segment tonight. as we reported last night. cbs news investigative correspondent sharyl attkinson has uncovered some justice department memos that show attorney general holder knew about the fast and furious gun sting long before he said he did. ms. atkinson joins us from washington. let s walk through this so even i can understand it. when you found these memos, then you called the white house for comment as any reporter would. and some guy actually yelled at you? is that what happened. well, it was during reporting on some of these documents, not those particular ones. we had a conversation which you well know about and have reported on and has been duly noted. ever since and i have been moving on and trying to work on the next developments in the case. there have been quite a few. bill: let s not try to get away from this too quickly sheryl. eric schultz is hired by this white house to handle this story the fast and furious story. you call eric up and you say he was hostile?
i don t want to say exactly how the whole thing took place because part of that is how we work together in sharing information since the story began. there are assigned people in various part sides of the story to deal with the media i do want to say that the conversation as you reported it was accurate. bill: did he curse at you? as you reported, that s accurate. bill: wait, wait, wait. now, i have had that happen to me, ant anybody would curse at me, come on. you get a promotion doing that but you are a nice person. i mean, you are just somebody he is trying to get the story. why would this guy curse at you? what led him to do that? in the course of covering these kind of stories, as you know, you get into a lot of difficult moments with people that you talk to but. bill: now what he i m talking about here. usually lights a fuse
it looks to me like eric holder, the attorney general, did know about this fast and furious operation that led to the death of a border patrol agent long before he told congress he knew about it. would that be accurate at this point in time to say? you would be factually correct. and as we have reported that the attorney general was briefed a long time ago. bill: okay. let me finish that was briefed on fast and furious. not bill: so then he goes up to the hill and he tells darryl issa, the congressman from california, you know, i just found out about this, i really didn t know. so it looks like holder is not telling the truth. that s what it looks like. are there any extenuating circumstances that you have found? none so far. and i have put in a separate query to the department of justice, which we re continuing to report on the story to ask them to clarify okay, when is it, if he misunderstood the question.
particularly reporter correspondent. that s not something that happens every day. what do you think lit that fuse? well, i would say there have been some pretty incredible developments in the past week. also, documents we haven t even had time to report on all of them. they are very sensitive documents and allegations going around. many of them we haven t reported yet because we need to get more confirmation of them. but what you see on the surface that we do report in our stories is really only a part of what may be going on and we may be reporting the future when we can get confirmation. bill: okay. can i only say that is s. a very sensitive story that goats goes into many far facets there is a lot of sensitivity. bill: particularly today because president obama stuck up for holder and said holder didn t mislead anybody before congress. whatever. now, correct me if i am wrong, because i am speculating, based on your reporting, something that makes me uncomfortable but you are
particularly reporter correspondent. that s not something that happens every day. what do you think lit that fuse? well, i would say there have been some pretty incredible developments in the past week. also, documents we haven t even had time to report on all of them. they are very sensitive documents and allegations going around. many of them we haven t reported yet because we need to get more confirmation of them. but what you see on the surface that we do report in our stories is really only a part of what may be going on and we may be reporting the future when we can get confirmation. bill: okay. can i only say that is s. a very sensitive story that goats goes into many far facets there is a lot of sensitivity. bill: particularly today because president obama stuck up for holder and said holder didn t mislead anybody before congress. whatever. now, correct me if i am wrong, because i am speculating, based on your reporting, something that makes me uncomfortable but you are