As expected, AG Eric Holder’s been voted in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to produce subpoenaed documents related to Fast and Furious.
From cnn.com:
The 255-67 vote marked the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress. Almost every House Republican backed the measure, along with 17 Democrats. A large number of Democrats — including members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — walked off the House floor in protest and refused to participate in the vote.
There doesn’t seem to be any truth to reports that the walkers off were seen covering their ears and shouting, “LA LA LA LA LA!” Republicans’ next push will undoubtedly be for a special prosecutor, someone independent of Justice Department influence.
Watch this space.
Maybe Mr. Holder will indeed reap what he has sown. Let’s just hope it doesn’t stop with him.
Guess the Dems cant handle the truth.
Kudos to Pelosi and the CBC. If they would walk out more often, the country would be better off.
You may not like 5-0, but you’re damn funny anyways!
Yo, I loves 5-0. Especially the original. The new one not so much. But the scenery is great. Especially Grace Park.
Agreed, Grace Park is on fine POA.
I would like to associate myself completely with the philosophies of the two fine gentlemen above.
Holder emails right after the CBS Report: Get to the bottom of Fast and Furious
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6blqmM2jeQ8hxrVDaHVUshQLokA?docId=44ff0778c01e45709c1df986a2be0c4e
This should go to the oversight committe so that we can have a real investigation instead of this circus, but that resolution failed.
Believe me, this conspiracy theory (Obama allowed guns to walk so that gun violence would allow him to reduce or remove our right to keep and bear arm) is making gun owners look like goofballs.
Some of my most conservative friends and relatives even asked me if I was still an NRA member, because they think the NRA jumped the shark on this one.
Not as insane as the other conspiracy theory (the proof that Obama will go after gun rights is that he has done nothing so far against them as a president), mind you.
I see this with an independent eye. In my daily tasks I have to work with people I disagree with and take the time to listen to all ideas, arguments, opinions before reaching my own. If I was acting like a congressman, I would be walking out the door the same day with a cardboard box.
It has come to my conclusion that the NRA is just an extension of the republican party. Great if you are a republican, but if you are an independent (as I am) or a liberal gun owner (believe me: there are tons of them), you are less likely to feel welcome in the NRA and that is not a good thing. The NRA should be about safety, competition, events and gun rights, but should not be politically aligned. You can do all of that and be politically independent.
Remember that Charlton Heston was a guy who had no issues crossing to the other side and even was a major public figure in the civil rights movement. LaPierre does not even want to meet with Obama when invited to talk about gun rights and that, in my mind, is pure dereliction of duty. Heston would have scheduled his visit to the White House immediately.
Heston would have scheduled his visit to the White House immediately.
Yeah, but he would have arrived on a chariot.
“LaPierre does not even want to meet with Obama when invited to talk about gun rights and that, in my mind, is pure dereliction of duty.”
I am not aware of that one. If so then I completely agree with your view that it is a dereliction of duty. True or not that a side benefit of F&F was to later clamp down on gun rights it is not something that can be openly discussed with many people. There had been prior to F&F blowing up new steps by Washington to begin new ‘assault gun’ sales restrictions. That is now all on the back burner.
I remember when the Republicans met with Obama and were scolded with “Hey fellas, I won.” Do you remember? I’m sure Lapierre did.
No, though I’ll take your word for it. Hey, it’s almost midnight in anti-gun Massachusetts. Go to bed.
Wayne doesn’t need to sit there and have Mr. Me school him on Constitutional law about guns.
Nick V., I know it’s nothing new, but I just want to point out a problem in the story you linked.
When relying on the technique of gun-walking, federal agents tried to track suspected illicit gun-buyers instead of arresting them… In Operation Fast and Furious, the tracking effort failed. The operation identified over 2,000 illicitly purchased weapons. Some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered.
Those first two sentences are stated as fact, but are completely false. Knowing that changes the whole tenor of the argument, in my opinion.
Yawn, yawn, yawn. POLITICS AS USUAL…..
As a democrat this pisses me off, that they walk out and defend illegal activities by the AG and AFT,FBI etc. Those Reps are the same AH’s that if you exercise your right to own, carry or use firearms lawfully despite their unconstitutional laws they want to through you and I in jail! have a collaspable stock, felony bayonett lug felony, a pistol grip conspicuously protruding from the stock, The gun is banned and if owned illegal and a felony. All of us putt up with that BS with the AWB in the 1990’s and in some states they still have these laws. But if your a democratic appointee go ahead sell guns to drug cartels launder money, be a possible accessory to murder thats fine with us as long its about disarming lawful american gun owners. Its Not about color its not about a political party its about illegal acts. I’m a democrat and I want the whole truth and I demand justice for Brian Terry. I’m a democrat and I want to see holder and others prosecuted, who were also involved to the fullest extent of the law. I’m a American who loves liberty and justice first, I’m not a servent to my party what so ever.
The left wing nuts and right wing nuts are sparring off on cnn and everywhere else. It is crazy…
Wait, back the truck up…there’s a Congressional Black Caucus? WTF does that even mean? Why is there not a Congressional White Caucus? I’m all for equal rights, but this is ridiculous. If, by law, we’re not allowed to have any whites-only clubs, societies, or businesses, why do other races get to do so? I don’t want to have any of those things for only whites, why can’t we just do away with them for any and all races? Or are some really created more equal than others?
Welcome to the aftermath of the 1990’s.
there’s a Congressional Black Caucus?
Actually, there’s a Congressional Black Democrat Caucus. Republicans are not welcome and have to kiss some serious ass to be admitted to the all-black club.
Some people think the road to equality passes through separate identity.
House Votes Holder in Contempt; Special Prosecutor Next?
Why would the House vote the Special Prosecutor in contempt? Is he asking for the Speaker’s parking space or something?
If only they’d kept walking.
Maybe they will in November.
As I see it, and my understanding could be wrong, the contempt is really nothing more than a political gesture, because it has no force. They can’t throw him in jail, they can’t fine him, they can’t do anything but hire a special prosecutor to file a contemp proceeding in Federal Court.
This was civil contempt and is basically just finger-wagging on paper. If Holder continues on the present course, criminal contempt could be on deck, with federal police visiting his office and escorting him to the most comfortable jail you’ve never heard of.
Needless to say, that’s highly unlikely, especially after seeing the level of anger generated by the civil contempt citation. The GOP wants to call out malfeasance, not set off riots.
They voted civil AND criminal contempt.
Don’t hold your breath on anything significant coming from this. As we saw from yesterdays SCOTUS Obamacare decision, they are all on the same team. The faux partisan rhetoric is just a smokescreen to decieve you into thinking that things can change and that you have a voice.
The DOJ has gone on record as saying it won’t prosecute the contempt. Surprise, surprise!
“Not as insane as the other conspiracy theory (the proof that Obama will go after gun rights is that he has done nothing so far against them as a president), mind you.”
You need to check out what they are doing through the United Nations and the Treatys they are trying to sign on to. Just because they haven’t done anything domestically YET, doesn’t mean they haven’t done anything.
God, did you drink THAT tea? Haven’t you figured out by now that the UN is incapable of concerted action? This whole treaty thing hasn’t gotten past the planning stages, and isn’t likely to seethe light of day for years to come. Nor will it likely have anything to do with individual rights to bear arms or restrictions thereof; its purpose is to limit, if possible, the flow of small arms into areas of conflict. Since the US is the world’s largest supplier of firearms, I don’t se this supposed treaty as doing anything at all but making a PC splash.
I didn’t see it mentioned so far, but the sticking point in the contempt vote is that they are asking for documents from after the DOJ shut down F&F.
I’ll leave someone else to judge whether the documents already submitted to the House Committee are complete and reflect what the AG (and others) actually knew, but if they didn’t find anything in documents from that time, looking for scraps of information afterwards is nudging towards witch hunting.
Post-shutdown documents will, at worst, show that some lower level people screwed up. Either the AG didn’t know (as he’s been saying and has been manifestly evident) about the operation, really, until it blew up, or they were keeping it all off paper (in which case the committee wouldn’t find anything anyway). Chances that the AG would lie about something that’s on paper, and for no apparent reason, are nil. I’d have to know more about the proper scope of House Committee investigations but if this was an essentially rogue program I don’t see why the Committee gets a pass for using it politically against the DOJ leadership that follows, in their own words, a long-standing policy of not allowing guns to walk and that ordered the program to end when they found out about it.
All this being said, despite being a Democrat who wants this to get wrapped up, I do want to find out what happened, regardless of whether it blows up or not, this is a pretty important part of the larger issue, which is the flow of American guns (and occasionally mercenaries or hitmen) into Mexico.