tony colson, the dea's agent in charge of southern arizona during fast and furious, said that many fieldhat atf was walking guns to mexico but supervisors told the agents to back off when they objected. mr. colson was among one of the first senior public officials to admit knowing about the botched operation. he claims he raised objections to then dea chief elizabeth kemp shaw, and was told it was taken care of. after attending a meeting with the atf agent in charge colson said he knew fast and furious was not some sort of benign pie in the sky publicity stunt. guns were actually getting in the hands of criminals, closed quote. as with the columbian pr prostitution incidents, i'm not aware of any discipline from in the dea. most recently this last april adea offices in san diego literally forgot about a 23-year-old in a holding cell. dea agents arrested daniel chong during a raid on a party in the san diego area where there were illegal drugs. after questioning him the agents apparently told mr. chong he would not be charged before they placed him back into a holding cell. the agents the

tony colson, the dea's agent in charge of southern arizona during fast and furious said that many dea field agents knew that the atf was walking guns to mexico, but their supervisors told them to back off when they objected. have you investigated who within the dea knew what about fast and furious and why they did so little to stop gun walking to mexico? >> thank you, sir. as i mentioned earlier, those statements, as i understand it from mr. colson, were actually recanted. he said he was misquoted and he's recanted that. we are very excited and we are waiting on these results from the oig, because prior to mr. colson's statements, we were not aware that dea agents in arizona were aware of the tactics that atf was using. so the investigation is being done by oig. that should answer. we made all our people available. that should answer the question about who knew what for my agency. in the meantime -- >> did mr. colson explain why he made the statements in the first place if he later recanted them? >> i have not had any discussions with mr. colson. i just know that right after there was