B. Todd Jones

ATF Head Could Recommend Terminations, Suspensions Following Fast And Furious IG Report

Ryan J. Reilly | December 27, 2011, 1:40PM

B. Todd Jones, the U.S. Attorney the Obama administration put in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the wake of the Fast and Furious scandal, told the Los Angeles Times that he would be making some termination or suspension recommendations to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responibility once an Inspector General report is issued on the botched anti-gun trafficking program.

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Fast And Furious

Obama Has 'Full Confidence' In Eric Holder Ahead Of 'Fast And Furious' Hearing

Ryan J. Reilly | December 8, 2011, 1:05AM

While House Republicans gear up to grill Attorney General Eric Holder about what-he-knew-when about ATF's botched Operation Fast and Furious at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, the White House is signaling they're standing by the nation's top law enforcement officer.

"As the President has made clear, he believes Eric Holder is an excellent Attorney General who has his full confidence," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement to TPM on Wednesday.

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Fast And Furious

Eric Holder To Testify On Fast And Furious As Dems Call On Ex-ATF Director Melson

Ryan J. Reilly | October 28, 2011, 2:50PM

Attorney General Eric Holder is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 8 about ATF's flawed Fast and Furious operation that let guns flow to Mexican drug cartels, a Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed to TPM.

Holder has agreed to a request from Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to testify before the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Oversight Committee Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) said in a statement.

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Darrell Issa

Despite Denials, Sources Say Darrell Issa Was Briefed On Details Of ATF's 'Fast And Furious'

Ryan J. Reilly | October 14, 2011, 9:15AM

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said this week that he was "never" briefed about what was going on in Operation Fast and Furious and that ATF agents who ran an April 2010 briefing he attended "never mentioned 'Fast and Furious' by name."

That contradicts contemporaneous documents prepared for that meeting as well as the claims of officials familiar with the briefing, who say Fast and Furious was, in fact, discussed in detail. Still, Issa's office says staffers at the meeting don't recall Fast and Furious coming up and say they weren't given the briefing materials.

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Fast And Furious

DOJ: Issa's 'Recycled' Charges That Holder Lied About ATF's Fast And Furious Are 'Baseless'

Ryan J. Reilly | October 10, 2011, 3:19PM

The back-and-forth between House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Attorney General Eric Holder over Holder's knowledge of ATF's controversial Fast and Furious program continued Monday, with a Justice Department spokeswoman accusing Issa of "partisan showboating."

"These recycled allegations continue to be baseless, no matter how many times they are repeated," DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler told TPM in an email.

"From the start, the Attorney General took the concerns about certain tactics used in the Fast and Furious operation seriously, which is why the first steps he took were to ask the Inspector General to investigate the matter and to ensure agents and prosecutors knew such conduct violated Department of Justice policy and would not be tolerated," Schmaler said.

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ATF

Two Top Officials Resign Over ATF's Operation Fast And Furious

Ryan J. Reilly | August 30, 2011, 3:21PM

Ken Melson and Dennis Burke

The acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms And Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Attorney for Arizona have resigned their posts in the wake of a scandal involving a program aimed at stopping gun trafficking on the Mexican border. ATF Director Ken Melson and U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke announced their resignations on Tuesday.

An Obama administration official told TPM that the White House and Justice Department were not prejudging the investigations of Operation Fast and Furious being conducted by DOJ's Inspector General and the House Oversight Committee. But the official said that both ATF and the federal prosecutor's office in Arizona had critical public safety missions they needed to carry out and that it was important for proper leadership to be in place.

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Fast And Furious

Report: ATF Director Melson To Step Down Over Fast And Furious Program

Ryan J. Reilly | August 30, 2011, 11:40AM

Acting ATF Head, Ken Melson

Ken Melson, the acting deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will announce later today that he's stepping down as the head of ATF amidst probes of a controversial anti-gun trafficking program, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Ken Melson

ATF Director 'Sick To His Stomach' When He Learned Details Of Fast And Furious

Susan Crabtree | July 6, 2011, 12:17PM

Acting ATF Head, Ken Melson

Ken Melson, the embattled acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), told Congressional investigators that he became "sick to his stomach" after learning details of the troubled anti-gun-trafficking program called Fast and Furious.

Melson on Tuesday testified for the first time before investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Judiciary Committees, which have been pummeling the administration with questions about controversial tactics to stop the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels. Melson, who appeared in a private meeting before the panel with his own personal counsel rather than Justice Department attorneys, said DOJ officials had prevented him from cooperating with Congress' investigations thus far.

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ATF

Darrell Issa Poised To Get First Win In ATF Fast And Furious Scandal

Ryan J. Reilly | June 20, 2011, 5:45AM

Acting ATF Head, Ken Melson

Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) seems poised to collect his first scalp. The Obama administration wants to oust Ken Melson as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) over the troubled anti-gun-trafficking program called Fast and Furious, the Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.

Issa's committee released an email last week that showed that as deputy director of the agency, Melson was closely monitoring the Fast and Furious operation -- an effort to stop the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels. One email from ATF described a request Melson made for a web link so he could watch from hidden cameras in the gun stores that were cooperating with the operation.

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ATF

ATF To Require Dealers To Report Bulk Semiautomatic Rifle Sales

Ryan J. Reilly | December 20, 2010, 12:00PM

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on Friday requested emergency permission to require that gun dealers report to them bulk sales of the high-powered semiautomatic rifles favored by drug cartels -- all part of the Administration's effort to combat the flow of guns to Mexico.

It is a plan that had languished for months at the Justice Department because of concerns over what the National Rifle Association (NRA) might think. The Washington Post reports now that it was held up by the White House in the spring -- around the same time that President Barack Obama promised Mexican President Felipe Calderon he'd work to prevent gunrunning south of the border.

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ATF

Top DOJ Official Tells ATF, FBI to End Turf Wars at Explosives Sites

Ryan J. Reilly | August 18, 2010, 8:20AM

An FBI bomb technician vehicle.

A top Justice Department official scolded the ATF and the FBI for allowing the turf war between the two federal agency to continue, saying that squabbles in the wake of explosives incidents leave local responders confused about who's in charge as they work to defuse live bombs.

But Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler told ATF Deputy Director Ken Melson and FBI Director Robert in a memo obtained by TPMMuckraker that he thinks he's worked out a solution on which both sides can agree.

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