mr. harley. this particular dealer in his post-arrest statement admitted approximately 1,000 of his firearms were trafficked to mexico. over one half-dozen of those firearms were located around the body of the head of the cartel after he was killed in a gun battle in mexico. cases such as these were presented for prosecution to the arizona attorney general's office where the state laws carried significantly lesser penalties than they did under the federal statutes and i believe this situation where in the u.s. attorney's office for the district of arizona in phoenix in particularly declined most of our firearms cases was one factor which led to the debacle that's now known as operation of fast and furious. atf agents assigned to the phoenix field divisi wi .. command walked guns. atf agents allowed weapons to be provided to individuals who they knew to be trafficked to members of the mexican drug trafficking organizations. they did so by not interdict the weapons. when i voiced surprising concern

mr. harley. this particular dealer in his post-arrest statement admitted approximately 1,000 of his firearms were trafficked to mexico. over one half-dozen of those firearms were located around the body of the head of the cartel after he was killed in a gun battle in mexico. cases such as these were presented for prosecution to the arizona attorney general's office where the state laws carried significantly lesser penalties than they did under the federal statutes and i believe this situation where in the u.s. attorney's office for the district of arizona in phoenix in particurly declined most of our firearms cases was one factor which led to the debacle that's now known as operation of fast and furious. atf agents assigned to the phoenix field division with the concurrence of their command walked guns. atf agents allowed weapons to be provided to individuals who they knew to be trafficked to members of the mexican drug trafficking organizations. th did so by not interdict the weapons. when i voi

mr. harley the assistant u.s. attorney who declined the case stated because the gun was in mexico, the body of the crime was in mexico, we have no case and outright declined prosecution for that reason. we had identified additional straw buyers in mr. ravela's network. we got cooperating statements from them. they also went to jail. this could have been a very good federal case. again the u.s. attorney's office decline it because in their opinion the gun being in mexico meant that the evidence of the crime was in mexico. >> do you kn any other office or region that applies that type of standard to go forward with prosecutions? >> sir, i was told this was a ninth circuit issue but i've had discussions with prosecutors in s angeles which is also ninth circuit that say they didn't carry it to that extreme. what i will say for the record, shs sincthen, since mr. harley is no longer trunk firearms unit, he now awers to another supervisor they now amended that to say that if we can go down and physically examine the wea

mr. harley.ar dealer in his post-arrest statement admitted approximately 1,000 of his firearms were trafficked to mexico. over one half-dozen of those firearms were located around the body of the head of the cartel after he was killed in a gun battle in mexico. cases such as these were presented for prosecution to the arizona attorney general's office where the state laws carried significantly lesser penalties than they did under the federal statutes and i believe this situation where in the u.s. attorney's office for the district of arizona in phoenix in particularly declined most of our firearms cases was one factor which led to the debacle that's now known as operation of fast and furious. atf agents assigned to the phoenix field division with the concurrence of their command walked guns. atf agents allowed weapons to be provided to individuals who they knew to be trafficked to members of the mexican drug trafficking organizations. they did so by not interdict the weapons. when i voiced surpri