atf s knowing failures in both of these operations to interaddict firearms illegally destined for mexico and for pursuing this risky strategy without adequately taking into account the significant danger to public safety that it created. shep: the report claims the attorney general, eric holder, who was the main target of the republican-led inquiry, did not know anything about the operation. james rosen live in dc. the inspector general however, did find direct fault with lannie brewer. he is the assistant attorney general in charge of d. o.j. s criminal division. he found fault for what did he or didn t do after he learnd about operation wide receiver. that s the similar gun walking operation that the atf field office in phoenix conducted in 2006 and 07. what we found is to mr. brewer was frankly of whether he read the letter, given what he knew about wide receiver, his responsibility
joining us now to react is california representative and chairman of the oversight committee in the house, congressman darrell issa of the good morning to you. good morning, steve. and thanks for continuing to cover the loss, the murder of brian terry and all the surrounding activities that ultimately led to this report. it s almost 500 pages of wrongdoing in this report. steve: 14 officials cited for screwing up on this, but you say that there is still the cover-up to deal with and you think lannie brewer, a high ranking official, and the attorney general of the united states, eric holder, are involved in the cover-up and must be held accountable if true. steve, in page after page of the ig s report, actually use terms like new or should have known. there are 14 people that were held more directly accountable, effectively recommended for reprimand or firing. but when you look and say, where does the buck stop? it s never stopped at attorney
should have been to come forward and explain what happened in wide receiver because the people who were drafting the letter told us it would have made a difference. that s what troubled us. the letter you heard referred to there, was the one that doj sent to republican senator chuck grassley of iowa on february 4, 2011, in which the department falsely claimed it always tried to intercept weapons headed into mexico. it took doj ten months to correct that false information and the i.g. concluded senior holder aides should have done that much sooner. you had people who didn t know information, making substantive edits to a letter, along with people who did know information providing inaccurate information. and sorting out how that letter ended up the way it did and blaming one person or two people for the particular information was the difficulty we had. lannie brewer s deputy, jason weinstein, resigned from the
transparent. didn t the president promise transparency? sure, absolutely. this is a serious issue. i m not saying that holder sean: the americans that are dead, don t they have the right to know if the government provided the weapons to kill them? they have a right to a proper investigation. just because darrell issa we are talking about years and years of guns going back and forth over the border. many people dying. sean: i can never think of a time where the government provided the weaponry. and they didn t even they could have put gps in these things and tracked them down. we have weaponry in afghanistan. sean: they found e-mails with the words fast and furious in them. holder s claim is that wasn t about the fast and furious. the fact that this man was the top cop in the country, supposed to be the competent attorney general, incompetent or contempt. you can t have it both ways. lannie brewer made it clear.
transparent. didn t the president promise transparency? sure, absolutely. this is a serious issue. i m not saying that holder sean: the americans that are dead, don t they have the right to know if the government provided the weapons to kill them? they have a right to a proper investigation. just because darrell issa we are talking about years and years of guns going back and forth over the border. many people dying. sean: i can never think of a time where the government provided the weaponry. and they didn t even they could have put gps in these things and tracked them down. we have weaponry in afghanistan. sean: they found e-mails with the words fast and furious in them. holder s claim is that wasn t about the fast and furious. the fact that this man was the top cop in the country, supposed to be the competent attorney general, incompetent or contempt. you can t have it both ways. lannie brewer made it clear.