Top officials weren't behind botched gun probe, Democrats say
Democrats say a House committee has found no evidence showing that top Justice Department officials were behind a gun-trafficking investigation that let hundreds of high-powered weapons reach Mexican drug cartels.
The Republican head of the committee, meanwhile, accused the department of obstructing its probe of the botched operation and threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress. Holder is expected to appear before the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday.
The panel has led a high-profile investigation into "Operation Fast and Furious," a gun probe run by federal agents in Arizona. It was one of several Phoenix-based operations intended to track the flow of illegally purchased American guns to the Mexican cartels -- but in practice, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed so-called straw buyers to take weapons across the border without being intercepted.
In a report released Tuesday, the panel's Democratic minority said no evidence was found that Justice Department bosses in Washington "conceived or directed" the plan. Their report places blame for the widely criticized investigation on federal agents and prosecutors in Arizona.
full: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/31/politics/congress-gun-probe/index.html