blowers and those who bring information to us because they are so concerned about the misinformation that's being given to the public and to us by those who are their superiors. and i came to senator grassley, no right-wing republican crazy who reached out to the department of justice and asked for communication and was denied the communication that he saw and only came to this committee so they would have the ability to have the capacity to be able to ask for answers to the very legitimate questions that he was asking. i'm concerned because in the process some of the other things that we found out is rather than thorough investigation into the conduct of what may have occurred first at the atf. what we've seen is evidence of intimidation of those very witnesses. they spoke about it before us. i have information in my hand,

just a newspaper article yesterday. some of the documents that were deemed requested by this very committee are being denied a document by the attorney general and yet the former u.s. attorney who resigned in less than under pressure is reported to have leaked that document to a reporter, the purpose of which was to disparage the reputation of the very whistle-blower. and so we have activity within the department of justice instead of -- we see intimidation of those that are trying to bring it to our attention. we see the individual who was the assistant united states attorney who was charged with the responsibility of doing an internal investigation, who when asked to testify invoked his fifth or was instructed that he would invoke his fifth axe mendment right against

self-incrimination in this process. so there is a series of very legitimate questions to be asked. what we do know by the information that came forward is that there was knowledge of these tactics at the highest levels at the department of justice and that there was a letter that was sent to the department of justice when a request was made about this information where the head of the criminal division is reportedly participating in the editing of that letter, a letter of denial that gun locking occurred at all. so we know that this goes to the highest levels. trust me when i say the head of the criminal division and the department of justice is at the highest levels. what did he know? when did he know? what we do know is in the period since then we have had a reversal. a 180-degree reversal in which that same department of justice now identifies that as fatally

flawed. if it was fatally flawed who knew what and when did they know it? these are very legitimate questions to be asking, to be asking in a time in which you see the testimony of the former acting director of atf and which he himself says that he believes that what is happening is that those officials who have been appointed or were trying to lay this off on other people further on down the chain. it is our responsibility to ask this question. it's a responsibility to do it in a dispassionate fashion and the facts are leading us to legitimate inquiries in which there's no question about very much of what went on. the question is under what circumstances did people approve it, and i know from my experience. as a united states attorney the detailed information that will be contained in an affidavit of propable cause that has to be forwarded to the department of justice as a matter of policy so

that they may be able to oversee it, not just for efficiency, but for conformity of policy again to the highest levels. explicit detail of what is going on. we see this red herring that occurs on often occasions that they're suggesting that somehow this happened in a former administration. gun locking may have happened before the administration and prosecutions did not and that is the essence of where there was discretion that was used to deny this very process and yet instead this administration sends an atf and sends to the atf a prosecutor to help them re-open this case and sends subtle messages that this process is endorsed. that is the essence of what we have to get to the bottom of, there is a great deal more here. i urge that my colleagues do not be afraid to continue to ask the important questions on behalf of the united states of america and on behalf of agent terry. >> we now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts,

mr. lynch, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, this investigation and these hearings started in response to the loss of agent brian terry, and i think all of us continue to offer our condolences to his family and to all of his colleagues in uniform who protect our borders in all of our agencies and that really was the impetus for these investigations, and i certainly could have been one of the 31 democrats who signed that letter who asked the department of justice to cooperate with this investigation to be forthcoming with any evidence that helped us get to the truth, but unfortunately over the course of these hearings and this investigation, that focus, that seriousness of purpose regarding the loss of agent terry has been lost. it has now morphed into a more

selective, a more partisan, a more media-seeking process. what we're talking about now is in this last iteration of the contempt citation we claim or at least the majority now claims that we are seeking documents surrounding the false letter that has been referred to by the gentleman from pennsylvania who just spoke and others who have spoken about this as well. this letter which went out in february 2011 was false and it denied the fact of gun locking by the phoenix office of the atf. actually, initially by the justice department. now, if we're going after that -- those documents around the denial, the original denial

that gun locking was going on, the investigative also came up with evidence that in drafting that false letter that went to grassley great reliance was made on the statements of the phoenix office of the atf. that's where the statements came from. the phoenix office of the atf said we're not doing any gun locking. they gave that information to the department of justice and that letter went to mr. grassley. now you would think, you would think if we were pursuing the truth we might call the folks from the phoenix office of the atf before this committee and have them answer to why they gave that false information. here's where the selective -- i would say the willful decision to ignore where the facts lead.

that's where they come into play. we have never asked ken nelson, the former head of the atf, who was part of this decision. we have never asked him to come before this committee, and i think the reason is because in his internal testimony with investigators, he has already said that he never informed the department of justice seniors to him regarding gun locking because he was unaware of it himself because the information that he would be providing if he was brought before this committee would be exonerating to the attorney general so we didn't bring it forward. we didn't want to hear the facts and we didn't want to hear the truth. it would get in the way of going after attorney general houlder so we never asked him to come. so this is getting away from a

search for the truth with respect to agent terry. similarly, we know from our investigation that there was a prior program called wide receiver where under the bush administration folks were gun walking weapons into mexico, but we don't want to know about that because that would get in the way of our prosecution and our contempt against eric holder. if we brought michael mukasey who was actually briefed on the gun walking operation and who was in office when the gun walking began that would -- that would deflect the incriminations against the current sitting attorney general. so this whole process has been very selective, very partisan. it's been a real distortion about what the work of this committee should be. when we all started out you had

31 democrats asking the white house and the department of justice to cooperate and bring forward the truth, but what we've seen and what we've seen is long after that request was made this has been made a political issue. this has been really put forward to disgrace the sitting attorney general. it has been done in a way that has ignored the facts and has really been a miscarriage of what this committee is supposed to be all about in finding the truth. i'm disappointed. i'm greatly disappointed about how this has gone on. yea, there are remaining questions to be asked, but we are not asking the right people. we have refused to bring them to come committee. michael mukasey and the head of the atf where the false

information came from, we are not asking them questions and we're putting blinders on. will the gentleman yield? >> the gentleman will yield. you were in the room when we quoted that the attorney general has retracted the statement about the former attorney general mukasey having actually been briefed. that's no longer accurately asserted. >> will the gentleman yield? >> i'll yield. >> you know, mr. chairman brought that up earlier, so the staff went and found the actual later dated june 18, 2012 to senator grassley from applebaum, the acting assistant attorney general and what was apparently retracted was the assertion that the attorney general mukasey had been briefed on fast and furious and the correction that he had been briefed on one of the earlier programs. i ask -- >> without objection. >> that the letter and the materials related to it. >> just to clarify, the earlier program was also involving gun walking. so i stand by my statement.

he was informed about the earlier program. it happened during the bush administration. it happened under michael mukasey, but we don't want to ask him about what went on at that point and we don't want to bring back ken nelson from the atf who actually led to the false information being supplied to senator grassley. that's my point. i yield back. >> i appreciate it. >> we now recognize the gentleman from ohio seeks recognition. the gentleman is recognized for 30 seconds. i thank you. >> we have conducted 24 interviews including two days with the former u.s. attorney burke and two days with ken nelson. those interviews are exhaustive. both the majority and minority were represented there, so additionally, we have interviewed virtually all of the people that were made available us to at the local level. not every interview, 24 of them are appropriate to have here at

interviewed from the deus, so i appreciate the gentleman's staple so if you have taken and will take the time to read those two-day introduce of those two and other individuals you'll discover we left no stone unturned. additionally the 7600 documents we received. a big part of them are from wide receiver and are in the record. i thank the gentleman from ohio for yielding. i yield back. >> it's been alleged that we ignored the facts. how do youi ining ignore the fa when you don't get the fact. how can you reach a conclusion when you can't get the information you need to make a conclusion or make a decision? that's what this is all about, and look, i'm not one who called for the attorney general's resignation. i just want to get the resignation. i just want the documents that were requested eight months ago. and now today we get an executive privilege asserted by

the white house. my understanding of the executive privilege is this is communication between senior staff and the president himself and yet, we have the attorney general sit in front of the judiciary committee when congressman chaff its questioned him and asked him specifically if he communicated to the president about this issue and he said he had not. so something's got to give here. either what the attorney general said that wasn't the case or if it was the case the president said -- something's got to give. either we now know that fast and furious wasn't just confined to the department of justice, but now goes to the white house or if the attorney general was telling us the truth when he answered mr. chafe its question. that's what's going on here. so mr. chairman, i appreciate what you're doing. i think we're right on target with this. we want the information so we have the facts and so we can make the decision and reach a conclusion on this important matter and with that i would be happy to yield to my colleague

from utah. >> mr. chairman, i want to simply make a point to my colleagues that's been brought up. if you go to page 16 on the contempt citation and look at items number 1, 2, 4 and 5 it is not just specific to fast and furious. for instance, it says on number 4 all documents referring or relating to instanceses rye prior to february 4th, where they failed to interdict weapons that were illegally purchase order transferred. number 5, the same thing. so i think we have asked for that and we have done this in a bipartisan way in interviewing staff and i want to make that point. yield back. >> mr. chairman, yield back. >> who else seeks recognition? the gentleman from illinois, mr. quigley is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i understand you want to know and it's fair to ask these questions, but it is also fair to question motivations when we're doing something of historical precedence like this.

you are curious, but your curiosity seems to end at the beginning prior to the beginning of the obama administration which is curious to me. i mean, these are fair questions that should be brought out before this committee. let's have the former attorney general here, the head of the atf and ask those questions. this isn't a small thing you're doing here where you may be angry and you want this stuff. this is something the country has never done. so it's fair to ask, what happened prior to this? who knew what under previous administrations? was anyone else killed or injured? where are those guns now that took place in a previous administration? that doesn't bring back anyone, but at least lets us know that the reasons for doing this or to sort out what is truth and that we care about here. second, wide receiver and fast and furious can't be understated.

both operations were wildly misguided and the independent investigations must continue and have to. those responsible must be held accountable and today's vote has nothing to do with that investigation and agent terry's tragic death demands justice and accountability and this vote has nothing to do with that process. worse yet, this committee's actions redefined hypocrisy because if in the end gun walking is about safety of agents and people who live on both sides of the border, well, it's about gun safety and i'll meet you any time and talk about that. if we're concerned about our agents and people on both sides, let's remember a few salient facts. in arizona, today, you can buy as many ak-47s as you want. not handguns and guns needed to go hunting or to protect your home or business. you can buy as many ak-47s as

you want and pass them on to the cartels through straw purchases as occurs thousands of times a yore putting agents and residents at risk. we know this. it's do you meaned and the vast majority of the guns being used by the cartels and come from the united states and the punishment for such transactions and the straw purchasers was described here by an agent as equivalent to a moving violation. so we have two types of gun locking and both of them horribly wrong and dangerous. i believe you said 2,000 occurred under these fast and furious and wide receiver, that led to extraordinary tragedy and should never be repeated again. let's just keep perspective. we're talking about hundreds of thousands of guns, ak-47s which from today on, if you don't want this to be repeated are

happening now as we speak. in addition, in many state, there is a gun show loophole. people can buy any type of gun they want, as many guns as they want without a background check, despite the fact that the vast majority of americans think that everybody should have a background check so you can have dangerous people who have been adjudicated, dangerously, mentally ill, felon, terrorists buy whatever they want and including and especially people who will use those guns and make 100% profit selling them through straw purchasers to the cartels. what's especially troubling is you all have fought attempts to end that process. if this is about agent terry, if this is about safety and defending their honor and preventing this from ever

happening again, hundreds of thousands that have already taken place and hundreds of thousands that will continue to take place, putting all of those people at risk, let's have some perspective here and it's fair when we bring that up to recognize that. what's our motivation today? there can't be anything worse that they've done than this fast and furious and wide receiver and we need to get to the bottom of it, i get that, but don't try to argue and make the point that you're out there to protect the agent's safety if the vast numbers are on the other side that are continuing to go on and we do nothing to do this. someone mentioned we need the guts to do the right thing. well, we need to have guts, and i hope we have it to do the right thing. in chicago, a young man on his way home from school a couple of years ago stepped in front of a bullet to protect his friend. a young man named holt.

he had more guts than we do. thank you. >> gentleman yields back. who else seeks recognition? the gentleman from arizona. >> first of all, thank you, mr. chairman. being the only member from arizona on this committee i find many of the comments, rationale, justifications against this citation distasteful and utterly disdainful to the citizens of this country and more particularly those of arizona. in particular also those in northern mexico who will be living with the consequences of these egregious doj actions from here forward. if it was my way i hope that we would have had a vote on each of the facts and findings so that each one of us would have had to put down what we actually instead of bantering, political bantering would have had to vote on what we see within a judicial system. finding eric holder jr., in contempt of congress is long overdue and welcome news for the

american people and especially for arizonans. mr. holder has shown his contempt for our constitutional rights, for our border and arizonans. 115 members of congress agree that americans lack confidence in mr. holder and his department. the people of arizona, california, new mexico and texas who deal with unsecure borders and violent, mexican cartels on a regular basis must also live in fear of these firearms. these citizens deserve for contempt charges to begin because it is with contempt for their safety they this operation was carried out. what is perhaps most discouraging is that people whose job it is to protect and promote justice failed the american people so badly. we are dealing with the department of justice, the lawyers who worked there and took an old to uphold the constitution and we are sending congress a false letter to continue stonewalling, these lawyers have brought a great

shame to the profession. i think it is the only way to send a strong message to this administration and future ones that no one is above the law including the nation's top law enforcement officer. i continue to believe that attorney general eric holder brought this upon himself by refusing to cooperate with congress and i believe the contempt charges are the way to go forward. i applaud his result. we deserve better. i yield back my time. >> it is the intent of the chair to take a recess upon conclusion of all striking of the last word. with that, does anyone seek recogniti recognition? the gentleman from illinois seeks recognition. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i think it is most unfortunate that the deliberations of this committee have reached such a partisan and

rancorous level. i've always been told that where there is righteousness in the heart that there is beauty in the character. i've also been led to believe that the constitution requires the executive branch and congress to accommodate the interest of the other to avoid unnecessary conflicts and the framework of the constitutional democracy, and i quote, and that the conflict arose between the coordinate branches and spiritity of dynamic compromise would promote resolution of the dispute in a manner most likely to result in efficient and effective functioning of our governmental system. attorney general william french smith who served under president reagan observed, and i quote, the accommodation required is

not simply an exchange of con session or a test of political strength. it is an obligation of each branch to make principled effort to acknowledge and, if possible, to meet the legitimate needs of the other branch. our committee has failed its constitutional beauty to accommodate throughout this investigation. for more than a year, the committee has been holding the attorney general to an impossible standard by demanding documents he is prohibited by law from producing such as documents involving federal wiretaps and grand jury materials. additionally, the committee has continuously demanded documents pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions which the department explained would endanger the lives of

confidential informants and jeopardize active criminal cases. former assistant attorney general olsen explained that these documents have been steadfastly protected by democratic and republican administrations alike since the 19th century. late last friday night the chairman finally made his first step at accommodation by revising the contempt citation to drop these irresponsible demands. then in this late hour the chairman shifted the focus of his demands to ask for documents whether the department's official inaccurate denials about gun walking were part of a broader effort by the department to obstruct a government allal investigation. in contrast, during the course of the investigation the department of justice has

repeatedly made significant efforts to accommodate this committee's legitimate oversight interest. it has made 26 individuals available for interviews and hearings and provided the committee with thousands of documents. the attorney general has testified before congress regarding fast and furious a total of nine times. as the investigation progressed the the department of leadership realized that their official denials that gun walking occurred were based on faulty information that they received from atf and the phoenix u.s. attorney's office. at that point the department not only acknowledged the actions and withdrew the letter, but provided documents that showed how the inaccurate letter to

congress was drafted. those documents clearly showed that the officials in the department's headquarters had no intent to mislead congress. despite this evidence the chairman continues to accuse the department officials of obstructing the committee's investigation and seeks additional internal deliberative documents as part of a fishing expedition to support this unsubstantiated allegation. these allegations have continued without regard to what evidence or information is provided by the justice department. i hope that the american people will see this as a witch hunt, as political activity and not the legitimate interests of getting to the truth and i yield back the balance of my time.

>> gentleman yields back. does anyone else seek ridicul s recognition? the gentleman from tennessee. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for bringing us here today and for your diligence in pursuing this extremely important matter. i truly regret that this has gotten to this point, but the actions of the justice department has left us with no other choice. this is far from political theater. this is legitimate investigation into an operation, the fast and the furious that was so flawed that it flew right into the face of common sense. there are many people in this room on both sides of the aisle that would agree that one person, any person within the chain of command in this federal bureaucracy should have stopped this gun walking operation to put the lives of law enforcement officials and innocent citizens in harm's way, and certainly the attorney general was not above