What Trump’s DEA Says About Biden-Era Fentanyl Fast and Furious Might Surprise You

President Donald Trump’s Drug Enforcement Administration is defending a Biden-era initiative that allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills into the country for the purpose of building a larger case against drug dealers.

This comes after President Trump earlier this week posted a news story that labeled the initiative a possible “Fast and Furious 2.0,” a reference to an infamous Obama administration program.

The DEA issued a statement late Wednesday asserting that media reports have mischaracterized the program that ran from 2023 to 2025.

“Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts,” a DEA spokesperson said of the story first reported by The Associated Press.

The spokesperson said that courts authorized the investigations through Title III—also known as the Wiretap Act—which is meant to balance individual privacy rights with law enforcement demands through a court-supervised process for intercepting private communications. Under the process, “agents and prosecutors conducted real-time surveillance, intelligence gathering, and operational analysis targeting larger drug trafficking organizations,” the statement said.

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The DEA spokesperson provided an email statement in response to questions from the Daily Signal. The spokesperson didn’t address specific questions, such as whether fentanyl was allowed to be trafficked in areas beyond New Mexico or exactly when the program ended. The AP reported the program ran between 2023 and 2025 but did not report specific dates or whether it ended with a change of administrations.

A 2024 decision by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, referenced in the statement, determined the operation was reasonable.

“For operational decisions in investigations like this, DEA is mandated to coordinate investigative decisions with USAO [U.S. Attorney’s Office] leadership to ensure investigative steps are carefully coordinated to prevent harm to the public,” the DEA spokesperson said. “Several independent reviews concluded that the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances, and consistent with Department guidance.”

Biden-appointed former U.S. Attorney Alex Uballez of New Mexico, who oversaw the program, told The Associated Press, “The bigger fish are worth catching.”

The DEA operation is reminiscent of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program under President Barack Obama’s administration dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious,” which allowed illegal guns to flow from the United States into Mexico for the purpose of tracking them to build a case against drug cartels. However, the government lost track of some of the guns, one of which was used in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group, is representing DEA Special Agent David Howell, who made the first complaint about the fentanyl program.

Leavitt posted on X, in response to Trump’s post on the program, “Thank you @realDonaldTrump for taking notice of my interview regarding what our client, DEA whistleblower David Howell, exposed. Now it’s time for full transparency. If feds in any other states were allowing this tactic during the Biden Admin, the American people deserve to know.”

Leavitt formerly worked for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who led efforts to investigate Operation Fast and Furious in the Senate.

In a separate post on X, he said: “As @ChuckGrassley’s lead line attorney to investigate Operation Fast and Furious, I can say the Biden Administration’s fentanyl Fast and Furious is just as big of a scandal. @EMPOWR_us is proud to represent Special Agent David Howell, and we hope Congress and the @JusticeOIG will do the work to expose the precise staggering amount of just many pills were really walked.”