Agent Bill Newell, ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, has told Congress under oath that he briefed the White House on Operation Fast and Furious back in September 2010 — months before the deadly operation was shutdown.

Newell, a key manager involved the operation, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he informed a top White House official of the operation last September. The operation wasn’t stopped until this past January.

Congressional investigators located an email between Newell and Kevin O’Reilly, White House National Security Director for North America. Newell says O’Reilly had requested information on the matter. Newell apparently obliged, providing details he now says he should never have sent.

Operation Fast and Furious was a project under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to hand assault weapons over to Mexican drug cartels.

The resulting violence, possibly an outcome expected in advance (an excuse for tighter gun control), resulted in the murder of at least one American border patrolman. Weapons from the operation have continued to show up at crime scenes both in Mexico and the United States.