A gunman shot dead by police at an anti-Muslim event in Garland, Texas, in May reportedly bought his weapon five years earlier through the Justice Department's botched Fast and Furious operation.
Nadir Soofi, 34, bought a 9-mm pistol at a Phoenix gun shop in 2010 that sold the gun through the program run by the department's Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives division,
The Los Angeles Times reports.
The controversial gun-running effort, initiated under former Attorney General Eric Holder, sought to use the firearms to track Mexican drug cartels. The scheme led to the deaths of two federal law-enforcement agents and pushed Republicans to seek Holder's impeachment.
Questions on whether Soofi's gun was sold through Fast and Furious led Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson to query Holder's successor, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, last month on the matter, the Times reports.
Johnson, who represents Wisconsin, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Soofi and his roommate, Elton Simpson, 30, were armed with assault rifles — and both were killed in the May 3 gunfight with police at an anti-Islam event held by activist Pamela Geller.
However, the FBI and Justice Department have since failed to provide serial numbers for the firearms used by Soofi and Simpson, raising fears that the guns were linked to the bungled gun-running scheme, the Times reports.
When Soofi bought the gun in 2010, the purchase was placed on hold for a week, but it was lifted by authorities after only one day, according to the Times.
Fast and Furious came under heavy fire after authorities revealed that two of the guns were used in a 2011 shootout with Mexican drug lords that killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Earlier that year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata was shot dead in Mexico with a gun traced to Fast and Furious.
As many as 1,400 firearms went missing through the scheme — and the ensuring controversy led the House to put Holder in contempt of Congress in June 2012 for failing to turn over more than 1,500 pages of Fast and Furious documents.
In congressional testimony in May 2011, the attorney general said that he had heard o
f Fast and Furious for the first time "over the last few weeks."
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