Contempt vote against Attorney General Holder coming up on Wednesday !

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/faster-and-furiouser-darrell-issa-strikes-back-holds-eric-holder-contempt

Faster And Furiouser: Darrell Issa Strikes Back, Holds Eric Holder In Contempt

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/20/2012 16:27 -0400

• Darrell Issa
 
• Mexico
 
• None
 
• Obama Administration
• White House

After earlier none other than Obama stepped up and invoked an executive privilege, hoping the next step would be avoided, Darrell Issa just called the president and the AG's bluff:

• HOUSE PANEL VOTES TO HOLD ERIC HOLDER IN CONTEMPT - BBG

But wait, there's more:

• HOLDER CALLS CONTEMPT VOTE `EXTRAORDINARY' AND UNNECESSARY
• • HOLDER CALLS CONTEMPT VOTE `ELECTION-YEAR TACTIC'
  ... And now to give some illegal immigrantvoters pseudo-amnesty. So aside from this soaring acrimony between Republicans and Democrats, the "Fiscal cliff" issue will be promptly resolved. Promise.
  From Bloomberg:

  A U.S. House committee brushed aside President Barack Obama’s claim of executive privilege and held Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to a law enforcement effort to track guns to Mexican drug cartels.

  
  

  In a party-line vote, the Republican majority on the House Oversight and Government Reform panel voted to approve the first contempt citation for a Cabinet member in 14 years. Republicans said Holder failed to comply with a subpoena for documents in the Fast and Furious gun operation, which allowed illegally purchased firearms from the U.S. to wind up in Mexico.

  The 23-17 committee vote marks an escalation in a standoff that began last year between Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration. The full House would have to approve the measure before it could refer the case to the U.S. attorney in Washington to determine whether prosecution is warranted for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.

  
  

  The House panel is seeking documents describing internal Justice Department discussions about a February 2011 letter to lawmakers that Holder later said mistakenly contained incorrect information.

  
  

  The Justice Department says it already has provided more than 7,600 pages of documents in the case.

  This is the first time Obama has invoked executive privilege, according to the White House.

  
  

  Executive Privilege

  
  

  Executive privilege is a principle that says the executive branch can’t be forced by the legislative branch to disclose confidential communications when they would harm operations.

  
  

  Documents responsive to the House panel’s subpoena relate to “sensitive law enforcement activities, including ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter today to Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House panel.

  
  

  Guns in Fast and Furious ended up “lost” and will turn up at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for years, Holder told lawmakers last year.

  Two of about 2,000 guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed to be carried away were found at the scene of the December 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona, according to a congressional report.

  
  

  Holder has said he didn’t learn of the tactics in the operation until after it was the subject of news reports. Since then, he has banned the use of similar law enforcement methods.

  
  

  Holder last year told a Senate hearing that he regretted a Feb. 4, 2011 letter the Justice Department sent lawmakers that indicated the ATF hadn’t “knowingly allowed” the tactics in the law enforcement operation to be employed. Information in the letter turn out to be inaccurate, he said.

  
  

and .........


http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/06/issa-plans-to-move-forward-wit.php

Issa Plans to Move Forward With Holder Contempt Vote

By Billy House

June 19, 2012 | 6:21 p.m. |  186

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House Republicans plan to press on with consideration Wednesday by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress regarding a stand-off over documents tied to the botched Fast and Furious" sting operation.

The announcement Tuesday night by committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., followed a closed-door meeting at the Capitol between Issa and other Republican and Democratic lawmakers with Holder at the U.S. Capitol. Issa described himself as disappointed and still hoping for a breakthrough.

"I had hoped that after this evening's meeting I would be able to tell you that the Department had delivered documents that would justify the postponement of tomorrow's vote on contempt," said Issa, in a statement.

Issa claimed the Justice Department had told the Committee last Thursday that it had documents it could produce that would answer our questions.

Holder, speaking in the Capitol Rotunda to reporters, said he had come "in good faith" and that he had made a number of documents, specifically those from February to December of 2011, available. 

Asked if he thought he and his department could avoid the contempt vote, Holder said, "The ball's in their court."

But Issa said, "Today, the Attorney General informed us that the Department would not be producing those documents. The only offer they made involved us ending our investigation."

"While I still hope the Department will reconsider its decision so tomorrow's vote can be postponed, after this meeting I cannot say that I am optimistic. At this point, we simply do not have the documents we have repeatedly said we need to justify the postponement of a contempt vote in committee," said Issa.

(RELATED: Which House Freshmen Might Make a Deal?)

Under the "Fast and Furious" operation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms sold thousands of weapons to gun traffickers with the intention of then tracing those guns to Mexican drug cartels. But the operation went sour when the ATF lost track of many of the weapons, including ones later linked to the killings of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and as many as 300 Mexicans.

For more than a year, Issa has been leading a congressional investigation into failed gun-trafficking operation. Late last year, he issued a subpoena to Holder seeking communications regarding the operation from top Justice officials, documents and information shared with the White House and relating to the death of Terry and others, and any efforts to keep some information covered-up.