Jason Weinstein’s Justice Department career was derailed by ‘Fast and Furious’
Jason M. Weinstein sat alone in his office at the Justice Department one night in August, checking e-mail after a family vacation in Wyoming. At this point, 2012 had been an unusual year for the career prosecutor-turned-political-appointee.
Weinstein’s name had surfaced in a scandal known as “Fast and Furious,” in which federal agents in Arizona monitored sales of guns to suspected firearms smugglers but didn’t immediately confiscate the weapons. In theory, the strategy was meant to allow the feds to trace the guns to the ringleaders and drug cartel bosses in Mexico.
The operation went awry when more than 2,000 U.S.-purchased weapons hit the streets of Mexico and the United States. Two of the guns were found at the scene of the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Although Weinstein had no role in devising the tactics and had no supervisory authority over Fast and Furious, he had signed documents that helped the agents proceed with their operation.
On Capitol Hill, the investigation had taken on predictable and intractable political dynamics. Democrats concluded that no high-level officials at the Justice Department, including Weinstein, were to blame for the “gun-walking” scheme; Republicans accused Weinstein of knowingly abetting the flawed operation.
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jason-weinsteins-justice-department-career-was-cut-short-by-fast-and-furious/2013/01/06/55ceef2c-5072-11e2-839d-d54cc6e49b63_singlePage.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
