Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder make available for questioning a second U.S. attorney in the committee’s probe of Operation Fast and Furious.
Issa wants to question Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey, who was under Cunningham’s supervision in Phoenix.
The revelation came Thursday in a press release from the committee, in which Issa's letter was quoted:
“Since August, the Department has identified Patrick Cunningham as the best person in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to provide information about Fast and Furious to the Committee. The Department has refused to make Michael Morrissey and Emory Hurley, both Assistant United States Attorneys supervised by Mr. Cunningham, available to speak with the Committee, citing a policy of not making “line attorneys” available for congressional scrutiny. Mr. Morrissey, however, was Mr. Hurley’s direct supervisor, and an integral part of Fast and Furious. Importantly, both Morrissey and Hurley are unique in their possession of key factual knowledge about Fast and Furious not readily available from any other source.”—Congressman Darrell Issa, in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder
The entire letter may be read here.
Fox News reported Thursday morning that the investigation appears to be stalled because earlier this week, Patrick Cunningham, head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Phoenix, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, rather than testify before committee investigators. This column discussed that situation yesterday. Fast and Furious observers are now wondering whether the investigation will come to an anti-climactic finish, with only officials in Phoenix taking the heat for the scandal, which could be portrayed as a rogue operation.
Fast and Furious, launched in the fall of 2009 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, came to a screeching halt in mid-December 2010 with the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in the southern Arizona desert near Nogales. Two guns recovered at the crime scene were traced directly to one of the Fast and Furious suspects.
In his letter to Holder, Issa set a deadline of 5 p.m. today for the attorney general to reply whether he will make Morrissey available for questioning. This raises another question. If Holder does allow, or order, Morrissey to testify, will Morrissey, like his boss, invoke the Fifth Amendment?
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