public and answer the questions which have been the core of the matter and the allegation that you continuously make apparently erroneously but refuse to acknowledge. >> i appreciate the gentleman's comments. i would note for the record, i have not called for the attorney general's resignation. i have not said the attorney general knew. i certainly have, and i think many of us are making the point, that people didn't know that should have known things that, in fact, were trying to find out where the failures were made other than the local level which we have begun describing in the case of the acting and it's in his testimony obviously which will not be in the entirety made available today. but the acting director, in fact, is culpable for not knowing more of what a director should know or insure that people know that may stop this. so i join with the gentleman in saying that, in fact, it does concern me that someone who is supposed to direct over 1800

individuals did not know that this, in fact, involved gun walking. but, remember, on february 4th, well after many of these events, the attorney general's office prepared a document and gave it to us which said we never let guns walk. that is of concern, too. and the committee is not shy about having additional hearings. the attorney general made himself available at this date pursuant to a request. we did not and are not saying this is a culmination or taking him in lieu of less significant -- >> mr. nelson's interview was seven months ago. a direct quote from you, mr. chairman, on a roger hitchcock show, you said, "atf people and justice people are telling us this goes all the way to the very top. it goes all the way to the atf and the director and the office of the attorney general. this is the approved plan that you know is basically at the highest levels of the obama

appointees." if those are allegation that's you're going to make, then it will be important to have mr. nelson come in here and testify as part of that instead of blocking his testimony and continuing to make those assertions which now apparently are obviously not correct. >> i appreciate the gentleman giving roger hitchcock a plug. the fact is that those allegations were made with a number of other false allegations. i might note for the record that we were given statements, allegations that the atf director was viewing on closed circuit internet connection the actual purchases being made. after receiving testimony and multiple checks, we discovered that although he qurd aboinquirt the capability of witnessing the surveillance as they occurred that no such event occurred. this often happens in investigations. >> well, mr. chairman, i'm glad that you recognized that those comments you were making were

amplifying are false. and now maybe we can move on to the business of determine whags we can do as a government. >> we look forward to finding out what was false. >> mr. chairman. inquiry. just a follow up on what you just said. i know you're reserving, mr. chairman. >> withdrawing. >> i was just wondering if there was a way that we could have a portion of that document that goes to mr. nelson's testimony where he clearly states he never told the attorney general about these tactics in fast and furious and where he says that he himself did not know. >> he's done a very good job of making that available. and i certainly -- >> i want to make sure the record is complete. the attorney general has been accused of some very unkind things have been said about him. his reputation hangs in the

balance. i think that we've got mr. nelson, the former atf director, who clearly stated he never said anything about attorney general. and he even said dent even know about it himself. i'm just wondering if we can add that portion of the transcript as a part of the record. >> i will work with ranking member to find appropriate portions that seek your concerns that can be made available. i might note that my side has quoted repeatedly and that's why i want to make sure that we're fair on those quotes. my side quoted where he said he was sick to his stomach when he read the wiretaps and discovered what he didn't know. although it is inappropriate to open the entire transcript, we will look for statements to make

the record complete. i'll be glad to do that. >> just 30 seconds. what you just said is one of the reasons i want to make sure it's on the record correctly. when mr. nelson said i sat at the kitchen table. i read it 50 million times. he said his stomach got in knots when he found out about it. the point is he didn't know about it before then. so if he didn't know about it, it was impossible for him to tell the attorney general about it. that's all. >> if i could -- >> well, i'm not going to allow -- apologize, mr. attorney general. i'm not going to allow this to nurn a sequence f tho turn into a sequence of those. i will work with the gentleman. he has a valid point. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i can just say one thing though. >> theenrecognized, of course. >> when mr. nelson indicated he became sick to his stomach, it's not when he was reading the wiretap applications. he was reading reports of investigations. i think that is an important

distinction. >> i appreciate that. >> thank you, mr. holder, for being here this morning. i want to make a cout. because we've heard it from the other side of the aisle and even yourself with regards to this being a democratic or a republican issue. whether there is a, you know, political gain, if this is an election year charade. i think it's very important to recognize that you as the attorney general, with all due respect, need to be held accountable, or someone does, as to what happened. now i'm amazed that of all the issues that face this country, this is the issue that i distri

about and, in fact, today and i will enter them into the record. i have no fewer than 30 lks man district who want to know what happened, why it happened and who's going to be held accountable. i was taken aback just a little bit with your response to my colleague mr. you sort of declared that i am the attorney general. well, with all due respect, sir, yes, you are. but you're also accountable to not only the folks district, but the american people. and i just want to -- if you would indulge me just play a recording because most importantly and as you're well aware of, we had a hearing here in june with brian terry's family. and in that hearing, i specifically asked his mother and we'll play that hearing if you would please. >> a question that you would like us to ask?

>> i think we would want to know if the dragnet that is set to find everyone involved in brian's murder will be set deep enough and wide enough to encompass anyone involved in operation fast and furious? if the guns used in brian's murder were part of this operation, then we want to know will everyone in that operation that had to deal with those specific weapons be brought up on charges, facilitating the murder of brian terry? >> thank you. we will ask that question on your behalf. >> and so, mr. attorney general, on behalf of mr. hire, brian terry's cousin and actually the spokesperson for his mother and sister, i would ask you to what lengths is your investigation

into operation fast and furious gone and will everyone in that operation that had to deal with those specific weapons be brought up on charges facilitating the murder of brian terry? >> we're certainly working now to -- i mean this is an on going investigation. it is a very sensitive time. i'm not sure i can talk a lot about where the investigation is. i've indicated that i think we're pretty close to making some announcements. and we will hold accountable, seek to hold accountable those people responsible for agent terry's death w regard to people who were involved in operation fast and furious, we're endea r endeavoring to find out who made the determine toation for guns walk. i'm not at liberty to talk about the weapons that we used in the

actual incident. that goes to ballistics reports. that will come out during the course of the trial. but we will hold accountable people who were involved in, as i've described this flawed investigation. and one other thing, i did not mean to imply the comments i made there that i should not be held accountable. but i also think that there is a certain fairness component to this as well. i ought to be held accountable for those things that are within my area of responsibility. i should be held accountable for things that are factually correct as opposed to those things that are politically desired. i'm more than willing to add mississippi tad whenmi -- admit to mistakes when i made them, but if we're going to make progress, we need to put aside the political gotcha games in an election year and focus on matters that are extremely serious. whether one looks at the death

toll in mexico -- >> excuse me, sir. my time is ticking away. i just have one more question. as unlike the chairman, i was one of the members of congress who called for your resignation. i feel that the department of justice, that you're responsible for all of the activities that fall under your umbrella. and i think you've denied knowledge of the program and that accordingly you should not be held accountable. my question to you today is what more could have possibly gone wrong that you would have been held accountable? and before you answer that, i would suggest that the president has be eriely quiet about coming to your defense. so how many more border patrol gts would have had to die as a part of operation fast and furious for you to take responsibility? >> the gentle lady's time has expired. the gentleman may answer, or not. >> you know, i -- you know,

that's the kind of thing, you know, you wonder why you're getting those calls. you know, people focus on a question as much as an answer. and, you know, as a member of congress, you know, really? is that the way in which you want to be seen, you want to be known? you know, i should be held accountable for certainly my role in whatever i did or didn't do in connection with the supervision of fast and furious. but, yeah, i'm attorney general of the united states and i should be held accountable and perhaps even given some credit, imagine that, given credit for thing this is justice department has done under my leadership whether it deals with national security, vitalized antitrust, revitalized civil rights enforcement effort. and so one has to balance all of these things. i'm not claiming to be a perfect person or a perfect attorney general. i get up every day and try to do

the best job i can. i have great faith in the people that work in the department. and that kind of question, i think is, frankly -- again, respect, i think that is beneath a member of congress. >> the gentleman concluded, i think. we now go to the other gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the attorney general for helping the committee with its work. i know this is your sixth time. if i could, i'd like to try to put the political part of this aside and really out of respect for agent brian terry and his family and the other 117,000 people thatou try to look at some reforms that actually might go to the core of what went wrong here. now, i know you referred repeatedly to a tactic. the tactic of gun walking.

but really, when you drill down on that, what we're allowing here in this case, in fast and furious, at least in the earlier cases under the bush administration, basically what the department of justice did was authorize criminal activity. to allow folks -- they knew the 20 dealers were buying hundreds of guns and heavy, heavy arms, shipping them into mexico. in my city in boston, through the office of the fbi, through the confidential informant program, we had folks that were allowed to commit 19 murders under the care and protection of the fbi. i have a situation right now that's in court where another individual, a confidential informant killed at least -- alleged to have killed half a dozen people. the problem here is that this tactic actually authorizes -- it

puts the law enforcement, federal law enforcement in a position of authorizing criminal activity. they become complicit in it. that's very troubling, especially when it results in the death of a very brave, courageous agent. or two innocent american civilian citizens. and what is especially troubling that i believe that you didn't know about it. i believe that you didn't know about it. but that's not of comfort to me. it is unbelievable that either the phoenix field office or the boston office of the fbi can authorize criminal activity. not just a mere tactic, but a whole strategy of using that outside the law and then having innocent civilians killed.

so i actually think one of the solutions might be for congress to pass a law that says if there are those limited occasions where we're going to authorize criminal activity to go on in our society under the cover of law enforcement's authority, then either yourself as the attorney general or the director of the fbi or the head of the atf has to sign off on it. because here everyone escaped responsibility because of plausible deniability. they can say i didn't know about it. well, that's troubling. that scares the hell out of me. i think there is just a local office of the atf or the fbi that's authorizing criminals to engage in this type of activity taking ak-47s and letting them

get smuggled into mexico or, you know, southern california on our side of the border. what are you prepared to do? look, that's -- i know that's a blunt instrument saying that you have to sign off on any of these clandestine operations where allowing people to engage in criminal activity that puts the public at risk. what do you propose to do to make sure we don't have this i didn't know about it approach? sort of the, you know, guy on -- well, the i know nothing, you know, sergeant shultz defense for law enforcement. i didn't know about it. what do you propose, sir? >> i think that's alegitimate question. i think we don't want to go too far in this sense in that law enforcement will engage in illegal activity in an attempt

to solve crimes. we engage in illegal activity when we buy drugs from people who are selling drugs. we engage in illegal activity when we pay corrupt public officials money when we go into undercover operations. we have to have that ability. it is extremely important law enforcement technique. but i think the point that you raise is a good one. that is that the approval to do this kind of -- these kinds of activities can't rest at the line level. there has to be supervisory responsibility. and the question is where do you draw that line? it is not realistic for the attorney general to sign off on every one of these things. we have mechanisms within the department when it comes to undercover operations that rise to a certain level. undercover review committee actually has to approve them. there's a committee that does that. the reforms that have been put in place by todd jones at the atf requires greater supervisory responsibility for approving those things. but even with all those

approvals, as i said before, you know, letting drugs walk, letting money walk, that's one thing. but letting guns walk, i simply don't see -- i just don't see how that's an appropriate law enforcement technique. if you balance the potential gain against the potential harm, the harm is too great to justify the use of gun law. >> i ask unanimous consent the gentleman have an additional 30 seconds. >> i thank the gentleman. where do we draw that line, though? there has to be some accountability here. there has to be. and, again, i go back to the very nature, this tactic is actually often -- it's putting law enforcement and the confidential informant arrangements are especially troubling. these folks operated for years. we're taking taxpayer money to pay confidential informants and a very generous lifestyle and seems to be all clandestine, at

least in the boston office. the higher ups didn't know anything about it. >> will the gentleman yield? >> sure. >> i agree with the gentleman that we sure. >> i agree with the gentleman we need to do more oversight with the fbi and others who have the authority. i also agree there has to be a congressionally stated level we're comfortable with that can prove this particularly in light of fast and furious recognizing cartel members are unindicted and were part of this operation that led to brian terry's death. i join the gentlemen in support with congress doing oversight and taking that role. >> i thank the gentleman. i yield back the balance of my time. thank you, sir. >> i think the gentleman yields back. we now go to the gentleman from arizona, mr. gosar. >> thank you, attorney general, for coming today. there's no secret about how i feel. absolutely no secret. i'm appalled. absolutely appalled. and i'm appalled even further about the discussion today

because if this same thing had occurred on the east coast, how much more of a ruk kus we would have heard. how much more we would have taken into consideration. i'm the only member on this committee from arizona. yeah, we lost a border agent. but we're further impugned because these gun are going to show up at crime scenes particularly in arizona from here to whenever. as well as the mexican government. and the mexican people who've lost over 300 people. and i think that i'm very taken back by when you said, you know, we shouldn't be doing this. we shouldn't be gun walking. and that everybody knows that's inappropriate. well, i'll tell you what. that shows me exactly why i'm so appalled. is that if there was a doctrine out there that said, listen, if you walk guns you're going to do time, that's the penalty that should be placed here. because that's what we're going to have to endure. and i'm finding it very upsetting that arizona is taking

this on the face, and we trivialize what's going on here. i think we should be able to share all information. we talked about in line. people that have been moved from arizona up the line to doj. having that discussion to find out how this came about. because this is in our backyard. don't you agree? >> agree with -- you've said a lot. >> don't you agree that we shouldn't trivialize this? >> no. it has not been trifl yalized. this is obviously -- at least not by me. >> do you think it's appropriate that we just say don't do it, you shouldn't be doing gun walking? or do you say it shouldn't be done, and if it is done and you're found culpable and you're a participant of this you should be held to the same standards that the rest of us are? >> what i did after i found out about gun walking was to issue a directive that said this is unacceptable. don't do it and you will be held accountable if, in fact, you do do it.

>> you will agree with me that if they do this, then they're going -- and they're put before a jury of their peers, that they would do criminal time? >> i don't know about criminal time. i mean, one has to look at the facts of a particular case. if somebody did something with criminal intent, i mean, sure. that would be appropriate. but if somebody did something with criminal intent. i mean, that's -- you've got to get past, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt. there's a whole -- >> you just can't slap somebody's hand on this and just say don't do it again. what i'm seeing here is something inappropriate. and that is, in main street america we don't get these same kind of privileges to make mistakes. and we're dealing with people's lives. you know -- >> you know, we actually do have a situation in which people who engage in straw purchasing and in some forms of gun trafficking actually do get slaps on the wrist. and that's why we need a stronger gun trafficking law and we need greater penalties when it comes to straw purchasing. because we have, as i think

agent vicelli described, people essentially being charged as if they were speeding. that is unacceptable. >> so -- so -- straw purchasing. so let me ask you with the ffls. the federal firearms licensees. new regulations on them? they did everything that they were told to do and then some. they kept even pounding people, saying this is ungodly. this same guy is coming in here and we've got atfs saying sell the guns. sell the guns. something's wrong here. so putting additional restrictions on ffls is not the protocol. it's further disseminating what's going on and having a higher cognizant, wouldn't you say? >> i'm not sure what additional restrictions you're talking about when it comes to ffl. >> right now down in arizona we have further paperwork to fill out if you're selling long guns. how did that come about? >> well, that -- four states, the border states, have been asked if you sell long guns like ak-47s more than two guns in a five-day period that ought to be

reported to atf which is consistent with what they have to do when it comes to handguns. that's all we've asked. that's a nationwide thing that's been in effect, the handgun, since the '80s. the four states with the greatest trafficking that occurs into mexican you have this additional requirement. a federal judge here in washington has said that that is appropriate. >> i find it interesting it's back here on the east coast dictating west coast. hypothetical. what do you think the penalty should be for a cabinet member, sworn officer of the law, who comes to testify before congress and knowingly lies? >> well, hoip thetically, there is a perjury statute. there's a false statement statute. i don't know what the penalties are. ten years. we have something title 18 that already answers that question. >> well, i -- i'm one of those people that i find it disdainful about how we conducted business over this. if it was any other state than

arizona, i think they would have seen different results and different penalties and different critical people and manpower put towards this and being much more cooperative. i'm very disturbed by that. >> we've talked an awful lot about during, you know, the republican primary -- >> the gentleman's time has expired. is there a pending question you're answering, mr. attorney general. >> i think i was. >> okay. then feel free to answer the question. >> i was just saying that, you know, the notion that we are somehow looking at this in a regional way and that a particular region of the country's no getting the attention that it deserves or is not being taken as seriously as it might if something happened back on the east coast, your reference to a judge here in washington, this is an american problem. this is an american problem. what i have tried to say is that, you know, we too often think about these things as border problems when the reality is, what happens in arizona, what happens in new mexico, california, texas, will have a direct impact in chicago, new york, other parts of california, washington state, here in

washington, d.c. >> i thank the attorney general. i don't think there really is a pending question that that's responsive to. but i appreciate your comment. we go to the gentleman from virginia for five minutes, mr. connolly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. attorney general. thank you for being here and showing such dignity and honor in the face of some attempts to suggest you're other than a dignified and honorable attorney general serving his country well. and i just think, for the record, welcome on groundhog day. we heard that punxsutawney phil saw his shadow, so we have six more weeks. and it's fitting that you're here for the sixth time before congress. with repeated attempts to try to pin something on you and this president that cannot be pinned. and it is my firm hope that at

some point the majority would actually ak wee ez to the request to have your predecessor, mr. mccasey come here, and talk about wide receiver and his knowledge of that program in gun running. mr. holder, i assume there's a law that specifically forbids the trafficking of firearms, particularly if that trafficking ends up arming drug cartels or if the weapons are subsequently found at crime scenes. is that not the case? >> we don't have a federal trafficking sach yut. that's one of the things that we are working for. now, there are -- >> i'm sorry. forgive me. we don't have such a law? >> no. that is one of the things that we have been trying to get congress to consider and to pass. >> well, now, you've appeared before congress many times, six on the subject. has any of -- any of the congressional committees summoning you to testify at a hearing on that law, the need

for such a law? >> no. >> despite our concern about deaths and violence and an operation gone bad? we haven't had a hearing on trying to forbid the trafficking of firearms and making it a federal penalty? >> would the gentleman yield? >> i prefer not to, mr. chairman. please, mr. holder, answer the question. >> no, we've not had that hearing. it is -- i've tried to raise it as part of one of the reasons -- part of the things that i think we ought to be considering as a means to deal with this issue, to deal with this problem. there's clearly a need for a federal trafficking, firearms trafficking statute. >> hmm. isn't that interesting that in the majority in this congress, we haven't had a hearing on that subject. well, if there isn't a strong -- surely there's some kind of harsh penalty for straw purchases of guns. >> i'dke