Part II of III

Fast and Furious: The Anatomy of a Failed Operation

JOINT STAFF REPORT

Prepared for 

Rep. Darrell E. Issa, Chairman

United States House of Representatives

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

&

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member

United States Senate

Committee on the Judiciary

112th Congress

October 29, 2012
2

Table of Contents

Table of Contents............................................................................................................................ 2

Prologue .......................................................................................................................................... 4

I. Executive Summary............................................................................................................... 9

II. Table of Names.................................................................................................................... 11

III. Findings................................................................................................................................ 14

IV. Recommendations................................................................................................................ 17

V. Initial Involvement in Fast and Furious............................................................................... 18

A. The Cartel-Based Strategy ............................................................................................. 18

B. Coordination between the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and ATF .............. 26

1. Operation Wide Receiver ........................................................................................... 26

2. Operation Fast and Furious......................................................................................... 30

VI. Justice Department Involvement Deepens........................................................................... 35

A. Wiretap Authorizations Through Criminal Division ..................................................... 35

1. Criminal Division Approval of Wiretap Applications ............................................... 35

2. Awaiting Wiretap Approval ....................................................................................... 42

B. Deputy Attorney General Briefed .................................................................................. 49

C. The Criminal Division’s Awareness of Gunwalking ..................................................... 55

1. Discovering Gunwalking in Operation Wide Receiver.............................................. 56

2. Drawing a Connection Between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious...................... 64

D. Justice Department’s Failure to Supervise ATF ............................................................ 68

1. Siskel Waited for ATF to Report Problems................................................................ 68

2. Grindler Waited for Siskel to Report Problems.......................................................... 73

3. Wilkinson Failed to Ask Questions............................................................................ 77

4. Total Lack of ATF Supervision Within Justice Department...................................... 79

E. Supervision and Role of U.S. Attorney’s Office............................................................ 83

1. Lack of U.S. Attorney’s Office Supervision .............................................................. 83

2. Delay in Indictments................................................................................................... 86

VII. Connection of Fast and Furious to Brian Terry’s Murder ................................................... 91

A. “AG’[s] office is now expressing interest in the AG coming out for it” ....................... 91
3

B. Justice Department Leadership Alerted to Fast and Furious Connection ...................... 94

C. “I would not recommend the AG announce this case” ................................................ 100

D. Amnesia at Justice Department Headquarters.............................................................. 103

VIII. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 104

Appendix I: Exhibits
4

Prologue

On Independence Day 2011, as hundreds of revelers noisily walked the streets of Capitol 

Hill celebrating our country’s independence, Ken Melson quietly walked into the halls of 

Congress to share his story.

In the center of Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Ken Melson, then the 

Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, relaxed in his 

chair. To his right sat his lawyer, a former United States Attorney. To his left at the head of the 

table, a court reporter, called the night before for an emergency assignment, using her stenograph 

to record Melson’s every word. Muzzled by senior leadership of the Department of Justice for 

months and amidst rumors of his imminent firing, Melson had had enough. 

Across from the ATF Acting Director sat his interviewers, a staffer for the Oversight and 

Government Reform Committee and the chief investigative counsel for Senator Grassley, the 

individuals responsible for Melson’s presence. A speakerphone sat in the center of the table, 

switched on for those who were unable to change their plans in the middle of a long holiday 

weekend to call in and participate. Ken Melson was about to begin his day-long interview with 

Congress as part of its investigation into ATF’s gun trafficking operation known as Operation 

Fast and Furious.

“Are you ready to begin?” the staffer asked.

“I’ve got all day,” Melson replied in a confident tone. “I just have to be home in time to 

watch the fireworks with my kids.”

July 4, 2011, was not the first non-work day that Ken Melson had spent away from his 

family talking to congressional investigators about Fast and Furious. 

During the week of June 13, 2011, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

held its first two hearings on Fast and Furious. The second, on June 15, featured testimony by 

Senator Grassley and three ATF agents close to the operation, as well as three family members 

of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who died as a result of the reckless tactics used in Fast 

and Furious. During that hearing, the Committee uncovered evidence that Ken Melson had 

sought access to pole cameras monitoring the homes of suspects in the investigation. Until that 

point, no evidence had been uncovered showing ATF’s Acting Director to be engaged in such 

hands-on management of Fast and Furious. 

The public nature of the June 15 hearing and its damaging revelations led to an increasing 

drumbeat for Melson’s resignation. But Ken Melson had no intention of resigning. He had not 

viewed any footage from the pole cameras. He believed he had done nothing wrong. In fact, in 

his view, senior officials in the Justice Department were preventing him from doing something 

right.
5

Even though the Committee had subpoenaed Ken Melson for documents related to Fast 

and Furious in March, Melson was powerless to respond. Melson wanted to cooperate with 

Congress, but the response to the subpoena, issued to Ken Melson, came not from him, but 

instead from senior officials in the Justice Department. These officials, in the Office of 

Legislative Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, instructed Melson not to 

communicate with Congress and not to communicate with his staff about Fast and Furious. They 

told him they would handle the response for him.

On July 4, 2011, Melson shared a blunt assessment of the Department’s handling of the 

response:

My view is that the whole matter of the Department's response in this case 

was a disaster. That as a result, it came to fruition that the committee 

staff had to be more aggressive and assertive in attempting to get 

information from the Department, and as a result, there was more adverse 

publicity towards ATF than was warranted if we had cooperated from the 

very beginning. And a lot of what they did was damage control after a 

while. Their position on things changed weekly and it was hard for us to 

catch up on it, but it was very clear that they were running the show.

1

In fact, the Justice Department was “running the show” so much so that it would not permit 

congressional investigators to speak with Melson. Despite months of congressional inquiry into 

ATF, Department officials were preventing Congress from interviewing the man at the center of 

the investigation.

To combat this difficulty, on Thursday, June 16, 2011, the day after the second hearing 

on Fast and Furious, an intermediary contacted Ken Melson to suggest that it might be time for 

Melson to share his side of the story with congressional investigators.

Mindful of his handlers in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Melson 

immediately shrugged off the suggestion and replied to the intermediary: “I can’t do that. They 

would slaughter me.”

Instead, the intermediary and Melson scheduled a breakfast meeting for that Sunday. The 

intermediary thought that senior officials in the Department leadership, looking out for their own 

best interests, not Melson’s, were misleading Melson. He wanted to offer Melson advice on how 

to better answer Department officials while still protecting his own interests and the interests of 

ATF.

The next day, Friday, June 17, a story entitled “Head of ATF is Likely to Go” appeared 

on the website of the Wall Street Journal. The story noted that “[m]oves toward the 

replacement of Kenneth Melson . . . could begin next week.” Melson’s tenure as ATF Acting 

 

1 Transcript, Interview of Kenneth E. Melson by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (July 4, 2011), at 31 [hereinafter Melson Transcript] 

(emphasis added) (Exhibit 1).
6

Director appeared to be coming to an end quickly, and, thanks to the Justice Department’s 

handling of the matter, without an opportunity for Melson to tell his side of the story. 

On Sunday morning, June 19, 2011—Father’s Day—Melson and the intermediary met 

for breakfast at a McDonald’s near Melson’s home. The meeting lasted nearly an hour. 

Later that afternoon, a staffer from Chairman Issa’s office called Melson on his cell 

phone. He had obtained the number from the intermediary that morning. Unfamiliar with the 

incoming number, Melson, shopping in an ACE Hardware store, answered the call. Melson told 

the staffer he took the call because the incoming number displayed as “Private”—the same 

designation usually associated with incoming calls he received from Justice Department or ATF 

managers.

The ensuing 20-minute conversation provided a powerful insight into Melson’s mindset. 

Melson, a distinguished career federal prosecutor, gave up his status as a member of the Senior 

Executive Service to become an at-will employee when President Obama asked him to serve as 

the ATF Acting Director. This meant that Melson could be terminated at any time and for any 

reason, including for disobeying the order from senior Department officials prohibiting him from 

speaking with congressional investigators. The fact that one such investigator made an 

unsolicited call to Melson, and that the call occurred on a holiday, gave Melson some confidence 

that he was not disobeying orders from his Department minders.

Knowing that the Department was withholding information from Congress, Melson had 

wanted to talk with congressional investigators to set the record straight. He even told the staffer 

that he himself had researched whether he could file for whistleblower status. 

After the phone call, the staffer e-mailed Ken Melson’s handler in the Office of the 

Deputy Attorney General, Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod, to reiterate a 

previous request to interview Melson. In light of the Wall Street Journal article two days earlier, 

the investigator knew it was imperative to interview Melson before the Justice Department 

removed him as the head of ATF. Thus, he requested that the interview take place on Monday, 

June 20, or Tuesday, June 21.

The next day, June 20, Axelrod replied, chastising the investigator for contacting Melson 

directly. He wanted Congress to work through him, instead of approaching law enforcement 

personnel directly—regardless of how much those personnel wished to talk with Congress. 

Axelrod also said that the interview with Ken Melson would take place on July 13–three weeks 

later. Congressional investigators worried that Melson would be forced out of his job by that 

point.

Despite new reports surfacing on CNN that Melson was about to lose his job, he was still

head of ATF at the end of the week. Congressional investigators, abiding by the decree from the 

Deputy Attorney General’s office that they work only through that office in contacting law 

enforcement officials for interviews, were concerned that Melson would be removed as the ATF 

head before his scheduled July 13 interview.
7

On Friday, July 1, however, an opening occurred. The chief investigative counsel for 

Senator Grassley e-mailed Melson regarding attempts within the Department to retaliate against 

the Fast and Furious whistleblowers. Senator Grassley viewed these attempts as a sign of bad 

faith on the part of the Department, just days after he had agreed to proceed on three Justice 

Department nominees following Attorney General Holder’s promises of cooperation with the 

investigation. Grassley’s investigator wanted to inform Melson personally about the 

Department’s documented retaliation attempts.

Ken Melson e-mailed back. 

He was willing to talk about the matter in detail with Senator Grassley’s investigator, 

who called him the next day to follow up. During that conversation, the investigator encouraged 

Melson to come in and tell his story to Congress. His reputation was being dragged through the 

mud, the investigator said, and senior Department officials were prohibiting him from doing 

anything about it. He deserved better.

Melson, knowing his days at ATF were numbered regardless of what actions he took, 

agreed.

On Sunday July 3, Melson traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with Senator Grassley’s lead 

investigator, who he had spoken to the day before, and Chairman Issa’s lead investigator, who he 

had spoken to on Father’s Day. Melson came alone, without his ATF security detail. The trio 

convened around a conference table in a basement office about the need for Melson to testify 

about Fast and Furious, and the Justice Department’s efforts to block him from approaching 

Congress to share information. 

Based on the information Melson shared, it was important to get his interview on the 

record and to have Democratic staff present to ask questions of their own. That afternoon, Ken 

Melson agreed to a transcribed interview the following day, July 4, to share his story. Pursuant 

to an agreement between investigators and Department personnel, witnesses were allowed to sit 

for transcribed interviews with their own personal attorneys if they chose to do so. The 

Department had not informed Melson of that agreement. Once he learned of that option, he 

became the first ATF employee under this agreement to make that choice.

After the meeting broke up, the two staffers scrambled to ensure that the logistics were in 

place to conduct a transcribed interview the following morning. They located a court reporter

who was able to arrive for emergency duty with less than a day’s notice. They secured the 

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s main hearing room in 2154 Rayburn for 

the interview, and invited other staff to the interview via e-mail, noting that the invitation was 

contigent on their commitment to maintain confidentiality. While some investigators protested 

about the late notice and others were unable to attend in person, the opportunity to interview Ken 

Melson at last persuaded many staffers to set aside their Independence Day plans and either 

attend in person or conference in by telephone.

With his lawyer, a former U.S. Attorney, at his side, and confident that he was doing the 

right thing, Melson testified for six and a half hours with no food and only a few breaks. During 
8

his testimony, Melson made little effort to conceal his thoughts about the conduct of his Justice 

Department handlers in response to the congressional inquiry. Melson testified:

I think there could have been accomodations made between the Hill and 

ATF and DOJ as to how information was shared. It was very frustrating 

to all of us, and it appears thoroughly to us that the Department is 

really trying to figure out a way to push the information away from 

their political appointees at the Department.

2

In the intervening fourteen months since Ken Melson made that statement, the Justice 

Department has cried foul about the politicization of the congressional inquiry into Fast and 

Furious. Yet, Melson’s words ring even truer today than they did on Independence Day 2011. 

The Department’s actions in steering the sinking ship away from political appointees continue to 

give credence to Melson’s testimony, as the Department has, at all costs, deflected blame away 

from these political appointees. 

Instead of owning up to its own shortcomings, the Department sought to put the blame on 

Ken Melson.

 

2 Melson Transcript at 124 (emphasis added).
9

I. Executive Summary

Operation Fast and Furious was not a strictly local operation conceived by a rogue ATF 

office in Phoenix, but rather the product of a deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of 

the Justice Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking ring. This 

strategy, along with institutional inertia, led to the genesis, implementation, and year-long 

duration of Fast and Furious. 

Shortly after he took office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. delivered a series of 

speeches about combating violence along the southwest border. He focused specifically on 

fighting Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and in the fall of 2009, the Justice Department released a 

document crystallizing the Attorney General’s vision, entitled “Department of Justice Strategy 

for Combating the Mexican Cartels.”

As part of this new strategy, the Department of Justice made a tactical decision to shift its

focus from arresting straw purchasers to identifying members of large illegal trafficking 

networks. These investigations would involve multiple federal agencies, and local U.S. 

Attorney’s offices would coordinate them. In October 2009, the Deputy Attorney General led a 

newly created Southwest Border Strategy Group designed to ensure the effective implementation 

of this strategy. 

The ATF Phoenix Field Division received the Department’s new strategy favorably. 

Leaders of the Phoenix Field Division believed that the new strategy allowed agents to witness 

illegally purchased weapons being transferred to third parties without interdiction, even if lawful 

interdiction was possible. Consistent with a desire for a new emphasis on prosecuting gun 

trafficking cases, at around the same time, Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the 

Criminal Division, assigned a prosecutor to a dormant firearms trafficking case out of the ATF 

Phoenix Field Division known as Operation Wide Receiver. Under prior Department leadership, 

Wide Receiver was not prosecuted, in part due to the reckless tactics used in the investigation. 

Both Breuer’s resurrection of the prosecution and the Department’s new strategy, however, 

provided the imprimatur for the Phoenix Field Division to create Operation Fast and Furious.

Though the Criminal Division assigned an attorney to assist with Fast and Furious, the 

operation quickly spun out of control. Straw purchasers bought hundreds of weapons illegally 

while federal agents watched. Armed with this information, beginning in the spring of 2010, the

Department’s Criminal Division—in particular, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason 

Weinstein—authorized several applications for wire intercepts to monitor the phones of straw 

purchasers. In the summer of 2010, a second attorney from the Criminal Division began 

assisting with Fast and Furious, and the Criminal Division authorized additional applications for 

wire intercepts. Fast and Furious was growing even larger.

The Criminal Division was not the only component of the Justice Department overseeing 

Fast and Furious. The Office of the Deputy Attorney General was also involved. Acting Deputy 

Attorney General Gary Grindler and his staff were briefed extensively on the enormous volume 
10

of firearms involved in the case. Individuals in that office, including Ed Siskel, received 

constant updates on recoveries of large numbers of weapons connected to Fast and Furious.

Though many senior Department officials were keenly aware of Fast and Furious, no one 

questioned the operation. The Southwest Border Strategy Group asked no questions. The 

Criminal Division asked no questions. The Office of the Deputy Attorney General asked no 

questions. No one ordered that Fast and Furious be shut down. Instead, senior Department 

officials let it continue to grow.

Officials in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General were ill-prepared to understand 

and approve Fast and Furious. Ed Siskel, the Associate Deputy Attorney General responsible for 

the ATF portfolio, had no prior training or experience with ATF, and he did not make any effort 

to gain information about ATF while at his position. Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary 

Grindler admitted that he did not appreciate the massive size of Fast and Furious, even though it 

was the largest firearms trafficking case involving Mexico ever undertaken.

The hands-off management approach taken by these senior managers meant that they 

expected problems to be reported to them, failing to seek out information themselves. Siskel and 

Grindler did not ask any questions about Fast and Furious because they did not know what 

questions they should have been asking about Fast and Furious. 

Monty Wilkinson, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, contributed to the 

Department’s lack of supervision over Fast and Furious. While Wilkinson read memos to the 

Attorney General about Fast and Furious, he did not believe it was his role to manage and 

supervise components of the Department, including ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s 

Office. Wilkinson, like other senior Department officials, never asked questions about Fast and 

Furious.

In fact, just before the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Monty Wilkinson 

was inquiring about the possibility of the Attorney General traveling to Phoenix to help 

announce Fast and Furious at a press conference. Once the weapons found at the Terry murder 

scene were traced to Fast and Furious, though, this idea was quickly scrapped. 

Department leadership’s failure to recognize Fast and Furious was a problem until it was 

too late was the result of a “pass-the-buck” attitude that emanated from the highest echelons of 

the Department of Justice. Every senior Department official interviewed during the Committees’

investigation claimed either ignorance of Fast and Furious or that it was someone else’s 

responsibility to ask questions or draw connections. Senior managers placed blame elsewhere 

and retained plausible deniability. This environment allowed Fast and Furious to fester for over 

a year.

Thus far, the Department has failed to reprimand any senior Department officials for their 

actions—or lack thereof—during Fast and Furious. In fact, several have received promotions. 

The management culture of the Department must change to prevent such a deadly operation from 

occurring again. Time is of the essence. Change must begin now.
11

II. Table of Names

Office of the Attorney General

Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Attorney General

After taking office, Holder delivered a series of speeches touting a new strategy to combat 

Mexican drug cartels. These speeches formed the basis of a new Department strategy.

Robert “Monty” Wilkinson

Deputy Chief of Staff

Monty Wilkinson read weekly reports discussing Operation Fast and Furious, yet failed to act on 

the information. He believed that it was not the responsibility of the Attorney General’s office to 

manage or supervise the Department’s components. Before Agent Brian Terry was murdered, 

Wilkinson inquired about the Attorney General’s participation in announcing the Fast and 

Furious take-down.

Office of the Deputy Attorney General

Gary Grindler

Acting Deputy Attorney General

Gary Grindler attended detailed briefings on Operation Fast and Furious in 2010. He had a 

passive management style, waiting for staff to bring issues to him instead of seeking them out. 

In January 2011, Grindler became the Chief of Staff to Attorney General Holder, a position he 

currently holds.

Edward Siskel

Associate Deputy Attorney General 

Edward Siskel was responsible for the ATF portfolio in the Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General during Operation Fast and Furious, even though he had no prior training or experience 

with ATF. He also attended detailed briefings on Fast and Furious. Siskel is currently an 

Associate Counsel at the White House.

Criminal Division

Lanny Breuer

Assistant Attorney General

Led by Lanny Breuer, the Criminal Division decided to resurrect the prosecution of Operation 

Wide Receiver even though the case had used the reckless and misguided tactic of gunwalking. 
12

Breuer dedicated staff resources to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona to help 

in Operation Fast and Furious. His staff also authorized at least six wiretap applications on his 

behalf in support of Fast and Furious.

Jason Weinstein

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Jason Weinstein authorized wiretap applications for Operation Fast and Furious. He knew about 

the gunwalking tactics used in Operation Wide Receiver. He failed to connect the dots between 

the two cases. Weinstein resigned on September 19, 2012.

Kenneth Blanco

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Kenneth Blanco authorized at least two wiretap applications in Operation Fast and Furious.

James Trusty

Acting Chief, Gang Unit

James Trusty was a key liaison between Criminal Division leadership and prosecutors sent by the 

Criminal Division to Arizona.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona

Dennis Burke

U.S. Attorney

Dennis Burke was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona during Operation Fast and 

Furious. He frequently met with ATF and received updates on the case. In the early stages of 

Fast and Furious, Burke wanted to hold out for a bigger case instead of arresting the straw 

purchasers and closing the investigation. Burke resigned on August 30, 2011.

ATF Headquarters

Kenneth Melson

Acting Director

Kenneth Melson was instrumental in starting a new initiative between ATF and the Criminal 

Division, whereby Criminal Division attorneys assisted ATF with firearms investigations and 

prosecutions. Melson retired on September 19, 2012.
13

William Hoover

Deputy Director

Realizing that Fast and Furious had become an enormous case, William Hoover ordered an exit 

strategy for the investigation. The Department of Justice never implemented it. Hoover was also 

instrumental in briefing personnel at Department of Justice headquarters about the status of Fast 

and Furious, providing frequent updates to the Deputy Attorney General’s office. Hoover retired 

from ATF on August 1, 2012.

William McMahon

Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations—West

McMahon authorized the wiretap applications on behalf of ATF before they were sent to the 

Department of Justice’s Office of Enforcement Operations for review and approval.

William Newell

Special Agent in Charge, Phoenix Field Division

William Newell had a history of using reckless tactics during his investigations. He believed he 

had the full support of senior Justice Department officials in creating and executing Fast and 

Furious.
14

III. Findings

Initial Involvement in Fast and Furious

 Following a series of speeches given by Attorney General Eric Holder, senior officials 

within the Justice Department developed a new strategy for combating the Mexican drug 

cartels. However, the Southwest Border Strategy Group, created to implement this 

strategy, failed to do so effectively. Instead, the draft Strategy for Combating the 

Mexican Cartels guided Operation Fast and Furious. 

 The Justice Department’s Criminal Division resurrected a dormant ATF case known as 

Operation Wide Receiver for prosecution. The case, in which ATF had allowed guns to 

walk, had not been prosecuted by previous Justice Department officials. The resurrection 

of the Wide Receiver prosecution may have signaled to ATF officials that the new 

Department leadership approved of the tactics involved. 

 Fast and Furious was the first case chosen under a new partnership between ATF and the 

Criminal Division to focus on gun trafficking prosecutions. Shortly after Operation Fast 

and Furious began, the Criminal Division assigned a prosecutor to assist with the case. 

Justice Department Involvement Deepens

 The Criminal Division authorized at least six wiretap applications for Fast and Furious. 

The applications were replete with details and instances of gunwalking. These wiretap 

applications bypassed ATF senior leadership and were sent straight to the Criminal 

Division. This approval process created the unusual situation in which senior Criminal 

Division officials received materials that senior ATF officials had not reviewed. These 

materials should have raised red flags.

 Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed 

Siskel, and other officials from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General attended a 

detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious in March 2010. Despite the evidence 

presented at the briefing of illegally-purchased firearms being recovered in Mexico, 

Grindler and Siskel failed to ask probing questions or take any significant follow-up 

action to monitor and supervise the conduct of the case.

Criminal Division Awareness of Gunwalking

 Criminal Division leadership discovered in the spring of 2010 that gunwalking had 

occurred in Operation Wide Receiver. However, rather than notifying the Inspector 

General or even the Deputy Attorney General, the individual responsible for overseeing 

ATF, senior Criminal Division officials held a single meeting with ATF leadership and a 

senior Department official in the press office in which they focused on the challenges of 

presenting gunwalking to the press.
15

 Criminal Division officials received detailed information about gunwalking in Fast and 

Furious at the same time these officials were expressing concern about gunwalking that 

had occurred in Operation Wide Receiver. Many similarities existed between the two 

operations. However, officials in the Justice Department claim that no one made the 

connection, failing to recognize the same warning signs and mistakes in both operations.

Justice Department’s Failure to Supervise ATF

 Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel did not actively engage with ATF 

leadership. He viewed his role as extremely limited, so he did not seek out any detailed 

knowledge of specific ATF operations, including Operation Fast and Furious. Siskel had 

no prior training or experience with ATF, and he did not make any effort to learn more 

about ATF’s problems during his tenure in ODAG.

 Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler did not take an active leadership role 

with respect to ATF. He waited for his staff to bring matters to his attention. 

Accordingly, Operation Fast and Furious continued unabated. 

 Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General Monty Wilkinson was uninterested in the 

initiatives and operations of individual Justice Department components—including those 

in his portfolio. In fact, he believed it was not the role of anyone in the Office of the 

Attorney General to manage and supervise Department components. He read weekly 

memos containing details about Fast and Furious, but did nothing with this information.

 Within the Department of Justice, ATF reports to the ODAG. Not a single Department 

official, however, took responsibility for supervising ATF. By failing to ask difficult 

questions about Fast and Furious, ODAG left ATF with the impression that ATF had the 

full support of Department leadership in the operation.

Supervision and Role of U.S. Attorney’s Office

 When U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reported to officials at Justice Department 

headquarters that his office had obtained a Title III wiretap in a firearms trafficking 

case—an unusual step and an aggressive tactic—no one at Justice Department 

headquarters probed deeper.

 ATF officials asked both the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and ODAG for 

assistance in speeding up the indictments in Fast and Furious. The Justice Department, 

however, took no action to intervene. Instead, officials at Department headquarters were 

only concerned with preparing for the press impact of the indictments.
16

Connection of Fast and Furious to Brian Terry’s Death

 Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General Monty Wilkinson inquired about Attorney 

General Holder participating in the press conference announcing the take-down of 

Operation Fast and Furious. 

 Both Monty Wilkinson and Gary Grindler were informed about the connection between 

Operation Fast and Furious and U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder. Grindler

received detailed information about the connection. He took no action, however, to 

investigate the operation.

 Shortly after the weapons from Brian Terry’s murder traced back to Operation Fast and 

Furious, Dennis Burke recommended against Attorney General Holder’s announcement 

of Fast and Furious to Monty Wilkinson. 

 No one at Justice Department headquarters has been able to provide answers to the Terry 

family. During their respective transcribed interviews, Monty Wilkinson stated 38 times

that he “did not recall” or “did not know.” In a similar fashion, Gary Grindler did so 29 

times, and Ed Siskel 21 times. In two different transcribed interviews, Dennis Burke said 

he “did not recall” or “did not know” a combined total of 161 times.
17

IV. Recommendations

 When the Justice Department promulgates a broad new strategy and implements it 

throughout its components, the Department must create procedures to ensure that 

implementation of the strategy is monitored, overseen, and supervised adequately.

 Congress vested in senior Department officials the authority to authorize applications for 

intrusive wire intercepts. These senior officials must review each application thoroughly 

to ensure such an intrusion is necessary and appropriate. Delegating this authority to 

subordinates introduces the risk that a careful review will not take place.

 The Justice Department needs to institute clear, written guidelines to outline the 

appropriate use of cooperating gun dealers during law enforcement investigations. The 

Department must scrutinize investigations that involve cooperating gun dealers much 

more closely.

 The official within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General responsible for the ATF 

portfolio should have ATF-specific experience and training, and must be more than just a 

liaison. That official should ensure that the Deputy Attorney General is able to provide 

meaningful supervision of ATF operations.

 The Deputy Attorney General must closely supervise ATF, an agency with a long and 

troubled history. 

 Leadership within the Justice Department must start at the top. Senior managers should

foster a culture of accountability within the Department by taking responsibility and 

accepting consequences for their own lack of initiative and failures. 

 Justice Department components look to senior Department officials for leadership and 

guidance. It is critically important that these senior leaders provide such leadership and 

guidance. Justice Department officials also must take responsibility for supervising and 

managing the Department’s component agencies.

 The Justice Department must provide the Terry family with a complete accounting of 

how it learned about the connection of their son’s death to Operation Fast and Furious. 

The Department should also apologize for not personally informing the Terry family or 

publicly admitting the connection sooner.
18

V. Initial Involvement in Fast and Furious

A. The Cartel-Based Strategy

FINDING: Following a series of speeches given by Attorney General Eric Holder, 

senior officials within the Justice Department developed a new 

strategy for combating the Mexican drug cartels. However, the 

Southwest Border Strategy Group, created to implement this strategy,

failed to do so effectively. Instead, the draft Strategy for Combating 

the Mexican Cartels guided Operation Fast and Furious. 

Although ATF did not officially open the Fast and Furious investigation until the fall of 

2009, the groundwork for the strategy that would guide the operation began shortly after new 

leadership took control of the Department of Justice nine months earlier. On February 25, 2009, 

just one month after Attorney General Eric Holder took office, he gave a speech noting the 

danger of the Mexican drug cartels, focusing on the Sinaloa cartel in particular. Attorney 

General Holder said of the cartels: “[They] are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated 

with stunning planning and precision.”

3

 He promised that under his leadership “these cartels will 

be destroyed.”

4

 The Attorney General used his speech to outline the Department’s strategy for 

combating these dangerous cartels for the first time. He vowed that the Department of Justice 

would “continue to work with [its] counterparts in Mexico, through information sharing, training 

and mutual cooperation to jointly fight these cartels, both in Mexico and the United States.”

5

In an April 2, 2009, speech in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Attorney General Holder gave 

further insight into the Department’s new strategy for combating these dangerous cartels. He 

spoke about the development of a prosecution and enforcement strategy with respect to firearms 

trafficking, noting that the “administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the 

cartels.”

6

 In particular, the Attorney General said that the Justice Department was committed to 

adding “100 new ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives] personnel to the 

Southwest Border” and that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would add “16 new 

positions on the border.”

7 Most importantly, the Attorney General noted that there must be “an 

attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the 

cartel.”

8

In a June 30, 2009, speech at a Firearms Trafficking Summit in Albuquerque, New 

Mexico, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden observed that the southwest border is the front 

 

3

Statement by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Xcellerator Press Conference (Feb. 25, 2009), available at

http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090225.html [hereinafter Holder Statement].

4 ASSOC. PRESS, Mexican cartels’ drugs, mayhem hit U.S. cities, Feb. 26, 2009, available at

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29389404/ns/world_news-americas/t/mexican-cartels-drugs-mayhem-hit-us-cities/.

5 Holder Statement.

6

Statement by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Mexico/United States Arms Trafficking Conference (Apr. 2, 

2009), available at http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090402.html. 

7

Id.

8

Id. (emphasis added).
19

line of the fight against illegal gun trafficking.9 He also said that ATF and Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (ICE) would sign a new agreement to “ensure coordination between the 

Departments on firearms investigations.”

10

Following the Attorney General’s April 2, 2009, speech, a Firearms Trafficking Working 

Group was formed. This Working Group, led by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, was 

tasked with exploring and recommending proposals to enhance law enforcement efforts to curb

firearms trafficking, focusing specifically on investigation, interdiction, training, prosecution, 

and intelligence-sharing.11 On August 19, 2009, the Working Group presented its 

recommendations to the Attorney General:

12

 

 

9 Remarks by the Deputy Attorney General for the ATF Firearms Trafficking Summit (June 29, 2009) [HOGR 

006607-006613] (Exhibit 2).

10 Id.

11 Memorandum for the Attorney General from Lanny A. Breuer (Aug. 19, 2009) [HOGR 006706-006717] (Exhibit 

3).

12 Id.
20

The recommendations section of this August 2009 memo included many of the previous public 

comments by Attorney General Holder and Deputy Attorney General Ogden. Among the 

recommendations were:

 The assistance of Gang Unit attorneys from the Criminal Division to 

work with southwest border U.S. Attorney’s Offices on firearms 

trafficking prosecutions;

 Additional ATF agents in field offices along the southwest border;

 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shifting resources along the 

southwest border to increase focus on firearms offenses;

 Increased coordination between ATF and ICE to dismantle criminal 

organizations; and

 Encouraging each U.S. Attorney’s Office to consider a “range of 

options” to ensure aggressive prosecution of organizations that 

illegally traffic in firearms.

13

These recommendations ultimately became part of a nine-page draft document entitled 

“Department of Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels.” Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Ed Siskel, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, and ATF 

Deputy Director William Hoover were all heavily involved in the creation of the strategy.14 It 

stated:15

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

13 Id.

14 Transcript, Interview of William Hoover by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (July 21, 2011), at 84-85 [hereinafter Hoover Transcript] (Exhibit 

4).

15 Draft Department of Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels (Oct. 22, 2009) [HOGR 001449-

001459], at 1 (Exhibit 5).
21

The document went on to recommend “intelligence-based, prosecutor-led, multi-agency task 

forces . . . .”

16

 It suggested that under its new model, “we develop priority targets through the 

extensive use of intelligence,” which would allow it to “build cases, coordinating long-term, 

extensive investigations to identify all the tentacles of a particular organization.”

17

On October 23, 2009, Deputy Attorney General Ogden disseminated this strategy to the 

heads of Department components, including the ATF, DEA, and FBI.

18

 The Deputy Attorney 

General also formed a Southwest Border Strategy Group, which he headed, responsible for 

implementing the new strategy. The Strategy Group’s first meeting was on October 26, 2009, 

 

16 Id. at 3.

17 Id.

18 E-mail from [Department of Justice] on behalf of Deputy Attorney General David Odgen to Kathryn Ruemmler, 

et al. (Oct. 26, 2009) [HOGR 001449-001459] (Exhibit 5).
22

when it assembled to discuss the new strategy.19 The meeting invitation included Deputy 

Attorney General Ogden and his deputies Ed Siskel and Kathryn Ruemmler (both of whom 

would later leave the Justice Department for the White House Counsel’s Office); Assistant 

Attorney General Breuer and his deputies, Jason Weinstein, Kenneth Blanco, and Bruce Swartz; 

ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson and Deputy Director William Hoover; the U.S. Attorney 

for the District of Arizona, Dennis Burke; and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, B. 

Todd Jones, then serving as Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

20

 The

Committees were unable to ascertain any further details regarding this meeting.

 ATF’s Phoenix Field Division was particularly interested in key language from the 

strategy. Specifically, page seven of the strategy stated the following:21

ATF Phoenix Field Division Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) George Gillett testified 

that this specific language became the blueprint for Operation Fast and Furious, as the Field 

Division viewed the strategy as an instruction from the Deputy Attorney General to stop focusing 

efforts on straw purchasers. Gillett stated:

Q. Was it your understanding that at that time DOJ was looking to 

ATF to focus on cartels and more of an organized crime level 

rather than straw purchasers?

A. Yes, sir. The content of that plan specifically addressed 

wanting ATF not to focus on straw purchasers, but to focus on 

cartels and larger complex conspiracy type investigations.

Q. How did that initiative trickle down to the agents in the Phoenix 

field office?

A. Well, to kind of paint the picture, there was the IG reports that 

addressed the ineffective nature of straw purchasers. The drug 

enforcement for the office here in Phoenix was looking to stand up 

an organized crime drug enforcement task force strike force, 

OCDETF. And the special agent in charge of the DEA office was 

asking for ATF’s participation in this joint multi-agency strike 

force.

 

19 Id.

20 Id.

21 Draft Department of Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels (Oct. 22, 2009) [HOGR 001451-

001459], at 7 (Exhibit 5).
23

ATF here was not able to get any straw purchase prosecutions at 

the time because of an interpretation of the law by the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office here in the District of Arizona. So this strategy 

in October 2009 handed down by the DAG’s office, actually 

from the Phoenix perspective, was well timed and provided us 

with direction on how to proceed in these types of firearms 

trafficking investigations.22

Ken Melson also testified that the Phoenix Field Division might have relied heavily on 

the new DAG strategy:

Now, I don't know whether agent Voth read those memos and said, oh, 

they opened the door for me, I can go through it now or not. I don't know. 

But that was the direction of the Department. And I don't disagree with 

that, because I worked with DAG Ogden to provide some direction and 

leadership for the Southwest border activity. And he did.

In fact, on the way back from Phoenix after the strike force office was 

open, and he went down there for the press conference, I sat next to him 

for a while and I talked to him about the failure of the Department to give 

clear guidance and coordinated, collaborative effort along the Southwest 

border.23

This specific language in the Justice Department’s new cartel strategy was not created in 

isolation. Rather, it was a result of interactions between senior Department officials and ATF. 

ATF Deputy Director William Hoover testified about the process for sharpening the language in 

the document regarding the interdiction of firearms. He stated:

Q. Did you have any discussions with anyone in the Justice 

Department in the weeks and months leading up to this time frame 

about the preparation of this document? 

A. I’m confident I know I did. I’m trying to remember who exactly I 

had those conversations with. I’m not sure I can recall everybody I 

maybe talked to about this. We had some—

Q. Who can you recall? 

A. I believe Jason Weinstein, Ed Siskel. 

 

22 Transcript, Interview of George Gillett by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (May 17, 2011), at 12-13 [hereinafter Gillett Transcript] (Exhibit 6).

23 Melson Transcript at 90 (Exhibit 1).
24

Q. And what can you recall about your conversations with Mr. 

Weinstein? 

A. Just . . . ATF was charged with putting together the firearms 

trafficking piece of this. Just talking about—

Q. So page 7, for example, the attacking the southbound flow of 

firearms, that would have been prepared by someone at ATF? 

A. Yes. We would have provided language to the Department and 

obviously the Department would have edits, and it would have 

been a document that would go between us and we would get 

edits back and forth. I don’t recall exactly who originally drafted 

the strategy right now, or the language.24

Hoover further stated that the Justice Department would “wordsmith and make changes that they 

thought appropriate.”

25

 He testified about the involvement of Deputy Assistant Attorney General 

Jason Weinstein and Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel:

Q. And so I believe I interrupted you. You were going to tell me what 

you recall about your conversations with Mr. Weinstein. 

A. I think we were discussing just—or my discussions with Jason is if 

what we were contemplating as a draft, we were on the right track. 

That that would not—you know, obviously we provided Jason with 

where we thought we needed to go, as I recall. And he said, now I 

think you’re on point, and that was pretty much it.

Q. So you just recall the one conversation with him about it? 

A. That’s all that I recall right now. I probably would have had the 

exact same conversation with maybe Ed Siskel.26

Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel was also a member of the Southwest 

Border Strategy Group, charged with “running” the Department’s new cartel strategy.27 Siskel 

testified that his role in the Group was to ensure that everybody “understood what their 

respective roles were.”

28

 He stated that the ATF Phoenix Field Division’s interpretation of the 

Department’s strategy, discussed at the beginning of this section, was incorrect. Yet it was 

Siskel’s duty to manage the ATF portfolio in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. He 

was responsible for ensuring that ATF understood and adhered to Department policy. Though 

 

24 Hoover Transcript at 84-85 (Exhibit 4).

25 Id. at 85.

26 Id. at 85-86 (emphasis added).

27 E-mail from Sam Kaplan to Mark Chait et al. (Oct. 26, 2009) (Exhibit 7).

28 Transcript, Interview of Edward Siskel by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Feb. 29, 2012), at 46 [hereinafter Siskel Transcript] (Exhibit 8).
25

individuals within ATF believed the language in the strategy instructed it to stop focusing on 

straw purchasers and redirect its efforts to cartels,29 Siskel claimed that was never the purpose 

of the strategy. He testified:

Q. Did you understand that that language authorized forgoing the 

interdiction of firearms when law enforcement had the legal 

authority to do so, in order to build a bigger firearms trafficking 

case? 

A. No, that’s not what I understand this to mean. 

Q. What did you understand this to mean? 

A. Well, what I understand this to mean is that we need to be 

interdicting firearms, prosecuting cases against people who are part

of the trafficking networks, whether they’re straw purchasers or 

not, and then moving up the chain to build cases against the 

trafficking networks and their leadership as well. 

Q. And was that your understanding at the time when this was being 

developed? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And to the extent that you know it, was that the understanding, the 

mutual understanding of those who were developing the strategy? 

A. Yeah, it’s hard for me to say with certainty what is in somebody 

else’s mind, but I think that the language is clear that this is 

emphasizing to folks involved in the working group and the 

various components in this effort that we need to be both 

interdicting and building cases against the leadership of the 

firearms trafficking networks.30

Despite his responsibility to ensure that his fellow members of the Southwest Border Strategy 

Group understood their roles, we found no evidence that Siskel ever understood the ATF

Phoenix Field Division’s interpretation of this section of the strategy, nor did he take any steps to 

correct it.

Siskel failed to adequately oversee ATF operations as the Phoenix Field Division 

employed reckless tactics in Fast and Furious. The operation’s design relied on the new 

Department cartel strategy and incorporated elements of speeches given by the Attorney General 

and Deputy Attorney General earlier in 2009: Fast and Furious was an example of coordination 

 

29 Gillett Transcript at 12-13 (Exhibit 6).

30 Siskel Transcript at 50-51 (Exhibit 8).
26

between ATF and ICE on firearms trafficking investigations; it utilized additional ATF and DEA 

personnel on the Southwest Border; it received assistance from a Criminal Division Gang Unit 

attorney; and the case was an example of close involvement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 

which played a role in almost every strategic and tactical decision of the case. Fast and Furious 

targeted the Sinaloa cartel, with the overly ambitious goal of working a case on “both sides of the 

border” in an effort to take down the cartel’s leadership. Given that Fast and Furious 

incorporated many parts of the new cartel strategy, and given that it was Siskel’s role to ensure 

that the Department components implemented the strategy effectively, Siskel bears significant

responsibility for the failures of Fast and Furious.

RECOMMENDATION: When the Justice Department promulgates a broad new 

strategy and implements it throughout its components, the 

Department must create procedures to ensure that 

implementation of the strategy is monitored, overseen, and 

supervised adequately.

B. Coordination between the Justice Department’s Criminal Division 

and ATF

1. Operation Wide Receiver

FINDING: The Justice Department’s Criminal Division resurrected a dormant 

ATF case known as Operation Wide Receiver for prosecution. The 

case, in which ATF had allowed guns to walk, had not been 

prosecuted by previous Justice Department officials. The 

resurrection of the Wide Receiver prosecution may have signaled to 

ATF officials that the new Department leadership approved of the 

tactics involved.

In the summer of 2009, the Firearms Trafficking Working Group, led by Assistant 

Attorney General Lanny Breuer, was preparing to make its recommendations to the Attorney 

General. One recommendation was that Gang Unit attorneys from Breuer’s Criminal Division 

should work with southwest border U.S. Attorney’s Offices on firearms trafficking prosecutions. 

On July 22, 2009, the Criminal Division contacted U.S. Attorney’s offices along the southwest 

border with an offer to assist with gun trafficking cases as “part of the Department’s SWB gun 

trafficking strategy. . . .”

31

 The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona communicated 

that offer to ATF’s Phoenix Field Division.

32 ATF responded in early August 2009 seeking 

assistance with prosecuting an older case known as Operation Wide Receiver.

33

 

31 E-mail from [Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys] to [Southwest Border U.S. Attorney’s Offices] (Jul. 22, 2009) 

[HOGR 003369-003370] (Exhibit 9).

32 See e-mail from George Gillett to James Small and Sigberto Celaya (Jul. 28, 2009) [HOGR 005433-005434] 

(Exhibit 10).

33 E-mail from George Gillett to Robert Miskell (Aug. 5, 2009) [HOGR 005433-005434] (Exhibit 10); see also email from Gretchen Shappert to James Trusty (Aug. 12, 2009) [HOGR 003372-003373] (Exhibit 11).
27

Wide Receiver had begun in the spring of 2006 when a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL)

contacted ATF regarding suspicious firearms transactions.34 Despite ATF having this FFL 

record audio of the transactions and the telephone calls associated with them, the Wide Receiver 

targets were not arrested until September 2007, well over a year after the investigation started.

35

 

During that time, over 300 guns had been sold to the straw purchasers without ATF disrupting

the sales or interdicting the firearms.36 After the targets had been arrested, the case languished.

One prosecutor writing in December 2008 stated: “I don’t like the case. I think it is wrong for us 

to allow 100s of guns to go into Mexico to drug people knowing that is where they are going.”37

In August 2009, however, after ATF’s Phoenix Field Division asked the Justice 

Department for assistance with Wide Receiver, the Criminal Division assigned a prosecutor, 

Laura Gwinn, to conduct a review of the case.38 

We found no evidence that during the time that Wide Receiver was being conducted, the 

case was ever raised to the level of Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Alice 

Fisher, who served from 2005 to 2008. In contrast, in early September 2009, ATF and the 

Criminal Division began “to talk about ways CRM [Criminal Division] and ATF can coordinate 

on gun trafficking and gang-related initiatives.”

39

 E-mails produced by the Justice Department 

reveal that around the same time, Breuer was “VERY interested in the Arizona gun trafficking 

case” known as Wide Receiver:40

 

34 Memorandum from Laura Gwinn to Jason Weinstein, “Operation Wide Receiver (Tucson, AZ USAO)” (Oct. 1, 

2009), at 1 [HOGR 003391-003393] (Exhibit 12).

35 Id.

36 Id.; see also e-mail from Chuck Higman to Larry Shiver (Jun. 26, 2007) [HOGR 005412-005413] (Exhibit 13).

37 See e-mail from Serra Tsethlikai to Al Kleiner (Dec. 19, 2008) [HOGR 005430-005431] (Exhibit 14).

38 See e-mail from James Trusty to Kevin Carwile (Aug. 12, 2009) [HOGR 003372-003373] (Exhibit 11); see also 

e-mail from Laura Gwinn to Serra Tsethlikai (Aug. 13, 2009) [HOGR 003374] (Exhibit 15).

39 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Lanny Breuer (Sep. 10, 2009) [HOGR 003378] (Exhibit 16).

40 E-mail from James Trusty to Laura Gwinn (Sep. 2, 2009) [HOGR 003375] (Exhibit 17).

“He [Lanny Breuer] is VERY interested in 

the Arizona gun trafficking case . . .”
28

The next day, Breuer’s chief of staff “mentioned the case again . . . so there is clearly great 

attention/interest from the front office.”

41

In response, the Criminal Division prosecutor, Laura Gwinn, gave a senior official in the 

Gang Unit, a component of the Criminal Division, a summary of her initial review:

42

James Trusty, the senior Gang Unit official, wrote on September 20, 2009: “Big question is 

what’s wrong with it, basically.”

43 Gwinn e-mailed back: “Will see if I can figure out what the 

problems are (other than ATF letting 300 or 400 guns across the border).”

44 Trusty responded 

that he didn’t see the walked guns as an issue:45

 

41 E-mail from James Trusty to Laura Gwinn (Sep. 3, 2009) [HOGR 003376-003377] (Exhibit 18).

42 E-mail from Laura Gwinn to James Trusty (Sep. 3, 2009) [HOGR 003376-003377] (Exhibit 18).

43 E-mail from James Trusty to Laura Gwinn and Kevin Carwile (Sep. 22, 2009) [HOGR 003379-003380] (Exhibit 

19).

44 E-mail from Laura Gwinn to James Trusty and Kevin Carwile (Sep. 22, 2009) [HOGR 003379-003380] (Exhibit 

19).

45 E-mail from James Trusty to Kevin Carwile and Laura Gwinn (Sep. 22, 2009) [HOGR 003379-003380] (Exhibit 

19).

“It is my 

understanding 

that a lot of those 

guns ‘walked.’”

“The ausa seemed to think ATF 

screwed up by not having a 

mechanism in place to seize 

the weapons once they 

crossed the border.”
29

Meanwhile, Kevin Carwile, Chief of the Criminal Division’s Gang Unit, was in Phoenix. On 

September 23, 2009, Carwile e-mailed Gwinn and Trusty: “I am with the A[T]F SAC currently. 

He also promises he will get me an assessment of the case, pros and cons, by the end of the 

week.”

46

A week later, Carwile informed William Newell, Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of 

ATF’s Phoenix Field Division, that the Justice Department had decided to revive the case:

47

Newell responded to Carwile: “I was informed of this yesterday. I appreciate your interest in the 

case and the assistance.”

48

 

E-mail traffic reveals that within ATF, the Phoenix Field Division was carefully 

weighing the Justice Department’s response to its case. When ATF Phoenix Field Division 

 

46 E-mail from Kevin Carwile to Laura Gwinn and James Trusty (Sep. 23, 2009) [HOGR 003383-003384] (Exhibit 

20).

47 E-mail from Kevin Carwile to William Newell (Sep. 30, 2009) [HOGR 003389] (Exhibit 21).

48 E-mail from William Newell to Kevin Carwile (Sep. 30, 2009) [HOGR 003389] (Exhibit 21).

“If guns getting across is the only 

problem . . . we’re in good shape.”
30

ASAC George Gillett initially sent the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in August 2009, he

observed: “[Assistant United States Attorney] was . . . pushing back w/ moral dilemma w/ the 

G[overnment] allowing the targets to traffic 300+ firearms to Mexico.”

49

 In late September,

before the case was accepted, Gillett e-mailed SAC Newell: “I think (reading between the lines) 

when Kevin [Carwile] spoke with Bill McMahon and I, he asked for an executive summary to 

see if they were missing something. Kevin’s comments were that his attorney felt the case, while 

not perfect, was prosecutable and straightforward.”

50

 

The revival of the Wide Receiver prosecution—despite ATF’s use of gunwalking 

tactics—may have suggested to Newell and Gillett that under the new Justice Department 

leadership, and its new Strategy for Combating the Mexican Drug Cartels, such tactics would not 

preclude prosecution of similar cases in the future. 

2. Operation Fast and Furious

FINDING: Fast and Furious was the first case chosen under a new partnership 

between ATF and the Criminal Division to focus on gun trafficking 

prosecutions. Shortly after Operation Fast and Furious began, the 

Criminal Division assigned a prosecutor to assist with the case. 

In Phoenix, just one month after the Criminal Division decided to prosecute Operation 

Wide Receiver, the ATF Phoenix Field Division initiated the case on October 31, 2009 that 

would become Operation Fast and Furious.

In Washington D.C., throughout the fall of 2009 lower-level discussions continued 

between ATF and the Criminal Division regarding collaboration on firearms trafficking cases.51 

These discussions resulted in an e-mail exchange in early December 2009 between the two 

principals, ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, 

head of the Criminal Division, to put these ideas into action. On December 3, 2009, Melson

reached out to Breuer. He stated:

52

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

49 E-mail from George Gillett to Robert Miskell (Aug. 5, 2009) [HOGR 005433-005434] (Exhibit 10).

50 E-mail from George Gillett to William Newell (Sep. 26, 2009) [HOGR 005441-005442] (Exhibit 22).

51 See, e.g., e-mail from Jason Weinstein to Sam Kaplan and William Hoover (Nov. 11, 2009) [HOGR 003401] 

(Exhibit 23).

52 E-mail from Kenneth Melson to Lanny Breuer (Dec. 3, 2009) [HOGR 003403] (Exhibit 24).
31

Breuer included Ed Siskel from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General on his response. He 

stated:

53

In an e-mail two days later, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein wrote to the 

leadership of the Criminal Division’s Gang Unit. Weinstein wrote: “Lanny is very eager to have 

a GU [Gang Unit] person hook up with [ATF] on this initiative.”

54

 For its part, Acting Director 

Melson worked to set up a meeting with Breuer to discuss the initiative.

55

 

53 E-mail from Lanny Breuer to Kenneth Melson (Dec. 4, 2009) [HOGR 003403] (Exhibit 24).

54 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Kevin Carwile and James Trusty (Dec. 6, 2009) [HOGR 003405] (Exhibit 25).

55 E-mail from Kenneth Melson to Michelle Back (Dec. 4, 2009) [HOGR 001986] (Exhibit 26).

“I would like to see if you have any interest in 

assigning a criminal division attorney to work 

with that group . . . . The level of activity will 

depend on the number of Mexican seizures.”
32

This quickly became an important initiative for both ATF and the Criminal Division. 

Kevin Carwile, Chief of the Gang Unit, had further meetings with ATF leadership about the 

initiative.

56 He subsequently assigned Criminal Division Gang Unit prosecutor Joe Cooley to 

assist ATF.57 On December 17, 2009, ATF leadership and ATF’s Office of Strategic 

Information and Intelligence (OSII) briefed Carwile and Cooley on Fast and Furious.

58

 The 

briefing included a link analysis detailing connections among straw purchasers and weapons 

recovered, specially prepared for the briefing.

59 The briefing was important enough that Cooley 

had to rearrange his holiday plans to attend.

60

Cooley, however, was not the only Criminal Division attorney involved with Fast and 

Furious during this time period. On January 5, 2010 Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer 

met with ATF Deputy Director Hoover and Assistant Director Chait to discuss the new initiative

and weapons seizures in Mexico.

61 After this meeting, Chait went to an internal ATF intelligence

briefing on Fast and Furious, where he fielded questions from ATF Southwest Border 

Coordinator Ray Rowley and ATF OSII leadership on his plan for shutting down the operation.

62

 

Chait, however, failed to answer when asked, “How long are you going to let this go on?”

63

Also on January 5, 2010, ATF met in Phoenix with the Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) 

Emory Hurley. Hurley’s supervisor, head of the National Security Section Michael Morrissey, emailed U.S. Attorney Burke about the meeting:

64

 

56 See e-mail from Kevin Carwile to Jason Weinstein (Dec. 9, 2009) [HOGR 003407] (Exhibit 27).

57 Melson Transcript at 76-77 (Exhibit 01); see also Transcript, Interview of Steven Martin by the Joint Staff of the 

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Jul. 6, 2011), at 

35-36 [hereinafter Martin Transcript] (Exhibit 28).

58 See e-mail from Kevin Carwile to Jason Weinstein (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 002832-002833] (Exhibit 29).

59 E-mail from Kevin O’Keefe to George Gillett (Dec. 14, 2009) (Exhibit 30).

60 Id.

61 Meeting on “Weapons Seizures in Mexico w/ Lanny Breuer” at Robert F. Kennedy Building, Room 2107, Jan. 5, 

2010, 10:00 AM [HOGR 001987] (Exhibit 31).

62 Martin Transcript at 43-45 (Exhibit 28).

63 Martin Transcript at 43.

64 E-mail from Mike Morrissey to Dennis Burke (Jan. 5, 2010) [HOGR 002960] (Exhibit 32).
33

Burke responded:

65

 

ATF communicated with the Criminal Division about the issue of what strategy to 

employ for Fast and Furious. For instance, on January 11, 2010, ATF headquarters told Gang 

Unit prosecutor Joe Cooley:

Quite honestly, we here in ATF HQ are still trying to hash out a viable 

enforcement strategy to target the DTOs, and more specifically the Sinaloa 

and Gulf/Zetas. We will keep you apprised of any developments. . . . The 

Arizona case continues to progress—info coming in from the investigation 

[redacted] a common player, and from the intel community (at the 

classified level). An AUSA is on board; I will get the name for you 

shortly.66

Four days later, Cooley received an e-mail update marked “high” importance:

[A] lot of activity has recently taken place in our Phoenix case targeting 

the Sinaloa cartel, to include a seizure of 40 rifles in a stash house in El 

Paso, TX (yes, all the way over there), which were purchased by 

 

65 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Mike Morrissey (Jan. 7, 2010) [HOGR 002960] (Exhibit 32).

66 E-mail from Kevin O’Keefe to Joseph Cooley (Jan. 11, 2010) [HOGR 003411-003413] (Exhibit 33).

“[L]ocal ATF is on board with our strategy . . . We 

should hold out for the bigger case, try to get a 

wire, and if it fails, we can always do the straw 

buyers.”

“Hold out for bigger.”
34

STEWARD (the biggest straw purchaser on the link chart we gave you) on 

24 December.67

According to e-mails later in January 2010, SAC Newell and the Fast and Furious case agent 

also flew in from Phoenix to brief either Cooley or Carwile again on Fast and Furious.68

The ATF Phoenix Field Division’s anxiety to obtain the support of the Justice 

Department’s Criminal Division was only natural, since the Criminal Division was responsible 

for approving Title III (T-III) wiretap applications. U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke testified that 

Newell repeatedly asked for his help on getting the wire: “He would say whatever you can do to 

help out with this, whatever you can do to help out with this, in a very kind of positive way.”

69

 

Burke stated that getting a wire for a firearms case was not common. He testified:

Q. [F]or a firearms and an ATF case, getting a wire is pretty unusual? 

A. You’re right. 

Q. You probably don’t have any other ones? 

A. I don’t think so.

* * *

Q. Had you ever seen or worked or heard of a firearms prosecution 

that had a large scale T-III app?

A. I did not work one myself, and I can’t say I was aware of one at the 

time. You know, I think—part of my recollection was that anyone 

who was doing a wire outside of DEA was not a typical 

procedure. The FBI obviously does wires. They do a lot of FISAs 

and other—but an actual wiretap like this, my recollection at the 

time, I did think that ATF was not an agency that had a lot of 

history with doing T-IIIs.70

Burke testified as to one of the reasons it was so unusual: “[Y]ou need to show even in your Title 

III a necessity, which is a requirement that you have tried or exhausted other methods of 

investigation and thereby put you in a position for a need to do a Title III.”

71

 

 

67 E-mail from Kevin O’Keefe to Joseph Cooley (Jan. 15, 2010) [HOGR 003411-003413] (Exhibit 33).

68 Id.

69 Transcript, Interview of Dennis Burke by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Aug. 18, 2011), at 32 [hereinafter Burke Aug. Transcript] (Exhibit 

34).

70 Id. at 32, 59 (emphasis added).

71 Id. at 63.
35

VI. Justice Department Involvement Deepens

A. Wiretap Authorizations Through Criminal Division

FINDING: The Criminal Division authorized at least six wiretap applications for 

Fast and Furious. The applications were replete with details and 

instances of gunwalking. These wiretap applications bypassed ATF 

senior leadership and were sent straight to the Criminal Division. 

This approval process created the unusual situation in which senior 

Criminal Division officials received materials that senior ATF officials 

had not reviewed. These materials should have raised red flags.

Through the spring and summer of 2010, the Criminal Division authorized applications 

for the use of wire intercepts in Operation Fast and Furious. Generally, federal wire intercepts 

are rare in ATF cases. They are especially rare in firearms trafficking cases. Operation Fast 

Furious involved at least seven wire intercepts and six wiretap applications. The Criminal 

Division authorized wiretap applications on March 10, 2010; April 15, 2010; May 6, 2010; May 

14, 2010; June 1, 2010; and July 1, 2010. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General 

John Keeney signed these applications on behalf of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.

1. Criminal Division Approval of Wiretap Applications

The process for authorizing the wiretaps in Fast and Furious began locally in Phoenix. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, in conjunction with the ATF Phoenix Field Division, drafted the first 

wiretap application in late January 2010. The application contained an affidavit by the Fast and 

Furious case agent detailing investigative tactics used, as well as outlining the probable cause as 

to why the wire intercepts were necessary to further the investigation.

On February 5, 2010, ATF Phoenix Field Division SAC Bill Newell sent the application

to Bill McMahon, Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations, at ATF headquarters.72 

McMahon was the only official at ATF headquarters responsible for reviewing the applications 

and giving ATF’s authorization to transmit them to the Justice Department.

73

 McMahon, 

however, claimed that he did not review them.

74

With McMahon’s approval, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona forwarded the 

applications to the Department’s Criminal Division. An office within the Criminal Division, the 

 

72 E-mail from William Newell to William McMahon (Feb. 5, 2010) (Exhibit 35).

73 Transcript, Interview of Mark Chait by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (July 20, 2011) (Exhibit 36), at 37-38; see also Melson Transcript at 

172 (Exhibit 1).

74 Transcript, Interview of William McMahon by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (June 28, 2011), at 53-54 [hereinafter McMahon 

Transcript] (Exhibit 37).
36

Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO) is “primarily responsible for the Department’s 

statutory wiretap authorizations.”

75

 Lawyers in OEO review wiretap applications, which include 

affidavits describing the factual bases upon which authorization is sought, to ensure that they 

“meet statutory requirements and DOJ policies.”

76

Federal law requires that the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Associate 

Attorney General or Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division authorize each

application.77 In practice, when OEO lawyers complete their review of a wiretap package, they

provide the package to a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division. In the 

case of Fast and Furious, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General Jason Weinstein and Kenneth 

Blanco signed the applications on behalf of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.78

After signature, the wiretap applications would return to OEO. For Operation Fast and Furious, 

each application for Fast and Furious included a memorandum from Assistant Attorney General 

Breuer to Paul O’Brien, Director of OEO, authorizing the interception application. AUSA 

Emory Hurley, the lead federal prosecutor on the case in Arizona, was also notified.

79

 

75 Letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole to Chairman Darrell Issa, et al., at 6 (Jan. 27, 2012).

76 Id.; see also 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1) (2006).

77 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1) (2006).

78 See, e.g., Memorandum from Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General Criminal Division to Paul M. O’Brien, 

Director, Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, Authorization for Interception Order Application, 

Mar. 10, 2010.

79 See e-mail from Emory Hurley to Mike Morrissey (Mar. 10, 2010) [HOGR 002990] (Exhibit 38).
37

The wiretap applications were replete with specific instances of gunwalking, in which 

federal agents had the legal authority to interdict illegally purchased firearms but instead allowed 

the transfer of firearms to other individuals to take place. Eventually, many of these guns ended 

up in Mexico. Each wiretap application specifically discussed the termination of surveillance of 

straw purchasers. Thus, even a cursory review of the applications would leave the reader with 

the clear and unequivocal impression that gunwalking was occurring during Fast and Furious.

Importantly, the authorization process for these applications bypassed senior ATF 

leadership and went straight to the Justice Department. As a result, it is possible that senior 

officials in the Justice Department had as much as, if not more, notice of gunwalking in Fast and 

Furious than senior officials at ATF. The wiretap applications contained explicit descriptions of 

gunwalking, and historically, no one above a Deputy Assistant Director at ATF was in the 

practice of authorizing them.

On the other hand, federal law requires senior political appointees in the Justice 

Department—which included two Deputy Assistant Attorneys General on behalf of Assistant 

Attorney General Lanny Breuer—to authorize these applications. These senior officials, 

therefore, were responsible for the contents of the applications, and should have recognized the 

evidence that gunwalking was occurring right under their noses.

The following chart illustrates the wiretap authorization process within the Department of 

Justice with respect to Fast and Furious:
38

Despite this elaborate and seemingly comprehensive process to ensure proper review of 

the applications and compliance with federal law, none of the senior ATF or Justice Department 

officials actually admitted to reading the applications for wire intercepts. Though these officials 

were responsible for the contents of the applications and signed the authorization forms, they 
39

later claimed they did not actually read the applications themselves. Rather, they stated that they 

relied on summary memoranda that accompanied the applications. 

Put bluntly, the Department of Justice rubber stamped the most important documents in 

Fast and Furious. These applications authorized federal agents to continue using the very 

reckless tactics that Attorney General Holder and many others have condemned in recent 

months. Rubber stamping these applications allowed the Department plausible deniability about 

the evidence of gunwalking tactics contained in the applications. The senior Department 

officials legally obligated to sign the applications did not actually read the documents they were 

signing.

Congress demanded heightened scrutiny of these applications by senior officials because 

they are such an invasive law enforcement technique. Congress vested the power to authorize 

such applications in the Attorney General or certain of his subordinates, and not in a lower level 

Justice Department employee.80 To “authorize” in any meaningful sense must include a review 

of the document being authorized. By failing to properly read or review these applications 

before authorizing them, senior Department officials are undermining the law.

ATF Deputy Assistant Director Bill McMahon was the first Justice Department official 

who failed to read the wiretap applications. McMahon testified that even though he did not read 

the applications, he conveyed their importance to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason 

Weinstein. Even then, Weinstein still did not read the applications. McMahon testified:

A. We were discussing wires pretty early on, and it did take us a while 

to get our first wire. And there was actually—there were some 

delays in the process of getting new wires, and I actually had to 

have a meeting with someone from the Criminal Division as 

well to see what we can do to help speed this along, to speed the 

process along. Because these wires are rolling over pretty quickly. 

They were up—we were up on a phone for a day or two and then 

they would go down. So we needed to roll into our next phone.

Q. And just on that, when you were having problems with the speed 

from the wires, was that a problem from—where was the problem 

generating from? 

A. OEO and main Justice. 

Q. Not from the U.S. Attorney’s Office? 

A. Well, there may have been some delay there, but that wasn’t 

something I could really deal with. What I was—what was getting 

communicated to me was OEO was taking too long in the process.

So myself and Deputy Director Hoover had a meeting with—we 

 

80 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1) (2006).
40

had a scheduled meeting with Jason Weinstein on—I forget what 

subject. But after the meeting we had a conversation with Jason 

about getting these wires approved quicker, and he made a 

commitment to assign one person to it so that it would speed 

the process.

Q. And during that meeting, did you guys have specific conversations 

about the substance of the case? 

A. Not the substance, but Jason was aware of what was going on 

with this case. 

Q. And did the speed for the wires improve?

A. They did. Very much so.81

Weinstein admitted that he “reviewed what [he] believe[d] to be three of the wiretaps in 

Fast and Furious, in what [he] now know[s] to be Fast and Furious.”

82

 However, Weinstein 

chose to rely only on the summary memoranda from OEO lawyers instead of reviewing the 

actual applications. He testified:

My general practice . . . is to review the summary memo in the first 

instance and to go to the affidavit only if there are issues or questions 

that are not answered by the summary memo that I need to answer in 

order to make a probable cause determination. So my practice in 

every case, in every wiretap I reviewed since I came on the job, is to 

review the summary memo. And I can probably count on one hand the 

number of times when there’s been something in the memo that was 

poorly written, that left me confused about the meaning of a dirty call or a 

legal issue that caused me to have to go to the affidavit.83

Consistent with a theme seen throughout the Department regarding Fast and Furious, Weinstein 

blamed his subordinates—attorneys in OEO—for failing to bring any problems with the Fast and 

Furious affidavits to his attention. ATF Deputy Director William Hoover testified that Weinstein 

had even assigned one specific individual to read the affidavits:

[A]t one point I became aware of the concern about the length of time it 

was taking to get the title 3 affidavits approved in OEO. I went to Jason 

and expressed my concern, and he said let me find out what I can do. And 

basically all those title 3 affidavits were then reviewed by the same 

 

81 McMahon Transcript at 59-60 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 37).

82 Transcript, Interview of Jason Weinstein by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Jan. 10, 2012), at 86 [hereinafter Weinstein Transcript] (Exhibit 

39).

83 Id. at 86-87 (emphasis added).
41

individual to try to pick up the pace, because I did not want that to be 

stretched out.84

During prior testimony before Congress, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and 

Attorney General Eric Holder have gone to great lengths to explain that the Criminal Division 

reviews wiretap applications only for legal sufficiency and not to evaluate the propriety of the 

tactics.

85

 Specifically, Assistant Attorney General Breuer testified in November 2011:

[T]he role of the reviewers and the role of the deputy in reviewing 

Title Three applications is only one. It is to [e]nsure that there is legal 

sufficiency to make an application to go up on a wire, and legal 

sufficiency to petition a federal judge somewhere in the United States that 

we believe it is a credible request. Be we cannot—those now 22 lawyers 

that I have who review this in Washington—and it used to only be 

seven—can not and should not replace their judgment, nor can they, with 

the thousands of prosecutors and agents all over the country. Theirs is a 

legal analysis; is there a sufficient basis to make this request.86

However, the distinction made by Breuer—that those reviewing the wiretap applications do so 

only for legal sufficiency and not for tactics—ignores the fact that a review of the tactics is part 

of the review for legal sufficiency. Congress intended that Justice Department officials verify 

whether all other tactics have been exhausted before an agency turns to the highly invasive tactic 

of tapping a phone line. All wiretap applications must contain “a full and complete statement as 

to whether or not other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or why they 

reasonably appear unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous.”

87

 Thus, even a pure 

review of legal sufficiency must have included a review of tactics that had been used. 

Further, the Criminal Division has obligations beyond a review for mere legal 

sufficiency. Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke testified that he believed the purpose of 

Criminal Division review of wiretap applications was to ensure that local U.S. Attorneys’

Offices are not abusing the wiretap process and to put a quality control check in place from 

headquarters.88 The Justice Department has acknowledged the Criminal Division must ensure 

that its “lawyers help AUSAs and trial attorneys ensure that their wiretap packages meet 

statutory requirements and DOJ policies.”

89 The operational tactics detailed in the wiretap 

applications—abandoning surveillance and failure to interdict firearms—violated Department 

 

84 Hoover Transcript at 180-181 (Exhibit 4).

85 Combating International Organized Crime: Evaluating Current Authorities, Tools, and Resources: Hearing 

Before the Subcomm. on Crime and Terrorism of the Sen. Comm. on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. (Nov. 1, 2011) 

(testimony of Lanny Breuer, Ass’t Att’y Gen., U.S. Dept. of Justice); Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice: 

Hearing Before the Sen. Comm. on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. (Nov. 8, 2011) (testimony of Eric Holder, Att’y Gen., 

U.S. Dep’t of Justice).

86 Combating International Organized Crime: Evaluating Current Authorities, Tools, and Resources: Hearing 

Before the Subcomm. on Crime and Terrorism of the Sen. Comm. on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. (Nov. 1, 2011) 

(testimony of Lanny Breuer, Ass’t Att’y Gen., U.S. Dep’t. of Justice) (emphasis added).

87 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c).

88 Burke Aug. Transcript at 150-151 (Exhibit 34).

89 Letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole to Chairman Darrell Issa et al., at 6 (Jan. 27, 2012).
42

policy.90 Thus, at the very least, Jason Weinstein and Kenneth Blanco were negligent in their 

duty to ensure that the wiretap applications they authorized in Fast and Furious complied with 

Department of Justice policy.

RECOMMENDATION: Congress vested in senior Department officials the authority to 

authorize applications for intrusive wire intercepts. These 

senior officials must review each application thoroughly to 

ensure such an intrusion is necessary and appropriate. 

Delegating this authority to subordinates introduces the risk 

that a careful review will not take place.

2. Awaiting Wiretap Approval

As the Criminal Division at Justice Department headquarters began considering the first 

wiretap application in Fast and Furious, the case continued to develop. U.S. Attorney Dennis 

Burke received periodic updates on Fast and Furious from both his own staff and ATF SAC 

Newell since he had authorized the strategy of holding out for a bigger case. On February 20, 

2010, ATF made a seizure of Fast and Furious weapons a mile from the border of Mexico. 

Newell notified Burke about the seizure:

42 AK-47 rifles we seized this past Saturday west of Tucson and a mile 

from the border. . . . The two cars carrying these firearms were about to 

cross into Mexico. This is from the ATF “Fast and Furious” OCDETF 

case. The suspects stopped at an address in Tucson before heading south 

and as it turns out this residence is a main target residence in our “Wide 

Receiver” OCDETF case out of Tucson.91

In response to Newell’s e-mail, Burke e-mailed AUSA Hurley: “Talk to [Criminal Division 

Chief Patrick] Cunningham. I would like a briefing from you and him on Fast and Furious when 

I get back to Phoenix. Thanks. This is great stuff!”

92

Newell followed up separately with Burke that morning:93

 

91 E-mail from William Newell to Dennis Burke (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 002968-002969] (Exhibit 40).

92 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Emory Hurley (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 002970] (Exhibit 41).

93 E-mail from William Newell to Dennis Burke (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 002968] (Exhibit 40).
43

Newell and Burke also spoke that morning. Burke was startled by just how big the case he had

said to “hold out for bigger” had gotten:

94

On the afternoon of February 22, 2010, Hurley gave Burke a further update, emphasizing 

the efforts to avoid alerting these traffickers that ATF was watching them:

 

94 E-mail from William Newell to David Voth, et al. (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 001339] (Exhibit 42).

“He was taken aback by some of 

the facts I informed him about 

(including the fact that we are up 

to approx. 800 guns) . . .”
44

Later that day, the connection between Operations Fast and Furious and Wide Receiver 

was also relayed to Laura Gwinn, the Criminal Division prosecutor working on Wide Receiver:95

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

95 E-mail from Matthew Bayer to Laura Gwinn (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003420-003421] (Exhibit 43).

“[O]ptimistic that there was a 

pretext stop so the drivers and the 

traffickers are not too hinked up.”
45

Gwinn notified her colleague, fellow Criminal Division prosecutor Joe Cooley, about Carlos 

Celaya, the common target between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious.96 Gwinn also learned 

that Fast and Furious was “about twice as big” as Wide Receiver.97 She subsequently contacted 

the ATF case agent for Fast and Furious about the overlap.98

On March 1, 2010, Joe Cooley went to ATF headquarters to discuss developments in Fast 

and Furious and received a briefing from Kevin O’Keefe, Chief of ATF’s Criminal Intelligence 

Division.99 He also spoke with ATF’s Phoenix Field Division and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s 

Office.100 The next day, Cooley advised AUSA Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor from Arizona 

assigned to Fast and Furious, to include 18 § U.S.C. 924(c) as a violation listed in the Title III 

wiretap application package.

101

 Cooley said it seemed logical that purchasing firearms on behalf 

of the Mexican drug cartels would be carrying firearms “during and in relation to” a drug 

 

96 E-mail from Laura Gwinn to Joseph Cooley (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003422] (Exhibit 44).

97 E-mail from Matthew Bayer to Laura Gwinn (Feb. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003420-003421] (Exhibit 43).

98 E-mail from Laura Gwinn to Matthew Bayer (Feb. 24, 2010) [HOGR 002973] (Exhibit 45).

99 E-mail from Joseph Cooley to Bryan Reeves (Mar. 3, 2010) [HOGR 003425] (Exhibit 46); see also e-mail from 

Kevin O’Keefe to Joseph Cooley (Mar. 4, 2010) [HOGR 002806] (Exhibit 47).

100 Id.

101 E-mail from Joseph Cooley to Emory Hurley (Mar. 2, 2010) [HOGR A 002632].
46

conspiracy.102 This e-mail suggests that Cooley read the Title III application for Fast and 

Furious, which was then under review by the Criminal Division.

As ATF readied for the unusual step of obtaining a federal wire intercept in a firearms 

trafficking case, ATF Phoenix Field Division Group VII supervisor David Voth flew from 

Phoenix to Washington, D.C. to provide a detailed briefing to ATF leadership on Fast and 

Furious. Documents suggest that Joe Cooley may have met with Voth one-on-one to talk about 

the case.103 Cooley also attended Voth’s March 5, 2010, briefing, which included a 26-slide 

PowerPoint presentation linking straw purchasers from Fast and Furious with weapons 

recoveries in the Mexican states of Guerrero, Sonora, and Baha California.104 The presentation 

also showed that the Fast and Furious straw purchasing ring had spent a total of $615,000 to buy 

1,026 guns.105 Cooley took three pages of notes, which included both of these facts.106 

SAC Newell, who had been conferenced in by telephone to the headquarters briefing, 

was impressed with Cooley, who Newell thought had “a good idea of what needs to be done”:

107

On March 10, 2010, AUSA Hurley finally got word that the Criminal Division had 

approved the first wiretap application. Hurley forwarded the information up to his supervisor in 

the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office,108 who in turn sent the information to U.S. Attorney 

Burke:109

 

102 Id.; see also 18 U.S.C. § 922(c).

103 See e-mail from George Gillett to Joseph Cooley and David Voth (Mar. 1, 2010) [HOGR 002155] (Exhibit 48).

104 “Operation The Fast and The Furious,” PowerPoint presentation; compare e-mail from Lorren Leadmon to Mark 

Chait, et al. (Mar. 5, 2010) [HOGR 002091-002092] (Exhibit 49).

105 “Operation The Fast and The Furious,” PowerPoint presentation.

106 Notes of Joseph Cooley (Mar. 5, 2010) [HOGR 002807-002809] (Exhibit 50).

107 E-mail from William Newell to George Gillett (Mar. 5, 2010) (Exhibit 51).

108 E-mail from Emory Hurley to Mike Morrissey (Mar. 10, 2010) [HOGR 002990] (Exhibit 38).

109 E-mail from Mike Morrissey to Dennis Burke (Mar. 10, 2010) [HOGR 002990] (Exhibit 38).
47

Shortly thereafter, Laura Gwinn contacted AUSA Hurley about the overlap between 

Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast and Furious:110

 

110 E-mail from Laura Gwinn to Emory Hurley (Mar. 15, 2010) [HOGR 002991] (Exhibit 52).

“Good job by Emory – a T-3 in a 

gun case is unusual, and 

aggressive. Hopefully we’ll do it 

more in the future, but Emory is 

the trailblazer.”

“Frickin’ love it!!”
48

In response, Hurley requested that the take-down of Wide Receiver be delayed because of the 

overlap:111

Gwinn subsequently spoke with Hurley and agreed to wait until the right time to indict Wide 

Receiver:112

 

111 E-mail from Emory Hurley to Laura Gwinn (Mar. 15, 2010) [HOGR 002991] (Exhibit 52).

112 See e-mail from Laura Gwinn to Matthew Bayer (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 003440] (Exhibit 53).

“I understand that just went up on a T-3, and 

the AUSA and I agreed to stay in contact to 

determine the right time to indict our case.”
49

Meanwhile, the Criminal Division pulled Joe Cooley off Fast and Furious in mid-March 

2010, just days after the first wiretap application was approved. As Criminal Division official 

Kevin Carwile recounted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein on March 16, 

2010:

I assigned Joe Cooley to the investigation, he got briefed and then started 

his Latin Kings trial. He just turned his attention back to the case and 

went to SOD [Special Operations Division] for a briefing on the matter. 

That is when he learned the USAO now had the case and was about to go 

up on a wire. We offered to help but they said they had it under control.113

Five months later, in August 2010, the Criminal Division would reassign one of their prosecutors 

to Fast and Furious—Laura Gwinn. In the meantime, wiretap renewals throughout the summer 

would ensure that the Criminal Division continued to be informed about the case during much of 

2010. 

B. Deputy Attorney General Briefed

FINDING: Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Ed Siskel, and other officials from the Office of the 

Deputy Attorney General attended a detailed briefing on Operation 

Fast and Furious in March 2010. Despite the evidence presented at 

the briefing of illegally-purchased firearms being recovered in 

Mexico, Grindler and Siskel failed to ask probing questions or take 

any significant follow-up action to monitor and supervise the conduct 

of the case.

With a groundbreaking federal wiretap approval imminent, ATF leadership, including the 

Director and Deputy Director, briefed new Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler in a 

monthly meeting held on March 12, 2010. Elevating the case up to the Deputy Attorney 

General’s level was the logical next step, since within the organizational structure of the Justice 

Department, ATF reports to the Deputy Attorney General.114

Associate Deputy Attorney General Edward Siskel joined Acting Deputy Attorney 

General Grindler at the monthly ATF meetings. Although the Deputy Attorney General himself 

is responsible for ATF, in practice, a designated official within the Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General (ODAG) is responsible for managing the portfolio of issues relating to ATF. This 

official is supposed to monitor ATF operations and bring potential ATF issues to the attention of 

the Deputy Attorney General.115 During the pendency of Fast and Furious, this official was 

Associate Deputy Attorney General Siskel.

 

113 E-mail from Kevin Carwile to Jason Weinstein (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 002830-002831] (Exhibit 54).

114 USDOJ: About Department of Justice Agencies, available at http://www.justice.gov/agencies/index-org.html 

(last visited May 14, 2012).

115 Melson Transcript at 25 (Exhibit 1).
50

The March 12, 2010, briefing presented Siskel and Grindler with overwhelming evidence 

of illegal straw purchasing during Fast and Furious. The presentation included a chart 

identifying the straw purchasers, 31 in all, and the number of weapons they had acquired by that 

date, 1,026.116 Three of these straw purchasers had already purchased over 100 weapons each, 

with one straw purchaser having already acquired over 300 weapons. During this briefing, they 

learned that buyers had paid cash for every single gun. Grindler made a handwritten note of this 

fact, along with the fact that the money for the purchases was being wired to Western Union:117

Siskel and Grindler were also shown a map of Mexico with detailed locations of recoveries of 

Fast and Furious weapons—including some at crime scenes:118 

 

116 “Operation The Fast and The Furious,” March 12, 2010 [HOGR 002820—HOGR 002823] (Exhibit 55).

117 Id.

118 Id.
51

The briefing also discussed the use of stash houses where weapons bought during Fast and 

Furious were stored before being transported to Mexico. In addition, Siskel and Grindler learned 

of some of the unique investigative techniques ATF was using during Fast and Furious.119 

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

119 Id.
52

Despite this detailed presentation, Acting Deputy Director Gary Grindler did not fully 

appreciate the number of weapons at issue in Fast and Furious. He testified: “I am not sure at 

this point of my tenure that I knew exactly what this was in terms of significance. It is what 

it says, 1,026 guns.”

120

A memorandum sent to Grindler on March 26, 2010, cited cases for support of a 

proposed long gun regulation. The number of guns involved in each case—“several hundred,”

“19,” “five,” and “69,” respectively—made clear that with 1,130 guns, Fast and Furious involved 

a significantly larger number of firearms than any of the other cases ATF identified to support its 

proposed regulation.

121

 The sheer numbers should have raised questions for Grindler and 

ODAG, as they already had for some senior ATF officials. 

 

120 Transcript, Interview of Gary Grindler by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Dec. 14, 2011), at 15 (emphasis added) [hereinafter Grindler 

Transcript] (Exhibit 56).

121 Memorandum for the Attorney General from Kenneth Melson, “Issuing demand letters to Federal firearms 

licensees (FFLs) in selected states requiring them to submit multiple sales information concerning certain types of 

rifles” (Mar. 26, 2010), at 3 [HOGR 004972-004976] (Exhibit 57).
53

Ed Siskel had worked on ATF issues since becoming a senior counsel in ODAG in 

January 2009. He became the Associate Deputy Attorney General with the ATF portfolio in 

October 2009.122 Still, he failed to act. Siskel testified:

Q. When you are hearing about Fast and Furious presumably for the 

first time, or at least you haven’t told us you heard about Fast and 

Furious prior to this, did the fact that a man named Uriel Patino is 

purchasing 313 firearms raise any caution flags in your mind? 

A. So I don’t remember the briefing and I don’t remember this 

PowerPoint presentation, but if you are asking me does the 

information here that someone purchased 313 firearms raise 

concerns, certainly the issue of firearms trafficking is a concern. 

But there is nothing on this PowerPoint slide that you are asking 

me about that indicates when these firearms were purchased, what 

the circumstances were under which they were purchased or what 

tactics were used in the investigation. 

Q. Outstanding questions, and I am sure you raised all those questions 

with the briefers after the meeting, did you not? 

A. Again, I don’t remember the briefing and I don’t remember the 

slide. What I am trying to answer is your question about 

whether that figure alone raises concerns, and my response 

was that that figure alone doesn’t because it is not clear whether 

the purchases happened historically and have been linked to this 

investigation through historical trace data, for example.123

Unlike ATF Deputy Director Hoover, Siskel registered no concern over the number of firearms 

involved in Fast and Furious. Even if Siskel had believed that Phoenix ATF had become aware 

of these traffickers and their previous buying activity in March 2010, the increasing number of 

illegal gun purchases through the summer of 2010 should have caused him to ask clarifying 

questions of ATF.

Grindler testified that he had not been responsible as Acting Deputy Attorney General for 

what occurred at ATF. Rather, he believed that Ed Siskel had maintained that responsibility as 

Associate Deputy Attorney General. Grindler stated:

Q. Some of the operational details of the case were shared with you, 

based on our understanding, and you made notes that you say a 

tracker followed to three stash houses. 

A. I made those notes, yes. 

 

122 Siskel Transcript at 8-9 (Exhibit 8).

123 Id. at 24 (emphasis added).
54

Q. At any point, do you have a recollection of whether there was a 

discussion about what are we going to do with these guns so we 

make sure they don’t get to Mexico? 

A. My recollection is that, I mean, based on—as I said, my 

recollection is really based on this. These were guns they seized in 

the United States. This is a seizure in the United States reflected 

by this and the map that was provided. So I mean they were going 

to use them—I mean, this is an assumption. But they seized these 

guns, so it is evidence. 

Q. Were you confident at that point that ATF was seizing the guns? 

Did they represent that to you? 

A. Based on this and my notes and the map that talks about a seizure 

of these guns in this Indian reservation, yes. If they had told me 

that they were not keeping these guns, I am confident that is 

something I would have taken notes on or asked about.124

Grindler assumed, but never confirmed, that ATF had seized most of the guns purchased 

in Fast and Furious. Grindler did not follow up on his assumption, however—not even with the 

deputy he assigned to monitor ATF. When asked about Grindler’s belief that ATF had been 

Siskel’s responsibility, Siskel initially denied it, then responded that he was unaware of anything 

untoward occurring during Fast and Furious. Siskel testified:

A. So you indicated that this was the agency that I was responsible 

for, and I would disagree with that characterization.

* * *

Q. [W]hy didn’t you ask a single one of those [questions] of anybody 

following this briefing?

A. Well, I don’t remember the briefing, I don’t remember what 

questions were asked during it. So what I have tried to do is, to 

answer your question, based on what, as I sit here today, this 

information indicates to me.

Q. Mr. Grindler told us that he had one person specifically assigned to 

the ATF portfolio, and by name he mentioned you. If ATF is your 

responsibility, as Mr. Grindler told us it was, [why weren’t] you 

. . . asking any questions about why there is 1,000 firearms that are 

collected, why they are giving this big briefing, why they have 

 

124 Grindler Transcript at 16-17 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 56).
55

spent over half a million dollars on these firearms and why there 

are all these seizures in Mexico.

* * * 

A. [I] don’t remember the meeting. What I will say, though, is that 

ATF was working hard on investigating firearms trafficking, and 

what this indicates to me is that they are investigating potential 

firearms trafficking and does not suggest anything about 

inappropriate tactics being used.125

Although Siskel and Grindler both attended the March 12, 2010, briefing that included a 

presentation of significant information and data about Fast and Furious, neither asked questions

or conducted any supervision whatsoever of ATF.

C. The Criminal Division’s Awareness of Gunwalking

Wiretap applications for Fast and Furious came across the desks of senior Criminal 

Division officials around the exact same time that they learned that gunwalking had occurred in 

Operation Wide Receiver. Had these same Criminal Division officials read the initial wiretap 

applications in Fast and Furious, they would have discovered in the spring of 2010 that 

gunwalking was occurring during Fast and Furious, too. Unfortunately, the discovery of 

gunwalking in Wide Receiver did not cause these Criminal Division officials to even begin 

reading the wiretap applications in Fast and Furious. 

Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious were the only two major ATF cases from Arizona to 

which the Criminal Division had prosecutors assigned. They also happened to have overlapping 

targets. Yet despite the fact that both cases involve SAC Newell and contemporaneous notices 

of sales from cooperating FFLS, a high volume of guns (although Fast and Furious contained 

four times as many guns as Wide Receiver), and a strategy aimed at identifying upstream 

conspirators, Criminal Division officials claim they never drew any connection between the two 

cases. The failure to identify the similarities between the cases—or at least begin scrutinizing 

ATF wiretap applications more carefully after discovering gunwalking in one case—represents a 

major failure of Criminal Division leadership.

 

125 Siskel Transcript at 23-26 (Exhibit 8).
56

1. Discovering Gunwalking in Operation Wide Receiver

FINDING: Criminal Division leadership discovered in the spring of 2010 that 

gunwalking had occurred in Operation Wide Receiver. However, 

rather than notifying the Inspector General or even the Deputy 

Attorney General, the individual responsible for overseeing ATF, 

senior Criminal Division officials held a single meeting with ATF 

leadership and a senior Department official in the press office in 

which they focused on the challenges of presenting gunwalking to the 

press.

Shortly after the first wiretap application was approved in Fast and Furious, officials in 

the Criminal Division became aware of gunwalking by ATF’s Phoenix Field Division. On 

March 16, 2010, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein received an e-mail from 

Gang Unit Chief Kevin Carwile which included a description of Operation Wide Receiver. It 

stated:126

Weinstein responded to the e-mail:127

 

126 E-mail from Kevin Carwile to Jason Weinstein (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 003434-003435] (emphasis added) 

(Exhibit 58).

127 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Kevin Carwile (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 003438] (Exhibit 59).

“With the help of a cooperating FFL, the operation 

has monitored the sales of over 450 weapons since 

2006.”
57

Weinstein later testified:

The piece of that that caused the greatest concern was the possibility that 

with the assistance of the cooperating FFL that they had actually 

monitored, and I took that to possibly mean that they had recorded in 

real time the sales of those guns. And so my question to Mr. Carwile is 

did they actually—was the FFL cooperating and were they monitoring the 

sales as they occurred, or did the sales happen and the FFL began 

cooperating after the fact; because the answer to that question would 

affect, at least potentially affect the analysis about whether they let guns 

go that they had the legal authority to have stopped.128

Both e-mails from that period of time, and Weinstein’s later testimony, demonstrate that 

he was “stunned” by the gunwalking. Weinstein testified that he was upset upon learning about 

gunwalking in Wide Receiver:

If you look at the April 12th email, you will get that my reaction was I 

[was] stunned about the tactics. And one of the reasons I was stunned was 

because in my career as prosecutor we had—I had always gone to great 

lengths and taught people to go to great lengths to avoid letting even a 

single operable firearm to get out of law enforcement’s control. So that’s 

the depth of my concern about it . . . .

129

The same April 12, 2010 e-mail Weinstein referenced, however, also focuses on the press 

implications if the public were to learn about ATF’s gunwalking:130

 

128 Weinstein Transcript at 95 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 39).

129 Weinstein Transcript at 21.

130 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Kevin Carwile (Apr. 12, 2010) [HOGR 003442] (Exhibit 60).

“ATF HQ should/will be 

embarrassed that they let this 

many guns walk . . . and there will 

be press about that.”
58

The concern for these press implications persisted as the issue of gunwalking made its 

way up the chain of leadership in the Criminal Division. On April 19, 2010, the issue arose in a 

meeting with Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.131 According to James Trusty, who was 

at the meeting, Breuer just wanted them to meet with ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and 

Deputy Director Billy Hoover “so they know the bad stuff that could come out”:

132

Concern for public perception—and not the concern about public safety that gunwalking 

severely implicates—was also the message Weinstein conveyed when he contacted ATF Deputy 

Director William Hoover to set up the meeting:133

 

131 Meeting on Arizona Gun Trafficking Investigation, Apr. 19, 2010, 2:45 PM, Participants: Lanny Breuer, Mythili 

Raman, Steven Fagell, Jason Weinstein, Amy Pope, James Trusty, and Kevin Carwile [HOGR 003450] (Exhibit 61).

132 E-mail from James Trusty to Kevin Carwile (Apr. 19, 2010) [HOGR 003451] (Exhibit 62).

133 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to William Hoover (Apr. 20, 2010) [HOGR 003452] (Exhibit 63).

“Wants us to meet with Ken and Billy at some 

point so they know the bad stuff that could come 

out.”

“The reason we wanted to meet with you 

before charging is that the case has 2 aspects 

that could create media challenges and we 

wanted to talk through them first.”
59

In preparation for the subsequent April 28, 2010, meeting with ATF, Weinstein e-mailed 

spokesperson Laura Sweeney from the Office of Public Affairs to request that she and a 

colleague attend the meeting to address the press challenges of Operation Wide Receiver:134

Sweeney wrote back: “We’ll be there.”

135

 

Weinstein also e-mailed Trusty about the meeting, making no mention about preventing 

gunwalking or holding anyone accountable for it:

136

Signaling the emphasis on the public relations focus of the meeting, attendants were 

evenly divided between ATF, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Public Affairs. Notes 

from one attendee, however, also show Operation Fast and Furious was a topic of discussion:

137

 

134 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Laura Sweeney (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 003476] (Exhibit 64).

135 E-mail from Laura Sweeney to Jason Weinstein (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 003476] (Exhibit 64).

136 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to James Trusty (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 003477] (Exhibit 65).

137 Notes of Alisa Finelli, Office of Public Affairs, Justice Department (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 006989] (Exhibit 

66). The Justice Department produced these notes on June 19, 2012—just as Attorney General Eric Holder was 

negotiating a settlement proposal with Congress. The Committee voted to recommend the House hold him in 

contempt two days later. The e-mail was the only document that the Justice Department had produced in a month 

and one of only thirty pages produced in two months.

“. . . a gun trafficking case that 

has some rather significant (and 

I hope unique) press challenges”

“[D]escrib[e] the case and the issues, and then we 

can spend the rest of the time talking messaging.”
60

Weinstein testified that not only was he stunned about gunwalking in Wide Receiver, 

“that’s the way I communicated it to the folks from ATF at that meeting. I communicated as 

clearly as I could that those tactics were inappropriate, albeit under different ATF management 

and 3 years earlier, they were nevertheless inappropriate.”

138 Yet not a single e-mail produced 

by the Justice Department shows that he—or anyone else at Main Justice—communicated this to 

ATF. E-mails between ATF officials indicate that they understood exactly the message that 

Weinstein seemed to be communicating: “Some surprises but nothing terrible.”

139

Two days after the meeting, Weinstein summarized it—and the press strategy formulated 

in it—to Breuer:140

 

138 Weinstein Transcript at 20-21 (Exhibit 39).

139 E-mail from William McMahon to Mark Chait (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 005455] (Exhibit 67).

140 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Lanny Breuer (Apr. 30, 2012) [HOGR 003485-003486] (Exhibit 68).

“Fast and Furious”
61

Notwithstanding Weinstein’s claim that he was upset about the tactics of Wide Receiver, 

the single meeting on April 28, 2010, was the only forum in which he supposedly communicated 

his disapproval to ATF. He testified:

Q. So there is not a single email that shows—in other words, there is 

no written record that shows that you were upset over these 

tactics? 

A. No, there’s just the meeting itself that I had in which I 

“[T]he best way to announce 

the case without highlighting 

the negative part of the story 

and risking embarrassing ATF 

is as part of Deliverance.”

“ATF let a bunch of guns walk in an 

effort to get upstream conspirators but 

only got straws, and didn’t recover 

many guns.”
62

communicated it face to face. 

Q. So there is a single meeting you had? 

A. It was a single hour-long meeting in which I communicated my 

concerns about the tactics.141

Weinstein’s e-mails with ATF do not convey any sense of outrage.142 Nor has the congressional 

inquiry uncovered any other evidence that Weinstein communicated his disapproval of the tactics 

used in Wide Receiver to ATF. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that McMahon believed it was 

“nothing terrible.”

143

Equally important, neither Weinstein nor Breuer took any steps to inform anyone else of 

the gunwalking. This includes the Department’s Inspector General or the Office of the Deputy 

Attorney General, which technically was responsible for ATF and met with ATF on a much 

more regular basis than the Criminal Division. Had ODAG been informed, it might have 

exercised some modicum of oversight over ATF, rather than ignoring the agency and doing 

virtually nothing to supervise it.

Instead, after his single meeting with ATF Deputy Director Hoover, Weinstein 

considered the matter closed. Weinstein testified that he did not recall whether he followed up 

with anyone at ATF after the meeting. He stated:

Q. And did you ever take any steps to find out from Mr. Hoover or 

Mr. Melson whether or not anyone had been held accountable for 

engaging in that inappropriate tactic in Wide Receiver, either in the 

April time frame when you learned about it or later when the Fast 

and Furious’ allegations came up?

A. I don’t recall one way or another whether I followed up with 

Mr. Hoover on that question. I just don’t recall.

Q. So to your knowledge no one ever—nothing you did necessarily 

caused anyone to address with the agents or the leadership of the 

Phoenix Field Division, specifically Mr. Newell, that this was an 

unacceptable tactic? 

A. I just don’t know the answer to that. 

Q. I mean, how does that get communicated to the people who are 

doing it if you don’t communicate it to them and there is no 

official inquiry about it? 

 

141 Weinstein Transcript at 19-20 (Exhibit 39).

142 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to William Hoover (Apr. 20, 2010) [HOGR 003452] (Exhibit 63).

143 E-mail from William McMahon to Mark Chait (Apr. 28, 2010) [HOGR 005455] (Exhibit 67).
63

A. Well, I communicated to their boss. And he’s everybody’s boss 

except Mr. Melson’s. So I communicated to him. He has the same 

reaction to it that I do. So I walk away, you know, with the 

understanding that he views it the same way I do. 

It seems to me the one way—and I don’t run ATF, and I don’t 

know exactly how ATF operates, but one way for it to get 

addressed internally is for the leadership at headquarters level to 

communicate to the field, just as the Attorney General did this in 

this case. You know, the Attorney General directed the DAG to 

issue a directive to AUSAs and agents in the field that you should 

not be involved in any investigation, and you should stop any tactic 

that involves guns intentionally going across the border. That is 

one way you can communicate things to the field. I don’t know 

what Mr. Hoover did or didn’t do. I just can’t say. 

Q. And you didn’t ask? 

A. As I said, I just don’t recall—I don’t recall whether I did or 

not.144

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer later testified:

I wish at that time that I had said clearly to the Deputy Attorney General 

and the Attorney General that in this case Wide Receiver, we had 

determined that in 2006 and 2007, guns had walked. I did not do that.145

While Criminal Division officials claim they wanted to prevent the misguided tactics of 

Wide Receiver from being repeated, their actions at the time were inconsistent with these claims. 

The Criminal Division held just one meeting with ATF to raise concerns about Wide Receiver. 

The Division’s failure to inform either Department leadership or the Department’s Inspector 

General at the time they learned about the tactics undermines the claims that they were 

conscientious and dutiful upon learning that ATF had walked guns. 

 

144 Weinstein Transcript at 143-145 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 39).

145 S. Comm. on the Judiciary, Subcomm. on Crime and Terrorism Hearing, Combating International Organized 

Crime, 112th Congress (Nov. 1, 2011), at 8.
64

2. Drawing a Connection Between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious

FINDING: Criminal Division officials received detailed information about 

gunwalking in Fast and Furious at the same time these officials were 

expressing concern about gunwalking that had occurred in Operation 

Wide Receiver. Many similarities existed between the two operations. 

However, officials in the Justice Department claim that no one made 

the connection, failing to recognize the same warning signs and 

mistakes in both operations.

Jason Weinstein testified that he communicated to Billy Hoover and William McMahon 

that the tactics of Wide Receiver “were inappropriate.”

146 Weinstein said he believed the tactics 

used in Wide Receiver to be an aberration, something that happened “under different ATF

management and 3 years earlier,” and that similar tactics were no longer being used.147 

Weinstein testified that he believed “under different ATF management” to mean at the 

headquarters level of ATF.

148

 Although ATF had a new Acting Director, the official Weinstein 

met with, William Hoover, had still been a senior official at ATF during Wide Receiver, then 

serving as Assistant Director for Field Operations.

More importantly, Wide Receiver took place during SAC Newell’s tenure at ATF’s 

Phoenix Field Division. While Weinstein testified that he believed he had first met Newell in 

October 2009 in Mexico, and that he did not have any communications with Newell about Fast 

and Furious until 2011,

149 ASAC George Gillett testified: “I do know that Mr. Newell was 

personal friends with an attorney in the DAG’s office. I want to say his name was Jason 

Weinstein, if I am not mistaken, and they would have regular telephone conversations because of 

their friendship.”

150

Despite discussions of Wide Receiver spanning several months in the Criminal Division

and the fact that Fast and Furious was the only other Arizona ATF case the Criminal Division 

was assisting with, Weinstein claimed that he did not draw a connection between the two. 

Weinstein and other Criminal Division leaders missed a critical opportunity to draw such a 

connection by not reading the wiretap applications. Because Weinstein was presented the 

applications for approval, he was effectively given more information about the operational 

tactics in Fast and Furious than Acting ATF Director Melson, Deputy Director Hoover, or 

Assistant Director Chait.

Weinstein testified that the use of the word “monitored” in a description of tactics used in 

Wide Receiver, caused him “the greatest concern.”

151 It caused him to ask: “[D]id ATF allow 

the guns to walk, or did ATF learn about the volume of guns after the FFL began 

 

146 Weinstein Transcript at 20-21 (Exhibit 39).

147 Id.

148 Weinstein Transcript at 21.

149 Weinstein Transcript at 22-24.

150 Gillett Transcript at 32-33 (Exhibit 6).

151 Weinstein Transcript at 95 (Exhibit 39).
65

cooperating?”

152

 If that one word about Wide Receiver caused Weinstein such consternation,

then just a cursory review of the wiretap applications in Fast and Furious—from a case 

originating from the same ATF Phoenix Field Division—should have made him panic. 

Weinstein described Wide Receiver to Breuer as ATF having “let a bunch of guns walk 

in an effort to get upstream conspirators but only g[e]t[ting] straws, and didn’t recover many 

guns.”

153

 Nevertheless, within weeks of Weinstein’s meeting with ATF about Wide Receiver, he 

approved one of the Fast and Furious wiretap applications with several similarities to Wide 

Receiver, and with far more detail than the single use of the word “monitored.”

Weinstein, who did not read the wiretap applications but instead relied on the summary 

memos, testified that nothing in the three wiretap summary memos he read concerned him:

What I can say is that had I seen anything in what I reviewed in 

connection with the wiretaps that gave me any reason to suspect that guns 

were walking in that case in Fast and Furious, I would have reacted very 

strongly to it. And you saw in the April 12th email, April 12, 2010 email, 

how strongly I reacted to guns that had walked 3 years earlier. If I thought 

that those guns were walking 3 weeks earlier or 3 days earlier or 3 hours 

earlier—that is, that it was still ongoing—my reaction would have been 

even stronger.154

In the wake of discovering gunwalking in Wide Receiver, Weinstein and the rest of the Criminal 

Division needed to be vigilant with respect to any gun trafficking operation originating out of the 

ATF Phoenix Field Division. If Weinstein and other senior Department officials were truly 

committed to preventing gunwalking tactics from recurring in the future, they would have done 

something to hold accountable those in ATF who had been responsible for it. Then, they would 

have read more than just the summary memos and scrutinized the Fast and Furious wiretap 

applications submitted by the same ATF Field Division for any sign of the tactic. They did not.

Despite these failures, Weinstein has refused to accept any responsibility for Fast and 

Furious. Despite being in a unique position to stop the operation because of the wiretap 

applications he authorized, Jason Weinstein has deflected blame, maintaining that ATF’s 

Phoenix Field Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were responsible. Weinstein testified:

A. I will say that I have significant concerns based on what I know 

now about the management, about what appeared to me to be some 

management issues in the Phoenix field office of ATF. . . . 

Q. What about approving the so-called misguided tactics? I mean, 

isn’t that on the SAC as well? 

 

152 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Kevin Carwile (Mar. 16, 2010) [HOGR 003438] (Exhibit 59).

153 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Lanny Breuer (Apr. 30, 2012) [HOGR 003485-003486] (Exhibit 68).

154 Weinstein Transcript at 92-93 (Exhibit 39).
66

A. Well, again, I don’t know what he did, what he didn’t do. I don’t 

know if the facts of that have come out yet or will come out. But, 

ultimately, he is at the top of the management chain in an office, 

and to the extent that tactics were being used in that office that 

shouldn’t have been used—it is my view that it is not a terribly 

large office, but there are a number of levels of supervision 

between him and the line agent. But at the end of the day the SAC 

is responsible for what goes on in his office.155

While Jason Weinstein believes the SAC is responsible for what occurs in his office, Weinstein 

fails to account for the fact that his own actions in authorizing the wiretap applications allowed 

these reckless tactics to continue. And even though two Criminal Division prosecutors were 

assigned to Fast and Furious at different times, Weinstein did not seek information from them 

about the case—even when allegations of gunwalking arose in 2011. He instead placed the

blame squarely on an individual several levels below him, and in an altogether completely 

different organization. 

Jason Weinstein testified that “gun-walking is a pretty extraordinary thing and it’s an 

extraordinarily bad tactic.”

156

 Weinstein, however, himself bears responsibility for the approval 

and authorization of this very tactic. Weinstein’s experience with Wide Receiver and his access 

to the details of Fast and Furious put him in a position to take action. His actions allowed for the 

reckless tactics he claims he was so adamantly against to be used.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of the Criminal Division, also bears a 

great deal of blame for failing to draw the connection between the two operations. He directed 

the Criminal Division’s response to learning about gunwalking in Wide Receiver, and set the 

expectation that merely meeting with—and not supervising—ATF was sufficient. Breuer failed

to take decisive action when he discovered gunwalking in Wide Receiver. He admitted as much 

in his October 31, 2011, public apology:157

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

155 Id. at 29.

156 Id. at 64.

157 Public statement of Lanny Breuer (Oct. 31, 2010) (Exhibit 69).
67
68

Both Jason Weinstein and Lanny Breuer have both expressed regret for failing to draw a 

connection between Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast and Furious. The 

consequences of the actions they regret may have allowed hundreds of additional weapons to 

flow across the border into Mexico, leading to the deaths of countless innocent citizens.

RECOMMENDATION: The Justice Department needs to institute clear, written 

guidelines to outline the appropriate use of cooperating gun 

dealers during law enforcement investigations. The 

Department must scrutinize investigations that involve 

cooperating gun dealers much more closely.

D. Justice Department’s Failure to Supervise ATF

Throughout the summer of 2010, the Criminal Division’s prosecutor in Arizona kept the 

Criminal Division informed about Fast and Furious. Meanwhile, officials in the Office of the 

Deputy Attorney General and the Office of the Attorney General were responsible for 

supervising ATF. Both of these offices knew the size of Fast and Furious and continued to 

receive updates on it throughout the summer of 2010. Neither office intervened or made any 

effort to become better informed about the case.

1. Siskel Waited for ATF to Report Problems 

FINDING: Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel did not actively engage 

with ATF leadership. He viewed his role as extremely limited, so he 

did not seek out any detailed knowledge of specific ATF operations,

including Operation Fast and Furious. Siskel had no prior training or 

experience with ATF, and he did not make any effort to learn more 

about ATF’s problems during his tenure in ODAG.

While the Justice Department’s Criminal Division continued its significant involvement 

in Fast and Furious, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General completely failed in its 

management responsibilities of ATF. At the heart of ODAG’s mismanagement during Fast and 

Furious was confusion surrounding objectives and responsibilities. This purported confusion 

was the product of either complete miscommunication among Department officials, indicating a 

systemic problem, or obfuscation to deflect blame.

According to former Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler, Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Ed Siskel was responsible for monitoring ATF and reporting any problems or 

difficulties to his superiors.

158

 Grindler testified:

Q. How do problems make their way to the Attorney General, if there 

was a problem in an ATF case?

 

158 Grindler Transcript at 30 (Exhibit 56).
69

A. Well, I can’t speak about—this is sort of an abstract response.

With any component, they have a responsibility to bring significant 

problems to the attention of the leadership office. So it would be 

the heads of the law enforcement components, the United States 

Attorneys, the heads of the components all have that 

responsibility. And then, as I have already talked about, with Ed 

Siskel, for example, or Mark Michalic, if in their interaction with 

the law enforcement components they identify problems, they 

need to bring it to the leadership’s attention so that something 

can be done about it.159

Siskel, however, had a completely different view. Although he received detailed briefings and 

updates on ATF operations, Siskel viewed his role as a limited one. Siskel contended it was not 

his job to supervise ATF, but rather to interface with ATF leadership regarding certain Justice 

Department policy questions.160 Siskel testified that his limited role precluded him from 

knowing the operational details of any given ATF investigation—not even ATF’s most 

significant one, Operation Fast and Furious.161 Siskel testified:

As I described earlier, my position as an Associate Deputy Attorney 

General was largely a policy position and one where I worked with the 

leadership of the law enforcement components on issues that they had that 

needed to be, for example, elevated to the level of the Deputy Attorney 

General for a decision. And that did not involve getting into the 

operational details of particular investigations.

162

Documents show, however, that ODAG—including Ed Siskel—received briefings, briefing 

papers, and memos discussing the details of specific ATF investigations. As discussed above in 

Section V.I.B., Siskel received a detailed briefing about Fast and Furious in March 2010. Other 

e-mails dated after that briefing show Siskel’s involvement with Fast and Furious and other ATF 

operations. For example, in one e-mail, Siskel asked Mark Chait, ATF Assistant Director of 

Field Operations, about operations in Arizona:163

 

159 Id. (emphasis added).

160 Siskel Transcript at 43-45 (Exhibit 8).

161 Siskel Transcript at 43-44.

162 Id. at 43 (emphasis added).

163 E-mail from Edward Siskel to Mark Chait (Jul. 14, 2010) [HOGR 002847-002848] (Exhibit 70).
70

Siskel also received other updates and briefings from ATF on Fast and Furious throughout 2010,

despite his insistence that his position did not involve delving into the operational details of 

particular investigations. 

Although he attended briefings on ATF operations and was ATF’s chief liaison to the 

Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Siskel seemed unaware of some of the most basic ATF 

practices. For example, he had no knowledge of how ATF’s Suspect Gun Database worked. 

Siskel testified:

Q. So no one at ATF ever explained to you what the suspect gun 

database is and the way that it interoperates with the tracing system 

to allow them to have immediate notice . . . when the recovery 

occurs rather than the longer, more cumbersome trace process . . . 

[N]obody at ATF ever explained that to you? Do you have any 

knowledge of that before I explained it to you just now? 

A. I’m fairly confident that nobody at ATF ever explained that to 

me.

Q. Did you understand it before I explained it to you just now? 

A. No.164

ATF’s use of the Suspect Gun Database has important policy implications Siskel should have 

been aware of. Somehow, he was totally unaware of how ATF used this important tool.

 

164 Siskel Transcript at 104 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 8).

“At what point after that will we 

know the total results of the 

operation and be in a position to 

do some public roll out along the 

lines of what we did in Texas?”
71

Siskel claims he was oblivious to all things Fast and Furious at ATF. He professed 

having no knowledge that William Hoover had requested an exit strategy.165 Siskel was also 

completely unaware that ATF was working with cooperating FFLs, who were providing ATF 

with contemporaneous notice of sales to straw purchasers. He testified:

Q. So no one ever communicated that to you, either at the March 

briefing or on any other occasion, that they were working with a 

gun dealer who was providing them with contemporaneous notice 

of the sales to the straw buyers? 

A. I don’t recall anyone ever telling me that while I was in the 

Department. 

Q. Do you think you would recall it if they told you that?

A. I might recall it. I just don’t know. I mean, the notion that Federal 

firearms licensees might cooperate in a criminal investigation 

wouldn’t strike me as unusual, but I don’t recall. 

Q. Would it strike you as unusual if the vast majority of the guns that 

were on that chart that were shown to you weren’t historical 

purchases but were, rather, purchases that were made with 

contemporaneous notice to the ATF from a cooperating gun 

dealer? 

A. You know, based on the public reporting about the sort of 

inappropriate tactics that were used in this case, it does surprise me 

that those tactics were used. But I was not aware of any of that 

when I was in the Department.166

Siskel claimed to have no knowledge of the ATF briefing paper stating that the current 

strategy was “to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place in order to further the 

investigation and to allow for the identification of additional coconspirators who would continue 

to operate and illegally traffic firearms to Mexican DTO’s.”

167

 He testified:

Q. Sitting here today reading the language, “Currently our strategy is 

to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place in order 

to further the investigation and to allow for the identification of 

additional coconspirators who would continue to operate and 

illegally traffic firearms to Mexican DTO’s which are perpetrating 

 

165 Id. at 45-46.

166 Id. at 76 (emphasis added).

167 Phoenix Group VII, Phoenix Field Division, ATF, Briefing Paper on 785115-10-[redacted] (Jan. 8, 2010) 

[HOGR 001918] (Exhibit 71).
72

armed violence along the southwest border. This is all in 

compliance with,” and there is a citation to an ATF order. Sitting 

here today, are you familiar with the ATF order? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you recall anyone at ATF ever discussing that ATF order with 

you or its role in Fast and Furious in justifying the tactics used in 

operation Fast and Furious? 

A. No, I don’t recall anyone from ATF discussing that order with 

me in any context, and I don’t recall anyone talking about the 

inappropriate tactics being used in this investigation. 

Q. Do you agree sitting here today that this bullet point is a reference 

to the inappropriate tactic of allowing the transfer of firearms to 

continue to take place in order to further the investigation and 

identify more co conspirators? 

A. I don’t really have a basis for saying one way or the other whether 

this is a reference to inappropriate tactics.168

Siskel operated under the assumption others were responsible for providing him with 

information and bringing problems to his attention. His role as a member of the Southwest 

Border Strategy Group was to ensure that individuals understood their roles and to impart a clear 

understanding of Department policy to ATF officials. Siskel, however, did not take the proper 

action to fulfill this responsibility.

Ed Siskel left the Department on December 10, 2010, just five days before Agent Terry’s 

murder, to take a position in the White House Counsel’s Office. When the Justice Department 

discovered the connection between the gun that killed Agent Terry and the tactics of Operation 

Fast and Furious, no one informed Siskel, or asked him what he knew.169

RECOMMENDATION: The official within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General 

responsible for the ATF portfolio should have ATF-specific 

experience and training, and must be more than just a liaison. 

That official should ensure that the Deputy Attorney General 

is able to provide meaningful supervision of ATF operations.

 

168 Siskel Transcript at 134-135 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 8).

169 Siskel Transcript at 35-36.
73

2. Grindler Waited for Siskel to Report Problems

FINDING: Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler did not take an active 

leadership role with respect to ATF. He waited for his staff to bring 

matters to his attention. Accordingly, Operation Fast and Furious 

continued unabated. 

Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler took a management approach of 

delegating tasks and responsibilities to his subordinates and then remaining uninvolved until 

problems were brought to his attention. This management style insulated him from problems

occurring beneath him. Instead of accepting responsibility for his leadership shortcomings, 

Grindler instead passed the buck to his underlings.

Grindler believed that once tasks were delegated, they were no longer his problem. He 

testified: 

A. The way I organized the office was I had two individuals on my 

staff who had ATF as a component where they have responsibility. 

These individuals had other responsibilities, but that was one of 

their responsibilities. So from a management point of view, they 

had the responsibility to know more than I knew about ATF, and if 

there were issues that they believed needed to be brought to my 

attention, then I expected them to bring it to my attention. 

Beyond that, ATF being a law enforcement component works with 

the United States Attorneys across the country, and if there are 

issues either way with those relationships, it would be my 

expectation that either the United States Attorneys would either 

directly or through the executive office of U.S. Attorneys bring 

issues to my attention that they thought warranted my attention, 

and if ATF similarly had issues with United States Attorneys, I 

would expect it to bring it to my attention. And obviously the 

head of ATF had a responsibility to bring issues to my attention. 

Q. And who were your—I guess they were associate deputies that had 

the ATF portfolio? 

A. One. 

Q. Mr. Siskel was one? 

A. Mr. Siskel was an Associate Deputy Attorney and he had ATF 

as a portfolio.170

 

170 Grindler Transcript at 10 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 56).
74

Based on Grindler’s testimony, either ATF officials or Siskel—or both—should have brought 

problems to his attention. Neither did.

In Grindler’s view, problems did not exist if no one told him about them.

Grindler was not proactive. He stated:

Q. And did you have regular meetings with Messrs. Siskel and 

Michalic about ATF, or did you learn about ATF, manage ATF, 

only on an as-needed basis? 

A. I don’t recall a specific meeting with them solely about ATF. I 

said to my staff if there is an issue I really need to know, they need 

to come in and tell me.171

Grindler disclaimed all responsibility for learning about the gunwalking tactics that ATF used. 

He testified:

Q. Did you assign Mr. Siskel to keep track of this case on a going 

forward basis? 

A. I don’t recall. Again, ATF is his responsibility.

 

Q. Do you recall any specific conversations with Mr. Siskel about the 

Fast and Furious case outside of this meeting and the other ATF 

monthly meetings? 

A. No.

172

 

Despite the outcome of Fast and Furious, Grindler found no fault with his approach. He 

testified: 

Q. What other types of management decisions have been made at the 

Department to make sure a case like this will never happen in the 

future? 

A. I don’t know whether there are other management decisions. I 

think to the extent that information comes in regarding this matter 

and to the extent that it gives us a basis to do—where we think we 

need to take a management decision. When I say we, again, I am 

not the decision-maker, but I believe that that is and will be an 

ongoing process to review that, consider that, in the context of 

 

171 Id. at 11.

172 Id. at 17 (emphasis added).
75

management.173

Passive leadership and a poor management structure made it difficult to identify 

operational flaws in the component agencies the ODAG supervised. The fact remains, however,

that ODAG had important information regarding Fast and Furious, but did not handle it properly. 

Grindler and Siskel expected others to deal with it. This management breakdown directly 

contributed to the disastrous consequences of Operation Fast and Furious.

Grindler has made no attempt to find out what actually happened during Fast and 

Furious, despite having been second in command at the Department during the entire pendency 

of the operation. He headed the office with direct supervisory authority over ATF. As late as 

December 2011, Grindler knew little about Fast and Furious. He stated:

Q. So it is your position that ATF didn’t let these guns walk? 

A. I don’t know all the details of the facts. I believe that there were 

serious flaws in their operational tactics. But it is a fairly high 

level understanding that it included dropping of surveillance, 

maybe not interdicting guns where they had a legal basis to 

interdict. Exactly how many of the guns fall into those categories 

and how many don’t, I don’t know. I just don’t know. 

174

His testimony sums up the problem. Grindler appeared for a transcribed interview in December 

2011—nearly one year after the scandal broke—and more than a year after he was informed, in 

detail, about Fast and Furious and the connection to Brian Terry’s death. He testified:

Q. Were you aware that the case began based on information from a 

previous DEA State wire in which Celis Acosta is recorded talking 

about trafficking guns across the border specifically and setting up 

a specific transaction? 

* * *

Q. Were you ever aware of that? Did you know it before I told you 

just now? 

A. I don’t recall being aware of it back in 2010. I seem to recall, 

after your investigation began, hearing something like that. 

Q. So today, you understand that the ATF knew from—ATF and 

DEA and FBI knew from the November December 2009 time 

frame that the ring leader, Mr. Celis Acosta, had been recorded on 

DEA intercepts talking about trafficking guns to Mexico. 

 

173 Grindler Transcript at 25-26 (Exhibit 56).

174 Id. at 23-24 (emphasis added).
76

A. I don’t know that, nor do I know the details of that now. 

Q. So you don’t know that now. You don’t know that that’s true. 

A. I don’t know that that’s true—or false.175

In the intervening period of time, he failed to learn anything about the case or to re-examine the 

case in any meaningful way. Grindler stated:

Q. So you haven’t done any retrospective work, given the fact that 

you were the Deputy at the time and now you are one of the 

principal advisers for the Attorney General? 

A. I don’t know what you mean by retrospective work. 

Q. Well, what the heck happened, and how can we make sure, since 

you were the Deputy at the time when the Fast and Furious case 

unfolded, really bad things happened, what can we learn from that 

to make sure it doesn’t happen again? 

A. I believe that the Deputy Attorney General’s office is engaged in—

has been engaged in considering what steps need to be made and 

there has been consultation with the Attorney General. It has been 

taken very seriously.176

Senior Justice Department officials were not eager to find out what was going on at ATF 

during Fast and Furious. After its failure, they were even less inclined to do so. During his 

transcribed interview, Gary Grindler testified that he “did not know” or “did not recall” 29 times; 

Ed Siskel said he “did not know” or “did not recall” 21 times. Grindler and his Justice 

Department colleagues have not exercised strong leadership, and they have failed to

communicate a sense of urgency to find out what breakdowns within the Department led to 

Operation Fast and Furious. Grindler and his colleagues have failed to exercise real leadership 

and shoulder the blame for their shortcomings during Fast and Furious.

RECOMMENDATION: The Deputy Attorney General must closely supervise ATF, an 

agency with a long and troubled history. 

 

175 Id. at 124 (emphasis added).

176 Id. at 27-28 (emphasis added).
77

3. Wilkinson Failed to Ask Questions

FINDING: Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General Monty Wilkinson was

uninterested in the initiatives and operations of individual Justice 

Department components—including those in his portfolio. In fact, he 

believed it was not the role of anyone in the Office of the Attorney 

General to manage and supervise Department components. He read 

weekly memos containing details about Fast and Furious, but did 

nothing with this information.

Monty Wilkinson served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Attorney General Holder during the 

pendency of Operation Fast and Furious. Wilkinson’s portfolio of responsibilities included both 

ATF and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country. Like Siskel and Grindler, though, 

Wilkinson did not actively seek to inform himself about ATF operations, including Fast and 

Furious. Wilkinson testified that it was not part of his role or anyone else’s in the Office of the 

Attorney General to supervise components of the Justice Department. He stated: 

Q. [Y]ou emphasized the point that you weren’t responsible for 

supervising the components that were in your portfolio. Is that a 

fair statement?

A. Right. It is accurate to say I didn’t supervise or manage the 

components, correct.

Q. And you also, I believe, said that you weren’t responsible for 

overseeing them, is that accurate?

A. That’s right. Yes, correct.

Q. So is anyone in the Attorney General’s Office responsible for 

either overseeing, supervising or managing the components? 

A. The role of the staff in the Attorney General’s Office is to be a 

liaison with the components, to try to have a grasp on what is 

going on in the components and on top of important issues. I did 

not get into the operations of the components.

Q. So is the answer to my question no? 

A. Could you repeat the question? 

Q. My question was is anyone in the Attorney General’s Office 

responsible for overseeing the components of the Justice 

Department, supervising the components of the Justice Department 

or managing the components of the Justice Department? 
78

A. I said the role is to try to be on top of the issues in those 

components, so that we aren’t blindsided by issues, to have a 

relationship such that issues are, important issues are brought to

our attention so that we can report them to the Attorney General, 

but it’s not to manage or supervise.

177

 

Wilkinson claims he never brought the issue of Fast and Furious to Attorney General

Holder’s attention although he knew about it for several months. Beginning in the summer of 

2010, the Attorney General began receiving weekly updates on Operation Fast and Furious. 

These updates came from ATF, the Criminal Division, and the National Drug Intelligence 

Center. Attorney General Holder has stated that “[a]ttorneys in my office” are responsible for 

reviewing these memoranda and bringing any potential issues to his attention.178 Monty 

Wilkinson was the individual responsible for reading these weekly updates on Fast and Furious. 

He did not seek out more information about the large firearms trafficking operation that appeared 

in the weekly updates. Wilkinson testified:

Q. Just to follow up on one thing that [Department counsel] just said, 

so in these weekly memoranda, it references Fast and Furious? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. So when you received these, you were aware of an investigation 

named Fast and Furious. Is that a fair statement? 

A. Yes. If I read the weekly reports, I would have seen the 

reference to Fast and Furious. But I didn’t know, other than 

what was in the weekly reports, I didn’t know anything about it. 

Q. But you did read the weekly reports, you said, right? 

A. I made it a practice to read them. I can’t sit here today and say I 

absolutely read every weekly report. But I tried to read all of the 

weekly reports. I tried to read the weekly reports as they came. 

Q. Given what [congressional staff] asked you, when was the first 

time, sitting today—

A. Well, I would have seen the references to Fast and Furious in 

weekly reports that I read. 

 

177 Transcript, Interview of Monty Wilkinson by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Apr. 13, 2012), at 65-66 (emphasis added) [hereinafter 

Wilkinson Transcript] (Exhibit 72).

178 Letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Chairman Darrell Issa et al. (Oct. 7, 2011), at 3.
79

Q. And so do you recall when the first reference was? 

A. It would have been around the timeframe of the fall of 2010, I 

guess. 

Q. And did you ask any questions about what that is or any follow 

up? 

A. No. I mean, as I sit here today and read the missions, and you look 

at them, there is nothing in there that references the inappropriate 

tactics that were used in Operation Fast and Furious. So, no, I 

didn’t ask questions about it.179 

Wilkinson adopted an approach akin to that of Grindler and Siskel. This approach was a passive 

one. Having three senior Department managers with supervisory authority over ATF all taking a 

passive approach with respect to ATF allowed problems within ATF to grow out of control 

without senior Department leadership stepping in to fix the problem.

RECOMMENDATION: Leadership within the Justice Department must start at the 

top. Senior managers should foster a culture of accountability 

within the Department by taking responsibility and accepting 

consequences for their own lack of initiative and failures. 

4. Total Lack of ATF Supervision Within Justice Department

FINDING: Within the Department of Justice, ATF reports to the ODAG. Not a 

single Department official, however, took responsibility for 

supervising ATF. By failing to ask difficult questions about Fast and 

Furious, ODAG left ATF with the impression that ATF had the full 

support of Department leadership in the operation. 

Justice Department headquarters was derelict in its supervision of ATF, a component 

agency of the Justice Department. The Office of the Deputy Attorney General oversees ATF and 

its operations. Yet, no one at Justice Department headquarters considered themselves 

responsible for supervising ATF—not the Acting Deputy Attorney General nor the individuals in 

his office he chose for the task. Several Department officials testified that if ATF had a problem, 

ATF was expected to bring that problem to the Justice Department’s attention. No meaningful 

supervision took place. Interviews with Justice Department officials made clear that from the 

bottom of the chain to the top, no one was ensuring that ATF ran sound operations.

ATF considered Ed Siskel in ODAG to be its connection with Justice Department 

headquarters. Siskel testified:

 

179 Wilkinson Transcript at 33-34 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 72).
80

A. So you indicated that this was the agency that I was responsible 

for, and I would disagree with that characterization.

* * *

Q. Did ATF report up to you?

A. No, I wouldn’t say that they reported to me. I mean, in the sense 

that the sort of chain of command is that they reported to the 

Deputy Attorney General and through the Deputy Attorney 

General to the Attorney General. But I did work closely with them 

and tried to work with them and the Deputy Attorney General to 

help ATF achieve its mission and through various issues.180

Many memos addressed to the Attorney General from component agencies are addressed 

“through the Deputy Attorney General.” Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler testified:

Q. The Deputy’s office has some supervisory responsibility of ATF, 

correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And that responsibility is delegated to Mr. Siskel at the time—

A. Part of it, yes. 

Q. —and Mr. Michalic. You rely on—at that time you relied on those 

people to manage ATF, supervise ATF, to the greatest extent. 

A. Well, I mean, I rely on them for their responsibility. . . .

Q. But there is a responsibility of the Deputy’s office to conduct 

active, affirmative supervision of ATF, correct? 

A. I don’t know that I would use all those words. I mean, they answer 

up through me at the time, and I did have a management 

responsibility. But as I have tried to explain, because of the 

magnitude of the issues and the number of components, national 

security issues that are confronting this Department, I necessarily 

have to rely on members of my staff to try to get more 

information.181

Ed Siskel, however, failed to perform this role adequately.

 

180 Siskel Transcript at 23, 38 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 8).

181 Grindler Transcript at 95-96 (Exhibit 56).
81

Attorney General Holder placed responsibility for reading memoranda from ATF “for the 

Attorney General” on his Deputy Chief of Staff, Monty Wilkinson, but as described above, 

Wilkinson was reluctant to acknowledge that the Attorney General’s Office had any oversight 

responsibility for its components of the Justice Department. He suggested, however, that the 

Office of the Deputy Attorney General bore more responsibility for management of the 

components. He testified:

Q. So is it your view that the Deputy Attorney General is responsible 

for supervising, managing, and overseeing the components?

A. What my—what I said is that the—the leadership of components, 

like ATF, report to the Deputy Attorney General. That’s—

Q. And is that because he supervises and manages or oversees them? 

A. He—that’s—he does—I mean they report to him. 

Q. Let’s ask it this way: If the ATF or any component was doing 

something that Mr. Holder didn’t like, how would you 

communicate his not wanting them to do that to them? Like what 

would be the process for communicating—

Let’s say the agency, through you or through some other 

mechanism, communicated a policy that they were following, and 

the AG didn’t want them to do that. How would you go about 

telling them that? And who on the org chart would be responsible 

to tell Billy Hoover, Hey, don’t do that? 

A. You know it could really depend on what the issue is. It could be 

from the Deputy Attorney General. It could be—there could be 

communications from attorneys on the AG’s staff to the 

components to—

Q. Right. But Billy Hoover is going to look—it’s an org chart. It’s 

like a pyramid. Billy Hoover isn’t going to take orders from just 

any lawyer in the Justice Department. So it’s got to be someone—

Just to finish, so Billy Hoover has to respect that the person who 

says, Don’t do that, or do it differently or however you want to say 

it, that that’s somebody in his chain of command, if you will, 

somebody that he—that is above him, that can basically order him 

to do something. I think Jason was alluding to that. Is that the 

DAG’s Office? So if the DAG said don’t do that or do do that, is 

that—I guess we get into the word “managing.” Is that who Billy 

Hoover has to take orders from?
82

A. The DAG’s Office does exercise management—some 

management—I mean over components.

182

The Office of the Attorney General thought that the Office of the Deputy Attorney General 

exercised supervision over ATF. The Deputy Attorney General thought his staff, Ed Siskel in 

particular, exercised supervision over ATF. Ed Siskel did not see it as his responsibility to 

supervise ATF—even though ATF believed that it needed to report to Ed Siskel. In other words, 

the management structure at Department headquarters allowed for zero oversight of ATF, with

no single person believing it was their responsibility to supervise the agency.

In an October 7, 2011, letter to several members of Congress, Attorney General Eric 

Holder wrote:

Attorneys in my office and in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General 

review these weekly reports and bring to my attention only those matters 

deemed to require my consideration or action; given the volume of 

material to which I must devote my attention, I do not and cannot read 

them cover-to-cover. Here, no issues concerning Fast and Furious were 

brought to my attention because the information presented in the reports 

did not suggest a problem.183

As illustrated above, however, no single individual in Justice Department headquarters was ever 

looking for problems. Even when red flags should have raised questions with Justice 

Department officials, each official assumed someone else was responsible for dealing with ATF.

Notwithstanding the leadership vacuum at Justice Department headquarters, ATF 

leadership still looked to ODAG officials for guidance and briefed them about important 

operations occurring in ATF. The ATF Phoenix Field Division relied on the Deputy Attorney 

General’s new strategy for combating the drug cartels, including shifting focus from straw 

purchasers, in developing Operation Fast and Furious. In the absence of actual supervision, ATF 

believed it had the full backing of senior Justice Department officials for its strategy.184 

RECOMMENDATION: Justice Department components look to senior Department 

officials for leadership and guidance. It is critically important 

that these senior leaders provide such leadership and guidance. 

Justice Department officials also must take responsibility for 

supervising and managing the Department’s component 

agencies.

 

182 Wilkinson Transcript at 95-97 (Exhibit 72).

183 Letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Chairman Darrell Issa et al. (Oct. 7, 2011), at 3.

184 E-mail from David Voth to Hope MacAllister, et al. (Mar. 10, 2010) (emphasis added) (Exhibit 73); E-mail from 

Brian Kenrick to David Voth (Mar. 31, 2010) (emphasis added) (Exhibit 74); E-mail from William Newell to 

George Gillett (Oct. 5, 2010) [HOGR 001349-001352] (Exhibit 75).
83

E. Supervision and Role of U.S. Attorney’s Office

1. Lack of U.S. Attorney’s Office Supervision

FINDING: When U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reported to officials at Justice 

Department headquarters that his office had obtained a Title III 

wiretap in a firearms trafficking case – an unusual step and 

aggressive tactic – no one at Justice Department headquarters probed 

deeper. 

ATF was not the only component of the Justice Department which had inadequate 

supervision during Fast and Furious. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona also 

operated without effective supervision by the Justice Department.

U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke testified:

Q. You’re obviously a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed 

U.S. Attorney, so do you even have a boss? I know we talked 

about the administrative agency that sort of controls some of the 

finances, but you basically, I mean, do you report to somebody at 

DOJ who is your boss?

A. Yes, technically I report to the Deputy [Attorney General]. 

Q. Okay. And who was that? Who is it now? 

* * *

A. [I]t was Gary Grindler and now it’s James Cole. I got all the last 

names right.

Q. Very good. Is that your relationship with them then, are they really 

your boss? Do you have to give reports to them? 

A. No, no. It’s org chart. I don’t mean to diminish the role that I 

report to the Deputy at all, but I think what you were saying earlier 

in your lead-up to your question, you’re pretty independent as a 

U.S. Attorney in making decisions, and I think that’s accurate. But 

on an org chart and for reporting requirements the U.S. Attorneys 

report to the Deputy on the org chart. 

Q. And if the Attorney General puts out a directive, you’re bound by 

it? 
84

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. So as independent as you obviously are in the policies, there 

is a connection between you and the Department of Justice? 

You’re not a free floating atom? 

* * *

Q. [D]uring your almost 2 years . . . did you have a lot of contact

with Mr. Ogden, Messrs. Ogden, Grindler, and now Cole? 

A. No, I would not say a lot.185

Although Burke testified that the Justice Department did not conduct oversight of his office, he 

made clear the possibility existed. He stated:

[R]ecently we’ve been working on this issue of medical marijuana, and 

that is an issue the Department wants to make sure that it’s a coordinated 

policy, even though several U.S. Attorneys have written, you know, 

separate letters out there that the Department wanted to coordinate it. So 

there is an attorney in the DAG’s office who, you know, can call a 

meeting or, you know, or ask to review your letter before it goes out, and 

you don’t, you know—you and I have been talking for the last few 

minutes about the independence of U.S. Attorneys’ offices, but if the 

DAG’s office says, you know, you’re not sending a letter out on this issue 

unless we review it, then they’re obviously going to review it.186

Although the Deputy Attorney General and others in the ODAG did not interact with 

Burke personally, Burke participated in frequent conference calls coordinated by that office in 

late 2009 and 2010, which included the participation of Criminal Division Chief Lanny Breuer. 

He testified:

A. Deputy Attorney General Ogden would have southwest border 

conference calls, and he would chair them, and I think my 

recollection was Lanny was the cochair, Lanny Breuer, the Chief 

of the Criminal Division, the Assistant Attorney General for the 

Criminal Division, that they would—they were cochairing these, 

and they would have all the DOJ, law enforcement components on 

the call or in the room with them, more likely in the room, and then 

they would have the five southwest border U.S. Attorneys on the 

call, too, and then we would have to report up at some point in the 

call what was going on in our districts. 

 

185 Burke Aug. Transcript at 35-36 (emphasis) (Exhibit 34).

186 Id. at 36-37.
85

Q. “Report up” means? 

A. Meaning that this was a conference call, David Ogden would say 

the southwest border is important to us, you know, we really want 

to focus on the cartels, we have a cartel strategy, this is what we’re 

doing. Okay, DEA, what are you doing? Okay, ATF, what are you 

doing? FBI? And then they would give updates. Then at the end of 

the call they would say now we’re going to hear from our U.S. 

Attorneys, and then they would go through the U.S. Attorneys. So 

I would give an update to this call of what was going on. 

Q. So “up” didn’t mean up the chain, it just meant you were going to 

report, you were going to tell them what was happening in the 

district?

A. Exactly.187

Burke testified that he frequently promoted Fast and Furious to senior Department officials. He 

stated:

We’re not just focusing on the drugs and the humans, we’re focusing on 

the guns and the money, and that was a mantra I was often using, you 

know, we’re going to focus at port of entries and with the agencies on 

guns and money heading to Mexico, and so I would definitely have a lot 

of conversations with people in the Department about that because 

that was kind of how we wanted to be viewed, and then I would pivot 

that to say, and we have a big Title III case.188

Despite the priority that Justice Department officials claimed they placed on the cartel 

strategy, neither Grindler nor any other officials in his office, including Ed Siskel, dug any 

deeper into Fast and Furious when Burke made such comments. This lack of interest in specifics 

emanating from ODAG extended to its interactions with U.S. Attorney Burke as well as their

interactions with ATF.

 

187 Id. at 38-39.

188 Id. at 37-38 (emphasis added).
86

2. Delay in Indictments

FINDING: ATF officials asked both the Justice Department’s Criminal Division 

and ODAG for assistance in speeding up the indictments in Fast and 

Furious. The Justice Department, however, took no action to 

intervene. Instead, officials at Department headquarters were only 

concerned with preparing for the press impact of the indictments. 

The delay of the Fast and Furious indictments demonstrated a lack of supervision over

the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. Hoping to have the indictments done, at 

the latest, by the end of July pursuant to the exit strategy, ATF became upset as the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office dragged its feet and allowed the indictments to fester well into the fall of 2010 

and beyond. Dennis Burke testified:

I was aware how long the case took. In fact at times I had said we need to 

hurry the case up, but . . . our position in the office would be if you’ve got a 

case of this magnitude with 3,000 documents, then it’s going to take a while, 

you know.189

He acknowledged:

I have a greater appreciation for maybe ways we could have sped it up. . . . 

I mean, there are judgment decisions that we should have learned from that 

that if one AUSA is working on a case of this size, is provided that many 

documents, are there additional prosecutors who should be assigned to the 

case.190

Both the Criminal Division and ODAG realized the importance of the indictments in this case. 

ATF leadership approached both offices about the delay in the indictments. In the end, neither 

office intervened in any way to speed up the process.

As the U.S. Attorney’s Office continued to delay the indictments, with a target indictment 

date of December 7, 2010, the Criminal Division trumpeted Fast and Furious as a great case. 

Sometime in October 2010, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer visited Mexico.191 ATF’s 

then-Deputy Attaché to Mexico, Carlos Canino, testified about the visit:

[T]he Ambassador [to Mexico, Carlos Pascual] was saying hey, you know 

what . . . we need a big win [with] . . . some positive cases. And Lanny 

Breuer says, yeah, . . . there is a good case out of Phoenix . . . . [I] thought, 

oh, okay, . . . . [h]e knows about this case.192

 

189 Burke Aug. Transcript at 89-93.

190 Id.

191 Telephone interview of Carlos Pascual (Sep. 29, 2011).

192 Transcript, Interview of Carlos Canino by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Jun. 16, 2011), at 23 (Exhibit 76).
87

On October 17, 2010, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein e-mailed Gang 

Unit Acting Chief James Trusty about whether Breuer should participate in a press conference

relating to Fast and Furious:

193

Weinstein has since argued that he was only referring to Operation Wide Receiver (“Laura’s 

Tucson case”), but the e-mail also clearly references Operation Fast and Furious, and Weinstein 

refers to a “significant set of prosecutions.” Trusty responded:194

Perhaps in light of these discussions, AUSA Hurley’s reports to his supervisors in 

Phoenix began obfuscating facts. In an October 21, 2010, memorandum on Fast and Furious, 

Hurley wrote:

Investigating agents have pursued interdiction of the firearms transferred 

to the conspirators where possible. Agents have not purposely let guns 

“walk.” Interdiction in some cases has been hampered by countersurveillance used by the targets. By looking at firearms transaction 

records historically, it is believed that the organization has acquired 

more than 1800 firearms.195

As discussed in Part I of this report, ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office had not been 

simply “looking at firearms transaction records historically” to become aware of the straw 

 

193 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to James Trusty (Oct. 17, 2010) [HOGR 002864] (Exhibit 77).

194 E-mail from James Trusty to Jason Weinstein (Oct. 18, 2010) [HOGR 002864] (Exhibit 77).

195 Memorandum from Emory Hurley to Carol Stachan-Noonan, “Fast and Furious” (Oct. 21, 2010) [HOGR 

003047] (emphasis added) (Exhibit 78).

“It’s not going to be any big surprise 

that a bunch of US guns are being 

used in MX, so I’m not sure how 

much grief we get for ‘guns walking’.”

“It’s a tricky case, given the number of guns that have 

walked, but it is a significant set of prosecutions.”
88

purchases in Fast and Furious. Quite the opposite, cooperating FFLs were informing ATF in 

real-time, and ATF was receiving e-mail notifications from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal 

Background Check System (NICS) for many of the purchasers.

Discussions continued over how to explain walked guns. On October 22, 2010, Laura 

Sweeney, the press official who attended Jason Weinstein’s April 2010 meeting with ATF about 

Operation Wide Receiver, e-mailed two Criminal Division attorneys:

196

James Trusty wrote back:197

Sweeney replied: “Agree—just want to start thinking about the questions. Definitely agree it 

shouldn’t deter us from doing press.”

198

 

While the Department was considering the press implications of Fast and Furious, ATF’s 

frustration with the slow pace of the indictments boiled over. On October 29, 2010, Assistant 

Director Chait e-mailed Phoenix SAC Newell: “Any news on a quicker indictment?”

199

 Newell 

responded, “No, they pushed it to December 7, 2010. I was supposed to meet with the USA this 

coming week to discuss the delay but he canceled due to an ‘unexpected’ DC trip.”

200

Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson scheduled a November 9, 2010, meeting with 

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer to address the issue, along with difficulties in general 

 

196 E-mail from Laura Sweeney to Laura Gwinn (Oct. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003529-003532] (Exhibit 79).

197 E-mail from James Trusty to Laura Gwinn (Oct. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003529-003532] (Exhibit 79).

198 E-mail from Laura Sweeney to Laura Gwinn (Oct. 22, 2010) [HOGR 003529-003532] (Exhibit 79).

199 E-mail from Mark Chait to William Newell (Oct. 29, 2010) [HOGR 001912-001913] (Exhibit 80).

200 E-mail from William Newell to Mark Chait (Oct. 29, 2010) [HOGR 001912-001913] (Exhibit 80).

“[T]he only obstacle will be explaining 

why we let them continue to send guns to 

Mexico while we were investigating.”

“I think we can navigate 

through this stuff fine.”
89

about getting U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to prosecute straw purchasing cases. The day before the 

meeting, Amy Pope, Breuer’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Counsel to the Assistant Attorney 

General, asked Weinstein if he was preparing materials for the meeting.201 He responded with 

his impressions of the meeting topic based on his conversations with ATF Deputy Director 

William Hoover:202

ATF Deputy Director William Hoover testified that he also raised the pace of indictments 

with Ed Siskel in ODAG:

A. We had conversations with . . . Ed Siskel, I had conversations with 

Ed, speaking to the possible delay of the indictment. . . .

Q. Ed Siskel was the associate deputy attorney general handling ATF matters? 

 

201 E-mail from Amy Pope to Jason Weinstein (Nov. 8, 2010) [HOGR 003533-003534] (Exhibit 81).

202 E-mail from Jason Weinstein to Amy Pope (Nov. 8, 2010) [HOGR 003533-003534] (Exhibit 81).

“Ken is also 

frustrated by 

the pace of the 

USAO in AZ in 

bringing 

charges in the 

‘Fast and 

Furious’...case 

(multiple 

wires, huge # 

of guns)”

“If it’s a lack of 

will/priority 

(unlikely), the 

only thing we 

can do is 

encourage the 

offices to 

pursue these 

cases 

vigorously.”
90

A. Yes. 

* * * 

Q. What did you tell him? 

A. I just told him that we were hoping to have this case indicted much 

more quickly than it is being indicted. The information we were 

getting back through field ops was that it’s the normal process 

through the indictment stage, and that they needed this to be able 

to run, or draft the indictments on 20 individuals, and we were 

obviously concerned about the time it was taking.203

Like virtually all other matters related to Fast and Furious, Siskel was unable to recall this:

Q. Were you aware at the time that after the ATF agents took the case 

to the prosecutor’s office in the Phoenix U.S. attorney’s office to 

prepare the indictments, there were significant delays that occurred 

at the U.S. Attorney’s office?

A. I don’t recall hearing anything about that.

Q. Do you recall whether anyone asked for you to intervene with the 

U.S. attorney’s office to see if you could help speed up the

indictments?

A. Not that I recall.204

Siskel testified that because ATF never raised any problems with him, he never paid ATF any 

attention.205 When ATF did raise a concern with Justice Department headquarters—in two 

different Department offices no less—it received no assistance whatsoever.

As early as September 2010, there were warning signs that problems existed with the Fast 

and Furious indictments. Yet, the Justice Department failed to supervise the Arizona U.S. 

Attorney’s Office adequately and failed to prod it to action regarding the indictments. Despite 

ATF’s requests to both the Criminal Division and ODAG to help accelerate the indictments, it 

took the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry to make the indictments a reality.

 

203 Hoover Transcript at 74-75 (Exhibit 4).

204 Siskel Transcript at 45-46 (Exhibit 8).

205 Id. at 38-39.
91

VII. Connection of Fast and Furious to Brian Terry’s Murder

The connection between the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Fast and 

Furious had drastic effects inside the Department of Justice. For the first time since the 

investigation began over a year earlier, a Fast and Furious straw purchaser was finally arrested. 

ATF rushed a memorandum to Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler notifying him of the 

connection. Perhaps most significantly, Justice Department headquarters abandoned plans to 

have various Department officials appear at the Fast and Furious take-down press conference in 

Phoenix, including Attorney General Holder.

A. “AG’[s] office is now expressing interest in the AG coming out for it”

FINDING: Deputy Chief of Staff to the Attorney General Monty Wilkinson 

inquired about Attorney General Holder participating in the press 

conference announcing the take-down of Operation Fast and Furious. 

On December 14, 2010, before Brian Terry was killed, Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff 

Monty Wilkinson e-mailed Dennis Burke. The subject of the e-mail was “You available for a 

call today?”

206

 There was no text in the message:

An hour later, Burke e-mailed his colleagues in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. The subject 

of the message was “Fast and Furious.” Burke wrote:207

Burke responded to Wilkinson at 2:14 the following morning:

 

206 E-mail from Monty Wilkinson to Dennis Burke (Dec. 14, 2010) [HOGR 003074] (Exhibit 82).

207 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Patrick Cunningham (Dec. 14, 2010) [HOGR 003070] (Exhibit 

83).

“AG’[s] office is now expressing 

interest in the AG coming out for it.”
92

Within hours of Burke’s response to Wilkinson, Brian Terry died from wounds he sustained in a 

firefight with bandits armed with Fast and Furious guns.

The e-mail traffic that day shows that Wilkinson left Burke a voicemail message about 

Attorney General Holder’s plan to travel to Arizona for the press conference announcing the Fast 

and Furious take-down. Burke and Wilkinson, however, remembered the details differently. 

Dennis Burke, represented by personal counsel after he had left his position as U.S. Attorney, 

recalled that the Attorney General’s office suggested the trip:

Q. But who was Monty interested in having come out? It wasn’t 

going to be Monty Wilkinson showing up at the press conference, 

right?

A. No, it was the Attorney General. 

Q. Okay. So this email is specifically in regard to the Attorney 

General coming out to join you for the take-down of Fast and 

Furious?

A. Correct.

* * *

Q. And then there is an answer from Mr. Cunningham back to you, 

also cc’ing Miss Scheel and others, You bet, good opportunity to 

see if January 6 and 7 are still our target dates for indictment and 

take-down press event. The AG’s office, was that Mr. Holder 

himself who was expressing interest in coming out? 

A. No, not to my knowledge. It was, I think when I said AG’s office, 

I am indicating Monty.208

 

208 Transcript, Interview of Dennis Burke by the Joint Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Dec. 13, 2011), at 86 (emphasis added) [hereinafter Burke Dec. 

Transcript] (Exhibit 84).
93

Monty Wilkinson, a personal friend of Attorney General Holder,

209 represented by Department 

counsel, testified that that it was Dennis Burke who wanted the Attorney General to come to 

Phoenix:

Q. Did Dennis Burke ever reach out to [you] requesting the Attorney 

General visit his district? 

A. I have a vague recollection of Mr. Burke—a communication with 

Mr. Burke, and I don’t recall exactly when it was, but expressing 

an interest in the Attorney General coming to Arizona to announce 

an indictment in a gun trafficking case. 

Q. Is that something that he reached out to you for, or you reached out 

to him about? 

A. I don’t see why I would have reached out to him about it.210 

Burke adamantly disputed Wilkinson’s insistence that Burke wanted the Attorney 

General to announce the Fast and Furious press conference. After Wilkinson contacted him 

about the prospect of Attorney General Holder traveling to Arizona, Burke claims he was 

delighted, but believed that a Fast and Furious press conference would not be the best use of 

Holder’s time. In addition, Burke had other ideas if the Attorney General were to visit Arizona. 

Burke testified:

A. My recollection was that the impetus for the Attorney General to 

come out to a press conference was coming from ATF. And 

Monty asked me, is this a trip you recommend for the Attorney 

General. And my response was something to the effect that if 

the Attorney General is going to come out to our district, which 

you know is very limited opportunities, I would recommend 

that he do a border tour or we do something in Indian country 

instead of doing this case.

* * *

Q. So did you tell Mr. Wilkinson not to have him come out for this? 

A. No, I didn’t—I don’t think I have the prerogative to say he can’t 

come out. I think I was saying my recommendation is if he is 

going to come out to Arizona, it is better that he comes for a 

border tour than for this case.211

 

209 Wilkinson Transcript at 9-10 (Exhibit 72).

210 Wilkinson Transcript at 26-27.

211 Burke Dec. Transcript at 88-90 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 84).
94

Just one week later, Justice Department headquarters decided not to have the Attorney General 

visit Arizona or announce the Fast and Furious indictments when it discovered that Fast and 

Furious guns were found at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s murder.

B. Justice Department Leadership Alerted to Fast and Furious 

Connection

FINDING: Both Monty Wilkinson and Gary Grindler were informed about the 

connection between Operation Fast and Furious and U.S. Border 

Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder. Grindler received detailed 

information about the connection. He took no action, however, to 

investigate the operation.

After Wilkinson and Burke exchanged preliminary e-mails about the potential visit to 

Arizona, the situation quickly changed. On the morning of December 15, 2010, Burke alerted 

Wilkinson to Agent Terry’s death. He forwarded an e-mail with information about the death to 

Wilkinson at 9:41 a.m.212 Wilkinson responded a few minutes later:213

In his transcribed interview, when asked about this e-mail, Wilkinson claimed he could not even 

remember whether he notified the Attorney General of the murder of Agent Terry. He testified:

Q. Did you communicate that—the information reached you in 

advance of reaching the Attorney General. Would that be fair? 

A. I actually don’t know for sure if he heard it first from me. All I 

can go on is the fact that I told Dennis [Burke] that I had alerted 

the AG and some other folks that I did that. I don’t remember how 

I did it. 

Q. So as you sit here today you don’t have any recollection of a 

conversation, email or any other method? 

A. No, I don’t. 

 

212 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Monty Wilkinson (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 005872] (Exhibit 85).

213 E-mail from Monty Wilkinson to Dennis Burke (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 005872] (Exhibit 85).
95

Q. Let me finish—communication between you and Mr. Holder—

A. Correct.

Q. —regarding the Terry murder? 

A. Correct.

* * *

Q. But in terms of your practice, how would you have alerted him?

A. I don’t know, because I don’t know what, I just, I don’t 

remember you know what was going on that day. I just, you 

told me at the beginning to be honest, if I don’t remember to be 

honest and I’m being honest. I don’t remember.214 

Wilkinson wrote Burke back again that morning at 11:15 a.m.:215

Burke forwarded Wilkinson additional information about the killing at 1:21 p.m. that afternoon. 

Wilkinson replied 24 minutes later:216

 

214 Wilkinson Transcript at 47-48 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 72).

215 E-mail from Monty Wilkinson to Dennis Burke (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 005876] (Exhibit 86).

216 E-mail from Monty Wilkinson to Dennis Burke (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 005888] (Exhibit 87).
96

At 5:19 p.m., after attending the press conference in Tucson later that evening

announcing Agent Terry’s death, the AUSA in charge of the Tucson field office e-mailed 

Burke:

217

Two hours later, at 7:21 p.m., Burke responded: “Thanks. I just talked to Bill Newell about it. 

The guns tie back to Emory’s Fast and Furious case.”

218

 Burke also updated Wilkinson:219

Wilkinson responded, “I’ll call tomorrow.”

220

 

Meanwhile, the news linking Fast and Furious with Terry’s death also reached Justice 

Department headquarters from a different source. On December 16, 2010, ATF Deputy Director

William Hoover e-mailed Brad Smith and Mark Michalic in the Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General. Hoover’s e-mail implied that Smith and Michalic already knew about the connection 

between Fast and Furious and Agent Terry’s death:

221

 

217 E-mail from Shelley Clemens to Dennis Burke (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 003076] (Exhibit 88).

218 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Shelley Clemens and Ann Scheel (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 003076] (Exhibit 88).

219 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Monty Wilkinson (Dec. 15, 2010) [HOGR 005917] (Exhibit 89).

220 Id.

221 E-mail from William Hoover to Brad Smith and Mark Michalic (Dec. 16, 2010) [HOGR 002871-002872] 

(Exhibit 90).

“The guns found in the desert near the murder 

[sic] BP officer connect back to the investigation 

we were going to talk about . . .”
97

The next morning, on December 17, 2010, Smith forwarded six pages of information he 

had received from Hoover to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler.

222

 In the e-mail, 

Smith informed Grindler that the weapons recovered at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder had 

been purchased by someone ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office had been investigating since 

November 2009:

223

[ INTENTIONALLY BLANK ]

 

222 E-mail from Brad Smith to Gary Grindler, et al. (Dec. 17, 2010) [HOGR 002875-002881] (Exhibit 91).

223 Id.

“The second . . . gives you the 

information re the firearms 

recovered at the scene of the 

homicide of the CBP Officer.”
98

Smith flagged for Grindler that Avila had been under investigation for more than a year. 

One of the briefing papers Smith attached to the e-mail stated that Avila purchased the weapons 

recovered at the Terry murder scene on January 16, 2010.224 The same briefing paper also noted 

that although ATF had recommended Avila to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution, Avila 

was arrested—after Agent Terry’s murder—for using a false address that dated back to June 

2010. The charges could have been applied to Avila’s earlier November 2009 purchases, since 

the briefing paper Smith forwarded observed that Avila had not lived at the address for several 

 

224 Phoenix Group VII, Phoenix Field Division, ATF, ATF Investigation 785115-10-[redacted], Operation: Fast & 

Furious (Dec. 16, 2010) [HOGR 002880-002881] (Exhibit 91).

“Two of the weapons recovered from the scene have 

been linked to . . . a straw firearms purchaser that ATF 

and USAO for Arizona have been investigating since 

November 2009 as part of its larger Fast and Furious 

operation.”
99

years.225 Grindler did not inquire why Avila had not been arrested before the murder even 

though there had been sufficient evidence to do so.

The materials also informed Grindler that by then, the Fast and Furious straw purchasing 

organization had by then spent “1.25 million dollars in cash . . . to acquire in excess of 1,900 

firearms.”

226

 Even after learning that the size of the investigation had nearly doubled since he 

was first briefed nine months earlier in March 2010, Grindler still failed to act or inquire further. 

This staggering figure did not alert the Acting Deputy Attorney General to the need for closer 

supervision and scrutiny of the operation. 

Grindler instead claimed to be focused on finding Brian Terry’s killers. He testified:

[M]y focus really was on I want to make sure that that investigation is 

going to give us answers as to what happened [to Agent Terry]. . . . [T]his 

memo doesn’t say that the ATF was letting guns walk, whatever the words 

you want to use. What I knew was happening and which was most 

important to me was that there was an intense investigation headed up by 

the FBI to find out what happened with respect to Mr. Terry’s death. And 

that would include the information here. Mr. Avila was arrested on the 

15th. That would include that kind of information, whatever the 

information is that would get us to the answer about what happened.227

While this was a laudable goal, Grindler had a duty to scrutinize the ATF investigation tied to 

Terry’s death. He failed in this duty. Attorney General Holder announced on January 3, 2011—

two weeks later—that Grindler would be his new chief of staff, effective January 17, 2011.228

Meanwhile, no one at ATF or the Justice Department notified the family of Border Patrol 

Agent Brian Terry about the connection between an ATF case and the guns found at the scene of 

their son’s death. The Terry family did not learn this fact until six weeks after his death, when 

ATF whistleblowers came forward and Congress launched its investigation.229 

 

225 Id.

226 Briefing Paper, Phoenix Field Division [HOGR 002876] (Exhibit 91).

227 Id. at 35-39.

228 Department of Justice, “Attorney General Appoints Gary Grindler Chief of Staff,” Jan. 3, 2011, available at 

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/January/11-ag-004.html.

229 Anderson Cooper 360, “Exclusive interview with Terry family,” CNN (Jul. 11, 2012), available at 

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/07/12/ac-fast-and-furious-exclusive-terry-family.cnn.
100

C. “I would not recommend the AG announce this case”

FINDING: Shortly after the weapons from Brian Terry’s murder traced back to 

Operation Fast and Furious, Dennis Burke recommended against 

Attorney General Holder’s announcement of Fast and Furious to 

Monty Wilkinson. 

On December 21, 2010, six days after their initial communications about a possible 

Attorney General visit, Dennis Burke e-mailed Monty Wilkinson suggesting the Attorney 

General not announce Operation Fast and Furious at the press conference:

230

Wilkinson responded four minutes later:231

Wilkinson later recalled few details about his communications with Burke regarding 

Attorney General Holder’s possible trip to Phoenix. Wilkinson testified:

Q. Dennis Burke emails you, “I would not recommend the AG 

announce this case. I can explain in detail at your convenience.”

And then you respond, “Okay, I will call tomorrow.” . . . And 

again you have no recollection of having a phone conversation 

with Mr. Burke on this topic?

A. No . . . , I don’t recall having a conversation with Mr. Burke on 

this.

 

230 E-mail from Dennis Burke to Monty Wilkinson (Dec. 21, 2010) [HOGR 006614] (Exhibit 92).

231 E-mail from Monty Wilkinson to Dennis Burke (Dec. 21, 2010) [HOGR 006614] (Exhibit 92).

“I would not recommend the 

AG announce this case.”
101

* * *

Q. [W]hen Dennis Burke informs you that the guns found in the 

desert near the Border Patrol officer are traced back to the 

investigation we are going to talk about, again you say “I will call 

tomorrow.” So these are two, at least in my mind, these are two 

pretty important events. Certainly this is a very important point. 

A. Yes. 

Q. The guns traced back to the investigation. And then on page 4 

recommending the Attorney General would not announce the case. 

You say on both occasions you will call tomorrow. 

A. Right. 

Q. I presume if you told him you would call tomorrow, that you did 

call tomorrow. 

A. Correct. 

Q. But you only have recollection of one phone conversation? 

A. Well, I mean, when people call me and leave messages, I make it a 

practice to return their calls. If I tell somebody that I am going to 

call them, I am very good about following up. So I can’t say that I 

didn’t attempt to reach Mr. Burke and just wasn’t able to connect 

with him or we played telephone tag. But I am telling you to the 

best of my recollection, I don’t recall connecting with him and 

discussing this.232

Similarly, although the Justice Department did not produce these e-mails until after December 

2011, after the Committees had already conducted two transcribed interviews with Dennis 

Burke, the Department represented to the Committees that Burke did not recall the specifics of 

his communication with Wilkinson either.

233

 Given the importance and purpose of these calls—

to determine whether the Attorney General would travel to Arizona for a press conference—it is 

difficult to believe that neither Wilkinson nor Burke had any recollection of them. Their failure 

to recall these conversations is inconsistent with their ability to recall other conversations around 

the same timeframe.

Wilkinson also could not recall Burke advising against Attorney General Holder 

announcing the Fast and Furious indictments:

 

232 Wilkinson Transcript at 35-37 (Exhibit 72).

233 Letter from Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General, DOJ, to Darrell Issa, Chairman, House Committee on 

Oversight and Government Reform (Mar. 16, 2012), at 4.
102

Q. So do you recall having any converstaions with Mr. Burke at any 

time about why he did not believe that it was a good idea for the 

Attorney General to announce the investigation?

A. I . . . do not have any recollection of having any such conversation 

with Mr. Burke.

Q. So other than the email where he says he doesn’t think it is a good 

idea, you never had any indication from any source as to why he 

thought it wasn’t a good idea?

A. I don’t have any recollection of having any conversation with him. 

The problems with the investigation came to light I guess in late 

January 2011, and that is when I became aware of the tactics that 

were used.

Q. Right. I understand you don’t recall any specific conversations 

with him. I asked you a slightly different question and my second 

question was slightly different. I asked if you had any idea or any 

indication from any source as to why Mr. Burke communicated to 

you his view that he didn’t think the Attorney General should 

announce the investigation?

A. Not that I recall, no.

* * *

Q. Did Mr. Burke ever indicate to you that the reason that he 

rescinded his request for the Attorney General to come out and 

visit the District of Arizona was in any way related to the 

murder of Agent Brian Terry? 

A. Again I don’t recall having any conversations or communications 

with Mr. Burke about this.

Q. Did anyone else make any indications or provide any information 

to you suggesting that U.S. Attorney Burke’s decision to 

recommend that the Attorney General not come out for a press 

conference related to a firearms trafficking case in January, 2011, 

[or] was in any way related to the murder of Agent Brian Terry?

A. I don’t recall having any communications with anybody about 

that.234 

 

234 Wilkinson Transcript at 40, 52-53 (emphasis added) (Exhibit 72).
103

Wilkinson’s failure to recall if the decision about whether the Attorney General would attend the 

Fast and Furious press conference was linked to Agent Terry’s death is simply not credible in 

light of the timing and circumstances surrounding the decision.

Although both Wilkinson and Burke testified they had no memory of phone calls or 

communications about Fast and Furious and Agent Terry’s death, documents suggest that there 

was an immediate and obvious instinct to protect the Attorney General from being associated 

with an obviously controversial operation.

D. Amnesia at Justice Department Headquarters

FINDING: No one at Justice Department headquarters has been able to provide 

answers to the Terry family. During their respective transcribed 

interviews, Monty Wilkinson stated 38 times that he “did not recall”

or “did not know.” In a similar fashion, Gary Grindler did so 29 

times, and Ed Siskel 21 times. In two different transcribed interviews, 

Dennis Burke said he “did not recall” or “did not know” something 

161 times.

Given the circumstances surrounding Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death, one 

would expect Justice Department officials to have some recollection of the event. Instead, 

Department officials seem to have experienced collective memory loss. During his three-hour 

interview, Wilkinson stated that he could “not recall” or did “not know” the answer to questions 

posed 38 times. Gary Grindler provided similar answers 29 times, and Ed Siskel 21 times. In 

two different interviews, Burke stated that he “did not recall” or “did not know” 161 times.

Brian Terry’s family is still seeking answers 21 months after his death. Wilkinson and 

Grindler, two senior officials very close to the Attorney General who each had detailed 

knowledge of Fast and Furious, have been unable and unwilling to provide the Terry family any 

answers. Their refusal to shed light on the events surrounding these tragic days at the highest 

levels of the Justice Department are an affront to the legacy of Brian Terry and the loving family 

he left behind. While the Terry family continues to suffer, Grindler and Wilkinson have both 

been promoted. 

RECOMMENDATION: The Justice Department must provide the Terry family with a 

complete accounting of how it learned about the connection of 

their son’s death to Operation Fast and Furious. The 

Department should also apologize for not personally informing 

the Terry family or publicly admitting the connection sooner. 
104

VIII. Conclusion

Though Attorney General Eric Holder correctly labeled Operation Fast and Furious as 

“fundamentally flawed,” he has failed to acknowledge that the operation was not strictly a local 

aberration. In fact, Fast and Furious had many enablers among the senior levels of the Justice 

Department. 

Senior Justice Department officials developed a new strategy to combat the drug cartels 

that shifted law enforcement focus from straw purchasers to the leaders of trafficking networks. 

The Criminal Division, with Lanny Breuer at the helm, supported the prosecution of a past 

operation, Wide Receiver, which had used this strategy. He also assigned attorneys to assist with 

Fast and Furious, also born from this strategy. Breuer oversaw the authorization of several 

wiretap applications, which contained copious detail of the reckless tactics employed in Fast and 

Furious.

Officials in both the Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General refused to inquire about Fast and Furious, even when presented with troubling facts 

about the number of firearms involved. In the wake of Brian Terry’s murder, these senior 

Department officials still remained silent and inert regarding Fast and Furious.

In the 19 months since the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious began, the 

Justice Department has had ample time to address issues that led to the flawed operation. It has 

failed to do so. Instead, the Department’s senior officials have done what they did during Fast 

and Furious—nothing. 

To prevent a repeat of Fast and Furious, the Justice Department must make changes to 

ensure that its personnel do not encourage or implement poorly designed operations. The 

Criminal Division must be actively engaged in the wiretap authorization process. The ODAG 

must be proactive in overseeing its law enforcement components. Officials tasked with the ATF 

portfolio must have a meaningful background in its issues and challenges. 

Above all, Department officials must actively supervise component agencies. They 

cannot be absentee managers. While the current management strategy allows for plausible 

deniability when things go awry, it cannot prevent another Fast and Furious. And the American 

public will not tolerate another Fast and Furious.

The American people depend on the Department of Justice to faithfully uphold the law

and protect the public safety. The Department has failed the American people with the Fast and 

Furious scandal. It failed to enforce the law, to ensure public safety, to provide leadership, to 

halt the operation, and to hold accountable those responsible for their conduct in conjunction 

with this deadly and disastrous operation.

To restore the nation’s confidence in it, the Justice Department must take corrective 

action immediately.