Inquiry of weapons smuggling to expand

[Geee]

Washington Times:

The closed-door testimony of ATF’s acting director, saying that the Justice Department was obstructing a congressional investigation, has prompted an expansion of that ongoing probe into the controversial “Fast and Furious” weapons-smuggling operation.

“We’ll go wherever the investigation takes us,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a key inquisitor in probing the operation, during which guns, including AK-47 assault rifles, were “walked” into Mexico.

He said the weekend testimony of Kenneth E. Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had corroborated information that “more agencies within the Justice Department may have been involved in allowing guns to fall into the hands of known straw purchasers.”

A spokesman for Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday that the Melson testimony “raises new questions” about the scope of the program and certainly “justifies an expansion of the investigation.”

“After talking with the acting ATF director, I think we have a greater insight into what happened and what questions need to be asked to lead to some final answers as to who authorized this program and why,” said spokesman Frederick Hill, whose boss also has been a key player in the ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile Thursday, Mexican police released a videotaped interview of Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, in which the recently captured No. 3 leader of the Los Zetas drug cartel said “all the weapons” the Zetas use were “bought in the United States” and that “even the American government itself was selling the weapons.”

Mr. Grassley and Mr. Issa have been investigating accusations that Operation Fast and Furious, part of an anti-gun initiative known as “Project Gunrunner,” allowed thousands of weapons to be purchased by “straw buyers” in Arizona and Texas that later were “walked” unchecked to drug smugglers in Mexico.