Attorney General Eric Holder Cited by Committee

By Dan Freedman, San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, June 22 2012

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A House committee Wednesday voted along partisan lines to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to turn over documents on the Justice Department's handling of Operation Fast and Furious.

Hours prior to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's 23-17 vote, Deputy Attorney General James Cole informed the committee's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), that the Obama administration is asserting executive privilege in declining to turn over documents.

The vote and assertion of executive privilege - the administration's first - were a measure of how the Fast and Furious controversy has morphed into a full-blown Washington crisis pitting a branch of Congress controlled by one party against an administration controlled by the other.

The committee's vote now goes to the full House, which is expected to approve the contempt citation. After that, said Joseph diGenova, who served as U.S. attorney in Washington under President Ronald Reagan, it is up to the U.S. attorney in Washington, Ronald Machen, to present the case to a grand jury.

Operation Fast and Furious was an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2009 and 2010 in which Phoenix-based agents were ordered to observe gun purchases on behalf of ultra-violent Mexican drug cartels instead of stopping them.

But the agents' efforts to follow the trail from low-level purchasers to cartel higher-ups failed, and they lost track of the guns. About 2,000 ended up in Mexico in cartel hands. Two of them were recovered in Southern Arizona in December 2010 at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

After ATF whistle-blowers alerted members of Congress, the Justice Department in February 2011 denied "gun-walking" tactics had been used in Fast and Furious. Department officials subsequently reversed themselves and Holder admitted publicly that Fast and Furious was "fundamentally flawed."

The administration's invocation of executive privilege covers documents produced after the Feb. 4, 2011, Justice Department letter denying use of gun-walking tactics in Fast and Furious.

After the vote, Holder issued a statement calling the contempt citation "an extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary action, intended to provoke an avoidable conflict between Congress and the executive branch."

- Read the entire article at The San Francisco Chronicle.

Comments

Republicans, look at yourselves

Posted by Spo101 on Jun 22 2012

Wow, I bet Obama & Holder regret not prosecuting Bush/Cheney

Fast and Furious, huh? That original program WAS instituted by Bush/Cheney, right? Hey, what happened with all those Mexican Special Drug Agents who were armed and financed by George W. and then started working for the Drug Trafficers? What about those two Federal Air Marshalls who were caught smuggling cocaine? Did Issa or anyone in the Republican Corporate Ho Party investigate ANYTHING during Bush/Cheney?

Funny but I didn’t see any Rep. Issa hearings after 175,000 weapons turned up missing in Iraq during the Bush/Cheney disaster. By the way, wasn’t Darrell Issa a car thief? The NRA is going to be so angry when they find out Issa’s true intentions…

What a bunch of shameless hypocrites. It seems the real crooks are politicHo’s making laws to protect themselves from being prosecuted for the 100’s of crimes elected officials have committed since 2000. When I heard real life “Goodfella” Henry Hill died, the first thing I thought of was how much Republicans reminded me of the crooks, RIP paisan, ya ****’n rat (sorry, lol)

They say Mitt Romney learned how to be a Vulture Capitalist watching the scene in “Goodfellas” where the hoods takeover the chump’s restaurant. Voting for Romney is a vote for fascism. “…more appropriately called Corporatism…” or will he make the trains run on time? (lol)

Italian-Americans got a saying about Rudy Giuliani, “Rudy got rid of the Mafia in NYC and then the US Government took over organized crime”. (LOL) I know, I KNOW, it’s just another coincidence a new smokable form of heroin showed up in inner city America not long after Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld invaded Afghanistan. The same thing happened during Reagan/Bush with crack cocaine, Tosh Plumlee & Iran/Contra… strange, right? Rumors since tell how the GOP learned to launder drug profits through their campaign contributions. Evil, right?

Chamber of Commerce, Grover Norquist, Conservative think tanks and those Ho’s on K-St… should be sleeping with the fishes.

What about those Capos in the Supreme Court legislating “Citizens United” from the bench? Americans haven’t had a Court this criminal since the McCarthy Era. Supreme Court appointments are an important factor when picking Presidents, one more Conservative Justice and the USA is f***ed!

I heard George W. Bush’s favorite movie is “Goodfellas”, lol. I wonder who killed more people and stole more money, the Mafia since 1932 or the Bush Crime Family since 1988. I know, I KNOW, it’s just another coincidence every time a Bush is in the White House Americans have to suffer through a banking,/financial crisis/scandal, suckers. WASP, white collar, Bank robbers with police and Secret Service protection, now THAT is Un-American. Maybe economic terrorists?

Talking about an evil mob, the Republican Corporate Ho Party turned us all into the United Suckers of America. The Wise Guys would’a loved the suckers of the Right-wing because the hypocrites are thick as thieves. Open your eyes and look at the Bush/Cheney catastrophe… The rich guys spit in American faces, pulled down Americans pants, f***ed Americans in the @$$ for 8 years and stole your wallet before they left in 2008.

How is it possible all that law enforcement/Homeland Security missed the Corporate Crime Wave that occurred during Bush/Cheney? Waste, fraud, abuse of power, scandal, corruption and war profiteering on a scale not seen since the Robber Barron Era. THE GREATEST LOOTING OF A NATION’S WEALTH/RESOURCES IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND and I didn’t see one Republican Party official or Wall St. derivatives manager get clubbed or pepper sprayed. Somebody is taking kickbacks…

It used to be called bribery, collusion and all those crimes covered by the RICO Act. How come they can get away with a white bred corporate crime wave of epic proportions but our jails are filled by pot smokers and Italian-Americans? WHY IS THAT, ya racists? These Wall Street guys ruined our economy with their reckless policies and deregulation, so why aren’t the American PEOPLE standing up to them? WHY AREN’T THE FED’S PROSECUTING? Law Enforcement in the USA are easy case pussies.
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