Fast and FuriousSenate Homeland Security Committee probes Fast and Furious

Sen. John Cornyn during Senate probe of 'Fast and Furious' // Source: chron.com

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has waded into the growing debate surrounding the Justice Department’s beleaguered gun tracking program dubbed “Fast and Furious.”

Last Wednesday, Senator Joe Lieberman (I – Connecticut), the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, directed his committee to examine the miscommunication between law enforcement agencies and the Justice Department in regards to the program.

Under Fast and Furious, thousands of guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels as part of a sting operation to trace the weapons back to the cartels, but the bulk of the weapons have yet to be recovered and the program has come under sharp criticism after many of the program’s guns have been used as murder weapons. 

So far more than 300 people in Mexico have been killed by Fast and Furious guns including U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

According to a Senate spokesman, Lieberman “believe[s] that the lack of interagency coordination along the border merits further examination, and as Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, he has directed his staff to follow up with the relevant federal agencies on that topic.”

With the addition of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, a total of four committees are probing the program including the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee.

The program has been deemed such a fiasco that sixty-one congressmen, two senators, and two sitting governors have called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign.