DHS Fast and Furious OIG report fed to Los Angeles Times, not to public

The Department of Homeland Security's long-awaited Office of Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” has been obtained by The Los Angeles Times, Richard Serrano reported Thursday.

“ATF agents asked their Border Patrol counterparts not to pursue criminal leads or track gun smuggling in southern Arizona so they could follow the firearms themselves, and senior Homeland Security agents ‘complied and the leads were not investigated,’” Serrano writes.

“The report … also said that a Homeland Security special agent on the border was collaborating with the ATF in Fast and Furious, but his ‘senior leaders’ in Arizona never read his updates about fundamental flaws with the failed gun tracking operation,” The Times story continues. “Had they done so, Homeland Security officials could have tried to close down the operation before one of their Border Patrol agents, Brian Terry, was killed not far from Tucson.”

In other words, per their narrative, it was all local and never made it up the operational command chain through Arizona, let alone to Washington. But all the public has to go on to verify that, at this point, is The Times report. And while finding a copy of the OIG report, which is not included with his story, should be of import -- not just for wider public scrutiny, but also for legislative oversight -- it appears to be something that hasn’t registered on anyone else’s radar yet.

That should be surprising and a cause for concern, as opposed to something most aren’t even aware of, let alone seriously looking into. Last November, this column was a lone voice following up and expressing concern about where the DHS OIG report was, especially since it had been reported several months earlier that DHS had told Congressional staffers to expect the report in October.

Of course, this column had also been a lonely voice in asking where the Department of Justice OIG report was once it passed the Warren Commission milestone, and again raised concerns when that document -- which admitted key witnesses refused to speak to investigators and key documents had not been available to auditors -- was finally released last September, resulting in undisguised administration media supporters calling it an exoneration for Eric Holder.

More Here many embeded links in the original article by David Codrea