The 21-page report, by the office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, filled in new details about the reaction of the Phoenix prosecutor’s office to the furor over a botched investigation into a gun-smuggling network. Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed hundreds of weapons to reach criminal hands.
Mr. Burke, who resigned in August 2011, was the United States attorney in Arizona at the time of the investigation, which ran from late 2009 to early 2011. He admitted shortly before his resignation that he had been the source for a document obtained by Fox News about the A.T.F. agent, John Dodson, who helped disclose risky tactics used in the case.
After Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent, was killed in December 2010 and two guns linked to the case were found nearby, Mr. Dodson contacted the office of Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, gave an interview to CBS News, and testified at a House hearing.
The inspector general’s report cites internal e-mails and testimony that show Mr. Burke was “frustrated” at Mr. Dodson’s criticisms, in part because the previous year Mr. Dodson had proposed and carried out an undercover operation in another case in which he bought guns and resold them to a firearms trafficker, similarly letting them “walk” rather than taking action to interdict them and arrest the buyer upon the delivery.
“Unbelievable,” Mr. Burke wrote of Mr. Dodson in one internal e-mail. “This guy called Grassley and CBS to unearth what he in fact was proposing to do by himself. When you thought the hypocrisy of this whole matter had hit the limit already. …”
Mr. Burke was also frustrated at how news media officials at Justice Department headquarters were responding to the Congressional inquiry, the report said, and in June 2011 he sent an internal memorandum written by Mr. Dodson about the other gun trafficking case to a Fox News journalist.
The inspector general’s report criticized Mr. Burke for taking matters into his own hands, portraying him as inappropriately seeking to undermine and retaliate against Mr. Dodson, and accusing Mr. Burke of violating several department regulations. It suggested that the department’s ethics office review whether to file a professional misconduct complaint with the bar.
Mr. Burke declined to comment, through his lawyer. He also declined to be interviewed by the inspector general’s office, which relied on a transcript of an interview he gave to Congressional investigators, along with e-mails and testimony by other officials.
In a statement, Mr. Grassley criticized Mr. Burke’s actions as attacking a “whistle-blower who had the guts to come forward and tell Congress the truth about Operation Fast and Furious” and noted that in his comments about the case, Mr. Dodson had apologized for letting guns walk.
The inspector general’s report also said that Mr. Burke’s leak of the Dodson memorandum came shortly after James Cole, the deputy attorney general, chastised him over the leak of a different internal document to The New York Times and “put him on notice that such disclosures should not happen.”
In the earlier leak, the report said, Mr. Burke’s press office sent a Times reporter an internal memorandum related to Operation Fast and Furious, which the newspaper posted online with a related article.
Contacted by Mr. Cole, Mr. Burke was initially evasive about how the memorandum might have reached The Times. But days later, he said that he had “not been candid with Cole” and that his press officer had sent it, taking responsibility as head of the office. Mr. Cole “could not get a clear answer from Burke about whether he had authorized the release” and concluded Mr. Burke had lied to him, the report said.
Mr. Burke also said he sent the Dodson document to the Fox News journalist indirectly, e-mailing it from his personal account to a friend of the journalist. He explained that he was worried about the document circulating in the Fox e-mail system, but the report said this instead “demonstrated to us that Burke was aware his actions were improper, particularly in light of Burke’s recent experience in improperly disclosing” the other document to The Times.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/politics/dennis-k-burke-criticized-for-fast-and-furious-leak.html?partner=rss&emc=rss