The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee  is planning to subpoena Attorney General Eric Holder this week to determine who  in the Justice  Department knew about “Operation Fast and Furious” — the plan to let  thousands of guns sold in the U.S. get into Mexican drug cartel hands — and  when they knew it.
The subpoena targeting Holder aims to get at the  heart of the authorization for the program, and when the people in charge  decided the program was a problem.

Issa, who is also a member of the House Judiciary  Committee where Holder testified in May that he’d only learned of the program a  few weeks earlier, told “Fox News Sunday” that “people in the top” of the  Justice Department knew about the operation, were “well-briefed about it, and  seemed to be the command and control and funding for this program.”
Issa said those officials, who may or may not  include Holder, would have known that the program was facing objections from law  enforcement personnel in the field, but appeared to continue to let guns “walk”  across the border.
“We didn’t just have a few (guns) not be tracked.  The whole program was about not tracking them until they were found in the scene  of crimes. And they didn’t just allow. They facilitated just one guy buy, one  straw buy, over 700 weapons,” Issa said.
On Friday, Holder issued a stern response to calls  for a special counsel to probe the matter, saying he told the truth when he  informed Congress he only heard about the program for the first time in April  2011. He added that earlier mentions of the program listed in at least five  memos dated to 2010 did not indicate on first blush any problems with the  program.
“I do not and cannot read them cover to cover,” Issa  wrote. “Here, no issues concerning ‘Fast and Furious’ were brought to my  attention because the information presented in the report did not suggest a  problem.”
Freshman Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said he can  understand someone at Holder’s level not reviewing every document that reaches  his desk, but that when Holder knew he was going to testify about “Fast and  Furious” to a House panel, he should have gotten brushed up on the program and  its impact, including the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Guns linked  to Fast and Furious were found at Terry’s crime scene.
Labrador told Fox News that the response from Holder  leaves him with no option but to conclude dishonesty or incompetence.
“By the time Officer Terry had been killed, there  were other crimes linked to these guns. Why did he not do the research and find  out how much his office knew? He was either lying or willfully neglecting to do  his due diligence before he came before Congress,” Labrador said.
“If, in fact, a border patrol agent has been  murdered, 2,000 weapons have gone, this program has completely gone off of the  rails, why didn’t he know?” Issa asked.
In his response to House Republicans, Holder said  that his critics have political motivations and added that he takes issue with  the allegation that federal agents were “accessories to murder.”
“Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must  be repudiated in the strongest possible terms,” Holder wrote. “Those who serve  in the ranks of law enforcement are our nation’s heroes and deserve our nation’s  thanks, not the disrespect that is being heaped on them by those who seek  political advantage.”
But Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Paul Babeu said his  state’s elected sheriffs, of whom nine out of 15 are Democrats, support a  special counsel.
“My deputies and officers across the southwest could  face the barrel of a gun that our own government, Eric Holder and the president,  put into the hands of these criminals,” Babeu told Fox  News. “Whoever  approved this should be criminally held to account for this.”
Issa said a special counsel should be appointed  because “Eric Holder cannot investigate himself,” but he said he’s not going to  let that get in the way of his investigation, which has been conducted in  conjunction with Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Charles Grassley  of Iowa.
“Our investigation, along with Senator Grassley, has  to get to the bottom of this sooner, not later, because the American people and  people in Mexico  don’t trust their government right now,” he said.
Labrador said whoever came up with the Fast and  Furious program “needs to be
fired.”
“Anybody who failed to do their duty, because of  this program, needs to be fired as well,” he said.
Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/09/new-subpoenas-prepared-in-fast-and-furious-probe/#ixzz1aJT9m8I8