ATF

Emails: Bush-Era Embassy, Prosecutor's Office Approved ATF 'Gun Walking' Tactic

Ryan J. Reilly | October 14, 2011, 5:00PM

As House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) continues to try to pin the flawed "gun walking" tactic employed in Operation Fast and Furious on the Obama administration, it's becoming increasingly clear that problems with ATF's Phoenix division date back at least into the Bush era.

TPM has obtained the documents relating to another Bush-era ATF operation (on top of Operation Wide Receiver) which deployed the "gun walking" tactic. The development was first reported by Pete Yost of the Associated Press.

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Topics: ATF, Alberto Gonzales, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Bush Administration, Darrell Issa, Eric Holder, Fast And Furious, Gun Control, Gun Rights, Guns, Justice Department, Mexico, Operation Wide Receiver, Project Gunrunner, U.S.-Mexico Border

Eric Holder

'Operation Wide Receiver': The Bush Administration Had Its Very Own ATF 'Gun Walking' Scandal

Ryan J. Reilly | October 4, 2011, 3:50PM

Updated: Oct. 4, 6:45PM

Know how Republicans have been blaming the Obama administration for a local ATF office's decision to let thousands of guns "walk" into Mexico? Turns out the Bush administration had a "gun walking" program of their very own.

Republicans on Tuesday called for a special prosecutor to look into whether Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on ATF's Fast and Furious scandal.

Holder had testified on May 3 that he was "not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Documents have now emerged showing that the "Fast and Furious" program came up in the course of a couple of Holder's extensive weekly reports on ongoing developments in the Justice Department and its components in July 2010 and again in October 2010.

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Topics: ATF, Alberto Gonzales, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Darrell Issa, Eric Holder, George Bush, Justice Department, Lamar Smith, Operation Wide Receiver, Project Gunrunner

Alberto Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales Named 'Distinguished Chair of Law' By Belmont University

Jillian Rayfield | October 3, 2011, 6:03PM

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, last seen expressing "disappointment" in himself for failing to stop the politicization of the Justice Department honors program during the Bush era, has a new gig as the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law at Belmont University College of Law in Tennessee.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, U.S. Attorneys