At issue are Justice Department documents that Mr. Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) have sought and that the department resisted turning over in the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious. The department had said the documents reflected internal deliberation or were related to continuing criminal investigations and therefore weren't subject to congressional subpoena.
The dispute centers on a 2009-10 operation run by Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, aimed at building a case against suspected smugglers of firearms to Mexico. The agents allowed suspected smugglers to buy about 2,000 firearms, without intercepting the weapons. Some have since turned up at crime scenes on both sides of the border, including at a December 2010 shootout that killed a U.S. border agent.
The Justice Department's internal watchdog is almost done with its investigation of Fast and Furious and could release a report as soon as next month, according to people familiar with the matter. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who won Senate confirmation in March, is aiming to provide the first definitive account of what went wrong. Already, the inspector general's inquiry has spawned two separate investigations that could lead to criminal charges, people familiar with the probe say. One is examining whether supervisors leaked information about a person who told lawmakers about Fast and Furious and whether the alleged leaks were intended as retaliation.
Dennis Burke, who resigned under pressure as U.S. attorney in Arizona, has acknowledged that he leaked information to a reporter about a memo by ATF agent John Dodson. The memo detailed a previous request by Mr. Dodson to use tactics similar to those he later criticized in Fast and Furious, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Burke's attorney didn't respond to a request for comment.
Another probe is focused on the unauthorized sharing of sealed wiretap documents related to the operation. A lawyer for an ATF supervisor who oversaw Fast and Furious inadvertently included court-sealed material in a batch of documents he turned over to the congressional investigators, these people said. The lawyer, Joshua Levy, was advised of his error by congressional staffers who declined to return the documents, they said. Mr. Levy didn't respond to a request for comment.
The main issue in Fast and Furious remains the contention by Messrs. Issa and Grassley that the Justice Department is improperly withholding documents. [/B]The department has turned over thousands of documentsaround 7,000 or 8,000, depending on which side is countingand says it is being forthcoming. By comparison, the inspector general has had access to about 80,000 documents, including those the department has declined to share with lawmakers.
Mr. Issa's staff last month produced a report that includes language holding Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress. If the committee votes to adopt the report, it would be recommending the contempt charge. The report accuses the Justice Department of being slow to hold senior officials accountable for their management of Fast and Furious. It also alleges that the Justice Department has retaliated against people who testified to Congress about the operation.
Republican lawmakers say the documents sought would reveal whether high-level officials were aware of the Fast and Furious tactics, known as gun-walking. They say the documents would also show how the department came to mislead lawmakers in early 2011 when it denied the tactics were used. The Justice Department later withdrew the statement, saying it relied on incorrect information from lower-level officials at ATF.
The gun-walking tactics in Fast and Furious turned up in earlier ATF cases, during the Bush administration. When they were uncovered by Justice officials in the Obama administration, a top Justice official raised concerns with ATF officials, according to Justice documents released last year. But the officials never alerted Mr. Holder, didn't do enough to prevent similar cases and weren't aware the operation was under way until months later, according to Justice documents.
Mr. Holder, in a letter last week to Mr. Issa, said, "The record in this matter reflects that until allegations about the inappropriate tactics used in Fast and Furious were made public, department leadership was unaware of those tactics."
Mr. Holder would be the third attorney general since the start of the Clinton administration to face the threat of contempt by the House oversight committee. The committee voted to hold Clinton-era Attorney General Janet Reno in contempt, but the House never took up the matter and the dispute was resolved when documents were produced. Democrats drafted a report recommending contempt against Michael Mukasey, attorney general under President George W. Bush, but documents sought were produced and the committee didn't take up the matter.