President Obama has pledged to make sure that Justice Department officials involved in a program allowing U.S. guns to cross illegally into Mexico pay a price for their role.
Obama told ABC News Tuesday that “people who have screwed up will be held accountable.”
“Our overarching goal consistently has been to say we’ve got a responsibility not only to stop drugs from flowing north, we’ve also got a responsibility to make sure we are not helping to either arm or finance these drug cartels in Mexico,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper that will air Tuesday night on “Nightline.”
“It’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen,” he said. “And we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.”
Republicans in Congress are pressing Attorney General Eric Holder and high-ranking administration officials for more details about the gun-running program known as “Fast and Furious” and the reasons they failed to put a stop to it. The illicit operation came to light after guns originating in the U.S. were discovered to be involved in the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, as well as other violent crimes in Mexico.
So far, Obama has fully backed Attorney General Eric Holder’s handling of the Justice Department investigation into “Fast and Furious.”
“I have complete confidence in him, and I’ve got complete confidence in the process to figure out who, in fact, was responsible for that decision and how it got made,” Obama said at a news conference Oct. 6, ABC News reports.
