Republican leaders said the House will vote next week to hold Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress. This comes on the heels of the Justice Department having to admit yesterday they were “incorrect” (i.e. lying) in accusing President Bush’s Attorney General of knowing of the scandal at the heart of the matter.
The Obama administration submitted a last-minute and questionable claim of executive privilege Wednesday over documents related to the botched gun-tracking operation “Fast and Furious,” just as a House committee opened a hearing to consider a contempt of Congress resolution against the attorney general.
After days of negotiations between the Justice Department and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) contended that department officials had not turned over all documents relevant to the panel’s investigation of the operation and that he planned to go forward with the vote.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a resolution 23-17 to place Erik Holder in contempt after battling him for months over access to internal agency documents about the gun-tracking operation.
Many agree that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. forced the committee’s hand. “Fast and Furious” was an operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (that ain’t an agency – that’s a party back home!) Arizona office that allowed gun traffickers to take weapons into Mexico, with the goal of building cases against drug cartel leaders. Two of those guns were found at the scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was fatally shot in late 2010.
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole sent the committee a letter yesterday saying that President Obama had asserted executive privilege over a portion of the documents sought by the panel. In 2007 candidate Obama had this to say about invoking of such privileges:
“Well, you know, I think we’ll — we’ll determine over the next several weeks how this administration responds to the very
"How much respect do I have for the Constitution? Oh about this much"
appropriate call by Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to have these individuals come in and testify. You know, there’s been a tendency on the part of this administration to — to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place. And I think, you know, the administration would be best served by coming clean on this. There doesn’t seem to be any national security issues involved with the U.S. attorney question. There doesn’t seem to be any justification for not offering up some clear, plausible rationale for why these — these U.S. attorneys were targeted when, by all assessments, they were doing an outstanding job. I think the American people deserve to know what was going on there.”
Senate Judiciary ranking Republican Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) gave the following reaction:
“At no point in the last 18 months since I started asking questions has the Department of Justice hinted that there was a potential that the documents might be subject to executive privilege. That includes a face-to-face meeting with the Attorney General last night. If it were a serious claim, the administration would have and should have raised it last night, if not much earlier.”
Speaker Boehner’s press secretary, Brendan Buck said:
“The White House decision to invoke executive privilege implies that White House officials were either involved in the `Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed. The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”
“In ruling against the Bush administration, the Court of Appeals said that extending the presidential communications privilege to internal Justice Department documents “would be both contrary to executive privilege precedent and considerably undermine the purposes of FOIA to foster openness and accountability in government.”