By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com

New facts and information have leaked out lately, causing the foundation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice to crumble beneath his feet–especially at ATF and FBI–due to their primary leadership roles in the ill-conceived, negligently executed “Operation Fast and Furious.”

As a reminder, these agencies allowed about 2,000 military assault weapons to be purchased and transported by members of the Mexican drug cartels, who seem to operate freely on either side of our ‘more secure than its’ ever been’ southern border. Some of these weapons were used to murder border patrol agent Brian Terry, and tens of thousands of Mexicans.

This past week, as reported in William LaJuenesse’s article Saturday, FOXNews learned that Congressional investigators were being supplied with potentially damning documents, through a leak at the Justice Department, which confirmed seemingly flippant FBI operational involvement of their own in the affair.

Eric Holder, repeatedly and smugly addressed the Government Oversight and Reform Committee led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), and aided by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-FL), complaining that all relevant documents to this investigation, some 20,000 pages, had already been handed over during the past 15 months of the investigation.

This is just the latest confirmation in a long line of pre-meditated omissions–in the shadow of the fact that DOJ had already supplied its’ own internal investigation unit with some 80,000 pages of Fast and Furious related documents.

On Friday, Sen. Grassley said … “You are getting at the very basis of this investigation–but I have to wait till we have all the information before we bring down the hammer.”

In response, the FBI released this statement Friday, “There is a pending investigation and we cannot provide additional information, even when there is inaccurate information being reported.”

Last week, an ATF ROI (Report of Investigation) from May 2010, shows that Manuel Celis-Acosta, ringleader of the illegal gun buyers, was stopped at a border checkpoint in Arizona with 74 rounds of ammunition.

ATF agents released him.

Then on Thursday, Issa and Grassley released a list of ROI’s that show ATF agents had evidence Acosta was trafficking weapons, and that one of his buyers, Uriel Patino, was lying on federal forms.

Neither was arrested.

Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich warned Issa, “We are deeply disturbed that [this] sensitive law enforcement information…has entered the public realm,” further claiming that it was impeding the DOJ’s prosecution of current criminal cases arising from Fast and Furious.

Without apology, a Congressional spokesperson for Issa said [these documents] “are precisely what the Justice Department is hiding and what congressional investigators are seeking – basic information about who knew what, when, about Fast and Furious.”

Now the long line of lies, cheating and cover-ups are unraveling the very fabric of the agency.

FOXNews has obtained an ATF internal memo, detailing a rank-and-file survey that reveals the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation has caused a complete collapse of confidence in the leadership, at all levels of the DOJ, according to Maxim Lott’s FOXNews article today.

“Most troubling were responses to the [statement] … ‘My senior leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity.’”

Only 44 percent of ATF employees believe their leaders held such standards last year.

Even worse, a paltry 40.5 percent gave the thumbs up to “leadership effectiveness” within the ATF, pegging them at 215th out of 228 agencies surveyed–down 10 percentage points since the Fast and Furious scandal broke.

ATF spokesman Drew Wade acknowledged the Fast and Furious scandal has taken a toll on morale. “The controversies plaguing ATF over the last year have weighed heavily on the morale of employees and their faith in senior leadership,” Wade said. “Mistakes were made.”

Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya with an iron fist for 32 years, before a similar percentage of his people famously ignited the “Arab Spring,” which surreptitiously ended his reign.

Amazingly, it seems that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has managed to produce the same level of viral discontent amongst his constabulary in only 31 months.