[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 151 (Tuesday, October 11, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6677-H6678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CREDIBILITY IN QUESTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, the United States Government has 
facilitated smuggling automatic weapons

[[Page H6678]]

into Mexico, weapons that were purchased by straw buyers in the United 
States with the oversight of the ATF. Approximately 2,000 weapons were 
knowingly sent to our neighbors in Mexico by our government. Most of 
them are still unaccounted for. But we do understand that those weapons 
probably have been used illegally in Mexico to kill Mexican nationals. 
How many, no one knows.
  Two of those automatic weapons have turned up at the murder scene in 
Arizona of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. And one weapon apparently 
was used to gun down U.S. agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico.
  The Mexican government has taken to the airwaves complaining of the 
U.S. smuggling operation. Mexican officials want answers, and even want 
U.S. Government officials responsible to be extradited to Mexico for 
trial. No wonder.
  Madam Speaker, let me be clear: These weapons are not BB guns or .22 
rifles; they are semiautomatic weapons and also include sniper rifles. 
Sniper rifles are used to assassinate specific targets.
  The ATF and the Justice Department have stonewalled the release of 
information regarding this operation called Fast and Furious, and the 
public's not getting much data on this idiotic idea. Why would the U.S. 
Government send automatic weapons to the drug cartels in Mexico? Mexico 
is at war with the drug cartels. The drug cartels are the enemy of the 
Mexican people, not to mention they are the enemy of the United States. 
This gun running issue is nonsense.
  Now the Justice Department is supposed to investigate this operation, 
which includes investigating the ATF and the Justice Department. The 
Attorney General, who's head of the Justice Department, at first said 
he didn't know anything about this operation until recently. Now it 
seems evidence shows he was given a memo last year about the whole 
idea. Did he not read the memo? Granted, the Attorney General has 
experience not reading important documents, like the Arizona 
immigration law. You remember, Madam Speaker, the Attorney General 
publicly criticized the Arizona bill, and then he testified before the 
Judiciary Committee to a question I asked him that he hadn't even read 
that bill.
  Anyway, if he didn't know about the smuggling operation, he should 
have; he's in charge. And if he did know about it and approved it, he 
should be held accountable for this nonsense. I'm not sure what the 
Attorney General's claim of defense will be this week. It reminds me of 
my days on the bench as a judge in Texas when a defendant in a homicide 
case would say first, I wasn't there. And then he would say, well, if I 
was there, it wasn't me. And if it was me, I acted in self-defense. In 
other words, don't hold me accountable.
  So just what is this Justice Department's defense to all of this? We 
shall see. But the idea that the Justice Department should investigate 
the Justice Department and the ATF is absurd. The Justice Department 
has no credibility on this matter, and whatever their investigation 
shows, the American public cannot trust its trustworthiness. Having the 
Justice Department investigate Fast and Furious, the ATF, and the 
Justice Department is like having Al Capone investigate bootlegging. 
The President should appoint a special counsel to investigate this 
operation of government gun running to Mexico.
  And that's just the way it is.

                          ____________________