Believing that the Operation Fast and Furious scandal reaches into the highest levels of the Justice Department, congressional Republicans asked the attorney general’s office to turn over a sweeping trove of emails, documents and other material to determine Washington’s role in the “reckless” operation that allowed U.S. semiautomatic weapons to flow to Mexican drug cartels.

“As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officials at the Department of Justice, including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program,” they said in a letter to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. made public Tuesday. “Therefore, it is necessary to review communications between and among these senior officials.”…

The request for carte blanche access to “emails, memoranda, briefing papers and handwritten notes” could spark a political and legal fight over what, if anything, will be turned over.