Justice official questioned in Senate about ‘gun walking’ to Mexico

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Source: Wash. Post

A senior Justice Department official was sharply questioned by a Republican senator on Tuesday over his admission that he knew about a controversial anti-gun-trafficking tactic used during the Bush administration and did not alert his supervisors.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that he learned last year that the tactic of allowing guns to flow illegally onto U.S. streets and into Mexico was used by federal agents between 2006 and 2007. The tactic, known as “gun walking,’’ was also a key part of “Fast and Furious,’’ the Obama administration gun-trafficking operation that is under investigation by Republican lawmakers and the Justice Department’s inspector general.

In a statement Monday, Breuer said he regretted not telling other Justice officials about gun walking that occurred during “Operation Wide Receiver,” a gun-trafficking initiative in the Bush administration’s Justice Department. Calling the tactic “unacceptable and misguided,’’ Breuer wrote that he should have made the connection between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious when controversy over Fast and Furious erupted this year. The operations came out of the same U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix.

Under questioning from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), Breuer repeatedly expressed regret and said he thought last year that having aides discuss his concerns with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — which ran both operations — was “the appropriate way of dealing with it.” He added that “I cannot be more clear: If I had known then what I know now, of course I would have told” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-official-questioned-in-senate-about-gunwalking-tactic/2011/11/01/gIQAA3afdM_story.html?wprss