Nick Brown
Reuters
October 1, 2013
A U.S. judge on Monday refused to dismiss a lawsuit by Republican lawmakers who accuse Attorney General Eric Holder of wrongfully withholding documents tied to an investigation into a botched probe of gun trafficking on the U.S.-Mexican border.
“Neither legal nor prudential considerations support the dismissal of this action, District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in a ruling rejecting the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss the lawsuit in federal court in Washington.
The Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sued Holder in August 2012, seeking to enforce its subpoena connected to the gun trafficking probe dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious after the Obama administration refused to turn over related documents.
The federal operation aimed to build a case against major gun traffickers who supplied firearms to Mexican drug cartels, electing not to immediately prosecute low-level traffickers even as they bought 2,000 potentially illegal guns.