The US Justice Department on Tuesday replaced three officials who played critical roles in a flawed law enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Mexican border.
The department announced that the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the US attorney in Arizona had resigned and an administration official said a prosecutor who worked on the operation was reassigned to civil cases.
The operation, known as Fast and Furious, was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers. It was a response to longstanding criticism of ATF for concentrating on small-time gun violations and failing to attack the kingpins of weapons trafficking.
A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.
The department’s inspector general also is looking into the operation at the request of US Attorney General Eric Holder.
The operation has resulted in charges against 20 people and more may be charged.
Kenneth Melson was scheduled to be replaced as ATF’s acting chief by B. Todd Jones, the US attorney in Minnesota, yesterday.
With Republicans in Congress and the department bickering over the investigation, Melson finally testified recently to Hill investigators in private.
He said his department superiors “were doing more damage control than anything” and trying to keep the controversy away from top officials.
Also leaving was Dennis Burke, US attorney in Arizona, whose office had been deeply involved in Operation Fast and Furious. He will be replaced on an acting basis by his first assistant, Ann Scheel.
In a related change, the line prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in Phoenix who worked on the investigation, Emory Hurley, was reassigned from criminal cases to civil case work, according to an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the personnel matter.
The moves are the latest and most significant effort by the department to address the controversy. In earlier personnel changes, three ATF agents were laterally transferred starting in May from operational positions to administrative roles.
Melson will become senior adviser on forensic science in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, a development that brought an objection from Republican Senator John Cornyn. Instead of reassigning those responsible for Operation Fast and Furious, Holder should oust them, Cornyn said.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other