“Operation Fast and Furious was the latest in a series of fatally flawed operations run by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office…. The committee has obtained no evidence indicating that the attorney general authorized gun-walking or that he was aware of such allegations before they became public,” said the Democrats’ report, “Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gunwalking in Arizona.” ‘’None of the 22 witnesses interviewed by the committee claims to have spoken with the attorney general about the specific tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy.”
Following is the executive summary of the minority report, presented by Rep. Elijah Cummings, (D-Ma):
On December 15, 2010, Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry was killed in a gunfight in Arizona, and two AK-47 variant assault rifles found at the scene were traced back to purchases by one of the targets of an investigation called Operation Fast and Furious being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). The target already had been identified as a suspected straw purchaser involved with a large network of firearms traffickers smuggling guns to deadly Mexican drug cartels.
At the request of the Committee’s Ranking Member, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, this report describes the results of the Committee’s year-long investigation into the actions and circumstances that led to this operation.
The report finds that gunwalking operations originated as early as 2006 as agents in the Phoenix Field Division of ATF devised a strategy to forgo arrests against low-level straw purchasers while they attempted to build bigger cases against higher-level trafficking organizers and financiers. Rather than halting operations after flaws became evident, they launched several similarly reckless operations over the course of several years, also with tragic results. Each investigation involved various incarnations of the same activity: agents were contemporaneously aware of illegal firearms purchases, they did not typically interdict weapons or arrest straw purchasers, and firearms ended up in the hands of criminals on both sides of the border.
Operation Wide Receiver (2006-2007)
In 2006, ATF agents in Phoenix initiated Operation Wide Receiver with the cooperation of a local gun dealer. For months, ATF agents watched in realtime as traffickers purchased guns and drove them across the border into Mexico.
According to William Newell, the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, these suspects told the gun dealer that the “firearms are going to his boss in Tijuana, Mexico where some are given out as gifts.” Although ATF officials believed they had sufficient evidence to arrest and charge these suspects, they instead continued surveillance to identify additional charges. As one agent said at the time, “we want it all.”
The Hernandez Case (2007)
ATF agents in Phoenix attempted a second operation in 2007 after identifying Fidel Hernandez and several alleged co-conspirators who “purchased over two hundred firearms” and were “believed to be transporting them into Mexico.” After being informed of several failed attempts at coordinating with Mexican authorities, William Hoover, then ATF’s Assistant Director of Field Operations, temporarily halted operations, writing:
I do not want any firearms to go South until further notice. I expect a full briefing paper on my desk Tuesday morning from SAC Newell with every question answered. I will not allow this case to go forward until we have written documentation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office re full and complete buy in. I do not want anyone briefed on this case until I approve the information. This includes anyone in Mexico.
In response, Special Agent in Charge Newell wrote to another ATF official, “I’m so frustrated with this whole mess I’m shutting the case down and any further attempts to do something similar.” Nevertheless, ATF operational plans show that additional controlled deliveries were planned for October and November of that year.
In the midst of these operations, Attorney General Michael Mukasey received a briefing paper on November 16, 2007, in preparation for a meeting with the Mexican Attorney General. It stated that “ATF would like to expand the possibility of such joint investigations and controlled deliveries—since only then will it be possible to investigate an entire smuggling network, rather than arresting simply a single smuggler.” The briefing paper also warned, however, that “the first attempts at this controlled delivery have not been successful.” Ten days later, ATF agents planned another operation in coordination with Mexico, again without success.
Hernandez and his co-conspirators, who had purchased more than 200 firearms, were arrested in Nogales, Arizona on November 27, 2007, while attempting to cross the border into Mexico. They were brought to trial in 2009, but acquitted after prosecutors were unable to obtain the cooperation of the Mexican law enforcement officials who had recovered the firearms.
The Medrano Case (2008)
In 2008, ATF agents in Phoenix began investigating a straw purchasing network led by Alejandro Medrano. Throughout 2008, ATF agents were aware that Medrano and his associates were making illegal firearms purchases from the same gun dealer who cooperated with ATF in Operation Wide Receiver.
An ATF Operational Plan describes an instance on June 17, 2008, in which agents watched Medrano and an associate illegally purchase firearms and load them into a car bound for Mexico. According to the document, “Agents observed both subjects place the firearms in the backseat and trunk,” and then “surveilled the vehicle to Douglas, AZ where it crossed into Mexico.” Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) balked when they learned about these tactics. After an interagency planning meeting in August 2008, the head of ICE’s Arizona office wrote to ATF Special Agent in Charge Newell that, although ICE agents “left that meeting with the understanding that any weapons that were followed to the border would be seized,” ATF agents later informed them that “weapons would be allowed to go into Mexico for further surveillance by LEAs [law enforcement agents] there.” On December 10, 2008, Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint that appears to confirm that ATF agents watched as Medrano and his associates smuggled firearms into Mexico. Describing the incident on June 17, 2008, for example, the complaint asserts that the suspects “both entered into Mexico with at least the six (6) .223 caliber rifles in the vehicle.” Medrano and his associates were sentenced to multi-year prison terms after trafficking more than 100 firearms to a Mexican drug cartel.
Operation Fast and Furious (2009-2010)
In Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents in Phoenix utilized gunwalking tactics that were similar to previous operations. In October 2009, ATF agents had identified a sizable network of straw purchasers they believed were trafficking military-grade assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels. By December, they had identified more than 20 suspected straw purchasers who “had purchased in excess of 650 firearms.”
Despite this evidence, the ATF agents and the lead prosecutor in the case believed they did not have probable cause to arrest any of the straw purchasers. As the lead prosecutor wrote: “We have reviewed the available evidence thus far and agree that we do not have any chargeable offenses against any of the players.” In January 2010, ATF agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed on a strategy to build a bigger case and to forgo taking down individual members of the straw purchaser network. The lead prosecutor presented this broader approach in a memo that was sent to U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke. The memo noted that “there may be pressure from ATF headquarters to immediately contact identifiable straw purchasers just to see if this develops any indictable cases and to stem the flow of guns.” In the absence of probable cause, however, the U.S. Attorney agreed that they should “[h]old out for bigger.” Over the next six months, agents tried to build a bigger case with wiretaps while making no arrests and few interdictions.
After receiving a briefing on Operation Fast and Furious in March 2010, ATF Deputy Director William Hoover became concerned about the number of firearms involved in the case. Although he told Committee staff that he was not aware of gunwalking, he ordered an “exit strategy” to take down the case and ready it for indictment within 90 days. ATF field agents chafed against this directive, however, and continued to facilitate suspect purchases for months in an effort to salvage the broader goal of the investigation. The case was not indicted until January 2011, ten months after Deputy Director Hoover directed that it be shut down.
No evidence that senior officials authorized gunwalking in Fast and Furious
The documents obtained and interviews conducted by the Committee reflect that Operation Fast and Furious was the latest in a series of fatally flawed operations run by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. Far from a strategy that was directed and planned by “the highest levels” of the Department of Justice, as some have alleged, the Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was conceived or directed by high-level political appointees at Department of Justice headquarters.
ATF’s former Acting Director, Kenneth Melson, and ATF’s Deputy Director, William Hoover, told Committee staff that gunwalking violated agency doctrine, that they did not approve it, and that they were not aware that ATF agents in Phoenix were using the tactic in Operation Fast and Furious. They also stated that, because they did not know about the use of gunwalking in Operation Fast and Furious, they never raised it up the chain of command to senior Justice Department officials.
Apart from whether Mr. Hoover was aware of specific gunwalking allegations in Operation Fast and Furious, it remains unclear why he failed to inform Acting ATF Director Melson or senior Justice Department officials about his more general concerns about Operation Fast and Furious or his March 2010 directive for an “exit strategy.” During his interview with Committee staff, Mr. Hoover took substantial personal responsibility for ATF’s actions, stating: “I have to take responsibility for the mistakes that we made.”
Former Phoenix U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke told Committee staff that although he received multiple briefings on Operation Fast and Furious, he did not approve gunwalking, was not aware it was being used, and did not inform officials in Washington about its use. He told Committee staff that, at the time he approved the proposal for a broader strategy targeting cartel leaders instead of straw purchasers, he had been informed that there was no probable cause to make any arrests and that he had been under the impression that ATF agents were working closely with Mexican officials to interdict weapons. Given the number of weapons involved in the operation, Mr. Burke stated that he “should have spent more time” focusing on the case. He stated: “it should not have been done the way it was done, and I want to take responsibility for that.”
Gary Grindler, the former Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, both stated that neither ATF nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office ever brought to their attention concerns about gunwalking in Operation Fast and Furious, and that, if they had been told, they “would have stopped it.”
When allegations of gunwalking three years earlier in Operation Wide Receiver were brought to the attention of Mr. Breuer in 2010, he immediately directed his deputy to share their concerns directly with ATF’s leadership. He testified, however, that he regretted not raising these concerns directly with the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General, stating, “if I had known then what I know now, I, of course, would have told the Deputy and the Attorney General.” The Committee has obtained no evidence indicating that the Attorney General authorized gunwalking or that he was aware of such allegations before they became public. None of the 22 witnesses interviewed by the Committee claims to have spoken with the Attorney General about the specific tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Attorney General stated:
This operation was flawed in its concept and flawed in its execution, and unfortunately we will feel the effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crime scenes both here and in Mexico. This should never have happened and it must never happen again.
The strategy of forgoing immediate action in order to build a larger case is common in many law enforcement investigations, and the Committee has obtained no evidence to suggest that ATF agents or prosecutors in Arizona acted with anything but a sincere intent to stem illegal firearms trafficking.
On December 15, 2010, Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry was killed in a gunfight in Arizona, and two AK-47 variant assault rifles found at the scene were traced back to purchases by one of the targets of an investigation called Operation Fast and Furious being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). The target already had been identified as a suspected straw purchaser involved with a large network of firearms traffickers smuggling guns to deadly Mexican drug cartels.
At the request of the Committee’s Ranking Member, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, this report describes the results of the Committee’s year-long investigation into the actions and circumstances that led to this operation.
The report finds that gunwalking operations originated as early as 2006 as agents in the Phoenix Field Division of ATF devised a strategy to forgo arrests against low-level straw purchasers while they attempted to build bigger cases against higher-level trafficking organizers and financiers. Rather than halting operations after flaws became evident, they launched several similarly reckless operations over the course of several years, also with tragic results. Each investigation involved various incarnations of the same activity: agents were contemporaneously aware of illegal firearms purchases, they did not typically interdict weapons or arrest straw purchasers, and firearms ended up in the hands of criminals on both sides of the border.
Operation Wide Receiver (2006-2007)
In 2006, ATF agents in Phoenix initiated Operation Wide Receiver with the cooperation of a local gun dealer. For months, ATF agents watched in realtime as traffickers purchased guns and drove them across the border into Mexico.
According to William Newell, the Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division, these suspects told the gun dealer that the “firearms are going to his boss in Tijuana, Mexico where some are given out as gifts.” Although ATF officials believed they had sufficient evidence to arrest and charge these suspects, they instead continued surveillance to identify additional charges. As one agent said at the time, “we want it all.”
Paul Charlton, then the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, was informed that firearms were “currently being released into the community,” and he was asked for his position on allowing an “indeterminate number” of additional firearms to be “released into the community, and possibly into Mexico, without any further ability by the U.S. Government to control their movement or future use.” As his subordinate stated, “[t]his is obviously a call that needs to be made by you Paul.” Over the next year, ATF agents in Phoenix went forward with plans to observe or facilitate hundreds of suspected straw firearm purchases. In 2007, a year after the investigation began, ATF initiated attempts to coordinate with Mexican officials. After numerous attempts at cross-border interdiction failed, however, the lead ATF case agent for Operation Wide Receiver concluded: “We have reached that stage where I am no longer comfortable allowing additional firearms to ‘walk’.” In late 2007, the operational phase of Operation Wide Receiver was terminated, and the case sat idle for two years. When a Justice Department prosecutor reviewed the file in 2009, she quickly recognized that “a lot of guns seem to have gone to Mexico” and “a lot of those guns ‘walked’.” The defendants were indicted in 2010 after trafficking more than 450 firearms.
The Hernandez Case (2007)
ATF agents in Phoenix attempted a second operation in 2007 after identifying Fidel Hernandez and several alleged co-conspirators who “purchased over two hundred firearms” and were “believed to be transporting them into Mexico.” After being informed of several failed attempts at coordinating with Mexican authorities, William Hoover, then ATF’s Assistant Director of Field Operations, temporarily halted operations, writing:
I do not want any firearms to go South until further notice. I expect a full briefing paper on my desk Tuesday morning from SAC Newell with every question answered. I will not allow this case to go forward until we have written documentation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office re full and complete buy in. I do not want anyone briefed on this case until I approve the information. This includes anyone in Mexico.
In response, Special Agent in Charge Newell wrote to another ATF official, “I’m so frustrated with this whole mess I’m shutting the case down and any further attempts to do something similar.” Nevertheless, ATF operational plans show that additional controlled deliveries were planned for October and November of that year.
In the midst of these operations, Attorney General Michael Mukasey received a briefing paper on November 16, 2007, in preparation for a meeting with the Mexican Attorney General. It stated that “ATF would like to expand the possibility of such joint investigations and controlled deliveries—since only then will it be possible to investigate an entire smuggling network, rather than arresting simply a single smuggler.” The briefing paper also warned, however, that “the first attempts at this controlled delivery have not been successful.” Ten days later, ATF agents planned another operation in coordination with Mexico, again without success.
Hernandez and his co-conspirators, who had purchased more than 200 firearms, were arrested in Nogales, Arizona on November 27, 2007, while attempting to cross the border into Mexico. They were brought to trial in 2009, but acquitted after prosecutors were unable to obtain the cooperation of the Mexican law enforcement officials who had recovered the firearms.
The Medrano Case (2008)
In 2008, ATF agents in Phoenix began investigating a straw purchasing network led by Alejandro Medrano. Throughout 2008, ATF agents were aware that Medrano and his associates were making illegal firearms purchases from the same gun dealer who cooperated with ATF in Operation Wide Receiver.
An ATF Operational Plan describes an instance on June 17, 2008, in which agents watched Medrano and an associate illegally purchase firearms and load them into a car bound for Mexico. According to the document, “Agents observed both subjects place the firearms in the backseat and trunk,” and then “surveilled the vehicle to Douglas, AZ where it crossed into Mexico.” Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) balked when they learned about these tactics. After an interagency planning meeting in August 2008, the head of ICE’s Arizona office wrote to ATF Special Agent in Charge Newell that, although ICE agents “left that meeting with the understanding that any weapons that were followed to the border would be seized,” ATF agents later informed them that “weapons would be allowed to go into Mexico for further surveillance by LEAs [law enforcement agents] there.” On December 10, 2008, Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint that appears to confirm that ATF agents watched as Medrano and his associates smuggled firearms into Mexico. Describing the incident on June 17, 2008, for example, the complaint asserts that the suspects “both entered into Mexico with at least the six (6) .223 caliber rifles in the vehicle.” Medrano and his associates were sentenced to multi-year prison terms after trafficking more than 100 firearms to a Mexican drug cartel.
Operation Fast and Furious (2009-2010)
In Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents in Phoenix utilized gunwalking tactics that were similar to previous operations. In October 2009, ATF agents had identified a sizable network of straw purchasers they believed were trafficking military-grade assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels. By December, they had identified more than 20 suspected straw purchasers who “had purchased in excess of 650 firearms.”
Despite this evidence, the ATF agents and the lead prosecutor in the case believed they did not have probable cause to arrest any of the straw purchasers. As the lead prosecutor wrote: “We have reviewed the available evidence thus far and agree that we do not have any chargeable offenses against any of the players.” In January 2010, ATF agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed on a strategy to build a bigger case and to forgo taking down individual members of the straw purchaser network. The lead prosecutor presented this broader approach in a memo that was sent to U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke. The memo noted that “there may be pressure from ATF headquarters to immediately contact identifiable straw purchasers just to see if this develops any indictable cases and to stem the flow of guns.” In the absence of probable cause, however, the U.S. Attorney agreed that they should “[h]old out for bigger.” Over the next six months, agents tried to build a bigger case with wiretaps while making no arrests and few interdictions.
After receiving a briefing on Operation Fast and Furious in March 2010, ATF Deputy Director William Hoover became concerned about the number of firearms involved in the case. Although he told Committee staff that he was not aware of gunwalking, he ordered an “exit strategy” to take down the case and ready it for indictment within 90 days. ATF field agents chafed against this directive, however, and continued to facilitate suspect purchases for months in an effort to salvage the broader goal of the investigation. The case was not indicted until January 2011, ten months after Deputy Director Hoover directed that it be shut down.
No evidence that senior officials authorized gunwalking in Fast and Furious
The documents obtained and interviews conducted by the Committee reflect that Operation Fast and Furious was the latest in a series of fatally flawed operations run by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. Far from a strategy that was directed and planned by “the highest levels” of the Department of Justice, as some have alleged, the Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was conceived or directed by high-level political appointees at Department of Justice headquarters.
Apart from whether Mr. Hoover was aware of specific gunwalking allegations in Operation Fast and Furious, it remains unclear why he failed to inform Acting ATF Director Melson or senior Justice Department officials about his more general concerns about Operation Fast and Furious or his March 2010 directive for an “exit strategy.” During his interview with Committee staff, Mr. Hoover took substantial personal responsibility for ATF’s actions, stating: “I have to take responsibility for the mistakes that we made.”
Gary Grindler, the former Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, both stated that neither ATF nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office ever brought to their attention concerns about gunwalking in Operation Fast and Furious, and that, if they had been told, they “would have stopped it.”
When allegations of gunwalking three years earlier in Operation Wide Receiver were brought to the attention of Mr. Breuer in 2010, he immediately directed his deputy to share their concerns directly with ATF’s leadership. He testified, however, that he regretted not raising these concerns directly with the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General, stating, “if I had known then what I know now, I, of course, would have told the Deputy and the Attorney General.” The Committee has obtained no evidence indicating that the Attorney General authorized gunwalking or that he was aware of such allegations before they became public. None of the 22 witnesses interviewed by the Committee claims to have spoken with the Attorney General about the specific tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy.
This operation was flawed in its concept and flawed in its execution, and unfortunately we will feel the effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crime scenes both here and in Mexico. This should never have happened and it must never happen again.
The strategy of forgoing immediate action in order to build a larger case is common in many law enforcement investigations, and the Committee has obtained no evidence to suggest that ATF agents or prosecutors in Arizona acted with anything but a sincere intent to stem illegal firearms trafficking.
Nevertheless, based on the evidence before the Committee, it is clear that ATF agents in Phoenix and prosecutors in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office embarked on a deliberate strategy not to arrest suspected straw purchasers while they attempted to make larger cases against higher-level targets. Although these officials claimed they had no probable cause to arrest any straw purchasers at the time, allowing hundreds of illegally purchased military-grade assault weapons to fall into the hands of violent drug cartels over the course of five years created an obvious and inexcusable threat to public safety on both sides of the border.