House GOP welcomes Fast and Furious report

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans eagerly joined the Justice Department's inspector general Thursday in taking the agency to task for its bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona that allowed hundreds of weapons to reach Mexican drug rings.

At a committee hearing, Democrats fought an uphill battle as the committee's Republicans, led by its chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, wrapped themselves in the findings of Inspector General Michael Horowitz about Operation Fast and Furious.

Horowitz faulted the Justice Department, citing misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures in a gun-tracking operation that he said disregarded public safety.

"There needs to be supervision; there needs to be oversight," and law enforcement operations like Operation Fast and Furious need to be referred from the start to "the highest levels" of the department, Horowitz testified. His report faulted midlevel and senior officials for not briefing Attorney General Eric Holder much earlier.

Issa said Horowitz's 471-page report, released Wednesday, "is a huge step forward toward restoring the public faith in the Department of Justice."

The inspector general had to walk a fine political line between vociferous Republican criticisms of the operation begun during the Obama administration and Democratic defenses of Holder.

"We found no evidence that the attorney general was aware" of Operation Fast and Furious or the much-disputed "gun-walking" tactic associated with it, Horowitz told Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia.

Fast and Furious began in October 2009 and Horowitz said subordinates should have told Holder about it well before 2011.

President Barack Obama, on the Spanish-language television network Univision, said Thursday the gun-trafficking operation in Arizona had been "completely wrongheaded," but said he retains confidence in Holder.

Another point on which Horowitz vindicated Democrats was that risky gun-walking experiments had originated in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush.

Two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been bought illegally in Fast and Furious were recovered at the scene of a shootout that claimed the life of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.

Yesterday, his parents said they weren't happy with the report. Carolyn Terry said they wanted those responsible put in jail, not slapped on the wrist.