ATF Director Points The Finger At Justice Department

Stonewalling.

At a congressional hearing a month ago, three ATF agents said they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels. So far, 20 small-time gun-buyers have been indicted, but the investigation is still under way.

Melson told the congressional investigators that after the criticism emerged he assigned a task force of agents to review the operation and he personally read all the operations' investigative reports that pertained to one defendant.

"I read through those and found ROIs (reports of investigation) that indeed suggested that interdiction could have occurred, and probably should have occurred, but did not occur," Melson said.

Melson said the ATF gave the reports about the failure to interdict guns in that instance to Justice Department superiors "because to me that was a smoking gun" and "we really needed to look at the rest of this particular case."

Melson also provided some support for complaints by Grassley and Issa that the Justice Department has been slow in producing documents the lawmakers have demanded.

"I think they were doing more damage control than anything" at the Justice Department, Melson said, according to one of the excerpts in the letter from Grassley and Issa to Holder.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/18/atf-chief-admits-mistakes-in-fast-and-furious-accuses-holder-stonewalling/#ixzz1SeEUQ6BH