Officials quit in ATF controversy

By Pete Yost, Associated Press
Posted: August 31, 2011

WASHINGTON - The acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. attorney in Arizona resigned Tuesday amid investigations into a flawed law enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Southwest border, the Justice Department said.

Operation 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 criticism of the ATF for concentrating on small-time gun violations and failing to attack the kingpins of weapons trafficking.

A congressional investigation turned up evidence that the ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation. The Justice Department inspector general also is looking into the operation at the request of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Kenneth Melson will be replaced as the ATF's acting chief by B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota. Also leaving was Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney in Arizona, whose office was deeply involved in Fast and Furious. Burke will be replaced on an acting basis by his first assistant, Ann Scheel.

In a related change, the line prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix who worked on the Fast and Furious investigation, Emory Hurley, was reassigned from criminal cases to civil case work, according to an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The strategy behind Fast and Furious carried the risk that its tracking would be inadequate and that some guns would wind up in the hands of criminals and be used in crimes - which did happen to some of the guns.

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