DEA admin requests IG review into New Mexico office's decision to allow fentanyl to flow to streets

The administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration Thursday wrote to Assistant Inspector General Sean O'Neill to request an independent review of DEA operations in New Mexico, which allegedly allowed shipments of fentanyl to go onto the streets as part of an effort to arrest bigger targets leading the smuggling. 

Attorney Tristan Leavitt, president of the Empower Oversight, a whistleblower center, said in an interview with Just the News last week that a DEA agent has evidence that his agency and federal prosecutors let more than 1 million fentanyl pills flow onto the streets of New Mexico during the Biden era and then tried to silence him from testifying after he blew the whistle. 

Leavitt's group represents DEA Special Agent David Howell, a 14-year veteran of the agency whose whistleblower complaint was chronicled by The Associated Press in a bombshell article Monday.

In Thursday's memo, DEA Administrator Terrance Cole explains that he believes DEA acted "lawfully, professionally and in accordance with Department of Justice (DOJ) policy." An independent review of the agency's actions, Cole wrote, would bolster public confidence in the integrity of the oversight process. 

"This request should not be interpreted as reflecting any lack of confidence in the professionalism or integrity of DEA personnel or in the investigative decisions made during this matter," Cole wrote.