Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday struggled to explain contradictory testimony about when he knew about Operation “Fast and Furious,” the program under which the Obama administration let guns “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug lords, only to see the weapons turn up at crime scenes, including at the murder of a U.S. border patrol agent.
Asked during May testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when he first heard about the program, Holder said, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Yet in testimony this morning before the Senate Judiciary committee, Holder revised his statement to say that he really heard about the operational details early in 2011.
He claimed that when he said “weeks” in his earlier testimony, he really could have just as well said “months.” He then said the focus on the difference between weeks and months was a “distraction.”
Last month, CBS reported on documents showing Holder received briefings on the program as far back as July 2010, and the DOJ claimed Holder misunderstood the question during his May testimony. Congressional investigators subsequently uncovered that Holder received at least five briefing memos on the program well before his May testimony.
Also this morning, Holder conceded that a February 2011 letter the Department of Justice sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary committee, which claimed there was no gun walking going on, was innaccurate. “I regret that,” Holder said. But he claimed that the authors of the letter thought it was accurate at the time.
