Governor Explodes Over Biden-Era Tactic

A handgun, cash, and prescription pills scattered on a surface

As New Mexico families buried loved ones lost to fentanyl, federal agents were quietly letting huge loads of the same poison roll straight onto their streets.

Story Snapshot

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in New Mexico tracked large fentanyl shipments from 2023–2025 but often did not seize them, aiming to build bigger trafficking cases.^[2]
A whistleblower says at least 1.8 million pills were allowed to “walk,” calling it “poisoning our community to make cases.”^[2]
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog later ruled the strategy “reasonable” and not a specific danger to public health, deepening public distrust.^[14]
New Mexico’s Democratic governor is demanding a criminal probe, blasting a Biden‑era program even as the Trump administration now vows to “blow up” cartels.

What DEA Agents Did In New Mexico — And Why It Matters

Between 2023 and 2025, Drug Enforcement Administration agents in New Mexico watched shipments of fentanyl pills move into communities but did not always stop them.^[2] Agents and prosecutors wanted to follow the loads up the chain and charge higher‑level traffickers, not just street dealers.^[2] One operation allowed 74,000 pills to be delivered to an Albuquerque mobile home park while agents counted and monitored them in real time.^[9] For people living nearby, that looks less like protection and more like being used as bait.

DEA Special Agent David Howell finally broke ranks and filed a whistleblower complaint, later telling reporters, “We poisoned our community to make cases.”^[7] In his filings, Howell said investigators let at least 1.8 million fentanyl pills go unseized during one multi‑state case.^[2] A former DEA supervisor, speaking anonymously, backed that up and said “millions” of pills were allowed to hit the streets.^[2] These are not small mistakes; they are deliberate choices made while overdose deaths were already at record levels.

How Washington Cleared Itself — And Fed The “Deep State” Story

The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal watchdog for federal prosecutors, investigated Howell’s claims.^[14] In 2024 it ruled that agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office had acted “reasonably” and did not violate fentanyl rules or create a “substantial and specific danger” to public health.^[14] The office said federal guidance lets teams use their “discretion” to leave drugs in play if that helps long‑term investigations, as long as supervisors sign off.^[14] On paper, the system cleared itself.

To many Americans, that sounds exactly like the problem. The same bureaucracy accused of risking lives also decided it had done nothing wrong. Critics in New Mexico point out that the review did not publicly walk through each shipment or explain why leaving tens of thousands of pills in circulation was “reasonable” during a lethal crisis.^[2] For citizens already convinced federal agencies protect their own before the public, this case looks like another example of insiders closing ranks while families pay the price.

A Democratic Governor Versus A Biden‑Era Program

New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham responded with rare fury toward a federal law enforcement agency led under her own party’s president at the time.^[6] She said federal officials made a “deliberate decision” to let hundreds of thousands of pills flood into her state while knowing fentanyl had been labeled a “weapon of mass destruction.”^[9] Her office highlighted the 74,000‑pill delivery to an Albuquerque park and said agents “did nothing” to stop it.^[9] She has now asked the state attorney general to open a criminal investigation of the DEA’s actions.^[6]

Governor Lujan Grisham’s stance shows how deep the anger runs across party lines. Conservative outlets have framed the story as proof of Biden‑era weakness and open‑border chaos.^[8] But here a Democratic governor is accusing a Biden‑time federal program of knowingly risking her residents’ lives.^[8] That shared rage — from the left and right — is not really about one party. It is about a growing belief that people in Washington are willing to gamble with ordinary Americans’ lives in the name of strategy, politics, or career advancement.

Trump’s “Blow Up The Narcos” Approach — Different Tactic, Same Fear

During Biden’s term, research shows the overall flow and purity of street fentanyl actually dropped sharply, and overdose deaths fell.^[1] Yet he lost the public narrative to Donald Trump, who hammered the idea that the federal government was soft on cartels and let drugs pour in.^[1] Back in office, Trump has leaned into that message and treated cartels like enemy forces, using military power and drone strikes against suspected traffickers at sea and abroad.^[2]^[6] Supporters see this as finally taking the crisis seriously.

New Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing fentanyl shipments to hit streets https://t.co/CRHGmSkoPd

— 23ABC News (@23ABCNews) June 26, 2026

Civil liberties experts warn that Trump’s war‑like strategy risks other kinds of abuse.^[2]^[6] Targets are often hit without criminal trials or public evidence, and some legal scholars argue the strikes violate U.S. and international law.^[2]^[6] Critics say the tough talk plays well on television but does not fix the deep corruption, money flows, and broken communities that let cartels thrive.^[3] So Americans watch one administration quietly let pills “walk” to make cases, and another launch secretive strikes that may skirt the law, and they ask a simple question: who is all this really for — them, or the people in power?

Why This Story Feeds Distrust On Both Left And Right

For many conservatives, the New Mexico scandal confirms their worst fears about a federal bureaucracy that talks tough while letting deadly drugs into the country. They connect it to years of anger over open borders, “woke” priorities, and elites who never seem to face consequences when their choices destroy lives. For many liberals, it fits a longer story of law enforcement agencies bending rules, hiding behind secret memos, and treating poor and minority neighborhoods as expendable in big “operations.” Both sides see regular people treated as collateral damage.

Past drug enforcement scandals — from disastrous foreign raids to “gun‑walking” schemes — show this is not new.^[16] Federal agencies say they are balancing risks to catch “bigger fish,” but the cost is almost always paid by families far from the corridors of power. In New Mexico, parents who lost children to fentanyl are being told that leaving pills on their streets was “reasonable” and “lawful.”^[5]^[14] That is why this story hits so hard. It is not just about fentanyl. It is about whether any part of the federal government still sees protecting ordinary Americans as its first job.