In a 23-17 vote that split along party lines, the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder be cited for contempt. The week’s events mark a number of firsts in the Obama administration and could mark a first for the United States.
By the numbers, here’s a look at the facts underlying the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation and the standoff it has caused between Republicans in Congress and the Obama administration.
10,514 - Firearms manufactured in the United States that were traced and recovered in Mexico in 2011.
4,383 - Amount traced and recovered there in 2010.
6,600 - Licensed U.S. firearms dealers within 100 miles of the Mexican border. (2009)
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90 - Percentage of the cocaine that enters the U.S. that transits through Mexico.
70 - Percentage of guns recovered from Mexican criminal activity from 2007 to 2011 which originated from sales in the United States.
1,000+ - Firearms the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed “straw” buyers to carry across the border that are unaccounted for.
2 - Lost weapons that turned up at the scene of the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Nearly 48,000 - Mexican people killed in drug-gang-related violence since 2006.
7,600 - Pages of documents the U.S. Justice Department handed over to Congress, as part of the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.
9 - Times Attorney General Eric Holder has testified before Congress during the 14-month investigation.
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0 - Previous times a sitting attorney general has ever been held in contempt by Congress.
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5 - Number of movies released so far in the “Fast and Furious” action movie franchise.
1 - Times President Barack Obama has invoked executive privilege during his administration.
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14 - Times President Bill Clinton used it, the most of any president since at least 1960.
1 - Directors of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who were reassigned to other positions at the Department of Justice, after criticism of the Fast and Furious operation.