House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa says wiretap applications reviewed and approved by senior Justice Department officials should have tipped them off about the dangerous tactics being used in the "Fast and Furious" operation.
"I recognize that, in the dynamic of internal investigations of this nature, particularly when they become enmeshed in politicized Congressional hearings, it is virtually inevitable that someone must be singled out for blame, whether the facts support it or not," he said in the letter.
Meanwhile, Issa seized on Horowitz's findings as vindication in the previously murky battle over the importance of the wiretap applications, with his office asking in a press release whether Holder and other Democrats who downplayed their significance were "willfully misleading to the American people or just plain wrong?"
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the Oversight panel who vigorously argued the wiretap applications should not have raised red flags, noted in his questioning of Horowitz that wiretap applications for Wide Receiver similarly contained warning signs and were approved anyway.
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