A federal judge Wednesday ordered the Department of Justice to turn over the Fast and Furious documents President Barack Obama has been protecting with executive privilege.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave the department until Oct. 1 to provide the list of documents to Congress, The Washington Post reports. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hopes the documents explain why the Justice Department refused to acknowledge the failed Fast and Furious operation for almost a year.
Obama has invoked executive privilege in an attempt to protect the documents, and the Justice Department has said the documents should not be released.
In the operation, federal agents allowed allowed the illegal purchase of weapon in an effort to track down high-level arms traffickers, but lost track of about 2,000 guns. The operation came to light in 2010 after two of the guns were found on the scene where border agent Brian Terry was killed.
Republican Rep. and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told the Associated Press the documents “will bring us closer to finding out why the Justice Department hid behind false denials in the wake of reckless conduct that contributed to the violent deaths of border patrol agent Brian Terry and countless Mexican citizens.”