[FlyVet]

Mr. Melson said he had not been deeply involved in the operation “until after the public controversy,”

Yeah, why bother? Disributing guns to Mexican cartels is no big deal.

[cookcounty]

"Mr. Melson said he had not been deeply involved in the operation “until after the public controversy,”

Melson may be correct about this. Note that the Issa/Grassley letter states that the personnel assigned to "Fast and Furious" were being farmed out temporarily to the Arizona US Attorney's Office, which strongly implies that their actual chain-of-command went straight to DOJ, by-passing Melson.