Authorizing Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to Initiate or Intervene in Judicial Proceedings to Enforce Certain Subpoenas
Floor Speech
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Mr. REYES. It is indeed a sad day today. As an officer that spent 26 1/2 years wearing the United States Border Patrol uniform, it is regrettable for me today that we're here under these circumstances.
I want to acknowledge and thank the chairman and the ranking member for inviting me to go with them to Mexico City and visit at the U.S. Embassy about the circumstances around what led to the investigation of Fast and Furious. And to me, it's regrettable because we are here discussing the death of a Border Patrol agent. I went to the memorial service for Agent Brian Terry. I visited with his mom and his family that day. I went there because as a former Border Patrol agent I wanted to express sympathy and support, as I did so many times as a chief for agents that were killed in the line of duty.
So for me, it is particularly troubling that we're here politicizing the death of a United States Border Patrol agent. We ought to be about getting to the circumstances of the investigation led under a U.S. Attorney under OCDETF. Both the ranking member and the chairman know that that was the controlling entity in this case.
I don't know except to say that it's pure basic politics that we've now spun this up to the level of the Attorney General. Having had the experience to supervise my agents that were part of OCDETF investigations and having had a number of conversations with my friends on the other side of the aisle who were experienced prosecutors, everybody here that has that experience knows that those controls don't go up to the level of the Attorney General.
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Mr. REYES. So we're here taking a lot of time when we should be discussing things that are a priority to the American people. We're here under the worst of circumstances for the Terry family, which all they want is closure on the death of a son, on the death of a patriotic American citizen, and spinning it in a political sense.
I really think that this is a sad day for this House of Representatives, and we ought to do better for the American people.
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