In November, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke admitted leaking a memo about Operation Fast and Furious, but until recent weeks, it wasn't clear what exactly was in the memo, and what made a U.S. senator so upset about the leak.
Recent letters by attorneys for two ATF supervisors revealed the subject of the memo: that ATF Special Agent John Dodson had allowed criminal suspects to buy guns as part of a separate investigation in 2010.
That matters because Dodson was the whistle-blower who initially told Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about the nearly 2,000 guns let loose as part of Fast and Furious, and he blamed ATF supervisors in Phoenix for letting such "gun walking" happen.
Dodson famously testified before a congressional committee last year that when bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents see an illegal gun purchase, they must maintain surveillance: "You don't get to go home," he said.
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The recipient of the leak, whom Burke identified in a congressional interview as Fox News reporter Mike Levine, never used the document.
On March 14, attorneys for ATF supervisors David Voth and Bill Newell sent letters to Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. They said Dodson himself put guns in the hands of a suspected firearms trafficker, Isaias Fernandez, in June 2010 and let them walk.
Here's how Joshua Levy, the attorney for Voth, describes Dodson's activities: "SA Dodson knowingly provided six AK Draco pistols to Fernandez, whom the ATF suspected was exporting the firearms to Mexico. Neither SA Dodson, SA (Orlindo) Casa nor SA (Gary) Styers maintained surveillance on those six firearms.
"SA Dodson took personal leave the very same week that he personally provided the six firearms to Fernandez. Yet there have been no hearings on this case and no mention of it in any congressional report."
Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine said, "Agent Dodson was totally up front about the Fernandez case with Sen. Grassley's investigators. He told them about that from the beginning. He went on national television and said he walked guns."
Grassley called the leak a case of "whistle-blower retaliation," and Burke resigned his position as U.S. attorney in August 2011 after admitting the leak to Justice Department investigators.
