Federal gun investigations draw Congressional scrutiny

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http://www2.tbo.com/member-center/share-this/print/?content=ar243657

Published: July 13, 2011
Updated: July 13, 2011 - 12:58 PM


Federal gun investigations draw Congressional scrutiny
By Howard Altman

In December, Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot by a man connected to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

The death of a law enforcement agent would have been big news by itself, but it was the weapons used in the slaying that made the story scandalous. Guns found where Terry was killed were linked to a botched effort by the federal government to track weapons commonly used by drug cartels....

....Now a U.S. senator and two Congressmen – including Gus Bilirakis, R- Palm Harbor, want to know whether there were similar problems in the Tampa investigation....

On Tuesday, Bilirakis wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson asking, among other things, if Operation Castaway "allowed weapons to be trafficked to Honduras" and if the agency has accounted for all the guns involved....

No reported reply, as of yet.