Letter to Attorney General Holder

Letter

Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa are pressing for additional information into the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and the tactics used while conducting surveillance on known straw purchasers, raising concerns similar to policies of Operation Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office.

The letter explains the inconsistent statements by the Justice Department regarding Otilio Osorio, his brother Ranferi Osorio, and Kelvin Morrison. The three straw purchasers were known to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, long before one of the guns purchased by the brothers was linked to the murder of Agent Zapata.

To make matters worse, Grassley and Issa wrote in their letter that documents indicate the ATF failed for more than three months to create a Report of Investigation on the November 9 transfer of firearms between the brothers and Morrison and a confidential informant, witnessed by ATF agents. The report was finally written on February 25, 2011--the same day the ATF received the report tracing the Zapata murder weapon back to the purchase by Otilio Osorio.

Grassley and Issa said that documenting investigative steps three months after the fact and only after a trace returned to the murder of a federal agent raises red flags about the nature of ATF's investigation.

Here is a copy of the text of today's letter from Grassley and Issa and here is a signed copy of the letter. Also, click here to read Grassley's March 4, 2011 letter and here to read the March 28, 2011 letter. Here is a copy of the Justice Department's latest response.

October 25, 2011

Via Electronic Transmission

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

On October 11, your Department (DOJ) sent Senator Grassley a letter regarding murdered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata. Not only was the response more than six months late, it completely failed to answer the key questions.1

In a March 1, 2011, press release, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) stated it was unaware of Otilio Osorio's purchase on October 10, 2010, of the weapon used to murder Agent Zapata.2 According to ATF documents, however, the agency had reason to believe as early as September 17, 2010, that Otilio's brother and co-habitant Ranferi Osorio and their next-door neighbor Kelvin Morrison were straw purchasers.3 Yet the ATF apparently made no effort to contact Ranferi Osorio or Kelvin Morrison and inquire about how their weapons came to be trafficked to Mexico within 2 weeks of their purchase.

Moreover, it appears that the ATF had an opportunity to arrest the Osorio brothers and Kelvin Morrison during a staged operation on November 9, 2010. According to a DOJ press release, "a Dallas ATF confidential informant (CI) arranged a meeting" at which the Osorio brothers, arriving at the meeting with Morrison as a passenger in their vehicle, "unloaded several large bags containing firearms into the CI's vehicle, which was kept under surveillance…"4 The DOJ press release says all 40 firearms had obliterated serial numbers, which made simple possession of them a prosecutable offense.5 Local law enforcement officials stopped the vehicle later in the day--presumably in concert with ATF and for the purpose of identifying the vehicle's inhabitants.6 Inexplicably, none of the suspects were arrested.

Finally, documents in our possession indicate that the ATF did not create a Report of Investigation (ROI) on the November 9 transfer of firearms until over three months later, on February 25, 2011--the same day ATF received the report tracing the Zapata murder weapon back to the purchase by Otilio Osorio.7 Documenting investigative steps three months after the fact and only after a trace returned to the murder of a federal agent raises red flags about the nature of ATF's investigation.

Yesterday, another member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator John Cornyn, also raised questions about issues surrounding the Osorio brothers and Morrison and urged us to look into the matter.8 Accordingly, please provide detailed responses to the following questions:

(1) Did ATF make any effort to question Ranferi Osorio or Kelvin Morrison after trafficked firearms were traced back to them on September 17? If not, why not?

(2) Why weren't any of these individuals arrested in November in connection with the undercover drop-off of weapons on November 9?

(3) Was any surveillance maintained on the Osorio brothers or Morrison by any DOJ component, including ATF and DEA, after the November 9 operation?

(4) If not, did personnel from any DOJ component raise concerns about the wisdom of allowing individuals like the Osorio brothers or Morrison to continue their activities after the November weapons transfer? If so, how were those concerns addressed?

(5) Given that the likely recipients of any trafficked guns were so close to the border, did personnel from any DOJ component raise concerns about the possibility of those guns being used against U.S. border agents? If so, how were those concerns addressed?

(6) Does any component of DOJ know when or how the firearm used in the deadly assault on Agent Zapata was trafficked to Mexico?

(7) Does the ATF have policies about creating ROIs at the time that events take place?

(8) Why was the ROI regarding events in November 2010 not created until immediately after the ATF received the trace results on the Zapata murder weapon?

In addition to answering those questions, please provide all records relating to the following:

(9) When any component of the DOJ first became aware of the trafficking activities of Otilio and Ranferi Osorio and Kelvin Morrison;

(10) Surveillance that may have been conducted on the Osorio brothers or Morrison prior to the November 9 transfer of weapons;

(11) The November 9 transfer; and

(12) Any surveillance that any component of the DOJ continued to conduct on the Osorio brothers or Morrison between the November 9, 2010, transfer and their arrest on February 28, 2011.

We look forward to receiving your response as soon as possible, but by no later than noon on November 8, 2011. Should you have any questions regarding any of these letters, please contact Tristan Leavitt in Ranking Member Grassley's office at (202) 224-5225 or Henry Kerner of Chairman Issa's Committee staff at (202) 225-5074.

Sincerely,

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