Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Homeland Security Inspector General’s report on Fast and Furious still unfiled

A review of press releases issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the latest being filed Sunday and dealing with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s visit to Staten Island for a Hurricane Sandy follow-up, reveals the department is crediting itself with all kinds of activities and accomplishments except for its commitment to produce an Inspector General report on Fast and Furious gunwalking independent of the Department of Justice report released in September. A review of the DHS OIG press releases on its website, with the latest filing also being yesterday, also does not mention such a report.
The second IG investigation was revealed in May by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, who reported at the time “The DHS IG has told Congressional staffers it expects to have a final report ready to deliver to Congress in early October.” It was also referenced in the DOJ OIG report, which acknowledged “The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS-OIG), the parent agency for ICE, is conducting a review of ICE’s involvement in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”
Such a review is critical, because while the completed DOJ report details an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who cooperated with their investigation had “direct involvement with Operation Fast and Furious” up until a “January, 2010 meeting … ICE’s Phoenix office assigned another agent to serve as point of contact for ATF, and eventually detailed this agent to ATF’s Group VII to work on the investigation full-time.”
A footnote in the report following that revelation then explains “The ICE agent who was assigned to ATF’s Group VII declined our request for a voluntary interview.”
Why? And why is no one asking that?

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/homeland-security-inspector-general-s-report-on-fast-and-furious-still-unfiled

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