Botching Fast and Furious

Texas senator John Cornyn recently joined the growing number of Republicans who’ve called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. And a week from today, the House Oversight Committee will convene to consider pursuing a contempt-of-Congress citation against Holder. If the committee decides to proceed, the entire House will vote on the matter.

Holder has no intention of resigning, especially on the say-so of Republicans — but the attorney general has much to answer for, and Republicans should continue to make the case that he is wholly inadequate to his position and operating in bad faith.

Holder oversaw the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives during a time in which it ran Operation Fast and Furious — a program in which ATF agents deliberately allowed drug cartels to traffic more than 1,000 guns into Mexico and made no attempt to track the weapons as they changed hands. Two of the guns were found at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s murder. Many more have turned up at other crime scenes, and as even Holder has admitted, the fallout from Fast and Furious will continue for “years to come.” Documents that were obtained by the Oversight Committee via leaks — in particular, wiretap applications — suggest that several high-ranking officials within the Justice Department knew that guns were being allowed to “walk.”

The Justice Department has conceded that Fast and Furious was a terrible idea and vowed to prevent its reoccurrence, but beyond that, Holder has spent more than a year refusing to come clean about the operation. In February of 2011, his department outrageously denied that gunwalking had even occurred, a statement it waited until December to retract. When the Oversight Committee requested various documents throughout 2011, Holder often waited months to provide them. Just last week, in congressional testimony, Holder asserted that the words “Fast and Furious,” found in a wiretap application along with references to gunwalking, do not refer to Fast and Furious.

The issue that inspired the forthcoming contempt hearing — Holder’s failure to provide the Oversight Committee with some of the Fast and Furious materials it wants — is difficult. There are few hard legal standards governing congressional subpoenas of executive-branch officials, congressional oversight can overstep the bounds set by the separation of powers, and there may be legitimate reasons for Holder to withhold some of the documents. These conflicts are typically resolved only when the two parties reach a compromise. But Holder gives the impression of someone who does not wish to cooperate in good faith; according to an Oversight Committee report(PDF), his department has provided no documents at all for several broad categories of requests, including “any investigative reports prepared by the FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) referring or relating to targets, suspects, or defendants in the Fast and Furious case.”

Since taking office, Holder has stacked the Justice Department with politically motivated lawyers and enforced civil-rights laws in a racially biased fashion, for example dropping a solid voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panthers. He has asked a prosecutor to investigate CIA interrogators for alleged crimes that had already been investigated. He has tried to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for a civilian trial. He has claimed voter-ID laws are tantamount to Jim Crow. The list goes on.

In testimony before the Oversight Committee yesterday, Holder said he was unsure whether he’ll stay on as attorney general if President Obama is reelected. His misrule of Justice cannot end soon enough.

That was my first reaction. Holder didn’t botch anything. The whole point of the operation was to destroy the Second Amendment by claiming that American gun dealers were responsible for supplying the weapons responsible for most Mexican murders and drug violence.

And it is clear that Holder, Obama, and Hillary Clinton were all in on it from the start, along with the President of Mexico, who visited the White House to lend them a hand.

It was a propaganda ploy that went bad and backfired on the perpetrators. But not even the “conservative” press is going to suggest that. It might be construed as “racist” or “extremist” or something. Never mind that it is overwhelmingly and obviously true.

At least Senator Cornyn wants SOMETHING done. Here is the response of the Congresscritter I tried to replace in the 2012 Texas Republican Primary:

Congressman Mac Thornberry is weighing in on the Eric Holder situation following Senator John Cornyn’s demands that holder resign as U.S. Attorney General.

Congressman Thornberry told us he disagrees with a lot of the actions Holder has taken, but says he recommends a different solution than Cornyn’s.

Congressman Thornberry says, “From the beginning of his tenure, there have been a number of bad judgments that have been made. I think, though, the way to solve this is with the ballot box in November and electing a new administration.”
http://texomashomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=183742

Really?!?!? Sorry, Mac, but I have to go with Senator Cornyn on this one. Holder needs to be held in Contempt of Congress, and then forced to resign or be impeached for his actions/inactions!!!

The damage has been done, and so many lives were lost due to the decisions that Holder and his Department made. Hundreds of weapons were lost into the hands of the Mexican Drug Cartels. So many innocent people have been killed in Mexico with “our” weapons.

We have to stand up and do what is right and just -— hold the responsible parties accountable!!! We can not continue to “make nice” with our friends in Washington and kick the can down the road for someone else -— the voters in the case you state as your opinion -— to take care of in November.

So you’re OK if Holder just leaves his job in January when Obama doesn’t get reelected -— you call that accountability for the travesty that was done to Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and his family??? You call that justice???

Sorry Mac, I don’t!!!

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