Issa Issues Subpoena in 'Fast and Furious' Probe

(NewsCore) - Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced Thursday he had subpoenaed a top Justice Department official to testify in the investigation into the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious.

Issa, the chairman of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed Patrick J. Cunningham, citing what he called "repeated refusals to testify voluntarily." Cunningham is the chief of the criminal division office within the US Attorney's office in Arizona.

In a letter to Cunningham, Issa said "during the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona US Attorney's Office -- and you specifically -- in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious."

"These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used," the letter said.

Fast and Furious, which ran from 2009 to early 2011, was designed to allow federal agents to trace the flow of illegal weapons to Mexican cartels.

The program, which was run out of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, encouraged gun stores throughout the southwestern US to sell weapons to known and suspected straw buyers in the hopes of tracking the guns back to cartel leaders.

Many of those guns went missing and about 2,000 were trafficked along the US-Mexico border.

Citing "senior Justice Department officials," Issa accused Cunningham of relaying "inaccurate and misleading information" to the Justice Department ahead of its initial response to Congress about the gun-walking operation.

Issa has been investigating the botched operation since March of last year.

Attorney General Eric Holder testified in November that he was not aware of the Fast and Furious program until after it became public knowledge earlier this year.

The Justice Department has not commented on Cunningham's subpoena, according to TheHill.com.

Cunningham joined the US Attorney's office in Arizona in late 2009 and worked directly under former US Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, the political website said.