Fast & Furious: How High Did It Go?

At the very least to the level of Deputy Attorney General.

But this new congressional report, released Tuesday by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley — both Republicans — concludes senior Obama administration officials appear to have set the stage for, and possibly encouraged, ATF officials to walk guns into Mexico.

The report finds that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who leads the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, told Holder about the Firearms Trafficking Working Group (FTWG) in an Aug. 19, 2009, memo of recommendation.

“The FTWG’s mission was to formulate a plan to improve the U.S. government’s efforts in stemming the illegal flow of weapons, which was fueling escalating violence along both sides of the Southwestern border,” the report reads. “The working group’s first recommendation was that the ‘attorney general and secretary of Homeland Security should form an interagency Southwest Border (‘SWB’) firearms trafficking strategy group.’ According to the Justice Department, ‘the deputy attorney general responded to the specific proposals in this memorandum by forming the Southwest Border Strategy Group, which he chaired.’”

Shortly thereafter, then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, the No. 2 official in the Department of Justice, drafted and disseminated a new planning document titled “Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels.”