House Finds Holder in Contempt

[bornhunter04]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/28/house-begins-debate-on-contempt-vote-on-attorney-general-holder/

 

 

The GOP-led House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide key information pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, making Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt.

The vote was 255-67 with one lawmaker voting not present. Seventeen Democrats broke ranks to vote in favor of contempt, while two Republicans voted against the measure.

The vote was preceded by a heated floor debate.

“It’s important to remember how we got here,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said during a speech ahead of the vote. “The Justice Department has not provided the facts and information we requested. … It’s our constitutional duty to find out.”

The GOP-led House took the step over the alleged failure to provide additional information about the failed gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious which was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.

Democrats walked out of the chamber ahead of the vote.

“What is happening here is shameful," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who argued House Republicans are more politically motivated in attacking Holder than getting to the bottom of the failed operation, in which at least two of the guns were connected to the fatal shooting of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.

Lawmakers voted against a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to return the matter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

 

Well this sure has been a busy day in washington........

[3ddiver]

Hey Nancy, how can they get to the bottom of it without the information? Who else is going to supply it to them.

[belercous]

I've got no problem with this.

[TomKoz]

I've got no problem with this.

 

OH, I feel much better now!

[Uncle Harley]

so what does that mean for holder? isn't this just for show? I mean what more is he going to get that a little slap on the wrist, not like he's gonna get his pe pe spanked is it?

[SFC Stu]

so what does that mean for holder? isn't this just for show? I mean what more is he going to get that a little slap on the wrist, not like he's gonna get his pe pe spanked is it?

 

They may not spank his pee pee, but they might make him hop around like a frog!

[Yas]

Hey Nancy, how can they get to the bottom of it without the information? Who else is going to supply it to them.

 

 

To quote that hag:

Ya Gotta vote for it if you want to see what's in it!

[vezpa]

Absolutely nothing will come of this, unfortunately.

[gravyboy77]

so what does that mean for holder? isn't this just for show? I mean what more is he going to get that a little slap on the wrist, not like he's gonna get his pe pe spanked is it?

 

They voted to hold him in contempt of congress last night but also voted to pursue a civil lawsuit. this is where it gets interesting.

 

Looks like Josephine Terry has just about had enough:

 

http://dyn.politico....82-EFCBC88ECB73

Terry's mom: Walkout is 'a disgrace'

 

By: MJ Lee

June 29, 2012 07:33 AM EDT

 

The mother of the U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death has been linked to the botched Fast and Furious operation called it “a disgrace” that Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill walked out of Thursday’s House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

 

“I was like, totally shocked, but you know what? I think it was a disgrace to them and not to my son,” Josephine Terry, mother of Brian Terry, said Thursday night on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

 

In the most dramatic showdown yet, the House voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress Thursday over his refusal to turn over some documents in the ongoing probe of the failed gun-walking program. In a show of protest, dozens of Democrats walked off of the House floor during the vote. Brian Terry’s death has been connected to a gun that crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a result of the Fast and Furious sting.

 

Josephine Terry was pleased by the House vote, telling Fox News, “I think what happened today was very good and I was happy about it. I think it’s a step forward to get justice for my son.”

 

Bob Heyer, Brian Terry’s cousin who chairs the Brian Terry Foundation, said his family is only interested in getting to the bottom of what happened in his cousin’s death.

 

“Our only desire … is to get answers. The truth and justice for Brian,” Heyer said. “But we’ve thought quite a bit, you know — is this just arrogance or is it incompetence? And sometimes I’m not sure what it is, but we are very disappointed that it’s been 18 months since Brian died and we still don’t have the answers.”

[Jeff Johnson]

I would like to see the truth come into the light of day, and Holder, the BAT FE(ces), and anyone else (Obama?) involved in this punished accordingly.

But... none of that will happen.

This will grind on and on until after the election, everybody will be sick of it. and it will slowly die out.

[RECarry]

Speaking of elections, the one silver lining is that the NRA plans to tally how each Rep. voted on the contempt charge, including the 108 Democrats in racially-designated caucuses who marched out of the chambers "in a slow-moving and crowded line", led by Pelosi. Nice to see the Dems turn this inquiry into a border agent's death into a racial and partisan issue.

 

 

House Votes to Hold Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress

By Rachel Rose Hartman, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 13 mins ago

 

"The full House of Representatives voted on Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the Justice Department's decision to withhold documents related to the failed Fast and Furious gunwalking operation.

 

By a vote of 255 to 67, House members decided to hold Holder in contempt, disregarding a protest walkout led by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Approximately 108 Democrats did not vote on the measure with 1 lawmaker voting present.

 

Earlier Thursday, the House Democratic caucus voted unanimously to endorse the walkout. Just prior to the vote, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) joined with the CBC, members of the Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Progressive Caucuses as well as other lawmakers to exit the House floor in protest, filing out of the chamber in a slow-moving and crowded line."

[Jeff Johnson]

If Obama loses, holder will get a pardon.

Obama HAS to lose!

[Federal Farmer]

Given the privilege deal and these legal proceedings, this will drag on for years. We got the most we can get out of it for now.

[Professor Wheezy]

At least the dems stayed in Washington and didn't "run away" like their brethren in Wisconsin. Sounds like their chief, he was notorious for voting present but not actually taking a stand for anything.

 

So what now for Holder?

[bornhunter04]

Given the privilege deal and these legal proceedings, this will drag on for years. We got the most we can get out of it for now.

 

Yup, but most importantly it got people talking about it. the word spread which creates more controversy about the administration which leads his former supporters to further doubt his ability to be a successful leader.....leading to a loss in November.

[billzfx4]

Updated 4:!6 p.m. - As expected, the Justice has informed Congress that the U.S. attorney will not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt, despite Thursday's House vote.

"The longstanding position of the Department of Justice has been and remains that we will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," says Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter to the House speaker, John Boehner.

The letter notes that during the Reagan administration, DOJ took the position that the contempt statute could not constitutionally be applied to an official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege. That policy was first articulated in a memo written by Ted Olson when he was at DOJ in 1984.

Cole writes that the position has been asserted several times since then, most recently during the Bush administration in 2008.

He concludes by saying that the Justice Department has determined that Holder's response to the House committee subpoena "does not constitute a crime" and the Department will not refer the matter to a grand jury "or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general."

 

 

Who'da thunk it?? :lips sealed:

[gravyboy77]

anyone catch this today? That Issa is one sneaky son of a gun. He's finding ways to publish stuff the whisleblowers are feeding him.

 

http://www.rollcall....l-215828-1.html

Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record

• By Jonathan Strong
  
• Roll Call Staff
  
• June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.
  

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.

The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.

 

The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.

 

According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.

 

Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.

 

The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.

In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.

 

The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.

Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.

 

While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.

In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.

 

“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.

 

The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.

 

It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.

 

In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.

The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.

 

“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.

 

Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.

Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.

 

A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.

 

Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.

A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.

 

"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents," a Democratic committee staffer said. "His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why."

 

[Molly B.]

Off topic posts have been removed. Can still be moved to a new topic if Buzz so desires, otherwise we'll all just get back to the Holder issue.

 

Thank you!

[Buzzard]

Off topic posts have been removed. Can still be moved to a new topic if Buzz so desires, otherwise we'll all just get back to the Holder issue.

 

Thank you!

 

Nope. Just some bad memories I wish could be erased as easily as the off topic posts.

 

Back to Holder & Co.

[belercous]

The unfortunate aspect with the "Fast & furious" debacle is that it's getting lost in the partisanship of Congress. The issue is breaking down, mostly, along party lines. It shouldn't, but most people view it as such. As everyone well knows, I'm a flaming liberal Democrat. (No, not "flaming" as in "gay.") But there's something more to this issue than what Holder (& the Admin.) is letting on to. They are hiding something, which I'd imagine, are my worst fears.

 

I'd like to give Holder the benefit of the doubt, and I did. But that's over with now. There must be a reason he's not produced the documents under the "subpoena duces tecum" (appear with these documents, loosely translated), but no good reason has been proffered. "Executive privilege" is not a blanket defense. If the documents to be produced are sensitive matters of national security, there is a method to determine such. It's called an "in camera" hearing. The documents are reviewed, by a judge, in a judge's chamber, completely in private, so the judge can determine if the documents are privileged material.

 

If we can't trust a federal judge to do such, that question should be raised separately on an interlocutory appeal, with good cause shown why the particular judge should not be the one reviewing the documents. Judges are not known for being "leakers" or "blabber-mouths." I've not seen the Admin. asking for such a hearing, it appears there's something to hide.

 

A.G. Holder can be hung-out to dry for all I care, I won't defend him. But the thing is, this issue won't get much traction with the public as most folk will view it as partisan bickering. It's not going to affect Obama because of the political climate. In normal times it would, but this is an issue which will get/has been lost in the partisan noise. It will be tied up in the courts for years.

[gravyboy77]

Imagine the screeching from the left if one of their protests outside the W.H was shut down during a Republican presidency. I wonder who told the Secret service to stop this?

 

http://washingtonexa...article/2501155

Secret Service shuts down ‘fire Eric Holder’ protest

 

July 2, 2012

 

U.S. Secret Service officers shut down a student-led protest calling for President Obama to fire Attorney General Eric Holder this morning, according to a report from in front of the White House.

 

After discovering a “suspicious package,” the Secret Service ended the protest. “Several agents seemed hostile to our march and seemed anxious for us to leave the area,” Maurice Lewis, a University of California student, told Campus Reform. “The discover[y of] the ‘unidentified package’ came just as the protest began gain traction.”

 

The U.S. House of Representatives cited Holder for contempt of Congress on Thursday after he defied a subpoena demanding documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, the gun-walking scheme that claimed border patrol agent Brian Terry’s life.

The Justice Department denied, in a February 4, 2011, letter to Congress, that law enforcement ever allow guns to be trafficked into Mexico. In December 2011, DOJ retracted that claim.

 

About 50 students congregated outside the White House this morning for the anti-Holder protest.