Former Tucson Drug Enforcement Administration chief Tony Coulson told The Daily Caller that Attorney General Eric Holder either knew guns were walking during Operation Fast and Furious, or should have known about the deadly practice.
“[Fast and Furious] was driven locally and it was driven from Arizona, from the ground up, I mean it was not much oversight,” Coulson said in a phone interview. “And, I mean, I can only speak to the reporting, but people all the way up to the attorney general knew what was going on.”
Coulson, who ran the DEA’s Tucson office during Fast and Furious’ implementation, told TheDC he learned that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was letting guns walk back in 2009 or 2010. He said he learned this from people who were working in the Phoenix Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. He didn’t know it was called “Fast and Furious,” but said it was widely known guns were walking.
“Nothing that [ATF] was doing was running into what we were doing at DEA from the Tucson level,” Coulson said. “Now, Phoenix was a little bit different. They were, their targets kept running into DEA cases and I think that was reported out of the House letter last week. But in Tucson, we weren’t running into them. How I became aware of it was through Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
“At the time, [ATF’s] boss here, Bill Newell, was the face and the voice of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,” Coulson added. “If you go back during this time, he’s the one who’s on every major national news station. He’s talking about weapons in Mexico. You know, he was the voice of ATF. I mean, he was driving ATF’s policy. There was very little oversight at the time from anyone on what was going on. I became aware of it because ICE interceded on more than one occasion to seize weapons at the port of entry that ATF was trying to walk into Mexico.”
ICE falls under the Department of Homeland Security, and with the news that Holder hasn’t discussed Fast and Furious with its Secretary Janet Napolitano or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, there are likely to be new questions into what, if anything, those cabinet officials were told of Fast and Furious.
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Tucson DEA Chief | Eric Holder | Gun-Walking | The Daily Caller
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