ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Jim Mustian reported and co-wrote an Associated Press story that revealed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to be distributed in New Mexico as part of an effort to build bigger federal prosecutions.

Mustian, along with AP journalist Joshua Goodman, reviewed hundreds of internal DEA records and interviewed current and former agents, including a whistleblower who claims his agency gambled with public safety and violated U.S. Justice Department rules about seizing the dangerous synthetic opioid. The White House last year designated fentanyl as a “ weapon of mass destruction.”

This is an interview of Mustian by Del Quentin Wilber, who edited the story.

Goodman, my AP colleague, first spotted the whistleblower complaint accusing the DEA of allowing fentanyl to hit the streets of New Mexico. The report was sent to the White House in September but escaped media attention at the time.

As government records often go, it was heavily redacted to shield not only the whistleblower’s identity but the amount of fentanyl that was not seized.

There was a critical oversight in the government’s redactions. I noticed that the whistleblower’s name ended in an “l” — a single letter that, for some reason, was missed by the black marker.

I sent a flurry of messages on LinkedIn to DEA agents whose named ended in “l”...

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