'This Week' Transcript: Rep. Darrell Issa

Rep. Darrell Issa is interviewed on 'This Week.'

ByABC News
June 20, 2012, 11:43 AM

WASHINGTON, DC, June 24, 2012— -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER (voice-over): Good morning. Welcome to "This Week."

Summer showdown over the Fast and Furious scandal.

ISSA: The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order.

PELOSI: Contempt of Congress? Contempt of Congress?

TAPPER: The president claims executive privilege...

HOLDER: It is our hope that we can somehow find a way through this.

TAPPER: ... while a House panel holds the attorney general in contempt.

(UNKNOWN): Who knew about Fast and Furious? When did they know about it? And how high up did it go?

TAPPER: Can the attorney general survive? Will this hurt the president as he fights for re-election? We'll ask the man leading the charge against the attorney general, Republican Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, and Democratic Congressman Xavier Becerra, who joins our powerhouse roundtable, along with George Will, Hilary Rosen, Peggy Noonan, and Major Garrett. Hear their take on the imminent Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, Mitt Romney's veepstakes, and that provocative new essay about why women still cannot have it all. We've got the most debate and the best analysis.

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. It's your voice, your vote. Reporting from the Newseum in Washington, Jake Tapper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Good morning. George Stephanopoulos has a well-deserved morning off. Here to discuss this standoff between the president and the Congress, we're joined by the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Darrell Issa.

Good morning, Congressman.

ISSA: Good morning, Jake. Thanks for having me on.

TAPPER: I have a lot of questions for you, Mr. Chairman, but, first, let's take a quick look at how we got to this point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER (voice-over): Just like the movie it was named after, it was fast, furious and deadly. The operation? U.S. government agents allowed guns to pour across the border into Mexico, an attempt to track weapons traffickers and drug cartels. The problem? The agents lost track of 2,000 of those guns, including deadly assault rifles, and two of those weapons were found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

TERRY: My son was a person that believed in justice, and he believed in telling the truth.

TAPPER: Congress, outraged, launched an investigation, but the Justice Department first denied the program existed. Quote, "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico." Then later they conceded that statement was not true, and they admitted the program was a colossal mistake.

HOLDER: In fact, it was flawed, fundamentally flawed.

(UNKNOWN): Very flawed.

TAPPER: But the questions Republicans still want answered, who authorized the program? And why was Congress initially misled?

Which takes us to the stand-off. The president says some of his administration's discussions about the program are confidential, so he invoked executive privilege.

ISSA: The ayes have it.

TAPPER: Meanwhile, Congress is threatening to hold the attorney general in contempt.

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