July 28, 2011 Senior ATF, Justice officials ignored Mexico-based agents’ complaints, bragged about Fast and Furious successesGil and now-acting ATF attaché to Mexico Carlos Canino also told congressional investigators high-ranking ATF and Justice Department officials bragged about what they considered successes of Operation Fast and Furious. Officials they said included Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who oversees the DOJ’s criminal division, and acting ATF director Ken Melson.
“Lanny Breuer says, yeah, there is a good case, there is a good case out of Phoenix,” Canino said of a meeting he and Gil had with Breuer and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual.
Gil said Breuer was going to present the outcome of Operation Fast and Furious to Mexican authorities as evidence of a positive effort to stop weapons trafficking. Gil said Breuer said the ATF investigation “looks like it’s going to generate some good results and it will be a good positive case that we can present to the Government of Mexico as efforts that the US government is taking to try and interdict weapons going into Mexico.”
The National Scope of the Gunwalker Scandal. Lanny Breuer & four border state ATF SACs implicated in report. "Lions! And tigers! And bears! Oh, my!"Two months after the January 5, 2010 briefing, ATF headquarters hosted a larger, more detailed briefing. Not part of the normal Tuesday field ops briefings, this special briefing was dedicated to Operation Fast and Furious. David Voth, the Phoenix Group VII Supervisor who oversaw Fast and Furious, traveled from Phoenix to give the presentation. On videoconference were the four southwest border ATF SACs: Bill Newell in Phoenix, Robert Champion in Dallas, J. Dewey Webb in Houston, and John Torres in Los Angeles. (Emphasis supplied, MBV)
In addition to the usual attendees of the Tuesday morning field ops briefings (the Deputy Assistant Directors for Field Operations, including Bill McMahon, and Mark Chait, Assistant Director for Field Operations), Deputy Director William Hoover also attended. Joe Cooley, a trial attorney from the gang unit at Main Justice, also joined. After a suggestion from Acting ATF Director Ken Melson in December 2009, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer personally assigned Cooley as a DOJ representative for Operation Fast and Furious. Kevin Carwile, chief of the Capital Case Unit at Main Justice, may have also been present. According to Steve Martin, the inclusion of Main Justice representatives was unusual.