Emails Show Justice Officials Either Were Criminally Incompetent or Corrupt over 'Fast and Furious'

Welcome to the Obama White House:

Newly disclosed Justice Department documents show that another round of memos mentioning "Operation Fast and Furious" was circulated within the Justice Department in mid-2010.

The internal documents, obtained by Fox News, raise questions over who at the Justice Department was actually sending and reading memos on the controversial gunrunning program.

Attorney General Eric Holder has insisted he didn't know about the investigation until this year, even though several memos from July and August 2010 addressed to him cite the gunrunning probe by name. Similar memos were sent to Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

The broader back-and-forth focuses on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation in Arizona targeting major gunrunners. Launched in late 2009, the investigation planned to follow gun purchasers in hopes that suspects would lead them to the heads of Mexican cartels. But high-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry late last year.

In a letter to critics on Capitol Hill last week, Holder said suggestions the memos to him show he must have known about the investigation "mischaracterize the process by which I receive information." He said his office typically receives more than 100 pages of "so-called 'weekly reports' that, while addressed to me, actually are provided to and reviewed by" his staff and the deputy attorney general's staff. He said he does not and "cannot read them cover-to-cover."

It seems neither did some officials below him.

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