle. Lanny Breuer visited.

Mr. MEEHAN. Lanny Breuer is the head of the Criminal Division;

is that not right?

Mr. GIL. At that time. I don’t know where he is today.

Mr. MEEHAN. When did Mr. Breuer visit you in Mexico with respect to this case?

Mr. GIL. I would have to check.

Mr. MEEHAN. What’s your recollection?

Mr. GIL. I think it was the summer of——

Mr. MEEHAN. The summer. That would be after we already know

that thousands of guns had been trafficked?

Mr. GIL. Yes.

Mr. MEEHAN. Was that communicated to him?

Mr. GIL. By me, no.

Mr. MEEHAN. By anybody, to your awareness?

Mr. GIL. No, sir.

Mr. MEEHAN. My time has passed.

At this point in time the chair would recognize the gentlelady

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I thank you for recognizing me. And I am

deeply concerned that while I was on the floor voting, that the

chairman, for whom I have tremendous respect, made derogatory

remarks about Ms. Norton and myself. And as I hear, I would like

to quote what he said: Mrs. Maloney and Ms. Norton, they are

radically against the Second Amendment. They absolutely positively do not want anyone having any guns. They’re pretty

straightforward about it. They’ll say they respect the Second

Amendment, but they’ve never seen a gun limitation they do not

like.

I would like to say that I support the Second Amendment, and

I support legal guns for sportsmen, for law defense, for hunters, for

self-defense. Just recently one of our colleagues, Leonard Boswell,

literally someone broke into his home, and he thought his life was

in danger. His grandson took a legal registered gun and got the intruder out of the home. I respect the right to own legal guns for

self-defense, for other reasons, but I do not support illegal guns

that are fueling drug wars and putting lives at risk.

In testimony before this committee it was told that 40,000 people

have died in the last 5 years on the border of Mexico. What we

have put forward is a simple statute that would prohibit gun trafficking in illegal guns to people who want to use them for illegal

purposes. I think that is respecting law enforcement, helping law

enforcement, and protecting lives on both sides of the border. And

I must also say that the ATF agents who testified and were called

by the majority to testify, they indicated that this would help them

do their job and help them to protect innocent people in Mexico and

in the United States of America.
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And I just really wanted to clarify that since I feel that Ms. Norton and myself were attacked unfairly. And I do not think that legitimate debate or ideas or legislation should be attacked in this

unfair way. So I just would like to clarify that.

Chairman ISSA [presiding]. Would the gentlelady yield?

Mrs. MALONEY. Absolutely.

Chairman ISSA. Well, I stand corrected if, in fact, you’re for the

Second Amendment. And I will not consider the same with Ms.

Norton, who said that my entire side of the aisle was owned by the

NRA in some of hers, or somebody in the District of Columbia continues to support basically this being a gun-free zone in violation

of the Second Amendment. But I take you at your word, and I’m

sorry that I exaggerated to include you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Will the gentlelady yield very briefly?

Mrs. MALONEY. Absolutely.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the chairman for his apology,

but I can attest to the fact, Mr. Chairman, that when the

gentlelady and I introduced our recent bill, she basically said what

she just said, that she had no problem. And I think the confusion

comes in those of us who have seen over and over again the result

of gun violence, those of us who go to the funerals, those of us who

listen to the ATF agents who beg to make sure that we help them

because they’re fighting weapons of war. And that’s what we are

concerned about. We didn’t debate it. The ATF agents came in here

and said it. Some of them have said it today.

So I yield back to the gentlelady, and I want to thank the chairman.

Mrs. MALONEY. I just want to also add that I think we both

agree on both sides of the aisle that mistakes were made in the

handling of Operation Fast and Furious, and we are legitimately

trying to get answers and to look at this. But the larger issue that

I feel is in danger of possibly being overlooked is the flow of illegal

weapons. And we’re not talking about regular guns. In the testimony from the agents, they called them military-style weapons.

They were AK–47s, very special deadly rifles. So these aren’t normal guns, these are our military guns. And this is an even larger

issue than Fast and Furious is, to stop the flow of illegal guns. And

I believe that on both sides of the aisle we can agree that illegal

guns flowing into America or Mexico is something we need to address and stop as quickly as possible.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady.

We now go to the gentleman from Texas Mr. Farenthold for his

round.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I’m going to kind of bring it more back to where we were going,

I think, with the investigating Operation Fast and Furious as opposed to discussing the merits of any proposed new gun regulations

or gun laws. Let me ask some of the gentlemen from ATF, if you

remembered the lessons we learned from 9/11, we found that we

probably would have had a much better chance of stopping the attacks on the World Trade Center had the various organizations

within our government been communicating with each other better.

We’ve spent millions of dollars on fusion centers for information

sharing among agencies. And then I’m troubled to find here that
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you’re basically running an investigation covering some of the same

suspects, basically parallel investigations, with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and there was an unwillingness to or a failure to coordinate among those agencies. Would that be a fair assessment of what happened: There were multiple investigations,

and the DEA didn’t know what you were up to, and vice versa?

Mr. MCMAHON. Sir, as far as I’m concerned, that is the complete

opposite of that. I think when we received funding to get our gunrunner groups up and running, one of the first things we did was

assign them to strike force groups so they could work hand in hand

with the other agencies. And I think this case is an example of how

that was one of the positive things out of this case. DEA had some

information that they shared with us that helped us in our investigation and actually helped foster it even more so.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Then why weren’t you all coordinating, and

there were two different investigations going on? At the very least

that seems wasteful of the taxpayers’ money.

Mr. MCMAHON. I don’t think from what I’ve seen that there were

two different investigations. It was two parallel investigations.

DEA obviously is going to focus on the narcotics. We focus on the

firearms.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I’ve got a couple other questions. I ran out of

time last time going off on things that just struck me as odd.

Mr. McMahon, during the pendency of the Operation Fast and

Furious, did you ever get the chance to go down to Mexico and visit

with any of our folks down in Mexico?

Mr. MCMAHON. I did. Yes.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Did you speak to Mr. Canino?

Mr. MCMAHON. I did.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And did he raise any concerns about some of

the guns tracing back to Phoenix?

Mr. MCMAHON. Not that I recall, no.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Canino, did you all discuss that, do you recall?

Mr. CANINO. Yeah. It wasn’t anything specific, it was in passing.

Like I said earlier, you know, when—and Mr. McMahon has been

very supportive of our office in Mexico and me personally. But like

I stated earlier, when this case was going on, and when Darren

asked me, what do you think is going on, like I stated earlier, I

thought the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix is reluctant to let our

guys make any arrests. Our guys have stumbled onto a drug trafficking—I mean, a gun-trafficking ring, they’re doing their due diligence, and that’s why so many guns have turned up in the suspect

gun data base so quickly. And three, I thought that our guys were

just losing them on surveillance, not being able to get to the gun

store in time. That’s what I thought at that time. You know, I

didn’t know that we had cooperators in a couple of the gun stores.

So my—our concern, and I just said, hey, how come there’s so

many guns turning up so quickly?

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And he didn’t share with you what was going

on?

Mr. CANINO. Well, like I say, we have a drug-trafficking case in

Phoenix, and, you know, all the guys are doing a good job.
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Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Mr. McMahon, did Mr. Gil ever raise

concerns over the number of weapons that were being recovered in

crime scenes in Mexico?

Mr. MCMAHON. Congressman, I think it’s important to realize

that guns were being recovered in Mexico for quite a while, and we

were all concerned about that. Guns were coming from Phoenix,

they were coming from Texas, they were coming from—I mean,

that’s what we did, that was our main focus in Mexico and obviously along the southwest border. For the past 4 years, that’s

where all of our resources, our new resources, have gone. Guns

being recovered in crime scenes in Mexico from the United States

is something that ATF has been putting everything we have into

for the past quite a few years, as long as I’ve been in headquarters.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Well, I see I once again have run out

of time, and I realize we are getting late, so I yield back. Thank

you very much.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, as we wind this hearing down, I was

just sitting here and I was just thinking, you know, this agency is

very important, and we’ve heard now from two sets of agents, all

of whom seem to be, I know, very dedicated to their jobs. And I

think one of my greatest concerns as we go forward, Special Agent

Newell and McMahon, since you’re in supervisory-type positions,

you know, I just hope this does not hurt the morale of the organization.

When I look at the emotions of Special Agent Canino and others,

I mean, in some kind of way we’ve got to make sure that we get

back on track. I just think it’s so important because the job that

you do is—what, there’s only 1,800 of you all? It’s not many.

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. It’s a small agency. And we can’t afford to have

division in this kind of agency. Would you agree, Special Agent

McMahon?

Mr. MCMAHON. I totally agree, sir. That’s the highest priority for

us right now is to get our people back on track. Not a lot of us can

have or show the passion that Carlos has, but I guarantee you we

all have that. We might keep it inside a little bit more than Carlos

does, but this is a passionate thing for all of us.

We talk about the Second Amendment, and I believe that we,

ATF, are the defenders of the Second Amendment. And we have to

follow a very fine line of what’s part of the legal commerce and

what’s part of the illegal commerce, and that’s part of the challenge, a challenge that we fully accept. And that’s something that

we were—drilled into us from early on while in the academy. It’s

something we fully accept, and it’s something that we do every day.

And as I said in my statement, I am very proud of the people that

are out there now and have been out there in the past and the

work that they’re doing.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m going to go back to a July 12, 2011, letter

to the Attorney General. Chairman Issa and Senator Grassley

wrote these words. They said, there has been public speculation

that gun control politics may have been a motivating factor behind

approving the risky strategy used in Operation Fast and Furious.

In other words, by allowing straw purchasers to continue to oper-
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ate, and by encouraging gun dealers to go through with what were

obviously suspicious sales, the ATF helped create a big case in

order to justify additional regulatory authority. The letter notes

that the committee has seen no evidence to support this speculation, but goes on to ask the Department of Justice to respond anyway.

Mr. Newell, you were the special agent in charge who oversaw

this operation and the agents who worked it for the last year. What

is your reaction to this speculation when you were engaged in Operation Fast and Furious? I ask you for the record, were you deliberately attempting or do you know others that were deliberately attempting to send guns to Mexico to justify additional firearms regulations?

Mr. NEWELL. In response to your question, sir, I don’t recall saying that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I didn’t say you did. I’m just saying do you believe that——

Mr. NEWELL. No, I don’t.

Mr. CUMMINGS [continuing]. Based on everything you know?

Mr. NEWELL. No, sir, I don’t.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. Mr. McMahon.

Mr. MCMAHON. Absolutely not, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did you see any evidence that your line

agents acted out of anything but a sincere desire to combat a major

trafficking network in this case? Mr. McMahon.

Mr. MCMAHON. Not at all, sir.

Mr. NEWELL. Not at all, sir. That was their goal, and that was—

they are very dedicated agents out in the field who are doing that

every day in this case and many other cases.

Mr. CUMMINGS. While it’s fair to question the judgment used in

the case, and I certainly question it, and again we are trying to get

to the bottom of all of this, suggesting a conspiracy to harm others

goes beyond the pale. And I think that—you know, I just—I just

want to make sure that the American people are clear that we

have an ATF which is operating and doing what it is supposed to

do. Obviously some mistakes have been made, very unfortunate

mistakes. And I think the one thing we have to do is we have to

learn from those mistakes and not let them happen again, because

they can have very, very, very tragic consequences.

And so with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. And I’ll try to be brief in a couple

of last questions.

First of all, I ask to include some additional documents that were

shared and partially redacted with Justice so that we can keep

them in the record and potentially ask you questions afterwards.

Would all of you be willing to answer additional questions based

on what’s in the record afterwards if we have follow-ups? Okay.

Thank you.

Mr. Newell, on January 8, 2010 you produced a memo that in

line 13 said, currently our strategy is to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place, albeit at a much slower pace, in

order to further the investigation and allow the identification of additional coconspirators who would continue to operate illegally trafficking firearms to Mexico DTOs.
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Now, if I read that correctly, in addition to later where it says,

DEA has specifically requested that the ASAC and SAC level at the

ATF continue the investigation, if I read this memo of yours correctly, at least by January 10th or January 8, 2010, you knew that

these weapons were going to—specifically weapons that you were

allowing to be sold were going to the drug cartels in Mexico, and

that you lobbied for in this memo the continuation partially because of DEA’s request? Is there anything in plain English that I

don’t understand here?

Mr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. As I stated earlier in the testimony, I

think that sentence about who would—that part of the sentence

‘‘who would’’ is—‘‘who would continue’’ is based on the fact that we

believe that if we didn’t take the necessary steps to disrupt the

whole organization, this group would continue to traffic in large

quantities of firearms to Mexico.

Chairman ISSA. Agent, we’re not disagreeing that these are determined, incredibly rich, billions-of-dollars-of-drug-money groups

that have the power to corrupt the Mexican Government, at times

corrupt U.S. officials, to buy anything they want anywhere in the

world in vast quantities. Certainly I don’t think anyone on the dais

fails to understand that we have a narcostate almost being formed

in Mexico the way we had in Colombia, and that they and we are

fighting to push back on a terrible tragedy that has occurred in

Mexico.

But the question here is as of January 8th, I find this document

to be irrefutable evidence that you knew that weapons you continued to sell, quote, albeit at a slower pace—although actually the

evidence is it didn’t slow down right away, but eventually it did—

were, in fact, going to Mexico. You knew it. You knew that when

you sold to particularly some of the specific individuals whose

weapons had already been found, you knew that the straw buyer

was buying it, you knew who they were transporting it to, who was

paying for it and where it was ending up. Isn’t that true as of January 2010?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, we didn’t sell the firearms, sir.

Chairman ISSA. Well, you came pretty close. You told the firearm

dealer to go ahead and sell it. You knew who the buyer was. You

knew there was a repeat buyer. You knew who the intermediary

was that was the supplier of money, and you knew where they

were ending up. Isn’t that all true?

Mr. NEWELL. We believed that obviously we were working a firearms-trafficking organization that——

Chairman ISSA. Wait a second. Look, we’re not talking about

what you had to prove to a jury of 12. I’ll go over these agents, and

they’re going to make you look like a fool here if you don’t answer

this honestly. You knew that A was going to B, and B was going

to the cartels. You knew that outright. So did the DEA as of January 8th—and that’s what this briefing says, doesn’t it? Answer me

honestly just once, clearly and simply.

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, with all due respect, when it comes to the DEA

portion of that, it was the fact that DEA had an ongoing investigation from which we gathered the information which led to the initiation of our case. So that sentence there discusses the fact that
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DEA said, hey, whatever you do, don’t do anything to compromise

our case, which we respected.

In response to your other question is absolutely, the group that

we were working, we knew that that was their intention to funnel

guns to Mexico.

Chairman ISSA. Wait a second. Intention. Not intention. It was

a pattern of success that had occurred for a year; isn’t that true?

You had watched straw buyers, repeated straw buyers, make purchases, deliver them, and those weapons had shown consistently in

the hands of specific cartels, and, as you know, you knew who was

paying for them. Isn’t that all true?

Mr. NEWELL. Well, you said a year, sir. When that memo was

written in January, we were probably, I would say, 2 months into

the investigation at that point.

Chairman ISSA. Three months earlier, I apologize. The previous

year.

Mr. NEWELL. Three months.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So 3 months into this program, about

1,000 weapons or less in, you knew that the weapons you were telling gun dealers to go ahead and sell to the same straw buyers

again and again—you already had 20, the number 20 is here. So

I’m kind of going, well, you’ve indicted 20, 19 of whom were the

straw buyers, so you knew the straw buyers and the repeats kept

coming after you knew starting point, bag man or money man, and

end point; isn’t that true?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, what we believed and what we suspected is far

short of what we could prove.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Finally you’ve given me the answer I

wanted. You knew everything you needed to know to understand

everything that led to the charges. What you didn’t have was

enough to make a case, so you went on month after month for

1,500 more weapons while you were trying to make a case; isn’t

that correct?

Mr. NEWELL. Sir, in January we didn’t know all 20 at that point.

The 20 that we indicted, we had a large group of straw purchasers,

and we were continuing to build a case throughout. But we still—

in full conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we still needed

the evidence to be able to prove that these individuals were, in

fact——

Chairman ISSA. Who at the U.S. Attorney’s Office wanted this investigation to go on past January 8, 2010?

Mr. NEWELL. When?

Chairman ISSA. Who? Did Lanny Breuer—was he briefed by January 8, 2010?

Mr. NEWELL. I don’t know if he was, sir.

Chairman ISSA. But his office approved the wiretaps under his

authority. You said you didn’t read the wiretaps. I guess neither

one of you read the requirements. But somebody had to be briefed

who signed it on his behalf, on his authority. Did either of you ever

brief Lanny Breuer or anyone else that could sign on his behalf?

Mr. NEWELL. I did not, no, sir.

Mr. MCMAHON. I did not, no.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So I guess we’re just going to figure that

you knew on January 8th that you had the same people buying
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weapons repeatedly, leading to the same cartel, and you didn’t quit

because you hadn’t made your case, so we continued selling until

we had a dead Federal agent and a scandal? That’s pretty much

what I’ve heard here today. Any of the agents that work in the

field, did any of you see something different then? This thing kept

going after everything was known, except maybe if we keep doing

it long enough, we’ll get better cases for the U.S. attorney; and

then it began falling apart after Brian Terry was murdered? Does

anyone in the first four see anything different? Correct me if I’ve

missed something.

Mr. GIL. Chairman, I’m still sitting here listening to the conversation, and it’s still unbelievable to me, and to be quite honest

with you, I still don’t know what to believe, why this investigation

was initiated, and why it continued for so long. I can’t. I know you

look speechless. I’m speechless. I just don’t know.

Chairman ISSA. Well, words escape me to try to do any better

than you don’t know why and I don’t know why either.

The gentlelady from New York for an additional round.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

I would like to follow up on the line of questioning of Congressman Farenthold when he was talking about the lack of communication, which after 9/11 we had many commissions, we had many

studies. And what came out of these commissions was that our intelligence wasn’t working, and we weren’t communicating. And we

then overhauled our government, the most major overhaul of our

intelligence since 1948. And it seems to be a little bit of the same

thing of what I am hearing about these hearings, because people

are saying they didn’t know anything, and people are saying they

told people and it’s not getting through, so the communication is

not taking place.

When you mention 9/11, the mayor of New York, and we are

about to come upon the 10th anniversary of that tragic day, has

been airing TV ads in New York where they use the words of an

al-Qa’ida leader who is talking to his followers and saying, go to

America. It’s so easy to get a gun. Go to America, get all the guns

you need in our fight for the al-Qa’ida. So this is an ad about how

illegal people who want to hurt Americans are being instructed literally to come to America and get guns in order to combat democracies. And so I think this hearing is very, very serious about the

flow of illegal guns.

Earlier we had a hearing and we had several agents who seemed

very brave, very frustrated and very courageous. And they testified

that they were concerned about the sale of the guns to straw

agents; they were concerned about not having arrests, about being

ordered not to make arrests and not to conduct surveillance. And

I understand that you were asked, Mr. Newell and Mr. McMahon,

and you did not hear any of their frustrations. They testified that

they reported this to their supervisors, and nothing happened, and

that’s why they were so frustrated.

So I think we’ve got to figure out what happens when someone

reports something they feel is illegal, wrong, dangerous or harmful

to life. And I’m not just talking about what happened in Fast and

Furious, I’m talking about going forward. Agents on the ground

who think that someone should be arrested, and they’re being told
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not to make an arrest, or when they’re being told not to make a

surveillance, and a supervisor says don’t do it, and they’re saying

we should do it, and they’re complaining to someone else, that information has to go up the line in order to have proper law enforcement and proper protection for our citizens.

So I ask anyone on the panel to comment, but I see this as a very

serious, a very serious blockade or a very serious problem. If people

who feel something wrong and harmful to the safety of Americans

or Mexicans is taking place, then someone should be listening. And

if a chain of command is not listening, maybe there should be an

alternative chain of command put in place or something, because

this type of concern has to get to the proper authorities in order

to make proper decisions to make arrests, continue the surveillance

and do the proper things to stop illegal activity.

So I just would ask any of you to comment on what we’ve been

hearing. People say they asked for help, and other people say they

never heard anything, so what’s going on? Is there some, you know,

black hole that complaints fall into? What is the chain of command? Why did not the complaints or concerns of the on-the-line

defenders of justice, why didn’t their concerns about what they

thought was illegal and dangerous get to the proper authorities?

Mr. MCMAHON. I can take that, if I could. That is a concern, a

major concern. ATF is my family, and obviously when I heard

agents criticize things that were happening on the street and obviously there’s a communication breakdown, that’s very concerning to

me.

One of the things I wrote down here, the things that I would like

to improve on, is my access to people in the field, maybe even just

sitting down, hey, what can you tell me, what’s going on, that sort

of thing. I’m actually going to be going into a new position soon

that’s going to be talking about—I’ll be overseeing the review of our

office and the effectiveness andefficiency.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, what happened now? Are you conducting

an investigation to find out why the information from the agents

on the street didn’t get to the proper authorities?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, I believe the inspector general is conducting that investigation, and we look forward to the results of

that.

Mrs. MALONEY. And when do you expect that to come back?

Mr. MCMAHON. I don’t know.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady.

I will recognize myself for another round. I’m going to go down

the row as we often do here and just pose a single question for each

of you to answer. Special Agent Newell answered it already. If it

was January 9th, you had just written that briefing; you knew

what Special Agent Newell and Special Agent McMahon knew

about what had happened, what was happening; you knew about

the DEA’s request; but you also knew about where these guns were

ending up. Mr. Gil, start with you. If we put you in charge of the

Phoenix field office on that day, what would you do?

Mr. GIL. Mr. Chairman, that investigation would have been

closed, come to a conclusion.

Chairman ISSA. In 30, 60, 90 days?
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Mr. GIL. No, sir, immediately. That part of an investigation on

a trafficking is not—you have the trafficker, you have him there,

you have the probable cause, you have the intelligence, you have

everything you need to make the arrest; and as the discussion occurred earlier, the other tools in the toolbox are there, interviews,

phone records, interviews of cohorts and so forth. The investigation

with these guns, they’re not a disposable product. These weapons,

they’re going to be out there for years, decades, and they’re a durable good, they’re a marketable item. And that’s why historically

ATF, my career, my training officer educated us on this, as I

trained my young agents on, it’s just—it’s inconceivable that you

would let weapons walk.

Chairman ISSA. Agent Wall.

Mr. WALL. The same thing, Chairman. Letting one gun walk is

a huge risk. Again, a gun can last 10, 20, 30 years. A gun in the

hands of criminals, virtually it’s a loaded weapon that’s out there

that’s uncontrollable. We in ATF typically—I just—I’m dumbfounded by just the number of weapons and how it got to that

point, and really just supporting what Mr. Gil said.

Chairman ISSA. Agent Canino.

Mr. CANINO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you know, we’ve met now a couple of times. You can see I’m

kind of passionate about what I do. I don’t want to give you the

impression, or the ranking member, or the committee the impression that I never made mistakes. I was a street agent for 15 years,

very active street agent. Anybody who knows me knows my reputation. They know I’ve made mistakes.

You know, I respect Gil and Bill. I consider them friends. I know

it’s not easy for them to be here today. But hopefully this won’t

happen again. And hopefully when the committee finally issues

their report, our agency will be the better for it, and we can move

on down the line.

I agree. I think the first order of business for our agency right

now is to build the morale, close ranks and move forward and support each other.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Leadmon.

Mr. LEADMON. Yes, sir. I would like to expand and say that I

think Congressman Maloney kind of touched on what the underlying problem is for our agency in these major investigations. She

talked about 9/11, the lessons we’ve learned, the lack of sharing of

information, the intel. Well, from my perspective, in my law enforcement career involved in major case investigations in the District of Columbia, I learned some things with my task forcing with

other agencies, FBI, DEA and ATF. And one of the things that I

see in ATF that we’re lacking, we’re lacking on the intel-led investigative side of the house. Our intel structure within the ATF is

very limited. Our field FIGs need resources. Our headquarters entities need resources also.

Now, to put this in perspective, ATF now, with the battle that

Calderon is waging against the drug cartels in Mexico, we need to

meet that challenge. And that challenge is they’re going out and

they’re taking off these guns in these seizure events. We have to

stop the flow because they can’t win if they keep getting replen-
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ished. So with that in mind, we have to start taking some of the

best practices of our other agencies. And, i.e., under an intel-led investigation, I’m not just talking about single investigations. In ATF

we have silo systems. We have divisions that work out of their divisions. Everything comes out of the division. This has to stop. There

has to be headquarters; not oversight, ‘‘get all in their business’’

type thing. But it has to do like our other agencies are that exchanges the information freely, partners up with outside agencies

at all levels, not just in the divisions, but all the way up into headquarters. And to do that we have to build a structure, an intelligence structure, to support not only our agents in the field, but

our partners in Mexico and our other Federal agencies.

Chairman ISSA. I’m going to cut you off only because of time limitations. We have a subcommittee coming in in a short time.

But first of all you’re singing, I think, on a bipartisan basis to

what we need to do. And we probably will have you back as we get

into the corrective phase, the reorganization, if appropriate.

Let me just ask one closing question. Jaime Avila, Panino—

Patino, I’m sorry, Chambers and Stewart, they’re all on the street

today. They have not been convicted of a crime as straw buyers. If

they walked into a gun shop today, just because they’ve been arrested, does that mean they can’t buy? Would they be able to buy

a weapon today?

Mr. MCMAHON. They wouldn’t be able to buy the weapon because

they’re under indictment. But I’m not sure if the NICS system in

Phoenix would capture that if they did attempt to buy a weapon.

Chairman ISSA. So today you know that they shouldn’t be able

to buy, they shouldn’t be on the street, but 20 straw buyers are on

the street, and you’re not sure if all 20 are, in fact, presently in

the system where any federally licensed gun store would stop them

immediately; is that correct?

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, that’s not our system, sir. The NICS system is run by another agency.

Chairman ISSA. No, I understand that. But right now you don’t

have full confidence that these people are not out doing straw purchases again?

Mr. MCMAHON. No, sir. They were granted bail, as everyone is

entitled to.

Chairman ISSA. They were also granted a speedy trial that I understand is delayed at least until February of next year, so they

continue to be out there?

Mr. MCMAHON. That’s correct. The trial was scheduled for June,

and then it’s been postponed until February.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. With that I’m afraid we have to adjourn.

I thank you all.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, a point of personal privilege.

Chairman ISSA. Yes, a point of personal privilege.

Ms. NORTON. Since my position was mischaracterized in this

hearing, I have come back to state my true position, and I wonder

if I may be given a few minutes to do that.

Chairman ISSA. If you want to state your true position, bearing

in mind that you told us that all of us on this side of the aisle were

owned by the NRA——
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Ms. NORTON. If I could be heard from you, if I could state my

position. I was here for some time, Mr. Chairman, and I note that

I didn’t hear anyone speak up then. I can understand that——

Chairman ISSA. Actually the gentlelady left before——

Ms. NORTON. I was here for about 15 or 20 minutes. But it’s the

right of any Member to speak up. And I can only be grateful, Mr.

Chairman, that you didn’t say that I was vile or words of a kind

that were uttered when another Member was outraged that in his

absence his position was characterized.

Yes, as I heard pontificating before law enforcement officers who

risked their lives, I was moved to indicate that we had not given

ATF agents the tools that they deserve. Indeed I indicated that the

issues spread even into our cities.

As for the District of Columbia laws, which apparently were

raised, the District of Columbia barred guns in light of carnage

over the decades. Those laws had been found to be constitutional,

and for decades every appellate court had so found for the District’s

laws and for the laws of other States until an activist and much

more conservative Supreme Court overturned the findings of prior

Supreme Courts for the first time.

The District of Columbia proceeded to obey the new law and enacted a set of gun laws, which have since been found constitutional,

and yet Members of this body have filed bills seeking to overturn

the laws of a local jurisdiction not their own simply because they

disagree with the way they approach gun control. You can approach gun control any way you like in Arizona or California, but

you are not at liberty to tell the people of the District of Columbia

who have to live with the carnage how to approach it, particularly

when the laws have been declared constitutional.

Yes, I stand by the notion that the reason that the ATF agents

don’t have the laws they need is because the Republicans have over

and over again introduced laws that would, in fact, keep them from

getting those laws and have stood in the way of their acquiring

those laws. And I have been bipartisan because there have been

some in my own party who have stood with them.

Mr. Chairman, having taken the agents to the woodshed, it does

seem to me then the Congress—they’re entitled to something from

us. So I would like to ask you, in light of the fact that they have

all testified that they need more tools in order to do their job,

whether you would cosponsor the bill that has been introduced that

would, in fact, give them a trafficking tool so that this would not

happen again to them or to us, and would you be willing to sponsor

that bill, Mr. Chairman?

Chairman ISSA. No, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Enough said.

Chairman ISSA. And with that, gentlemen, you bear witness to

the other side of the aisle at work.

With that, we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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Æ