The Justice Department strongly disputed any suggestion that Holder misled Congress. Smith wants Holder inquiry

After new documents suggested Attorney General Eric Holder may have contradicted himself over comments about the Fast and Furious gun program, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called on President Barack Obama to appoint a special counsel to determine if Holder lied to Congress.

“I write to urge you to instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to determine whether Members of Congress were misled by the Attorney General during his recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee,” wrote Smith, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday.


“Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled Members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel. I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible,” Smith added.

Documents released on Monday suggest that Holder knew about the Fast and Furious gun program well before he told Congress in testimony that he had first become aware of it.

The documents include a memo to Holder from Michael F. Walter, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, dated July 5, 2010, that mentions Fast and Furious.

But in May 2011, Holder told the House Judiciary Committee that he had only recently learned about Fast and Furious.

“When did you first know about the program, officially known as Fast and Furious?” asked Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks,” Holder replied.

Under the program, weapons were allowed to be illegally purchased in the Phoenix area so that they could be tracked to gun traffickers and drug cartel leaders. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of these firearms, and many were allowed to cross into Mexico.

The Justice Department strongly disputed any suggestion that Holder misled Congress.

“The attorney general’s testimony to both the House and the Senate was consistent and truthful,” said spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. “He said in both March and May of this year that he became aware of the questionable tactics employed in the Fast and Furious Operation in early 2011 when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and at the time, he asked the Inspector General’s office to investigate the matter.”

A senior official at the agency told POLITICO that while Holder knew that an operation was going on in 2010, he was not aware until early 2011 of the controversial tactics used in Fast and Furious.

Moments before Issa asked the question, he had discussed the controversial aspects of Fast and Furious program — that guns were allowed to “walk out of gun shops.” The Justice Department says that Issa’s question was asking when Holder became aware of these controversial tactics of Fast and Furious and not the overall operation itself.

“The attorney general has consistently said he became aware of the questionable tactics in this operation in early 2011, when ATF agents first raised them publicly, and then asked the IG to investigate the matter,” said the Justice Department official.

The agency added that Issa, whose committee is conducting an investigation into the Fast and Furious program, also was informed of the operation in 2010.

“Chairman Issa, of all people, should be familiar with the difference between knowing about an investigation and being aware of the use of questionable tactics employed in that investigation, since documents provided to his committee show he was given a briefing that included the Fast and Furious operation in 2010 — a year before the controversy emerged,” said the senior Justice Department official.

Meanwhile, other leaked documents show that senior Justice Department officials were aware of Fast and Furious in 2010. In an October 2010 email, Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general in the agency’s criminal division, wrote an email to James Trusty, acting chief of the department’s organized crime and gang section.

Weapons linked to the program were later linked to the December 2010 shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Two undercover police officers in Arizona were later allegedly assaulted by men with firearms tied to the program back in March 2010.

Holder conceded in September that the ATF operation “was clearly a flawed enforcement effort.”

Smith has called for investigations into the Obama administration’s activities in the past, but the results have been mixed. For example, previous requests to the White House for a special counsel on issues related New Black Panther Party and ACORN have been rejected, but letters to the DoJ’s Inspector General on those topics have been accepted for investigation.